Springs, Florida. Tuesday, August 26th, 630. Roll call please. Mayor Coleman is here. Vice Mayor Eisner here. Commissioner coleus here. Commissioner DiDonato here.
Commissioner. Panther, here. A reflection. And after we have our reflection, we're going to
do the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, let us pray. Holy God, we thank you for this opportunity to come together as a city to address the affairs
of Tarpon Springs. And so we ask that your blessings will be over. The Board of Commissioners, dear God, give them integrity and wisdom and
foresight. Let them run from division and embrace unity. We thank you for the citizens who are here. May this session
today be like none other. And may Tarpon Springs never be found guilty of thinking we can do this on our own. But with
you we can do all things. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen. 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. Thank you.
Chaplain. Yes. Okay. We're going to go to public comments. These will be public comments
on things that are not on the agenda. Good evening. My name is David Ballard, Goddess junior. I live on Georgia Avenue down the street. Excuse
me one second. David, was that sign? It's cleared. Okay. Go ahead, go ahead. Thank you. Mayor. Article one, section eight, clause 11 of our current
constitution states to capture, capture both land and water with the intention of uniformly bankrupting the United States.
In clause four of section A in article one. Again, as I've said in the past, George Washington, in his farewell address, states that we are
being given a useful lesson on our heads that he is here to indirectly undermine that which cannot be directly overthrown, claiming that he is of greatest
frankness and truly one's worst enemy. Capturing, undermining, uniformly bankrupting, hiding behind the Mona Lisa smile on the $1 bill is two separate
symbols stating debts, both public and private, representing one debt land and one debt water in its capture.
The Declaration of Independence states that this government is here to eat us out of our subsistence, and when it becomes necessary to dissolve our current political structure
and to assume among the powers of the Earth, separate but equal stations, capturing the water, it declares to throw off our current government and lay
its new foundation as an unwarranted jurisdiction, as process there to declaring a long train of usurpations that mankind is more disposed to
suffer, while such evils are sufferable, undermining, bankrupting, creating debts, both public and private, both land and water, evincing our
current Constitution as a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, as declared, taking our liberty, property and life claimed as due process
while birthing unwarranted water. Jurisdictions under the 14th amendment thereof, unconstitutionally using our current Constitution as a form
of reprisal. As a bill of attainder. A letter of marquee as an ex post facto law reflective of a contrived debt contracted and engaged into
before the adoption of our current Constitution in Article six, dissolving our current Constitution in an attempt to invoke a maritime assumption of
power over an original jurisdiction in regards to fact and equity. In the substance of article three, section two makes the constitutional
hypocrisy of George Washington and his money notwithstanding of constitutional legitimacy,
and is no good. Thank you. To Swenson. 327 Manatee Lane. I have something a lot more basic.
I opened a small business and I had one, but I moved and I have I occupied two small spaces in a older strip mall, and I
opened them up. And you may not think this is a lot in relation to the overall capital budget we have, but as a small business owner, I'm not an Amazon, I am not a Facebook. I am not a whatever large
business. So I went to turn on my water, which is fine, and I said I only needed one of my waters opened. Not both businesses, but not both offices because one of the I
might use the bathroom five times a day and you know, the sink seven times a day. Well, they said, no, you have to have
both bathrooms opened. So all I'm going to say is it took me $635 to have both places open, and that wasn't a portion of my
credit score. As a commercial business, it required $635 down, and I am going to have to pay $200 a month, $100 more than I used to. It may sound insignificant, but as a small
business owner, I would say we talk a lot about residential costs. But let's look at small business costs because these
affect us all as small business owners. Thank you, thank you. Good evening. Katie Taylor, 657
Haven Place, Tarpon Springs, Florida. I would like to apologize first for not informing you all of the road cemetery cleanup cancellation on Saturday. Thank you, mayor,
for coming out and whoever else came out with you. So I apologize for that. The next cleanup has been rescheduled to Saturday, September the 27th from 9 a.m. to noon. As we all
know, when Mark was here for 45 years, no doubt he did tons of multitasking when he left. I imagine not tons of knowledge and experience left with him. I gather for a long term employee
that retired, we will usually take more than one person to cover that load. Some employees who probably have already been doing the work, but maybe not receiving the pay in the beacon
news on the $19 million discussion. Commissioner Coolio. Coolio stated, we still don't have a plan on what projects we're going to do, and the
priority of them. For over two years, I've asked for water splash pad in Dorset Park to be put on the capital improvement plan. And my question in this
ten year plan, my question in this ten year plan, are there any projects in the plan for water splash pad in Dorset Park? If so, what is the priority? If
not, can it please be added to the projects and plan provided and provided timeline? As we all know, climate change is real and families and children who utilize this community park
would surely appreciate a water park pad in that park. With temperatures coming over 100 degrees temperatures the last few last few years. If this
goes to vote by referendum, can it be placed on the ballot? Thank you gentlemen. Thank you Katie. Katie, the our public
budget hearing where the public can interject on the budget is Wednesday, September 3rd at 630.
So. Okay. Anyone else? Evening, Peter Lacus, 514 Ashland Avenue. It's nice to be back. Although
it's hard to leave nature and the peacefulness and calmness that I can bring to one. So. My reading for today will be
Isaiah 13. Various chapters raise a banner on a bare hilltop. Shout to them, beckon to them to enter the gates of the nobles I have commanded my
holy ones, and I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath. Those who rejoice in my triumph. See, the day of the Lord is coming, a cruel day
with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will show their light. The rising sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty, and will humble
the pride of the ruthless. I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of cipher. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and
the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, and the day of his burning anger. Oh, we're seeing a lot of anger these days, and
doesn't seem like there's any firemen around to put the fires out. But I wanted to speak about something more citywide.
Our traffic patterns. Now that school's started in, the busses are back out. We really need to do something about the light at MLK and alternate 19, because
it does not change enough. During the day. Busses back up all the way past banana. Same thing on mirrors in all 19.
You've got two lights there. Both of them have left turn signals, one on MLK is allowed westbound traffic to turn south
and on mirrors it's left turn traffic to turn right. You need to have fDOT put those left turns on both sides at the same
time. Have a few more seconds left. So we need to really get back to looking at distant. I remember we had that seminar
when. 3 or 4 years ago at the AME church, and it was pretty much decided to open it up, and we got money from Forward Pinellas to do studies and
stuff. And yet here we go. And we need that access not only for traffic, for fire safety, but access to the college. And
lastly, we need to look at opening up Lime Street at Safford. There's no reason why the city can't reach out to the county and look at opening that
intersection you've got on Safford. A stop sign on Lincoln, Morgan, MLK, and then from
there, all the way up to. Lemon no stop sign. So it wouldn't be that hard to open up lime and put stop signs there. Thank you.
Thank you. I can't hear that sound. Good evening, board members, mayor and Mr. City Manager. Another problem we have in Tarpon. And this really
should come from the city manager. To do this, we need to contact the county. The road around land and drive church on
the bayou all the way to Gulf Road. When the storms that we've been having, it's eating away at the right of way to the
water. It's coming up. It's flooding up into people's yards, into the yard of the church of the Bayou. It's eroding very, very bad. And we've been asking
for over 50 years for the county to do something. And they haven't done it yet. Old timers who are no longer here would come up here and speak about it. It's very bad. Now.
The trees are going to fall in pretty soon, and it's a danger because people use that road to go to the school, the busses use it and they're going to have to do something. And as
you all go to your homes, look at it. It's eroding away very, very bad. It's a very dangerous situation and we're going to have to get on the county. They
need to do something to take care of it. Anyone else? Okay.
Good evening. I'm John Saxer. I live in holiday though, but my area of work is in Tarpon Springs. There's all these
projects talked about that we could do to improve the city and the project that I want to talk about would bring the
rightful glory to Tarpon Springs. I made one of the top five archeological discoveries in the history of the world.
Turns out to be 2400 ancient stone anchors around Florida. I get criticized by the professional archeologists all
the time. I'm on YouTube and the rest of the media because they just don't want to face the fact that in the ancient
past, there were giants. In the ancient past, there were gods, and we dealt with them back
then. Right now we have a opportunity with a piece of land that cost. And I worked on together to put the stone
circle of ancient stone anchors with holes in them, in a circle there, and it can actually bring glory to Tarpon Springs more than any other project
that anybody else can conceive of. When I first started with Frank, Commissioner Frank, it was 25 years ago telling him about these stone anchors and
the fact that, and I've been through seven different mayors, coastal realized that this was a good project, so we decided
to put a rock garden together. I want those stones that were supposed to go there to be put back there. And I have deals worked out with private
community citizens to buy each of those stone anchors for the stone circle, so it wouldn't cost the city any money. And that was the agreement I had with Kosta. The city had no
right to steal my stone anchor. I want to put it back right where it was. Thank you. Okay.
Any further public comments? If not, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Item number one. Award file for the aeration
basin cleaning and debris removal. Number two. Increased file for the PFM Financial Advisor. Number three attorney
fees. Jack Johnson Jackson plc. Number four Award file pumps and equipment repair services utilizing Pasco County contract.
Number five increase file for single source purchase of fleet, original equipment manufacturer parts and services. Number six
Award file for the police patrol vessel and number seven award file for the flooring products and installation services. Does any Commissioner
wish to pull any of these items? Number seven seven. And anybody else? No. Okay, so let's vote
on the I'll entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items one through five six, one through six. Excuse me. Six. So
moved. Second. Any discussion? No discussion. Let's go to roll call, please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes,
Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes. I just wanted to make a suggestion. Yeah.
Chris. This. Chris, I didn't want him to have to come up. This was just a suggestion. Chris, can you introduce yourself? Yeah, yeah. Good
evening, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor, commissioners and public, Chris Carter, the new public works director here in Tarpon Springs. Welcome. Thank you.
Back to me. Yeah, back to you. Okay, so all I wanted to suggest to you was any purchases that you make, if you're going to do it on on rugs, just do solution dyed
nylon. It's virtually the best. It's on the market. So I've had 40 years of doing carpet work and I'm just going to make that suggestion. That's the only reason I pulled it. And I also
could get the panther to get smile and laugh. I was going to say, you have you have to go go easy on him tonight in his first meeting. Mike, you can't.
Okay. Yeah. For a guy. Well said. All right. Thanks, Chris okay. And welcome. Welcome to the team. Thank you. If I didn't pull it, we wouldn't get
to meet him anyway. I'm glad. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. Okay, let's. Can I hear a motion to approve item number seven? Second. Okay. Roll call,
please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes, vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay. We're going to
deviate a little bit. We're going to go ahead and pull up. We're going to bring items number nine and 11 forward now if that's okay. Is that all right with everybody. And
because that way they don't have to hang around all night for whatever we're going to be talking about. So. That's actually 11 and nine. Which one.
11 and 12. Oh I'm sorry 11 and 1211 is deferred. Yeah. It's only 1212 1212 okay, I'll get
this straight. Just 12. All right. Reading city attorney. We're doing 12. Yeah. Number 12.
He just want the quasi-judicial reading. Yeah. This is a quasi judicial proceeding with the Board of Commissioners. Acts in a quasi judicial rather than a
legislative capacity at a quasi judicial hearing. It is not the board's function to make law, but rather to apply law that has already been established in a quasi judicial hearing. The
board is required by law to make findings of fact based upon the evidence presented at the hearing, and apply those findings of fact to previously established criteria contained
in the Code of Ordinances in order to make a legal decision regarding the application before it. The board may only consider evidence at this hearing that the law considers competent, substantial, and
relevant to the issues. If the competent, substantial, and relevant evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has met the criteria established in the Code of Ordinances, and the board is
required by law to find in favor of the applicant. By the same token, if the competent, substantial, and relevant evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has failed to meet the criteria established in the Code of
Ordinances, and the board is required by law to find against the applicant. Mayor. Commissioners. Is there any ex parte communication or conflicts of interest on this?
No. Okay. You want me to swear anybody in? Is anyone going to testify? This is a second reading, correct? Okay, so.
You'll need to do this. Anybody else going to speak on this? You need to stand up and raise your right hand just in case you have to. You'll be sworn in just in case you want to. Do
you swear or affirm your testimony before the Board of Commissioners is the truth, so help you? I do. Thank you. Good. Mr. Vincent, thank you. This is
application 25 dash 16. This is second reading of an annexation up in the north end of town on Al 19 Anclote Road. You have
three ordinances. Ordinance 2020 5-08 is Annexation Ordinance 2025. Dash ten is the future land use map amendment from the Pinellas County designation of Residential
Office General to the City of Tarpon Springs. Designation of Office. An ordinance 2020 5-09 is the Zoning Atlas amendment from Pinellas County, designation of General
Professional Office to the City of Tarpon Springs designation of residential office. There's no new information to add to the record, since first reading staff recommendation is to approve all three ordinances as
previously presented. Thank you. Okay, any questions of staff, Commissioner Banther? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. No.
Commissioner. Gulyas. No, sir. Vice mayor. No. None for me as well. So now we go to go to any
public comments on this item. And Austin, any public comments? There are no online comments. Okay. Do you want me to read
the ordinance by title? And then we'll do a motion and a vote okay, okay. Ordinance 2020 508 an ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending the future land use
map for 0.77 acres, more or less of real property, located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately 65ft north of the Anclote Road intersection and including
Fairview Subdivision block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Application 2516 from Pinellas County Residential
Office General r g category the City of Tarpon Springs Office oh category providing for findings and providing for an effective date. That's ordinance 2020 508, read by
title only on second reading. Publication was July 2nd and August 13th, 2025. Okay. I'd
like to entertain a motion to approve application 2025 Dash 16 so moved second. Okay, are there any commissioner comments
on this item? Yeah, I had a quick question I wanted to ask. Renee. Why does it say denial on here on is that on the planning and zoning that was
the original the original staff recommendation. It went through Planning and Zoning board with recommendation of approval. So I'm following suit on this. So
so it was changed due to when the I mean the board's gone through first reading. It's gone through first reading with planning and Zoning board. So yes, at this point we're
recommending approval. I'm not going to change, you know. Okay. I was just asking. Yeah. I'm sorry. That was confusing. Yeah, yeah. Can we add to the motion that it is also approving
ordinance 2020 508. So we can do each ordinance separately, can you? Who made the motion I motion or second I forget I made the motion. Can you would
you add that up say the amendment again just to add ordinance 2020 508 as part of the motion, I amend my motion to add ordinance 2020 508A
second. Second. Okay. If no further comments, roll call please. Ordinance 2020 508 Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner.
DiDonato. Yes. Commissioner. Gulyas. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes. Mayor. Yes. So this is ordinance 2020 509, an ordinance of the city of Tarpon
Springs, Florida, amending official zoning Atlas for 0.77 acres, more or less of real property, located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately 65ft
north of the Anclote Road intersection, including Fairview Subdivision. Block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Application 2516 from
Pinellas County Geo General Professional Office to City of Tarpon Springs Residential Office, providing for findings and providing for an effective date, that is, ordinance 2020
509, read by title only on second reading. Published on July 2nd and August 13th, 2025. Do I hear a motion to approve?
Second? Okay, any any discussion on this item? Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes,
Commissioner. Klinger. Yes, vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Yes. Ordinance 2025 ten. An ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, annexing 0.77
acres, more or less of real property located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately 65ft north of the Anclote Road intersection and including Fairview Subdivision
block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Application 2516 providing for findings and providing for an effective date, that is, ordinance 2025 ten
read by title only on second reading. Published July 2nd in August 13th, 2025. Do I hear a motion to approve ordinance 2025 Dash ten so moved. Have a
second. Any no discussion? Roll call please. Commissioner Banther. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner.
Yes. Mayor. Koulianos. Yes. That was easier than the last
time. Okay, let's now move. To item number eight. And it's a voter referendum on $19.3
million bank loan Commissioner coleus. So what? I'm what I'm going to do here just so we. Commissioner Kouleas is going to make his his presentation.
Then I'm going to go to each commissioner other commissioner to make a comment. Then I will move to public comments. Then we'll come back for a motion,
if that's okay with everyone. So, Commissioner Gulyas, thank you, mayor. Good evening, Tarpon Springs, my fellow residents, everybody here tonight, everyone here watching
from home. It's important that everyone is paying attention and aware of this historic agenda item here in this community. I've present to be
transparent, straightforward as things should be represented to you. I will break it down in a simple form for everyone to understand that decisions made today have consequences for
your pocket. Immediately. Tomorrow I'm here to show you as what we try to portray that's being presented is not really being financed. And what
we're here to see is where we're doing the capital improvement projects, why the projects keep shifting, and why this board, in which I hope, after hearing the truth about
the decisions that are made tonight, that they can come together for a referendum, as they should, dealing with a historic amount of money like this, I don't take this lightly.
This is not a game to me. The difference in people's taxes in their pockets bother me. I could never spend this type of amount of money without your
voter approval and feel happy. I wouldn't be comfortable walking around town. I wouldn't be comfortable looking people in the eye because we decided
to do a philosophical change without true awareness to the community and make those decisions. And there's a lot of consequences. There's a lot of decisions that have led up to
where we're at today, and my fellow board members have to face that with the truth they can't run away from it was really needed. It was an emergency. There's plenty of
emergencies in this community. But timing. And when we say yes to a couple things, we have to say no. And if we don't say no for certain things, then we can't say yes to all the great
things that we should be worried about in this community. And so. The importance of this loan, and I want to first
debunk some myths that, you know, the city staff, the mayor and the city manager have portrayed and what we're trying to do and financing these
projects. And again, how they affect your pockets. Now from the expedited decisions these board members have decided to do, and they haven't told you
this whole time, they have not been transparent about how it really affects your everyday life, not only today, but in
year five and especially years six through ten. So I want to debunk this whole, you know, as the mayor put out six days ago, you'll see that some of these
items have already changed. There's no real plan. And they're still everything changed up until today. In which someone directed the
public information officer to put a memo out about capital improvement projects a couple hours ago. I mean, I think we're about three months too late on that. And then we also
ended up having the city manager write this nice, detailed email to us. But maybe we could have had a third budget to go over it all. I didn't cancel the budget. I
didn't decide to cancel the biggest budget in Tarpon Springs history. Without this big, beautiful mayor's bill.
You know? And the problem with this is there's no transparency. We canceled the budget. Some people went on vacation. We didn't even have a third one.
And this is the biggest budget the city manager has ever faced. The loan that we're asking for, on top of the biggest budget, is something this board needs
to really consider. And what we're doing. And so the fire station, the fire station was already approved and paid for and budgeted within our
finances to the penny fund. So we have been lying to you about we're financing something that we already had budgeted for. And so where's that money going?
And why would anybody in their respective mind want to pay and lose $1.3 million in interest to finance a building we already have budgeted for?
Where's that $6 million going? And so we're going to find out today. We're going to ask some very tough questions for everyone. The Craig Park seawall. I'm going to go through how that was already
budgeted, but yet we're throwing up and we're putting it up in front of you as if that's a project that's financed. Where's the $1.6
million going for that? There's several other projects that kept getting put out and put in, and today is basically our third budget, in a way, and a reason to show that
unfortunately, we weren't prepared. You know, my, my, my mayor can fall back on being a finance and an audit person, but he finances the car the
same way you do. He finances the house the same way you do. And so and I've looked at this stuff very well tonight, and I'm here to give you the consequences and how our
funding and our budgeting is going to be stripped from us in several years, shortly after. The building of the new
municipal golf course. That was a project that was going to come in front of the board no matter what. And then this big, beautiful bill came out of nowhere and they pushed it
through with it. So we would have to say yes to this project in order to accept the other ones. And there's no clear definition of what those other ones are. And so the golf
course is something right now it's projected to make about $700,000 profit. It will more than likely pay for itself in a few years. And after the
projections that I received from Mr. Kiger, even with the debt service, it's projected to make close to eight $900,000 in 2027 or 2028 somewhere, when it
when it starts picking up. So that was one of the healthiest projects that for some reason, got presented with this bill of finance projects that were already budgeted to try to make
up for the interest and and the shortcomings that they're going to take from your pocket to expedite these projects. And so, the Beckett Bridge utility you
saw for three months, everybody saw for three months that that was the project that was going to come forward. And then a couple weeks ago, they take it
out. I thought we were worried about our cost of inflation towards the biggest projects. But yet we we have somehow forgotten about our philosophy
and why we wanted to take on these loans anyways. Our electrical and water plant. And they can say this is all you
know, this is part of the process or not. Not in Tarpon Springs. We ain't seen loans like this in decades. And when we do see them, the people
decide they make big decisions for us. Some of us unelected, walked right in, you know, unopposed to to not allow the
respect of this community to make decisions, financial decisions that give us really the free ride. The easiest path there is, I believe, is one of the most disrespectful things
we could do to this electorate. We must be transparent, and if we haven't given you anything to say that we were going to ran on and we walked in, you
all need to decide on these major policies. And so. The mayor talks about without financing, we can't do the
sidewalks. That is a lie. The charter, we voted on the charter to raise the money to $400,000. And I might have to bring Ron up a few times here
and there just to prove my points. But that is a lie. We already have the money budgeted for it. We don't need the loan to do the $400,000 and
sidewalks. As the mayor projected for this loan. That they're also going to try to talk about the cost of
inflation versus the interest that we're going to pay. Well, I'm going to show you tonight how that cost isn't much of a difference. And with all the
variables that take into effect and all the help this board has, the mayor, the vice mayor, Commissioner DiDonato, not so much commissioner banter this these past couple terms, US
four have been part of the biggest budgets, the biggest gifts, the biggest grant. Writing in this community, we were part of a what, a 5%, 6%
property valuation or was it 4%? Someone tell me, I'm sure someone knows. An increase in our budget of $15 million, and yet we're still trying to ramp
things up with our city manager, who doesn't have the experience of $102 million budget. How does that look for our community? How does that look
and reflect for our community about fiscal responsibility, that our community set a precedent on? The mayor talks about how we need this money
for the hurricane season. I'm here to tell you that's a lie. We don't need it for the hurricane season. We're telling you all we need it for capital improvement projects for
inflationary purposes. So this isn't a slush fund for us. And that's why I've pushed so hard to try to get a referendum to this. We have runs on projects,
we have outliers in situations. And I don't need staff to be the scapegoats for their expedited, you know, Bill,
that's not how it works. The hurricane. How did we balance the budget? I was the mayor. I mean, some of my fellow members, you know, respect their families. I know they have to
take off and take care of them. But I did stick around. I stayed in a spot in my area in which I could look out and take care of, look out for people and you go check the public
records. I was out every place I could be to try to help out and make communication with our staff. How did we get through two back to back 100 year
hurricanes? How did we do it? It was because of our staff and our finance director, Ron Herring. He's probably the brightest guy in all of our
staff, loyal to the craft, loyal to, to protecting and being smart about our money here. He got us through it
because we were able to balance the budget from our fiscal responsibility that we've had without pulling out the reserves. And might I mention
to you, the mayor at the time was was a commissioner. And so we're going to talk about this different approach the minute we switch seats, too, because I
still don't understand how that happened. When Ron was moving money, tried to move 3 million from the hospital fund and move $1 million from the the golf
course fund in which we had every right under a state of emergency during the hurricane. It was the mayor for weeks on end that was giving Ron, our
expert guru, the hardest time ever. And so as we sit there and talk about the hurricane, the truth about it, if we do have a hurricane, we're we have
the ability in a state of emergency to be able to move money from in our department, we have that ability. We received 2.5 million from the FEMA. We need to get the other
1.5 the other half. But this whole misconception that, you know, and it becomes a state of emergency, then we get to use it at our discretion. But how are we going to borrow any more
when our debt service ratio has already jumped up to the middle of the ranks in the county, when within 1 or 2 within the first year of the no. So staff
did a great job balancing the budget, improving even the worst of times. We can get through this. I want to talk
about the city manager sent an email to us about 3:56 p.m. I. It's really been his first explanation to this all, and I
guess a plan for it. And you know, I'd a man to have a public workshop and a forum. People need to know what's going on. The mayor, the city
manager and the mayor have to present this in a very professional way, just like, you know, as opposed to canceling the third budget and the biggest in the biggest budget in Tarpon Springs
history. And you're going to see the questions I ask tonight. They're very serious questions. And so even with the even with
the city manager says in these statements what we're saying we're paying for, some of these projects have already been financed. And I'm going to prove to everybody where they put the money at causes you
more money to come out of your pocket because of their capital improvement projects that they decided to expedite without proper planning. And I just need support from two
commissioners on this board. You know, I get you know, I can rub people the wrong way, but I'm passionate about this. When I found out, when I find out people's pockets are going to
be affected because we want to rush things up after financial decisions we made and claim we're here to help the city and and do things for this
community. And I see that's not the case. I'm going to tell you, I took an oath to this city, and I've been in that seat. I've taken the pressures of it,
but I know depending on leadership and how we go, certain situations get pushed. So I'm going to ask the city manager at some point to
address this whole matter, as well as the mayor. And then the city manager at the bottom says as as to the referendum, the charter is clear to borrow funds for 30 years. We need to
have a referendum to borrow for ten years. We do not. We have a representative form of government. And the Commission was elected to make the decision on behalf of the residents. How do we decide which issues go to the
residents and those who show up on voting day to decide in which decisions reside with the elected officials? The charter delineates this. We don't make it up as we go along. Well,
obviously we do have a moral obligation. City manager and I get you come from Crescent City in this small city, and I get it. But you had a $4 million
budget. You come here with the $102 million budget, and then you're pushing a $20 million loan through with the mayor. Once you all realize the
importance of how the voters really matter in this situation, I can't believe we're we're even sticking up for that. And we're we're going to dig our heels into something like that.
It's very untransparent for this community. I think it's a cop out. When we had the R.O. plant, we barely had 2500 people vote on it. Is that not
one of the biggest decisions in this community's history? When the when the, you know, we all go over the voting block to that way when they sit there
and go against the scrutiny and financial reasoning, you, the voters have put through loud and clear. We're not running the the democracy we claim
we're running, okay? Because if we're if we're so confident in what we're saying, we're going to present in front of you today, it wouldn't be an issue.
So now I'm ready to start the presentation. If someone can please go sit up there as I'm going to bring the agenda items that I'm going to fall forward
with. It's going to be the first one in which it is the $0.01 local tax fund, the penny fund. And my job is to try to
educate the public because the truth is, the last meeting they got all over, they got over on me on this, the way the verbiage was, the way the things were said. They got over
on me and I'm not sure if they, you know, maybe the commission realized what they were agreeing to. Maybe they did. But after I tell you what it is, I don't know how they can
approve of something like this. So we talk about the fiscal year and, you know, the fiscal year 2026. It's the very, very first column. And at the very
top you can't see it for right now. But there is 1.87 million in there. So a little under 1.9. That was the money we needed to
pay for the Craig Park seawall. It was already budgeted, but yet here we are telling you all, we're financing this. We're going to put interest on a piece on a project we already
got the financing for. Mind you, we already received a $2 million grant for this year, so we're only paying 1.6 million. What our staff hasn't said. But
our board should have realized and took into consideration. This hasn't gone out for bid yet. And he runs for the project. Any situation that may may cause this project to
balloon up. And the truth is, this is a very monumental project. It's the start of a really great project for this
community, right in the heart of it all. But yet we wanted to do more projects. You know how much you know what the city is going to look like while that's getting constructed for however
long it's going to take? We should be proud of that. What was started with mayor V is going to be finished through Mayor Giuliani's, but we don't
need money for it. So why do we say we need money for it? Where are we going to put the other 1.6 million? I got 6 million for this fire station. I got
1.6 for this Craig Park seawall. Where are we at now? We're at what, 7.6? Never mind the interest. You're going to have to pay on that as a community.
So as we go down, I want people to realize our debt service. And as you see it, you'll see the land spoil site for the debt service we have to pay
right now. $677,000 about that every year to pay off the stamps purchase. Mr. herring, when will this fully be paid
off? Ten years. Ten years. Okay. And what was the general I know we had? And here's another thing I'm about to tell you all about. And this is the truth.
The mayor at the time when he was a commissioner and this went through okay, the mayor went against our finance director again, and the finance director was ready to have this
off our books in five years. That was what was going on. But the mayor insisted to stretch it out from five years to ten years. So what does that do to
the penny funds? Obviously it makes a little bit more money available next for whoever's going to lead the city for the next ten years. Imagine if you
had to pay a loan off in five years, and you ended up taking that seat over. Now you got a couple more, several hundred thousand dollars out the penny fund that you can't really spend money on. But by
stretching it to ten years, you've allowed another $600,000. So I don't want people to get this confusion. People are very bright up here. People are very
bright. People do intentional things to help set up availability for stuff, and that is one of them. Let me tell you something. When this
loan, if this loan goes through without voter referendum, it is going to be terrible for this community moving forward. You know what you're going to see
for ten years. Your mind you do any of you board members know what our penny revenue brings in every year about? Anybody can say it. $3.8 million a year.
We have to play with once our board realizes how much money we have left over per department, they wouldn't be. They should be extra careful looking at the paybacks through
those departments. You know the mayor and you know, that's just a metric that Ron has to go by. But you cannot compare your debt to service revenue across
the whole city. Is the library paying the fund back? No. Is the recreation department paying the fund back? No. Or there's 37 departments paying the fund back, but we're
applying it to what the general revenue and wherever else. But really it's going to four departments golf, stormwater,
sewer, penny read along now everyone. So we go to accept this loan without your guys's approval, we're going to have another line in red right there
for ten years. That's going to say $960,000 debt service just from our penny funds. But the real question is, are we putting all that money into
other projects or other enterprises that we may have to come out tonight? You see all these public safety stuff that's going on in the first
year, the fiscal 26, a lot of equipment. You know, we have to sit there and decide how we're going to start approaching this stuff. I understand we get grants for some of the first
responders vehicles, but we got to tone it down somewhere. I don't mind putting money in your pockets and I get it, but we have to come to an agreement to be more fiscally responsible
in some other spots for for these departments, you know, and so. As you see. We have
about 1.3 million in fire. I mean, the fire department's getting everything 150,000 diesel tank, 150 Mark fire station, 150 grand generator.
You know, they got a $6 million building, which I'm going to go in on, and I'm going to talk to you about it. And, you know, I don't care if my fellow board members go with it or not. I
know what the truth is. I know where we get to, where we're at when we make these decisions. If they don't want to admit it, that's just a reflection of them, you know? So as you can see, the transportation right
at the bottom of the fiscal year, the very left column, Craig Park seawall. L4 spur connection and the river and bayou dredging design, these
are all great projects. We're also look, we got the recreation gym floor of 170,000. And I'm not sure if that actually came in from the grant that they applied for or what
the difference was. But there are capital improvement projects. What are we going to do? How are we going to manage all these different accessories that we're supposed to pay out
the penny fund, when we literally have 1.6 to $1.8 million every year for the next ten years, pulled out from a
fund that only brings in 3.8 million. Why should other boards suffer? Because this board wants to shuffle some money up front just so they can
do capital improvement projects, because we've made decisions that have limited us in the ability to do it. Fiscal year
2027. We see we have this down at the bottom. This sponge docks flood abatement 1.5. We need more money than that. Hopefully we get a grant to
take care of it. But long story short, as we show nothing, we have a three year plan. They'll show you a five year plan, but we're taking a ten year loan. And when you see how certain
years and certain departments, they barely got any projects, you wonder what's happening because it bleeds us dry. That's what happens with this loan. And if you look at the
payback schedule, it ain't hard to figure that out. I want to go to the stormwater fund because this is we talk about the stormwater fund and how
this was all, you know, we're borrowing 19.5 million, but we're only using 3.5 million towards stormwater, you know, does anyone have a and again,
we have a five year plan. There is no ten year plan. And there's several months that there's nothing there's several years in which there's barely
any projects. We start off with the balance. The balance ends up having somewhere between 3 to $400,000. Okay, so here we are. The bigger question is how
can we raise more funds for stormwater? That seems to be one of the biggest issues in this community. But yet we've only had 3 or $400,000 left
over. That's a policy decision. That's something, you know, our our experts over here on this board and are reasonable people could come up with a policy,
but that policy shouldn't be make you guys pay for the stuff we want to rush up forward. That's wrong. And I'm going to get to that. And I don't know
how they're going to respond to it. So when our stormwater only has about 3 to 400,000 a year, okay. The payback is 400. And
we're going to you're going to see it. It's about 430,000 every year for the next ten years. So we're going to balloon up the first two years, use some leftover money to do
the third, a third year, one project. Okay. Put staff like Bob, who's one of the greatest people of pressure on him. And when they start pulling out run
ups and change orders, they're going to try to go to them, but they're just moving at some expedited direction, and it's going to cost your guys's pockets. And I'm going to
explain that. So with the fund now only has three $400,000 left, but yet we have to take $430,000 out of it every year. And they're only going to spend
the 3.5 to 3.7 million pretty much in the first two years. What are we going to do? Where are we going to borrow money to pay for stormwater projects between years three, four
through ten? How are we going to even pull money out the penny fund when $1.6 million is taken out for for the next ten
years, out of a $3.8 million available budget? How are we going to spread that around? And the mayor's got to get his talking points, because none of this board's aware of what's
going on. And obviously the public doesn't know. So. They may seem right. But if staff and our finance director is
awesome, they can't show us a ten year plan to pay for stormwater projects, or if they ain't even got ten years worth of stormwater projects, why they rush these up when we even
expect to have them. And so one of these two individuals need to take the responsibility of this loan. How they've rushed it without proper planning, how they didn't do their best to
try to explain it. I mean, I'm explaining it better than you, better than him. I'm the fine, you know. I'm not the finance guy. Let's be honest. But I took the time because I care.
And I want to be here to show you all. Not everything we try to present for you is in the best interest. There are a lot of families out there, middle class and lower. You know what, the type of the rates that are
going to get increased now for these projects is going to be, and you're going to have to look at some of them. So we're just doing great things for the city and expediting everything because we couldn't balance the
budgets. So I think we're done with stormwater now. Right. We're going to go to the next page. Which would be the
unexpected capital improvements. That's another big thing that we talk about, right? We're about to go without your approval. Take on a $19.3
million loan. They just change what the projects are paid for again. And you know, as of today, they've switched around I think ten times. Ron doesn't even know what to present at
this point. He's just got to do it. Y'all send them to do. And so look at this slide. It's the very first slide. We've got the mango stormwater roadway
improvement change order for about $86,000 I get it. But it's still $86,000. Hold on now. And I just I just all I said is
give me five projects and let me know the results of them. And I picked a couple out. I didn't say, give me all the projects. All I said is I picked a couple that I knew and
I had them produce for me. Okay, the Seabreeze drive and that's an issue from what I understand is a little ongoing, but we'll find out about that here in the
near future. We had to give the contractor $290,000 on top of this. You know, it was a one point basically just under $2
million project ended up being just under 2.4 million. So these are big road projects. The Mango Street stormwater.
It's a $925,000 project. That's more than 3 or 4. And some of those projects that they listed for stormwater combined, and they're claiming it's going to be a dent to this community
that's going to really jump start it all. It's not. Penngrove stormwater project. If we didn't have the Arpa
funds, boy, would we be in trouble. That project was originally slated for 3.2 million, and I feel so bad for those residents over there, I
really do. And now the project ended up costing $2.1 million more. All right. This project
went from 3.2 to $5.3 million. And if you go check some of the stormwater projects they got up there, they're right around the same numbers. They're in the later years. They're in years,
you know, three, four and five of some of these loans. But the mayor's not going to be around for it. Some of our other board members aren't going to be around for it. Technically.
We're not going to be around for it, but where are we going to pull the money out? The penny funds? We're going to pull some out to balance, you know, this stormwater issue. So
that project, where do we find the $2.1 million to pay for this gross project? Ron and his staff again, time and time again, Ron's fiscal
responsibility, his ability to keep a precedent and how the city looks at its finances, was able to find money in the water and sewer fund to pay for this
difference. So you may see some while we're may be lower in our sewer water fund. But the answer to that is not to capital improvement projects. Borrow money against them and
then make you guys pay for the capital improvement projects. Imagine that. So I'm slowly leading you on about this money that we claim that we're diverting. And you know what?
We're really financing Beckett Bridge. I'm bringing this up because is it on the list again, I don't they removed it from what I understand. They removed it again. Why? Because once I
started making a stink about it the following week, we ended up getting a grant for it for $2.2 million, you know, that's a big difference. And what the
originally was budgeted for 5 million. So we're going to have to come up with that. But yet that was the wastewater treatment plant. Excuse me. That was the wastewater treatment plant, the Beckett
Bridge. We're taking this whole philosophy on now. We're taking this whole philosophy on the reason we're borrowing this money is because to avoid the
inflation of the projects in the near future, and you can ask any one of them. I talked to some very credible people. The Beckett Bridge situation is the biggest project. It ain't
fancy. We're coming out of our pocket a lot and there ain't nothing pretty about it. We got to move some utility lines. The expense of $4 million. But two,
three years ago, that cost was $1 million. And now it's up to four. So why are we claiming we're borrowing money? But yet
for the philosophy we're clearly neglecting as we try to present you guys initially. What do you think that project is going to cost in a year,
year and a half, two years? It's going to go up to what, $6 million at this rate? So why why can't we come together and be really representative of the
people and go over a true budget with a lot of questioning and a lot of good thought? But we don't even need to do that. We just need to approve this board to go to
referendum. And I'm telling you, I'm going to tighten it down for them because as of today, they've mixed up the projects again. Sponge docks, abatement, flood project that a few years
ago was sitting just under $2 million. Now it's ballooned up to what, 4 to $5 million? We only have the 1.6 million. But yet that's not going to be
financed in this big stormwater residents expense to bill. Why? It's a big capital improvement project. So I have big issues
with how we're presenting stuff. I just I just got the file for the, the the Pine Street and hibiscus intersection. You see, that's been closed for some time. It just, you know, was an
emergency. The projects a little over unexpected $209,000. You guys might not think it's a big deal, but it is when you borrow money, you know, with the mayor won't tell you, and
he can tell you what you want, but he can tell like he thinks. But when you move money within your budget to pay for items you already have budgeted, you stay balanced. When you start
moving money around within your budget to pay for projects with borrowed money, then you really compound things and I don't. No
one's going to say nothing on that. Also, I want to bring up another project. You all remember the live oak, this
little live oak and pine, a 36 inch sewer line broke and it costed $2.3 million. Ron and his staff again had to go
through it all and balance the budget and pull money out, I guess from the water sewer fund and a couple other spots to to get it right and to pay for the
gross project, we had to use the Arpa funds. So another project, the mayor's extension. Remember we used to call it Sinkhole Lane or Sinkhole Alley
with all the the issues that it was and that was very recent. That was a force 4 to $600,000. We had to come extra out of our pocket. How are we going to
balance the, the, the budgets when we're borrowing money on projects? We don't even know the true cost of them? How safe?
How safe is that to do that? So I've just presented just off the top of my head, literally 6 to $7 million in overrun from
projects that could happen unexpectedly or overrun on projects estimated, and how sometimes we got to give in or they'll walk off the job. Next thing you know, we got projects
sitting out there for months like we did for years. Like we did. Gross. If we can go to the next slide, please, it would be the proposed loan as of August
12th, 2025. Yes, sir. We'll go to proposed loan. Look. You've heard it, and I'm just getting it on the record. I need these people. They need to see
they're going to get. They need to be presented what needs to be presented. The golf course, clubhouse that they had to throw that into the the residents expense bill to try
to, I guess, make me go along with it all. But it's not right. That was going to get presented by itself. That project alone in year 2025 is expected to
bring $700,000 in gross profit or in profit after expenses, and it's got projections of what I saw, sometimes close to $1 million. That project was
going to pay for itself about 5 or 6 years or less. It had no reason to be thrown in with the rest of these projects when we could have got the financing. But it was the mayor and staff
and our city manager that, you know, tried to have Ron explain that, oh, this is a good thing. We can use that money to pay for the for the debt service for the rest of the loan. No,
we should use that money to pay for other beautiful things in this community at seven, $800,000 that we're making a year. But, you know, we decided
to throw it in with everything else. Beckett. Bridge. Utilities. They are not on this list that went out and public
information officer sent out on the city web page. It's not even on here anymore. For for months it was. So why should you all feel comfortable about us spending the money we say
we're going to spend it on? Based on the importance of these capital improvement projects and inflation. When we change it upon you now, the
only way to hold us accountable and really put this money to where we say we're going to do it because it's so expensive, is a referendum. It's as common
as that. Stormwater projects. Like I said, I have no issue with some of them, obviously. But wait, when I explain to you you're paying out of your
pockets for these now. Yeah. And they haven't told you that. That's my big issue about what we're financing and why we're why we have to charge the
residents out of their pocket. The fire station again. They can come up here and said, we did a resolution to finance the and to change the financing from the penny fund. And and
we're going to find. No, I was mayor we approved the funding. I voted no against it for obvious reasons, and we approved the funding back then. I need to have our our attorney
look at our payment structure and what we agreed upon, as opposed to the mayor saying, no, we're turning this into a fixed asset so we can finance and open up all this money. Well, why don't we just tell the
people we're borrowing this money to do the projects we say they're going to do them for? Why don't we do that? Isn't that much easier? Because I
believe some of our staff members don't want to tell you that the stuff we're going to improve your lives makes it makes it come out of your
pocket. Craig Park seawall like I talked about again, already budgeted. I proved it to you. The money was left over in the fiscal year 26 without
financing. It's a great project. We don't know what it's really going to cost if we got that project done under that budget. You don't know how much of a success that would be for not
only this board, but for the community. It's the center gem of our town. You know, if anything, we should put all of our awareness on that one project and make sure we don't
fumble it before we start these other stormwater projects. So we went from 10 million in a one week, and then we went up to 19.3 million. And staff
can't lie about this. I'm telling you, they just can't. And then there was this rumor it was going to go up to 23.3 million without the interest. Okay. And what I told the
public, you know, and some of my board members don't want me telling the public or social media, but that's my source to get my information out. Nobody would have known what was going
on. Why wouldn't I use that to my advantage to get to represent the community when clearly my other board members, you know, they can sit there and say, I stay off of it for political reasons and to avoid
this and that, but you got an obligation to let people know what you're doing. It ain't easy. Just, you know, it ain't that hard to say, oh, we're going to borrow this money. I support it. But they most of
them have been radio silent until I made them come out of the woodwork to, to really talk about it for transparency. And so. Basically what this is.
It's a slush fund. If these board members do not want to agree to a referendum off a projects they think are the best thing for this community,
then they are clearly telling you, we're going to move money the way we want, and they can sit there and say, oh, we're going to stick an official to oversee everything. And, you know, a lot of what my
presentations aren't planned, some other people's are. All right. They pepper up there guys, you know, they sit in the office for hours, talk how they're going to do things, not me. I come in, I get my points
across and I'm going to prove them. All right. So it's a slush fund. And if we're so confident that we're doing the right thing for this community, just say what the projects are
for. Let them decide. It's as simple as that. For any one of us up here to act like, oh, we're here to make the decisions on behalf of the people. Yeah. We're we're asking you to let us borrow
some money and what we're going to spend it on. But for us to act like we're smarter than you all. And we know better. When I've seen electoral results
clearly show people voting are paying attention is beyond me.
So now we're at. We can go to the next page, please. The interest on the financing. You
know, if I'm if I'm the guy presenting this and I'm not talking about Ron, I'm, you know, if I'm the mayor, the the the city manager's writing some notes down. That's good. If I'm
the guy presenting this stuff, I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to say, oh, what's a good debt service ratio? And we're borrowing this money at 4% and it's good. No, I'm going to tell you what the actual
interest is that we're paying on this and that actual interest right now as it looks $4.3 million in interest. Do
you know what that is over the next ten years? That's the boosted up version of the mayor stormwater plan. That is the boosted up, you know, version
of our stormwater. We lose at $24 million. Okay. We lose two years worth of capital improvement projects. Or we
just push them forward to to make up for all this, because we average about 9 to 10 million, 9 to 11 million in
capital improvement, we're borrowing 24. So you think this is spread out evenly over the next ten years? Like we say it is? No. They just brush it
within these first two years three years. And then we're going to sit idle for some time hoping we can get a proper presentation from our board
members and our staff for years four, five and throughout. And who else? And I'm about to get
to the next slide too. And we'll get there at some. Here we go. Our next slide is the penny. And basically this is the payment plan. Has anybody showed you where the payment
plan is going to come out of you know, did my fellow board members really look at this? I'm telling you the truth. They got over on me until I saw that third budget was canceled. And
I was like, what is going on? How dare our city manager in his first year work a 20 time budget? That's more than what he's ever dealt with. Cancel
our budget while asking for this loan. It's beyond me, I'm telling you that. Our penny
fund, the loan 7.6. Going into our penny fund, we get $3.8 million a year. So what is this? Do it. Boost up our penny fund for what, the first two years?
Then we do some projects and then look ten years straight. We're pulling out the tent, the penny fund, $937,000, mind you.
Plus the Stanley's property. You saw that number, that 670, whatever it was. Here we are pulling 1.6, 1.7 out of the
penny fund that only has 3.8, because the mayor and the city manager, and I hope some board members are really paying attention, want to expedite
projects. That cost you money instead of planning accordingly. And why is it? And this is an honest question. We say we're
financing. We say we're financing. You guys better pay attention to this one. We're financing the fire station. Right. But yet all this money
is being moved to water and sewer. What's going on? Why is $936,000 every year coming out of the penny fund to pay for water and sewer improvements
constantly? It's allowed to go in every different area. But look, some of them don't even know what's going on here. And so we're going to pull that
type of money out the penny fund and not have anything left to do capital improvement projects. Stormwater. As I say,
we get this $3.5 million loan. They've showed you the, you know, the nice little scale, no call, no bids. We don't know
anything about those real construction projects. Look how much we have coming out of it each month. Each year, $431,000.
I just explained to you all, we barely even have 303 to 400,000 left over each year. And if you look at what's expensed over these first three years in the stormwater, they're barely
nothing left. There's nothing. It's dried up. So the point is, why don't we start thinking about a policy change to start
affecting our stormwater? Why did we have to make staff do this presentation that we're doing all these stormwater projects? But wait till I get
there and see why you have to come out of your pocket. Because our mayor and our city manager want to expedite projects in the name of looking out for this community. And I'm
telling you the truth, I don't care about some of you people that come in this community and I care for y'all. But when y'all talk about raising taxes and doing infrastructure improvements on loans, that
will affect the tax rate of this community, and you guys are buying seven, 800, $900,000 homes, do you think I care that you're paying the difference in the tax rate hike because of
our irresponsibility? No, I care about those people that can barely afford the $300 hike I have. I have an obligation to look out for these people. The
golf course fund, when you look at that numbers, when I show you we're going to pull 517 annual debt service out of the golf fund, and we're still going to make close to $1 million a year. It's I mean,
it's one of the coolest things, but they have to throw that in to make it look like it's good for the rest of this bill. Water sewer fund. Here's another one. We have other
improvements that are coming really into stormwater or into sewer water fund, and we're going to go over all the other improvements that have happened this year. And and the extra
money that's come in and, and, and all that. So that account has about $5 million left over a year to do projects and capital improvement. Listen, it
ain't a lot. It ain't a little. We got to work on it, but we got to be transparent. We're going to sit there, wait till you hear the numbers. Wait till
you hear the numbers. This board was willing to to present to you all as if we're doing you a favor in increasing your and doing these water and sewer
projects at the expense that you have to come out of your pocket each month. All because some of our board members expedited this. Some of us, I'm
telling you, some of us it may have went over on because when they throw all these different layers at you and they throw the different departments and, you know, it's hard to peel it
back. But I promise you, when you care enough, you're going to figure it out. And I got this figured out. So you see that payback schedule. So how
can we apply our debt service ratio towards 37 departments or whatever the general fund or general revenues is, when those
are the only four paying out the debt. Also the penny fund. And that's something we're going to have to talk about. I
may need city attorney. Can you opine? Right now we have this penny fund in 2029. It's going to go to what, a voter referendum and it possibly
could or could not pass the 1%. Do you can you elaborate a little bit on it. No, that is correct. It will have to go back and see if it gets approval. Do you know what that
means? We don't get a penny fund. I don't know, I would imagine we would. But do you know what that means? If we don't get $3.8 million a year
and three years from now, how where are we going to move the money from the $670,000 to purchase and then the $960,000
payback for ten years from this loan that we borrowed? Were we going to pay for it? If we don't, we don't get the money in 2029 moving forward. Has
anybody considered that? And that was another reason our finance director wanted to stamp his property off the books. In five years, so would
have been done and over with, or we would only had one year left of payment, and he could have moved the money around to take care of the situation. So our mayor doesn't tell you that,
and I don't think our city manager even knew. Anyways. I don't think he was in at the time too, so it's not on that. Okay. Let's go to the next. We
did the capital improvements. We did the proposed loan. We did the payback. We're going to go to the department. Memo on
this fire station. My city manager, my mayor. They can sit there and say, all we want, all we can say we pass a resolution
to to finance the fire station. We already had it budgeted through the penny funds. Why we why are we telling the people we're going to finance this
project so we can do other projects, but we can't clearly itemize the projects we want to do? Why can't we itemize it and
show the public, hey, this money's freeing up in a clear list. As much as I support, I
don't mind putting money in our fire employees and the upper management staff. I want to take care of them financially. They got people to go home to, but at some point we got to
recognize we bit off more than we can chew, and some of my board members, they can fall back and say it was greatly needed and we had to do it because that's really their only course of falling back.
The truth is that tied up $6 million of capital improvement projects and we could have done them, but we had to have a building that the current
building is older, I get, but they have to leave under a category three hurricane. Or is it a lower one? Now? The new
one, unless I'm wrong or spend $6 million and they still got to leave under a category three. They have to go back to the EOC.
So what? They can sit comfortably in that building for a few more years while we busted out $6 million in capital improvement projects. So this board can sit there and say what they want, but our
consequences, the decisions we make, have consequences. And I'm not the self-proclaimed finance guy. I'm someone who looks out after this community. And once you start breaking
down numbers, you see where we get to. Okay, so and I respect fire chief, but and his job is to look out for his community. But he's also an assistant city
manager. He's got to look out the overall budget of this community. When we go present big projects, such as one that he had, we are now claiming we have to rush all these projects
when they weren't even presented before, and if they were so important, why were they? Why were those projects not as important, if not more
than this fire station? So I don't mind. And then as I showed you, the fiscal year 2026, 2027 without financing it,
it's a it's a first. It's an emergency response fund. I mean, we can't say yes to every red Denali that the the higher ups and the police department want
to drive fire. Police chief drives a Taurus. Where are we going to find ways to cut the budget? Mind you, let's not
forget we have the biggest, biggest contract coming up with the police department coming up with the fire union we're talking about. Who knows? Surf.
If it's a minimum of those differences and and payroll which are expected difference. You think, sir, Mr. Herring? What do you think the expected
increases in the salaries for the police and the fire, you know, on the first year of the contract? Yeah, the difference for the first. Well, it's going to depend on, on the contract
and what the percentage increases are going to be for year one, two and three. So that's going to be hard to say okay. And all right. So they're going to try to shoot for 10%
their first year. And that's going to be close to between 500,000 if not several more. After that we're going to find the money. What about our fire?
I want to put money in their pockets. But we got to start looking at other ways to save meaningful representation. So no one's going to say, I don't want to finance them. I just
want to monitor some extra accessories. The golf course, we talked about, the golf course. I brought it up. That was a project that was going to get approved and brought
forward anyways. It paid itself off, what, 4 to 6 years? Now we're going to the Arpa funds.
You know, I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful. I was on a board that received all these
gifts was $13 million in free money because I had the fortunate blessing of being able to serve on the board
after Covid. So did my mayor. So did our vice mayor, Commissioner De Donato. Maybe a couple years, but we had the blessing to do many, many
projects. We moved with financing. We use this money for emergencies like the gross $2 million. We use this to do so many capital improvement
projects more than what we're saying this $19 million is going for. And how we as a board cannot acknowledge that
and then claim that we need more money or we're here to jump start, or we're here to, you know, solve the water problem because we're adults.
That's not the case. I've broken down so many different situations and I'll have rebuttals for them all to believe me. Grants. This board
has been part of a board that didn't have that. Other boards didn't have a grant specialist, and I provided the list of all those. Even up until we have
received over $5.7 million in grants at the time, this email was sent to me back in February 2025. So this is even the most
accurate number. I'm sure we've had a lot more since then because PJ, our grant writing specialist, is awesome. So this
whole facade that we haven't, you know, we're in a tough spot and but we've been peppered with financial ability left and right. It's so important just for this board to acknowledge
and respect you all in your decision making. We'll go to our next plan please, our next
slide. And if we can go on the second page of that slide where it will show the cost of inflation versus the I'm sorry, Ron, you got to come up back
and forth and I'm going to have questions for Ron so I can rebuttal all of them afterwards. I'm just doing this presentation as I go to show it all to you. Right. All right.
So as you see that that red dot is the expected cost of inflation, the blue one is what we're going to pay in interest no matter what. Okay. The
interest we're going to pay is $4.3 million. The mayor didn't tell you that number. He didn't even bother to tell you what the dollar amount was this
whole time. I had to request a chart from our finance guy or for Ron to present it, the cost of living or the cost of
inflation. $5.263 million. So we're looking at about a little under $1 million difference. Why these guys can try to sell
all they want. Why am I going to risk money like that with what I've showed you all how so many things change within one year to three for $1 million
difference, that's going to get sucked up in one change order. As I stated, it's safer to live within the budget as our
approach as opposed to try to borrow money in the budget to pay for items we borrowed
outside. And I'm also going to tell you, you see that difference in the 900,000 between the interest and the
cost of inflation. How do you think they're going to, you know, you know what that is. They're still going to charge you all, increase your rates off the projects that they're expediting, because the mayor
has told you all we're we're jumpstarting everything. But yet we're going to make you start paying for it right away. What is that? Come on, city, we're supposed to if we're if
we're paying up front for all these projects, why are we forcing you to pay a percentage of the the expedited project?
They will argue they're saving money for the cost of inflation, but they are actually inflating your rates as a citizen of this
community right away to make up for their expedited projects that they decided that, you know, since the mayor became the mayor before he was the most you know, I don't want to
spend any dollar there is I want everything looked at. And then the minute he became the mayor, it's we can borrow this money now. We're in good spots. We're in good. It doesn't work like that. And he's going to
have to explain to himself. He gave a lot of hard time to Mayor Vatikiotis on everything. Okay? And I want to know why he's changed his tone. Because he's a mayor. This isn't a this
isn't SIM City for our community to borrow money at your at your expense because we want to have legacy projects.
The capital improvement lists, if you can. Please pull that up, sir. I'm going to have to ask
Mr. Kiger, what are you doing this year that you couldn't do without the loan? That's what we need to figure out because the money is getting put into their account one way or
another. And the water sewer fund. It ain't just $4 million. There's money left over from PFAS. There's. We're borrowing money to do this meter replacement when he's going to
have to verify what these numbers are. And then we're borrowing money to do this galvanized pipe replacement for the first two years we're going
to borrow. Are we still doing that or we ditch that to now. We're going to borrow money $1.5 million for the first two years to start this 30 year project, but we're going to
borrow money from you guys to start it, because the mayor's got that little pipe right there, and he's going to hold it up to his eyes and he's going to say, we got to get it done. Well, why don't we just
budget for it in year three and start it? Then why borrow $3 million? Because we're just trying to give off this impression that we're starting the project now. We're the grown ups. So you can pull that up and look at it all you want,
but you guys are still using that to charge the residents out of their pocket. And the meter replacement. There's a certain percentage of meters that are already replaced. If
they're going to sit there and say, you know, we have to replace these right away, you don't need to spend $2.5 million this year. If a meter lasts even 15, 20 years, which
they last longer than that, spread it out over the next 5 or 6 years. You have supposedly over half the city replaced. So I don't understand why we're
claiming we're borrowing money to do these endeavors. That's not a big capital improvement project. Most of these aren't. The biggest one is the wastewater plant, which I
wouldn't mind supporting, and the Becket Bay bridge. Those are the only two projects they can come up here. Everything else has been funded, but we're going to find out the difference in these water rates
and how they affect your. Wait till you hear the number that's going to have to come out of your pocket. For staff to do capital improvement projects in
your water and sewer to make up the difference for their projects. And they're getting borrowed money. They're having over $10 million increase in
the fund. And I've also brought the golf course fund up here. Ron, you don't have to go there directly, but this this will cover the expense of bills and
profits of debt service each year. And they wanted to throw this in. That way they can make up for all their other slush fund money without being able to show it all, because this
was going to make up their interest for the year. Look at the numbers. That's exactly what it was going to do. And frankly, I'm willing to remove
that just so we can get those 6 or $7 million of those two projects. Those are the two projects and be done with it. We'll pull the golf course fund
will pull that 5 or 6 months from now, and I guarantee we'll
get the support. Next. Next is. Crescent City Budget 2023 and
the 2021 2022 budget. I really been disappointed from the direction of our mayor and our city manager, I really don't
know who's running the show at this point. I don't know, because when I sit there, I knew our city manager came from
a small town doing his thing. And this ain't any of you. Anybody on this board tries to embarrass me about disrespect? No, the disrespect comes on you.
This board. I'm here to ask tough, transparent questions from my community. You all have escaped and skirted the issue for months, and all I've wanted
was true representation for this community to have voter referendum so you guys can tighten up your act and your poor planning and your dismissal of the most important
historic budget in this community, and how this isn't a game here in this community.
The 2021 budget for the crescents. And might I remind you, I don't know what's going on in that city. I requested on April 14th the documents to
have the five budget summaries of their city, as well as five audit reports. And there was a question I had about a loan or
grant. And so I'm going to ask it here in a second. They didn't get it to me. They from what it seems like to me, they they've really taken their time
and their excuses. We're so busy at City Hall, there's like 4 or 5 of them at City Hall, there's like 19 employees, you know. And so after eight, nine
days, I mean, technically seven, eight business days as of today, they could not provide simple audit reports, five budget
summaries for the past five years. So I could see what our city managers worked with. And when I found his first budget
as a city manager, I said, okay, it sits at four point 3 million. The budget here in Tarpon
Springs without the loan is 101, $102 million. That's 20 times more than what our city manager was used to dealing with. And
they can try to make me look like whatever. But I know you all running your businesses, and I know how I run my business. I'm not giving a greenhorn city manager in a big
city. In a big city, the green light for $20 million loan on top of $102 million budget. That was 20 times more than
what he's dealt with before. And this commission is ready to go forward with that. They're not managing projects. They should have let the city manager and any fiscally
conservative policy or precedent that this community had, they should have let him get his feet wet and get grounded into a into a role he
hasn't been part of. I wouldn't do that in my private life and running a business. Why would you? I didn't, I hired him, but the manager talks about
developing our senior staff who have more experience in their respective roles, and I believe he does as a city manager. And these aren't shots. These are just observations. Worried
about developing them. Who's developing him? The board is supposed to we're supposed to ease them into a budget 20
times more than what he's used to. We're supposed to let him get comfortable with things. And if the voters approve, then, yeah, we'll get that loan. But
to ask for something like that, or to push for something like that, or have the mayor force something like that through you was absolutely wrong. Because you know why, my fellow board
members know, my fellow board members know to a T we can say what we want about Mark licorice. But you think mayor would have went to Mark licorice first day said, hey, I
need a $19 million loan. You know what Mark would have said? Go kick rocks. That's exactly what he would have said. He would have rather been fired by
this board than take on a $19 million loan. This isn't a stepping stone. And I told the city manager he knows. I told him this in one of our private interviews. I said, sir, I
don't care if you're here for 3 or 4 years, do Tarpon Springs good. But I never expected that would come at debt to our
community. Nor did I ever request that. So I think we as a board, need to be respectful of our residents and that we
can't make. To me, it's a radical decision, very radical. We have to be representative them, listen to their input and
help get this process guided along. The 2023 2024 year, there was a $10 million increase in the water and sewer fund. I don't know what it is.
They couldn't get it. But guess what? When I put the public records request in, the finance guy went out of his way to contact our city manager and let him know about my public
records request. If he had just replied, responded back to the email, it would have been done as opposed to reaching out to Charles. And then Charles had to email me saying, I don't
know what the Crescent City finances have to do with the city of Tarpon Springs. Well, what they really do is show that you come from a small town and you're dealing with something 20 times more than
what you're used to, sir. And frankly, I'm just I'm upset that, you know, we've given you the keys to the, you know, the fastest car in Tarpon Springs and say, go open it up on us 19.
You know, it's like, you know, the mayor talks about sports and this and that. You don't throw a rookie quarterback into the Super Bowl. And in this first drive, you have him start
throwing Hail Marys. All right. You ease into him. So, city Manager, do you know what this 10 or $12 million loan or grant
was to the water and sewer fund back in 2023 2024? Yes. The the all the increase to that budget were grant applications, legislative appropriations and grants that we requested. So we
put them in the budget. Okay. There was nothing you had to pay back. Correct. We didn't borrow money. Okay. And so those average budgets, your last two years of budgets, what
were you accustomed to dealing with? Well, minus those grant applications we had about a $5 million budget. Okay. Thank you sir. So you understand my
concern for this community where the CEOs, we got to give our director a really good
fiscal approach for you all. The debt policy. This is how they're skirting around this
whole issue. And guess what? When the board was doing a CRA purchase of the Hoffman property, I wasn't even on it. I don't think you're on it.
Pretty sure it was. They authorized the purchase of the property, but they wanted to go to a voter referendum. They didn't have to go to voter referendum from the CRA, but they did it for the
transparency of the community. And the community voted on it. So the difference this is the court of public opinion, and we're not allowing you all to
be involved in the biggest decision making without true overseeing everything. How is that transparent? How is that
transparent? So under the authority to issue bonds, it says. City of Tarpon Springs section three limitation of powers requires a referendum
ratified by a majority of the electorate, before any contract is executed by the city for a period greater than ten years. That's how they're skating by.
They can call it ten years in a day, and you all would have a decision. You all would have a voice. But this mayor and the city manager obviously feel the
charter is morally sound for them. And guess what? We just had a charter revision committee, and I'm going to bring a charter question forward because obviously they overlooked this. But there's so many things to look at. So it's
not necessarily a reflection of them. But we obviously picked up on something. And for us to go ask for money like this without voter approval is an
absolute shame. You know, the mayor talks about this is I'll die on this hill. No you won't. The people will let you decide to die on this hill. You're not the king. You need to face
these people, and you need to tell them and articulate from every aspect. Because at this point, I've outshone you in your financing with this auditing. What's going on, why you think you deserve the money
for this community to take on without their approval, and why the city manager decided he was going to push this through him. Just so I don't know if it's just some resume padding or
whatever. And if it's my my opinion, I want to ask the city attorney. No matter what they say, contract or not, we're purchasing something. We're purchasing money at a higher
rate. And if that doesn't require a voter referendum, I don't know what's going on.
Let's go to past elections and I want to bring this up. This dam is property. We gave it to the voters. I even supported.
It was time to pick an election. They they voted 8600. Said yes, 4400 said no. So regardless how you feel about the the appraisal of the property,
remember, as the mayor made sure we want to extend it ten years, open up some more money for him instead of having it five years as our finance guy
had it set. That went through. And guess what? It was time to pick a bond company. It was time to move forward. And the
mayor, who had set up the financing for this, was ready to go against the whole agenda item that the residents voted
for. And and, you know, I guess he and maybe some others, you know, I don't know what they were thinking, but they almost outsmarted, you know, this board, in a way, it was a very
good tactic. But I remembered that I have the ability to pass the gavel and create a second motion, and we ended up letting
that happen. So what happened when we have a board that's willing to go against the will of the people from a referendum?
It's a very scary situation, and I was very thankful and blessed. I was able to get to my board members, including the
mayor, to come agree to this, because we were just fulfilling the will of the people. But I don't know what would have happened if we didn't do it.
What would it have done? Would have freed up $5.5 million for potentially the mayor, because he was a mayor elect at the time, to be able to play with.
That's that's exactly what it was. He was willing to go against the will of the people on that. Your husband voted yes
for it, ma'am. So anyways, long story short, at times you can't really trust this board if we're not willing to look out for the will of the people and
do what you guys tell us to do, how are we really representing you? And we need a referendum for this. There's no doubt about it. I've showed you how
all this has been hodgepodge together. How? Wait till I get to the rates. This is the best part about it. So the residents
said yes to the same property. The mayor is ready to go against it. It would obviously freed up more money for his tenure to do projects. The the threshold for real property,
the residents said, no, we want to vote on $350,000. No more than that. If you raise it to 500, they said, no, you're
telling me 20% of the electoral vote are wrong? Are they not fiscally responsible because they said no, we want to vote
on a $350,000 property, but yet they don't want you to vote on a $19.3 million loan. The residents now. The authority
for the the board to increase funds from 25 to 50 without competitive bidding. Okay, so that the city could do that.
The residents voted no for $25,000, overwhelming what you you know, these referendums are put in situation. You think people are going there. Just
put yes. It's a clear sign. They don't. It's a clear sign that 20 people look at the item had the fiscal common sense to say we want more transparent
observations. I hope some people out there understand, no matter if it's 20%, 10% or 100%, it's better than five board members. Just saying we're
going to do what we want. They did the same thing with the city manager's purchasing power. They limited it from 25 when the charter tried to increase
it to 50. That's $25,000. You don't think they want to vote on this? It's common sense. And anybody skirting this issue has got something they're hiding
because y'all don't know better than the residents. None of us collectively up here. The r o plant the biggest, you know,
this row plant we talk about. Tarpon Springs residents to issue revenue bonds not exceeding $45 million. One or more series maturing within 30
years, bearing interest to purchase the row plan and all that. The vote was just under 1500 for the bond and just
under 600 for the bond. Do you think it matters that 25% voted on this in the general population? You know, some people try to skirt around that,
oh, it doesn't matter who you know, we don't get enough people. The people that go care enough to vote. I how can you convince someone otherwise? And
guess what? A $45 million loan divided by 30 million or 30 years is a lot less per year than a $19.3 million loan over
ten years. We can do the numbers all we want, but according to some people up here, they don't want you to
vote. The biggest elephant in the room, the biggest elephant in the room. Is the stormwater
sewer improvements, how we're budgeting, all this extra great stuff to look out for the community. But in reality, we're making you pay the interest on everything and
we're going to tax you now for these projects right away. This isn't a yearly water rate increase. The increases they come forward in front of you
all is because of the capital improvement projects they've hid from showing you what they're doing from the financing of the fire station,
the Craig Park seawall, and a few other things. For some reason they've diverted some extra funds or there's extra funds available in that water sewer fund that allows this
extra increases. And then they come in front of us and say, well, we got to reach this and this percentage increase. And we got it wasn't until a few days ago we have to do those
percentage increases to make up for the difference. And the expedited capital improvement projects were pushing through the water and sewer fund. That's what we're doing. I
don't does this board know that I really didn't catch that until I made that? And guess
what? The board has to accept. A $7 increase with the financing to do projects. Are a
few of these board members are expediting for water minimum for the financing. If we didn't do the financing, they would
want $21 a month extra per household. Why? Because some people want to expedite capital improvement projects for their legacies. Well, why don't we
budget accordingly? Why don't we have respect for our penny fund? Why don't we understand that we have to make create policy issues to help create more money in the stormwater instead of just say, we're
going to shovel money within a ten year period, that way we can starve the back end of it. How is it fair representative to you? They're they're saying they're funding all these big capital improvement projects
that have been funded, but it's really diverting money towards stormwater issues to raise. We'll get to that rate and the water and sewer fund from the capital improvement. So no matter what, because of our
mayor and the city manager trying to expedite these projects, they have forced an inflation on you instantly, as opposed to us as a city
adapting to the cost of inflation as we go along. They can't run from that. They cannot run from that. And yet they don't want you to vote on
this because you you didn't know about it. I knew about this 2 or 3 days ago. You know how much more education will get out there for this community? They're afraid that
you all know too much, and y'all can make good decisions on your own. So as Tommy and them try to present these numbers, there's a break even point just to pay for the cost
of the construction projects. But then there's the numbers above with the financing, which is $7, I believe. And then without it, $21 I. What are we
doing? The stormwater. We're doing all these projects to speed up the stormwater, your stormwater rate. We're done with the ten year period. We're supposed to come up in front
and approve everybody for another ten year period. What are we doing now? We came up and told you all we have to increase the stormwater $2.50.
And I'm going to show you the piece of paper. And that wasn't.
Proposed budget CIP financing. Makes it possible to accomplish the stormwater action plan projects, while keeping the stormwater rate increases at a
minimum of 250 per month instead of $6 per month. Based on the study still in progress without financing, we're charging you now per month for
these capital improvement projects. That's where the extra interest is. That's going to come out of these accounts.
Each department, the water, you know, and if we didn't get the financing for the stormwater, it'd go from 250 a month to $6 a month per household. So no
matter what, they're going to borrow loan money, they're going to say they're financing projects we already had budgeted. They're going to divert or slush it around into water and sewer because you
don't see the itemized list. And then on top of it, you're forced to pay an extra $9 a month for expedited projects that we could have budgeted at
someone's expense up here. So I'm here to be transparent. I go to sleep good at night, telling it like it is, and if I have to bring up Ron to go over
every item, I'm going to do it. And it puts Ron in a bad spot because he's forced to go through policies that, in my heart, I can't speak for him he
don't necessarily agree with. And I think it's shameful. I think it's shameful that we are asking for a loan like this, and this man's final year. No
one can move money around. You think you're going to replace him like that? And you all irresponsibly want to take out a loan without the people's will? When our guru isn't going
to be around. Y'all are stressed. This man out to the point I know it. That's my opinion. So staff has a lot of
explanation to do for itemized budget. They need to. Without a doubt. We've proven and I'll bring people to rebuttal everybody stuff. I promise you
I'll be writing the notes down. There's no doubt community this needs to go to referendum. I've explained top to bottom ins and
outs, layers of this, layers of this situation you had never been exposed to or familiar with. And I'll tell you the truth, our staff members, I
felt like kept it that way. And so shortly I'm going to end my presentation. These men better articulate and I'm hoping they support common sense and true
representation of the city. And that way we can prove to the people your decisions you make have consequences. You know what these people do? They made
fun of somebody, a past, you know, individual on the board for reducing the water rates. They did that. But these guys are the same guys that approved projects that have led us to
where we can barely spend money. So what's the difference? You know, so I'm asking this commission, no matter how many you mad you be, may be at me.
Do the right thing for this community. Let it go to referendum. Let's let the city manager actually have a third budget, and he can articulate how he's going to have a five year plan, because he's really
only got a three year plan. And they could sit there and say five. But I don't see the money going everywhere. And a true plan is a ten year plan because we're buying ten years worth of money and we're going to strip
the penny fund and really suck it dry and lose 40 to 50% of its revenues over the ten years, because the mayor wants to do some projects that,
unfortunately, he should have budgeted for and staff. And so this commission needs to be transparent for the community. Don't skirt around the ten year.
Let the people have a voice and we'll be fine. And you're going to be happy if they approve a loan for what you specify for. We're going to feel happy. But
for you guys that create a slush fund. Is wrong. And I've proven week after week y'all keep changing the priorities of everything. So there's really
no trust. The only way to trust this board is to have the citizens hold you to a referendum to spend the money, and you got the email from
mayor V and it was sound, but any checks in place need to happen after a voter referendum. And if we have some of the best, you know, finance auditing, people that are on this board,
well, let's prove it and let's work instead of borrowing money for this community without the people's will. So I want to thank everyone. I have plenty of rebuttal when I go to pick pick off anything that doesn't
make sense for this community, and I'm just asking for the right thing. I'm asking the right thing for this community. So we're willing to go for the people. And I'm happy I was actually have the people have
their public comments or after I have to say what I have to say, because charging the residents and deceiving, we are deceiving you all by saying we're doing water and sewer and
stormwater, but your rates are just naturally going up. No, we have to put them up for these capital improvement projects. Y'all didn't know that. I don't even think some people on this
board knew that. So how can y'all get taxed on the front end the during the whole time and on the back end? It's just it's not transparent for this community. So I want to thank
you all for giving me the opportunity to speak, be thorough as possible. I've know I've dissected this whole issue, you know, but I'm just hoping we get some people to support
the residents wishes. Thank you all. Okay, so now we're going to go to. We're going to go to Commissioner. All the the other
four commissioners can can comment I'll start this off.
I'd like Ron and Tommy if you guys can come up. Okay. So Ron
when you first put the original draft of the budget together without the increased financing, how much was left in the penny
fund after that budget? We run about $200,000 in the penny fund, and I asked you the question is, is that a
comfortable amount to cover contingencies? No, no. Okay. So I assume that let's talk let's continue talk about that first, that first budget without the
increased financing, I assume it included the ■fire station 7. Correct. Correct. Okay. And
that is already. Under it's the the the the site plan site work has been done and it's getting ready for construction. Correct?
Yeah. Correct. Construction has started. Okay. Was the Craig Park seawall construction phase one in that original budget? Yes. Okay. For 1.6 million.
Yeah. Okay. And we know obviously we know the importance of that because it's underwater daily. And it it's actually the sidewalks actually
collapsing. So we know that that's a priority. The golf course clubhouse 4.2 million. Was that in the original budget. Correct. Okay. And in that
original budget the the clubhouse, which is a enterprise fund, it's not coming out of the penny fund. Correct. Right. So not all the debt service is coming out of
the penny fund. Correct? Okay. And that was an enterprise fund. And you in that original budget, you had that finance, correct?
Correct. Okay. So that was all always originally always intended to be funded by financing. Correct. And it would have been paid for by operations of which, you know,
Tommy's done some great projections and it should be able to pay for itself and, and be able and, and there's nothing that stops that that
fund that enterprise fund from accelerating payments. What after 18 months we there's no prepayment penalty on this on this loan. Correct. On the golf course loan. No. On the ten
year financing for the land site. No. The ten year financing on on the on the golf course. You said what? We don't know yet. Yeah. We won't know
until we go out to bid. No. But you what I'm saying is in your original budget, you had 4.2 million for the clubhouse and you assumed it was going to get
financed, correct? Okay. And that financing you had assumed was a ten year financing, correct? Correct. Okay. And the the the like the property, we
got the ten year financing. Correct. Which, you know, I wasn't I again, like like the commissioner said I wasn't kidding. I wouldn't even I wasn't even the mayor then and
everyone voted for it I believe so. So the. So that property that ten year had a had a 18
month prepayment prepayment. Correct. We will look for one of the lowest 18 months we could prepay in July of 2026. We can pay it off. Okay. So so
again the golf course clubhouse already had financing. It's always been intended to be financed. Correct? Okay. The wastewater treatment plant,
electrical units that was for for $4 million. That was also financed in your in your budget plan. Right. The original budget. Original budget.
Correct. So again that was always intended. So right there is. So right. There's 8.2 million of which was already
intended to be financed. This not additional financing. That was that was an intent to be financed from from this from the get go. Did your original
plan that had that didn't have the increase financing? That's why I used the word increase financing. It wasn't a budget with no financing and a budget with financing. It's a budget
with increased financing because it had financing already imputed in it. Correct? Okay. So. Did it include any
stormwater projects, the original budget? No. Okay. No stormwater projects. Okay. So we're addressing again, I think
that I've seen some surveys, actually, Miss Weaver shared one with me, that stormwater
was the number one. Issue that the residents how are we going to address the the perpetual flooding that goes on in in
Tarpon Springs, flooding that goes on. I mean, we had a one hour rain and and I was I've been I've been fighting a
little something. I was home and the reporter who from Action News and wanted to see me actually had to come over to my, to my house. I just asked him, come on over to my house.
So when he came over to my house, he had to figure out he had to. He said, I'm sorry I'm late. I had to U-turn a couple places because there was water in, in, in the streets. So and
that was like, what about a one hour rain? So obviously addressing stormwater is is important. Did your original budget have anything for bayou
and river dredging? No, it had nothing. Okay. And we have the vice mayor could speak that we need to to address the river
dredging. Okay. And and your original budget with out the increase financing, not no financing couldn't address stormwater and it couldn't
address the Bayou River dredging. Okay, let's go back to if we have no financing, if if we do this and use you. Your
words were what were your what were those words you like to use? You said running on empty. Yeah. Running on empty. Pay as you go. Running on empty. Okay. Living on the edge. You know
living on the edge is another one. That was a good one too. So that. Let's talk about the wastewater electrical units,
okay. If we did not finance that okay. And had to pay cash for that and we didn't stretch that electrical panels out. And
I will talk about the the importance of those panels. Then you calculated that instead of a $7 increase in
water and sewer rates, it would go to 21, correct? Yes. If that's that's the all no debt scenario we looked at in the rate model. It would require like a 23% rate increase if we
avoid debt completely, you the residents will pay immediately for not having that debt. They're going to pay. They're going to go there. They're going to have a $21 increase in
their in there. They're going to go from $7 that it's being increased. Now, on with just the inflationary things that we have. And it'll go to $21,
correct. Yes okay. So that's an if we don't do the if we don't finance that electrical panel, let's talk about how important that electrical panel is. So
and you you correct me if I'm wrong please. Okay. Those that electrical panels that are across the street at the the
sewer plant are right now, let me ask you, when, when were we told that they were becoming obsolete? That was first identified in an engineering
report in 2008. So 2008. So 17 years ago, we were told those those panels are near obsolescence, right? We were told they had 5 to 10 years of
remaining life that we need to plan. They're getting close. So and when we had Hurricane Helene. What and you and you
confirm if I'm wrong, that we were within 18in of saltwater saturating into those panels there, we were very concerned. And we were within a, you know,
a foot and a half couple feet of having storm surge potentially impact the electrical systems. Yes. Okay. So if if water, if saltwater got into that panel, that panel
unit, give me the scenario. What could happen. This is a very critical like relatively high risk asset for us because it's in a low lying area and
the electrical panels are below the 100 year flood elevation. So when we did our vulnerability assessment, what would happen if saltwater gets in there? If saltwater gets in, we could have a scenario where
only about a third of the city's inundated, but it would knock out wastewater service to the whole town. Okay. And if it knocks out wastewater service to the whole town, that means when you flush your toilet and
fecal matter is in your toilet, it's going straight into the river. Pretty much. Yeah, okay. That's why we want to do that. And how long would it take to fix those to to get those
panels up, given that their, their age that they are right now, that's, that's really difficult to assess. It would be at the minimum of quite a number of weeks, probably months, because the panels, the
existing electrical equipment is no longer available on the open market. So we would have to build a whole new system from scratch. So you're talking about we could go months with
if again, if it if we had had if Milton had been ten miles. Closer to us, that would
because we were what we're estimating on Milton with the, the what were we estimating for the storm surge, all the hurricane storm surge is kind
of run together. But if we did have a major storm surge right now, the electrical systems are at risk of of being inundated and being out of service for a very extended period of time. Okay. And you're talking about
two months of of waste from the everyone's toilets going into the, into the Anclote River. If those that's how important those. No, let's not let's not make light of how important
those panels are. They're critical. Right. It's important enough that when we did our citywide vulnerability assessment, this was identified as the most critical infrastructure to elevate and
and harden in the whole city, the most critical infrastructure. What did you say in the whole city of all critical assets in the entire
city? Yeah, okay. We have no choice but to address those panels and get them replaced and get them elevated properly. We if, if let me ask you if we
know if we've known now since 2008 that those panels were were near obsolescence. We know we know the elevation of those panels. If we had have had a
storm and the whole city went out of and and and all and our wastewater shuts down and we have this ecological crisis of,
of all this sewage going into the to the river for possibly a couple of months. What's the ramifications towards our city? Nothing good. So you're you're looking at serious pollution
concerns, the Anclote River. And also you're at a pretty high risk for enforcement by fdep potentially getting a consent order, being subject to regulatory action that would
require us to spend money to harden our assets and improve our wastewater facilities as a permit condition. Moving forward with the Department of Environmental Protection, we seriously find we'd have, in
addition to just having our our our river be a complete mess. Yeah. And fined and fined heavily. Okay. So it's
important. So explain to us the and we had a talk about this today. Explain the necessity for the meter repair and
replacement. Why do you feel like why do you feel like that needs to be expedited. So the the goal of that project is revenue recovery. And so that
project exists to generate right. Now let me back up. So residential meters over time they tend to slow down which means they don't capture all the water that's being used by
the customer which results in lost revenue. And so when you lose revenue, you have to raise rates to make up for that. Right. So this was an important thing that we put into the financial plan to reduce the
level of rate increases that would be required to balance the books long term. So by investing in a project that will self-fund and generate new revenues without with without
increasing water rates, we're able to help improve affordability and improve the financial health of the utility.
Okay. So let me go back to Iran. Question. How much did we spend in clean up after Hurricane Helene? Well, total we were at
10 million. That's a debris removal, about 8 million. And over time and all supplies, about 10 million total. And is most of that to be reimbursed?
Yeah. We're still waiting on 7.5 million. We received 2.5 million. So a year later we spent 10 million. And we are we
got reimbursed 2.5 million. And we're still waiting for $7.5 million. Correct. Okay. If, God forbid, we had another such
storm this year or even next summer, where would you find the funds to cover $10 million up front, as we did there? If you had to pay every capital
project currently in cash, where would you find? Where would you find the money for that? Well, if we didn't have our FEMA reimbursement of 7.5 million, let's assume no. We'd
have to start dipping into our reserves in the general fund. Okay. And how much do we have in reserve? $9 million. Okay. Other than that, you can also go out for financing to cover
FEMA until you get the reimbursement. Yeah, but we don't we don't want to have get down to where we've depleted all of our reserves. Right.
Correct. Okay. And but it could happen in in and and we had an example of that last year. Okay. So with financing show us the
effects because you I know you have some slides stuff. Show us the effects of additional
projects that can be completed. If we do the financing. These
are the public safety projects. But I don't think that's what you wanted to get more of the stormwater projects. But these are the stormwater projects, 6.3 million over the five years
that could be accomplished with the financing. Okay. If we didn't do financing, how many stormwater projects can we
address? None. None. Okay. So. How many street repairs can we do if and again, just remember.
Just remember that this is getting I think this is getting hugely blown out of proportion. We had the we already we all
agree. I think everyone up here agrees that the golf course can handle its own financing. It can cover the finance it and it has. And there's nothing that
stops it from early paying. If it wants to clear it up anytime it wants, it can do it accelerate as much as it wants. But we know that it can cover
itself. We know, I think, everybody who would listen and we and this isn't the first time we talked about this stuff. So, you know, I take exception that that oh we're you know,
this is all some kind of shell game or something. We've had how many everything that I've learned about all these projects, I've learned through these, these forums, you know,
of of we every, every single one of us had an individual meeting with, with Tommy and
and Ron to go over all of the. Utility issues and all the, the things that we had to deal with
there. So and, you know. So let's. So again we're talking about let's how many streets can we do if we do the
financing, if we do the financing over the five years from 2026, 2030, we're looking at 5.2 million a street projects. And again, when we're talking financing, all we're
talking about really is, is freeing up that money that was set aside for the golf course. I mean, for the fire station finance, the fire station
finance was the other thing. We're financing the park seawall. So that frees us up $7.6 million. That's what we're talking about getting these
projects done. Right. So we're only talking about 7.6 million. We're not talking about 19 million because the the others were already getting financed. They that was already an agreed
upon situation. So we have we can we can approach streets. You know who likes driving right now on on any of these
streets like for example. Orange Street, which I know most of that's going to come from the CRA. Correct. But then we've got the streets, we've
got Roosevelt, which is super critical. And that's what part mostly a stormwater project, because that's the only we bought. We bought 1.8 acres of
property on Roosevelt. And we've got a street that you can't even go down pretty much any day because as soon as high tide comes, it's underwater. So we've got to address these
things. And we did those. We did those over on Martin Luther King. Right when when we did the Martin Luther King Project, I think it was done with Arpa money. And I appreciate the the
commissioner giving me credit for some of the Arpa things, but I don't think I would. That was your first year. You guys made most of those decisions, but I you were the sixth
commissioner, sir, was I sure, go check the record. I was the sixth commissioner. Yeah. You were all up in our business a minute. You became commissioner elect, sir. Cool. All right. I
didn't know there was six. But you you you talked about a sixth one, remember? We still have a sixth commissioner. Yeah, yeah. All right, so the
mysterious sixth commissioner. So the. And. All right, so we're talking about what we could, what we could get done
if we free up the fire station money and the Craig Park seawall money, use the use borrowed money to cover those. And then we would have we'd be
able to do these things. We will get into more stormwater things. We it frees up enough for us to take on projects that we know the residents are
concerned about. All of us are concerned about and and so that that's where we are with that. Okay. We explained the
necessity okay. So. So I already asked you to show us the stormwater. I asked you to show us the street repairs.
What what is the interest rate on the loan? If I know what we're what we're planning on. Yeah. 4%. 4%. What is it?
What's the interest rate we receive on our savings in the state of Florida? Pool fund currently about 4.46. Okay, so we're receiving more money in
our in our state pool fund than we're paying for and we're invested in, which is, you know, really unheard of. I can I can't imagine anybody in business that has that gets
that opportunity. You normally would pay more for borrowed money than you would for saving money. We're in a unique position that we have that opportunity. Did you do okay?
You you you showed your inflation versus interest cost analysis. I the commissioner asked you to put that one up.
The. You know, and the commissioner made a lot of examples which I appreciate of runaway inflation. Right. Like
we, we we estimated this project to be this. And it ended up costing us that. Well yeah, I mean that's really one
of the reasons to, to expedite projects is to beat runaway inflation. We get we get to buy it. We get to spend this this money. Now again, we have $100
million budget. We're talking about what, 7.6 million bucks? I think that above and beyond what was already agreed upon or what was already intended to be
financed. So, so also let's go to when we look at the when we look at, let me ask you a
couple more questions. Before I get into debt ratios. What Ron,
you had a you have a slide that shows. The what we've spent normally in capital projects,
right. Okay. So over the last five fiscal years, we have we have averaged $12 million in capital projects per year. Yeah,
per year with a five year total of 61,000, 61 million. If we take out Arpa money, that means
it was a natural $9.6 million a year, which seemed to be an over a five year period, which was kind of an average of what was the capital projects that
needed to be paid for during those fiscal years? Correct. Okay. What do we have in this budget? What do we have in this
budget? The 37.1 million 37.1 million, correct. So the 37.1 million, we know we have the 19 million that are the listed projects, which is not a vanity
project in there other than other than the golf course, but it pays for itself, which is probably the that's the best deal we got. So where where are all these other projects? Most
of them are in the water and sewer fund, some other capital projects. In the penny fund, you've got the CRA fund with the Orange Street construction or just a bulk of them. So we
just have an unusual amount of projects that are, you know, are coming upon us in this one year. Right? Correct. Okay. And
to try to pay them, you know, as you go and as you say, is getting us close to running on
empty. So. Yeah, I do like the pipes. I like showing the pipes. Let's let's look at the pipes and, and and there's a, there's
a reason for this. If you guys look through this pipe right here, this pipe is a water pipe that was taken just a what
about a year ago from on Martin Luther King, right. Yes. Okay. So you can see the amount of corrosion that's in that pipe
and how much this is. This is a water pipe. These are galvanized pipes. How many miles of galvanized pipes do we have right now in under the ground? Probably 11 or 12, 11
or 12 miles with galvanized pipes. And these pipes are pretty much limited to and and here's here's the big one again.
That's the big one. And so that's a big water pipe. And you can see what's in there. It's just an example I didn't pick this I didn't go out and
cherry pick it. But it's. So I Ron I got I got a real good question for you. Sorry. Come
on back. So Ron tell tell the tell the residents. Everyone listening and and the people in the audience and this board
about the referendum that was held back in around 2005 that dealt with these pipes. Yes. There was a referendum that was
passed by the voters approving 18 million for water and sewer capital projects, with a term no more than 20 years. Okay, so that went to the that did go to
referendum because it was a a loan of over 20 of over ten years. And this was 20 years
ago, 20 years ago. They knew these pipes were nasty, right? Because even the voters and the voters voted and and that most
of that 18 million was to go towards getting these pipes replaced. Correct? Correct. You
know, so now when we talk about like, okay, do you want to you want to wait three more years to maybe make some investment into clean getting these pipes
fixed because it's going to be a long term plan. This is going to take a long time. There's 12 miles with pipes. Even if we had the money to take to do them all at one week, we would
shut the city down. These pipes are in Greek town there where we where we're sitting now. They are in Union Academy neighborhood. They are. They're uptown. They're in the Fruit
Bowl district. Any of these older areas have these disgusting pipes I like? I like I said at the the, the workshop meeting where we talked about
these, my office is right down the street, orange and ring. I could not use the water to make even coffee. It was disgusting.
I couldn't at least once a week we had to get the plunger out because the toilets couldn't handle flushing. It's what it
was. Okay, so. Addressing this is going to be important. Now,
understand that all these things we're talking about is. These are. This, this, this
financing. And again I, you know, I, I, I understand that, you know, the commissioner likes to use inflammatory things and talks and impugns
motives and all that stuff. I get it, I it's not my first time at the rodeo, so but you know, when we talk about that,
I'm doing this stuff for when he, when he makes comments like, I'm doing this stuff for legacy. I mean, do I want to leave? Do I want to leave here in three
years and say that I had that I was part of a board that got some things done? Absolutely. But let me tell you, we got a couple mayors in in former
mayors in the audience. And I don't know who the mayor was when Sisler Field was built. I don't know who the mayor was.
When the sports complex was made. It might it could have been the gentleman down at the end. I don't know who any of these guys are, and nobody does.
And and they're forgotten. I know I'm I'll be forgotten. We're all going to be forgotten. If you think this is. You know, if you think this is a you're
going to get immortalized here. You're you're you're it's foolish. My brother, you know, was mayor of 38 years ago and and he still has to buy his own coffee at Dunkin Donuts. They
don't even give it to him for free. So, you know, I it's it's not it has absolutely nothing to do with legacy. This has to do with making some sound
fiscal, responsible decisions. Let me ask you, Ron, and and the commissioner, you know, gave you his praise. And I always do as well. How many
years have you worked in the finance department of the city? You can ask that again. I'm asking it again. 39 years today.
39. And you started when? And you you started when my brother was mayor. Correct. You came in with a cool and you said you're
leaving with one. So that's awesome. But how long have you worked as a finance director? 12 years. 12 years. Are you a
conservative person? Yes, I know you are. Are you the one that has the daily anxiety
about how things will get paid for constantly? Nobody in this town, nobody in this, no one here, nobody on this board,
nobody in this building has the the guy who has to balance the books and has to make the the bill payments. You have the most anxiety on a daily basis
of handling the cash flow of this town. That's why I run so much. All right. Let me ask you a question. Are you more
comfortable and and and let's again let's clear something up. Do I do I come in and and browbeat you just over my
running. Just over your running, but I do I browbeat you about your job. No. Okay. So and most of the time it's you educating
me, not me coming in and educating you. You know, a heck of a lot more about fund fund accounting. That's what this is called when you in municipal
accounting, he knows a heck of a lot more about it than I will ever know. And are you more. And here's the question again.
Are you more comfortable from a financial security perspective with a no financing budget approach to this, to this
fiscal year? Here's the B you can answer A or B or B, do you feel more comfortable from a financial security perspective
with this? The budget as we have, as we as you were instructed, on a 4 to 1 vote to include financing, do you feel more comfortable with that
budget than you did that first budget you did. Correct. There's more financial security with option B okay. So. And
first of all, like like the commissioner said, you're you you're you can walk out of here at any time. Nobody intimidates you and nobody puts any words
in your mouth. I know that you because you know that it's not like you're some, you know, 30 something year old guy that the mayor comes in and says, hey, I
need you to to make these numbers work. This is what I want you. I first of all, I've never done that with you. And and I've never done that with
you. And you couldn't be had like that. No, we've got a code of ethics we have to follow and compliance standards. And we have external auditors that also come in. And but it's a
it's the ethics of it. Okay. So following up on that, on that, on that thought you, you have to run all these budgetary.
Decisions by our financial people too. Right. Because we have outside financial people like correct. And and part of the debt policy also. But anytime we're doing something with debt, I'm on the phone with our bond counsel and
financial advisor and running it by them. And the bond counsel would be the ones who would tell us if we did anything that would create any rating issues with us. Right?
Correct. Also, our rate consultants. Okay. So. Let's go back to the rates again. So
when we look at the, the, the the ratio that we, that we see as the number, the the the
biggest predicate towards us, any kind of a debt issue is our debt service to our general revenue. Right? Correct. Okay.
So that's the one we always that's the one we always peg. So yeah, if you go to your chart okay. So with our our
debt ratio to our general fund, not the debt ratio to everything. That's not what I'm saying. Because it would be a smaller percentage if it was everything. It's just debt
ratio to our general fund. Our and ours is 4.1%. The average of Pinellas County is 4.63. The
4.1 is, if we do the financing currently, as the budget is right now, this budget's already is is is this is the budget you've been working with. Correct. Tonight. Tonight the
we're not debating whether we're moving forward with debt service. What we're debating is and the and the commissioner
took it there that we're debating the merits of financing. So and and then we'll get to the other part. But right now we have two issues on the table. One is the
merit of financing. And then is whether it needs to go to referendum or not. So that's if you look at if you look at it's not right now we have we have
we're at 4.1%. And if, if you see that as so your general revenue like what is the percentage of increase that you are using in your model. Those
are the orange bars. And it's the average of 5% has been historically. So yes, it's at 5% increase per year. And you and you did you you determined 5% by going back historically. Yeah. General government
revenues. So historically the the general fund will grow. The debt service percentage keeps dropping. It drops
precipitously down in in about what, three, four years it drops down. So we're talking about a, a small sliver. And
again, just as a point of reference, Dunedin was what, 12% up at 12.2%. They're at 12.2% is their their debt
service to general revenue. And then what was New Port Richey? They were right around the same about 12%, 12%. So we are
considerably lower than them. And it and we and we pay down debt really fast. Correct. With the ten years. Yeah. Basically paid off by 2036. And again we
get to deal with and all we're really talking about really what we're really talking about is freeing up the fire station
money to go towards the these things and, and, and the some of the seawall money. So let's
look at okay, so I had a meeting with you and the city manager and Mr. Pulos, and we talked about is he here? So
he's in the back. Yeah. Hey, Billy, come on up. Down. Good
evening. Commissioners. Mayor. Hey, Billy. So we had we had that meeting and we talked about a mechanism that would assure the board and that would
assure also the residents that whatever we were borrowing was used specifically. I was used specifically for the purpose it was borrowed for. Right?
Correct. Yeah. So what we would do is we would and again, it has to be approved by the board. But I, I would hope I think it's pretty straightforward
that we would open a. State of Florida pool fund. We would go to the pool fund where we get the 4.46%, whatever. We would
go to the pool fund, we would deposit the loan money. What you would do is you would we would you'd create some kind of a report showing us, okay, if
$6 million is supposed to go to the fire station, that you would examine all the invoices that pulled from that money. So
Ron would have to. What Ron's going to have to do is he's going to he's going to wire money out of there into whatever account he needs to to then make that payment, but
that that number would be the exact same number. What was wired would be the same number that he has to disperse. Correct? Correct. Okay. Then you would have the invoices.
You would have the invoices for the that back up that that number. Correct. Yeah. We would just be tracking them and have all the backup documentation.
And what we could do is we could create some kind of a portal that the residents could go and see the use of the money, that it's going in the right
place. It, it it's siloed in exactly where it's supposed to go. You're going to basically audit it monthly. It's not going to be an extensive job because you're not going to be
writing that many checks. Yeah, okay. Because most of these are are the construction projects. So it's going to be a draw every so often. So you and then
you would create a report that would again come to the board and then also be available for any resident to see where this money is being spent, because that seems to be one of the
issues that they're borrowing money. Where are we going to do with it? They don't know all that stuff. Yeah, we would we would identify it. It would be in a silo. It would be clean as a whistle. Correct? Correct. Yeah. It's just for tracking
and transparency purposes. Yes. And the only reason that I'm including you is not because I don't trust Ron. I just want this to be. It's actually to protect Ron that any accusations that Ron might be, you know, shifting money from
here to there, that's not the case. And nobody has any influence whether the city manager does or I do or anybody has influence on him to do that.
But just to be 100% transparent and to be. A stickler on, on, you know. Having a policy correct, it would be done by
you. Yeah, correct. Because you're independent, you're an independent charter official. You give your little blessing on it every month. You shoot us a little report, correct how the money is being spent, and
then you'd have a balance. So say it was 6 million to start with. And now it's down to, you know, four points like a running a running total. Yeah. Running total. So then and then
and then it would be if in fact we would be wonderful if we had money left over. Right. We didn't say we didn't spend. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we
estimated X amount and we only we, you know, X amount estimated 4 million. We only spent 3.8. If we had money left over then that would be a board decision on what to do with
that extra money, whether it's to use it in some other way, pay down the debt, you know, make a big lump sum, whatever. So we would so are you are you comfortable with that. Oh yeah.
Yeah that's that's fine. Okay. And Ron are you comfortable with that. Yeah. Yes. We work that out the other day with you. Yeah. I just want everybody to
know. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So and therefore this is not a slush fund. It's going to be a fund directly used for the purpose in which it's borrowed. So I'm just going to say I'm
not inclined to deviate from the charter and send this to a referendum. We have a representative form of government whereby our elected officials make decisions on our behalf. The charter is clear on
this one. I choose to follow the charter. So now I'm going to go to Commissioner Banther. Thank you. I first want to thank Commissioner Coolio's for
his diligence in that presentation. I, you know, for the record, don't agree with much of it, but I want to thank him for his efforts in that talking for 90 minutes is not my specialty. And he did it. He
did it well, despite I disagree with with with with some of his subject matter. And you know, I think I kind of want to start in a, in a, in a holistic manner. The mayor covered the
finer the finer points of, of the technicalities and the accounting, and all of which I support. There was a lot of accusations made by the
Commissioner against the mayor, against the, the, the, the, the city manager, etcetera. And I'm not here to debate those, those, those, those points, especially if they don't involve me. But
as we've continued on this board to improve how we communicate with each other and with the public and with residents, I think we have to keep in mind that reasonable
minds can differ, and that's a very old saying, but it's something I use very often. You know, I've had people up here on the on this board. I'm not going to go into details, but they have said some of the most
slanderous things about me. And even though that that, that that is the case and it's on the record, I still don't imply any ill will toward towards anyone on this board and what their motives are. I believe
each person on this board is working the best they can for the city of Tarpon Springs. I believe we all have the same end goal. We just have different ways of getting there and that's okay. That's why
there's five of us up here. Okay. That that's that's a good thing. We also need to stop all this business. And I've heard it from, from from several people. And I might have been having guilty myself that some
are elected and some are not. We are all elected. Whether or not we're opposed or not is completely up to. Up to you all. So I could sit here and argue
that it's you have more clout if you are elected because you stood the election, you won the election. And I can stand up here and argue that if you're unopposed, that's the biggest vote. Like, you know, vote,
vote, vote, vote of like approval. I've been in both scenarios before. I've won elections and I and and and I've been unopposed. So I kind of want us to move away from
that as a board, as we imply that one person on here has more clout than the other. We we are all equal up here as far as this referendum goes. You know, I'm I'm a big person in
sticking to to our charter. And for the record, I did look up the the the Hoffman property vote. I was not on the board then. It was back in 2020. I
you know, if if the FA charter doesn't call for us to send this to a referendum, I don't think we should, but and I've and I've been saying this since I got on the board back in 2013,
we had much smaller items that I had. Fellow commissioners want to go out to, to, to referendum for. And I understand those, those, those sentiments. It's, you know,
kind of a pure form of like democracy, if you will. But we were elected up here to make, to make, to make tough decisions. And that's just how it is. It is on everyone on
this board. All, all, all, all five of us. If we do this financing or not, we don't need to outsource leadership every time we have a hard vote. Otherwise, what's the point of us up here? We could have a
machine, or we pull you all through Facebook and we just do like, you know, your will. Your will is expressed every, every two and three years in the ballot box. And that's as it should be. If I don't do my job,
you got to put somebody somebody better in. Correct. And that goes for everybody up here. So I respect for each one of my commissioners. I do believe reasonable minds can differ. And even though Commissioner Coleus and I
differ on this financing approach, I have respect for him and I have respect for the time and efforts he put into this presentation tonight. Again, I'm not going to go over all the technical matters that,
that, that, that have already been covered in the interest of time. But some of what was said up here that, you know, we have to live with our decisions on this board. And that's true. It
goes back to what I started saying by, you know, we're each one of us here is invested in this community. I was born and raised here. I'm raising my two daughters here. I have two
businesses here. All my family lives here. It would be foolish for me. Know I could be wrong in my approach, but. But it would be foolish of me to to intentionally move forward any
kind of, you know, like legislation, financing, budget that I did not feel was in the best interest of, of of the city. It doesn't mean I'm right.
But that goes back to we have to stop impugning negative motives towards towards people. I believe everyone up here is working in the best interest of
the citizens. There was some things said about our city manager and his his previous experience and, you know, the smaller budget and in his in his, in his in his previous
city. I was not on the board when he was hired. I believe my four colleagues were. I support their decision whole, whole, whole, whole heartedly to hire him. I think he's done a
phenomenal job coming in this role, facing two back to back hurricanes, of which we've never seen in my lifetime, and the fact that, you know, and Commissioner Kelly has said it many times and he's absolutely
correct, the fact that our storm response as far as debris pickup and management and handling of that far surpassed any municipality in the city of Tarpon Springs that has to go
to our to our city manager's credit. And they hired him knowing he came from a small city with a with with a, with a small budget. So you know that
that's you know, and I believe they made the right decision. So I'm not going to sit here and say, well, because you manage a small budget, you must not know what you're doing. And therefore we shouldn't do any,
any, you know, you know, any of this financing and a lot of what was said tonight, if I would say half of it's true, I believe it's very serious matters, things that we should
have the internal auditor investigate. And I would submit to you, you know, possible, you know, intentional like, you know, wrong, wrong, wrong,
wrong doing, none of which I believe has happened. But it was some pretty heavy things. Set. Set here tonight. And this process has been extremely
transparent. I know we probably got what, 60, 70 emails from different residents in Tarpon Springs and some outside of the city. And again, most of them
were for let's push this to, to to a referendum because they were just given a very small, specific picture of what's going on up here. I mean, we
had our first public, you know, public budget hearing all the way back in June. We've had, at least, I believe, two, two, two two of the workshops, that third workshop, it was always
my understanding. Maybe that was me relying on my previous experience, that we usually don't have that third workshop, unless at the second workshop we call for that. So it wasn't
a surprise to me. Maybe I'm blindsided, but that was no surprise to me. That was a normal, normal course of business, and Commissioner Coleus, rightfully so, you know,
had concerns about the financing and our various, you know, budget, budget workshops. But none of this came up in this in this great detail during that. And Commissioner
Kelly says many things. Dumb is not one of them. And I mean this with all respect. You are a great investigator, and I just find it hard to believe that, you know, I believe you're being honest tonight,
but I don't I don't I don't believe that any wool was, was was was pulled over your eyes. You weren't the most savvy people up here as far as investigation and research. I
just don't believe that. So all all all in all, I believe it is up to this board to do the adult things that we have a lot of deferred maintenance in, in the city when Hurricane Helene
hit and I live on Oleander Drive over by the high school. I'm, I'm I'm about ten feet up. And so the water was only a few inches deep up at up at my driveway. But two homes down it
slopes down pretty bad. And I was in knee deep water, and I believe I was put on the commission a week or two later. It was before Milton, but it was after Helene, and when I
was put back on the commission, I reflected back to being midnight and knee deep water and oleanders not water front whatsoever. Oleander flooded because the storm system,
because the storm water system was was completely just overwhelmed. I know we can't stop that completely, but a lot of these projects that we're going to do, there's one up there specifically for for
Oleander was not put there by, by by me whatsoever would help mitigate this, lessen the flooding and help it recede quickly. The water had nowhere to go. And I said that when I
got back on the commission, I would do everything in my power to make sure that did not happen again. At that extreme level, if we have if we have any control in the matter. And that's why I'm here tonight in
support of this budget and in support of the financing, because I believe if we go to a completely cash, cash, cash basis, which is not good financial practice for $100
million corporation, of which we are, that we will not be able, per our finance director, to do these stormwater projects. And it's not going to get any
better weather wise or climate wise for us. This auditorium will will certainly be be packed if this commission does nothing and we can't improve
stormwater and we can't raise and harden those electrical systems, and we don't have sewage for the for two months, in my opinion, that is completely unacceptable. And it
is for that reason that I support this budget and I support the financing tonight. Thank you. Commissioner De
Donato. I have always said from day one, even back aways, that we've got to learn to to agree to disagree up here, not only
up here but in this community. Unfortunately. What happened, I think in the public era here on social media, which I'm beginning to hate, actually,
and I don't believe in hate, but I think most of you understand what I'm saying it. It's impossible to tell a whole story sometime on social media,
so you get what people want you to get. And it may not be 100% of what's happening. And that's exactly what this issue is.
You've gotten information I'm not saying was incorrect. I'm just saying there was a lot of information left out. I think what the mayor has shown and
what staff has shown here today, tonight and not just tonight. Commissioner Manners. Correct. To my knowledge, we've had three public meetings. This will be the fourth, and we've
had three. One on ones, meaning a commissioner with staff. So to me, there isn't any reason why any of us shouldn't have a pretty good understanding of
what's going on. And if we did, we've had the one on ones, three of them in which we could have clarified all those issues. And then if we didn't agree, we can say we didn't agree. And
we've heard one here tonight that does not agree, and I accept that. However, I have a track record. I also took the same oath he took, and I've taken it several more times
than he has. And I'm proud of that. I'm not bragging. I'm proud, thankful. But I also have a track record. I will not support anything that would
threaten the financial health of this community. I would not do it. And what we're bringing to you again tonight, I know
some of you say you didn't know. And you know what? I understand that you can't. Everybody can't be in here and everybody can't sit and watch this on TV. But they can or should be able to
trust us to do the job we were elected to do. And if I ever get to a point where you can't trust me, come to me and tell me personally and we'll talk.
But you can trust me. And I've shown you that. And this group is trying to show you that I'm for this. This. By or not bond
with the loan. I too have had. I had flooding in my home. I in my lifetime in Tarpon, which is over 50 years now. I've never seen the water like it was with
mine, never have. And I too took an oath. We need to do something about this, Ron. If I could just ask a couple questions. The mayor covered
most of the ones I was going to ask you. It's obvious that you wouldn't sign off on this if you didn't think it was financially sound. Is that correct? And plus, it goes to our bond council, our financial
advisor, and our rate consultants. Yes. Okay. So that's established some of these projects on the CIP list that were especially stormwater and infrastructure that we're
talking about doing. How old are some of those projects? How old are some? Some of them go back quite a ways, especially the stormwater ones especially. I have a slide from ten years
ago. The cost of some of these projects compared to today and stuff. And we can talk about those dollars when they were actually proposed for CIP last to work. What we're likely to
pay for today to have them done, and any guess how much that is and inflation was, well, these were six stormwater projects
here on the slide here from 2015. Same. I made sure they're the same exact projects descriptions. Excuse me. And they totaled 2.6 million back
in 2016. Now in 2026 the estimated cost is 15 million. So it's an increase of 12 million, 12.4 million or $12
million, right? It I think it's rather obvious that most of the projects are projects on that list that you showed, especially streets and, and, and the the other sidewalks in
the sewer and stormwater. Stormwater are needed. And many of them have been there on that list for years, not days, not months, years. And this group
here is biting the bullet financially strong bullet and telling you it needs to be done. And if we don't do something with the wastewater treatment plant, we're going to lose it,
folks, because not only are we in line for flooding on that, we're we're going to be in violation with DEP if we don't start changing that, that whole
scenario across the street. And we're trying to do that, this body is actually trying to do it. And I hope that what you've seen here tonight shows you
that, that we're not doing something that's financially unsound. Why would we do that? We all live and work here, all of us. There's a tomorrow, I
hope, and I'm planning on it. And I wouldn't want to disappoint any of you because then I would be disappointing me. I'm not going to do that.
No, said thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Mayor. It's always a blessing to be the fifth speaker, because a lot of things do get spoken. You know,
you did a great presentation. I will tell you that. You always do. You do a lot of fact finding and but unfortunately, you present certain parts of
this. And I think at one of the meetings, I kind of agreed with you and you posted that on social media that I was not in favor of this. But what I said
to clarify was I was not in favor of it unless we dictated what we were going to use it for, because as the wording that was used here is, a slush fund is not what I am looking
to do a slush fund, and I want to be as responsible as every comment that was made up here. So I'm going to do some speaking about some of the
things that I did my own research. But before I do that, I want to agree with Commissioner Banther, you were extremely explicit in every point you made. I agree with
every word and syllable that came out of your mouth. You you nailed it right to the tee of where my head is at. We did
speak about these projects before on numerous occasions, and we kind of all spoke that we were all in favor of, you
know, spending the money because it was well needed. You, unfortunately, were on the other side of that. And, you know, I give you credit for, for, you know, trying to, in my
opinion, grasp at straws. But it I don't know if you have the, the wherewithal to change my mind. We've suffered through
four years of inflation and we're at as a, as a country, we're at $37 trillion. And as people shop and go out to
purchase things, everything has gone through the roof. Our police, fire and police, all the vehicles have gone from
50,000, 75,000 to $100,000. You know, we the the fire chief has bought a we had to buy a hook
and ladder that was $1.5 million, and we had to buy it five years in advance because it takes that long, you know, to do. You know, we bought a
boat. We have money for the Spring Bayou, which is a blessing to Gus Bilirakis. He got us to $2 million. We had 1.6 that we have to come up
with, but we have no funds for phase two. I will just say it is kind of almost ridiculous to do phase one and to leave phase two just sitting there. So
we're going to need to do things. And just for those who don't know, phase one is from the boat launch to Tarpon Avenue. Phase two is from Tarpon Avenue to Canal. Eventually we have to deal with
Canal Street flooding. These are just certain things. My topics will go all over the place because people spoke about things. We have the Beckett Bridge. I do sit on
Forward Pinellas right now. There's no money from Pinellas County for the Beckett Bridge, and there's no money to do Fred Howard Park. A lot of these emails that came in, they came
in with people that had excellent meaning, but they just didn't understand what we understand up here. So they were complaining about would come by you. They complained
about the bathrooms. They just complained about everything that was on their list. But they don't understand that. That's not how we judge things, because we know what we're
supposed to cover and what we're not. The golf course we did agree with. We all voted for it. We haven't even spoken
about. We just sent the dredge survey out to be dredged on the back bays. That has never been done in the history of tarpon on the charter. It's supposed
to be done every three years. We haven't done it in 30 years. We haven't done it as long as tarpon has been around. That could come in at $5 million. I'd love to know where we're
going to get the money from, you know, from for it. Okay. I'd like to ask you, Ron, on this 7.5 million that FEMA
still owes us when they do pay us, which they kind of have to. What will that money go towards? Will that be help to repay these loans down, back down.
Are we going to use it for something else? I'm curious on that. Well, it's going to go back to the funds that had the expenses. So the $8 million of debris that will go back into
the sanitation fund, where it was expensed out of the balance, is mostly over time, supplies about $2 million. That will go back in its general fund. It'll go back into the general fund
was water and sewer. We keep track of it. It'll go back into the water and sewer fund and stormwater fund. So we've kind of utilized some other funds and now we just have to replenish it is correct.
Correct. Okay. So when we borrow this $19 million plus will this raise taxes for the public. No. Okay. So it's it's
it's just that we're taking money in advance on a ten year from ten years of what we would normally do to get some of
these projects done while we still are able to do this. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. There was comments made that we squandered Covid funds. Did we
squander Covid funds? You're talking Arpa funds. Arpa funds. Sorry, no. We had the list of projects up there that were approved that. So this board
approved it all. Every every project was approved by the board. Okay. And how many millions do we still have left? We got $1 million left. I know
that answer. Thank you. So we didn't even squander that. And the prior board before Commissioner Kulas, myself, some of that money was dictated
prior than we are than us getting in. Correct? Correct. Okay. So we only had control over some of that money. The prior board, did, you know, put
projects there before that? One of the things when you become a commissioner that most people don't understand is you are not at liberty to decide on how you
run the city. You, you know, from the past decisions that were made, you have to live with those. So whatever was done before is what we now have to take. And and the hot potato
and the football is now handed to us, and we have to take that and run with that ball. So if just like as the commissioner said, if we borrow this $10
million, the board's after us have to run with the fact that they have to pay some of this back, but they're also running with the fact that we have some of the projects in the, in the
budget so that they don't have to. So it's a give and take. You know, it's funny that we if
we're going to critique this $19 million and I'm going to touch a sore subject, we had no problem buying a high water vehicle for $500,000. I sat up
here and met with the motor department and said we needed one truck. We voted for two VAC trucks back in the day. The VAC
truck was 150,000 155,000, and now the VAC trucks are $540,000. We bought two of them. So when when I'm listening to someone who's being careful about money,
you have to be careful in every aspect of how you spend that money. Actually, the board didn't even know at the time that there were four VAC trucks. They were under the
understanding because they were only speaking about replacing two. So, you know, I do take a little bit of offense when we're, you know, nickel and diming this, but we're not
nickel and diming all the decisions that are being made. So we have choices to make. You know, I, I ran I'm one of the people that was the only one
that ran against another candidate, as was said, which I don't have a difference between somebody who walked in without competition or was, you know,
elected by the people. I was elected by the people. But I do not see that me being higher or lower than anybody else. But, you know, the people I ran against were an advocate
against infrastructure. They wanted infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Well, there's no way you could do any infrastructure if you don't have the money to do it.
As we've heard, there's only $200,000 left in the penny fund when this is all said and done. So it would be it would be horrible for me to be sitting
up here and not being able to at least borrow some money, as was all spoken about, is how we still be in debt to ratio less than everybody else. There's
nobody that comes in here, buys a house and just plunks down all the money for the house. There are a few people that do it, but most people have to take out a loan to do it. That
is exactly what we're doing. Personally, I would not have made the comparison, and I've said this to the city manager. I would not have made the comparison that we've, you know,
have all the funds for this and the firehouse and all of these things. As you know, the interim mayor said that we have why are we refinancing it? If
people understand what a home equity loan is, that's what it is. You know, we at the end of every year, we can't save money. We have to spend every dime we have. And, you know, the fact
that we took all that money and paid for it, but now we would like to take out a what I would call a home equity loan to borrow against it, to use it for something else and spread
those payments over ten years is is not the worst thing in the world. And I agree with my fellow commissioners. I know there was a comment made that
the residents know what they're doing, and I followed the Charter Revision Commission. I was at every single meeting, and I know how hard it is to
get information into the referendum to explain. Most of the people that I know were calling me on the phone and asking me. It was very difficult to explain to people
why you needed to do what you do. So it was said that they were very knowledgeable and they didn't want to change the 25,000 to 50,000. I honestly didn't think that was a wise
decision. I wanted the 50,000. You can't buy anything today for $50,000. We wanted to change the 350,000 to 500,000
again, that you cannot buy any property for 500, even for 350,000. So, you know, as as the commissioner states that that was wise decisions made by
a referendum. I don't believe that was a wise decision by the referendum decision. And and I'm not saying that the people that made the decision were not wise. What I'm saying is that
the people that had to make the decision either didn't make themselves well aware of what it was or, you know, they just didn't know and just guessed at it. The other thing is, when
you're dealing with a referendum, you're dealing with a purchase mostly of land. Do you want does the public want to buy the land and own the land, or does the public not
want to buy it? That's decisions that they need to make. The decisions of infrastructure. We will put here an elected one way or another, whether we walked in, whether we were elected to make
those decisions, if we had to make each and every one of those decisions through going through a referendum, we would get nothing done in this city. If I had to wait for each
election to ask whether you know something is whether the people need something or not, that's my job to do. And as
Commissioner Banta said, if if it's if we don't do the right job, you have to not vote for us again. But, you know, a lot of the things that we get to
deal with, we're kind of stuck with. I know somebody spoke about the Whitcomb Bayou flooding. You know, it was very interesting. If Pinellas County didn't listen to us for 50
years, I don't know how much they're going to listen to us. If this city manager goes and talks to him as well. I do sit on forward Pinellas. There's just no money for it. And you
know, what could you do? You know, we have Fred Howard Park that doesn't have bathrooms. And they're not going to fix that for maybe a year or two years. You will have the porta
potties out there. So why are they not fixing it? There's no money. What else can I cover
for you? You know, prior boards, when we were going to buy the spill site for the dredge, the board decided to, instead of
purchase it at a nominal rate, which what it was at the time, they decided to rent it at $50,000 a month. And there was just it was a total waste of
money. But again, I can't go back and go into their head at what they had at the time to make that decision. I guess it was the decision that they were
going to make, but I don't want to make that mistake and do something where I'm kicking the can down the road for some other commissioner that has to
make an important decision. I have pictures here that I've shown some of the board members of the water that comes to my house, and I if I don't have
filters on my water and these are the complaints we all get, we get the phone calls that the water looks like the inside of
those pipes. It is a travesty that we have a great R.O. plant, but yet the water, the clean water has to go through these horrible pipes to get to our
house where we actually need another R.O. plant just before it gets there. So, you know, I have these pictures if anyone wants to see it. But you know, we know we get these pictures
on Facebook where people are showing it looks like T's in their in their water cup. So it would be irresponsible to not have an infrastructure where we
change the pipes and the galvanized pipes. Everybody that knows anything about pipes knows that they're just going to get worse and worse until we have to have to take it apart.
We lose pressure every place. So as far as I'm concerned, I will be. I think it's my duty to borrow the money, but I will
only do this, as I've said, to know the projects that we're going to utilize it for, which a number of these projects are all within my wheelhouse for
what I think will only help the public. A lot of the public want a lot of the public sent us compliments where they want infrastructure done. Oleanders
one of the streets that floods all the time. Peninsula floods, seabreeze and riverside floods all the time. We can't have that. You know, I had a
conversation with our new public works person and we went over. He and I went over some of the hotspots in the city. I kind of spoke to him as I spoke
to Bob about trying to get in line pumps, because some of the low lying areas that we have, you water doesn't go uphill. Everybody knows that. So it we may have to spend money to put
in pumps to help people get that, that flood water out. Pretty much. That's where I'm going to go. I hope that, you
know, we we keep and maintain. I think we're going to stay as a 4 to 1 vote. I do appreciate your presentation. It's really it was good. You did a lot of hard work. I just don't agree
with it. But I will say that, you know, you kind of have to tone it down a little bit on the social media thing because you just can't use. Well, you
can, but you just can't use derogatory, you know, of deceit. We nobody deceitfully did anything. There were words in there that kind of really got me a little bit, you know, because I got to see it and
people are texting me and saying that I don't think the mayor was deceitful. I don't think the city manager was deceitful. I know he came from a from a smaller town, but that
doesn't make him an idiot, you know? And it doesn't make him an idiot that he's he's dealt with a smaller budget. We all interviewed him. We chose him.
We it's our job to support him. I think he's doing a great job. I think he's still in the honeymoon stage. He's still learning things. But, you know, just because you put another
zero at the end of a budget doesn't mean you know that you don't know what you're doing. You know, my house budget has less zeros than the city, but I still know how to manage the
budget of the city different than I manage my house. But if you ask my wife, I'm just as frugal on the money that gets spent in the city as that gets
spent in my house. So I am not going to just go haphazard and just purchase things. I purchase what I feel the city needs to maintain the the, the
beauty of this city. And, you know, again, all you created was people saying that we're going to use it for beautification. We're going to use it for this. So it sent
everybody into a tizzy was the truth. Well, okay. I don't think so. I am finished, I've said my piece and just thank you all for listening, I appreciate it. We're going to
go to public comment and then we'll come back for a motion. Is there any public comment on
this item? Debbie McKinney 1021 Rose Tree Lane. I've been at every budget meeting. I've been at every budget workshop that
public was allowed. I don't know if there were any more. I want to thank you because you had you organized this meeting that should have happened
during one of the other budget meetings. Sure. Okay. So I, I appreciate you bringing all of this forward because I also
wanted to hear both sides. So thank you. The loan I trust Ron, I trust the board and I trust
the city manager. And I agree that it's something that we should do. It's something I would have done if it was my household to take care of what's needed to be done now
and pay for it, for me to enjoy in the future. Everything that's on that list is for everybody. If there's no special projects. So I
appreciate that. And I just want to say I agree with this loan. Thank you. Any other.
Your lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. As mentioned, I appreciate the fact that Commissioner Coleus has brought numerous things to our attention that might not
have been visible before. In general, my. My general philosophy is for these types of projects that residents are
going to have the advantage of having or using over the next ten years. It's only fair to amortize it or spread that cost
out to everybody. I don't feel like residents that over the next 1 or 2 years, should have to absorb all the cost for the seawall repair or any of these
other things. I do want to point out a couple of things that I heard tonight that I'd like to get some background or clarification on one as far as
the reverse osmosis water plant, it was mentioned $45 million in bonds, and it was mentioned 30 years. Now 20 million was given
to us by Swiftmud. So I don't know if that was put up front or if that has been put into a fund that we're earning interest on to pay over the 30 years, or how many more years
we have on those funds left. So I think that's a big missing picture. Another missing picture I have is over the years, we've done a lot of
Interfund loans, and the golf course has been the recipient of quite a number of those loans. Interfund loans from water, sewer, sanitation. I
have seen nothing to know the status of those interfund transactions. Have they all been paid off? Have they all been reimbursed? Are there funds that are sitting in a
pile somewhere waiting to be used to reimburse it? So there's some factors that affect the whole financial
aspect of our debt service. I don't think 4% or in that range of debt service is not unreasonable. I agree with the
majority of the commissioners in the fact that these are benefits that the whole city will benefit from. It's not, as
Debbie mentioned, any one particular project, so it's not Commissioner Street or not Commissioners Eisner Street, Riverside, you know, everybody
in the city is going to be equally affected. So at this point, as Commissioner Eisner mentioned, if we have a
definitive list of exactly where those funds are going to be used and where those funds that have been appropriated previously, because I heard 8.2
million was already pre-arranged for four and 4.2, and the mayor mentioned 7.6 left. But that doesn't add to 19.3. So just we need to have a
better understanding of where all those dollars will go. But otherwise I would recommend going forward with some type of financing for those long term
capital projects. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Tim Kefalas 205 Leawood Road came up
tonight prepared with a different speech than I'm going to say. It's apparent by the three and four comments by the commissioners that is going to pass tonight to borrow the
money without referendum. I'm against it, but I know it's going to pass. So there's no sense in arguing. I'm just going to read something. And I want to say that we have to we have to judge you by your
integrity and hope that you will do well. I want to read something. I asked the Saint Pete Times a question. I was sitting out there and I want to read what the comment was. And
my question was, has the city ever been insolvent? This is from there. I historical information suggests that while Tarpon Springs has faced severe
economic hardship, it has not officially gone solvent insolvent. Rather, the city was noticeably at risk during the collapse of the sponge industry in the 1940s and during the national during the national
financial crisis of in the late 2000. But it was able to recover through economic diversification and disciplined fiscal policies. All of you are
talking about how we didn't do things in the past, and we let things go. Disciplined fiscal policies is what they're saying kept us from going broke. Many
of you were here. Many of you weren't. Collapse of the sponge industry, the 40s and 50s, the sponge blight in the 40s, the marine blight and red tide destroyed the Gulf's national
sponge beds. Now, of course, we're not tied to that as much, although in 1968, my father came down to buy real estate, and he could have bought most of the sponge docks for half $1
million. But he didn't see it as a wise investment. Economic depression. With the local economy near wiped out, many Greek American residents and divers left to find work
elsewhere. The town entered a prolonged and difficult financial period. My in-laws were one of those. They moved to South Carolina and my my
father in law became a painter. The Great Recession 2008. Statewide financial trouble. The financial crisis of the late 2000 caused severe financial problems for many
Florida municipalities, raising concerns for Tarpon Springs. This is the kicker. Strong city reserves. However, the city was in strong financial position at
the time, a 2009 article reported the Tarpon Springs reserve fund amounted to 44% of its general fund budget, providing a significant buffer.
Fiscally conservative policies. City officials attributed their financial health to years of fiscally conservative management, which insulated the
city from the worst effects of recession. It goes on and on about the hurricanes of the 24 and and up till today, if this is going to work, which it's
going to pass tonight, if it's going to work, you better keep off your butts and make sure that it works, because when you're out of office, you better still be looking over
who's in here and what they're doing with the money. Got $20 million plus 112, 150, 15 million in a budget. And we went from when I first ran for
office, it was $55 million. It's jumped since then, in the 90s to now, over $100 million. I realize everybody's budgets
have gone up, and I realize that the cost of vehicles and everything else that goes with it. But I also realize that the fiscal Conservatives
Conservancy of the past has brought us to where we are today, that we are not. We weren't in that position to be broke. If we have a bad year, a bad two years, I don't know
what you're going to do to pay for this. I don't understand. Originally the pennies for Pinellas. My understanding was when they first started. Three minutes are up when when you
first started doing the pennies for Pinellas, it was for new projects only. These aren't all new projects only. Thank you. Thank you again. David Ballard,
Goddess Junior I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor, designing society is really nothing new. Governments,
they've been failing at it for about 2000 years now, deliberately manifesting designs of individual or
personal aggrandizement has befallen many governments of the past, benefiting individual politicians on matters that are
purposeful in the build aggrandizing de facto issues of interest based on past deliberate neglect and omission of duty does not legitimize de
facto charges or taxes to be placed upon residents using our past neglect or omission of reasonably foreseen and expected duty of government
does not justify a strategized emergency financing plan on matters that should have been routinely and systematically
maintained through the past, Danbury Baptists in 1801 warned us of a government that wishes to rise on wealth and
importance, on the deliberate subjection and impoverishment of the people. That water pipe there has been deliberately neglected. That's just a small example of what's going on
chronically through this country. That water pipe, I suggest I, I guess, is upwards of 80 years old and should have
been replaced 40 years ago. That's purposeful and neglect, and that's a chronic issue nationwide. Some of us feel
that our society is being deliberately set up through the wizardry of our politicians, setting us up to future direct forms of taxation, allowing our
infrastructure to fall into deliberate disrepair and giving them cause to qualify assessments and levies and
direct forms of taxation against the residents in order to pay for now having to replace these infrastructure
scheming projects that have been purposeful in the build. I believe the civilian population is being subjected to matters
that are deliberate in the making, and I question. The the means upon how we got here.
Thank you. Any other any other comments? Okay. Austin, do we have any remote comments? This
time? No, no. Okay. All right. Let's come back to the board. Mayor, I like the rebuttal on a couple things that was said about from some people. We're
going to go we already know where this is going, but. This board better be ready that there they are selfishly gobbling up money for the
future projections of the city and the capital improvement project structure, based on the fact that they don't have money to burn. And they can sit there
and I'll tell you what. You saw the mayor, he stumbled over his words. And I'm not taking this lightly from anybody on this board, because when I see someone who flip flopped the
minute they become mayor, to act like you're doing well for the community doesn't have anything to do. I'm getting to my points, mayor. No, no you're not, yes, I am. You're just driving home the same, same old.
And it's the God's honest truth, and you're going to have to listen to it. And then you guys can make the deal deceiving these residents. Is there a motion? So, like I said, storm water. We're not coming back
for additional comments. We need a motion. I'll say a mall during at the end then. Okay. These people are willing to admit they're going to rush
stormwater sewer, water projects. Everyone that they couldn't pay for, every commissioner just to raise all of your bills each month. And
on top of it, none of them have really articulated where they stand behind the financial ability for this board. We have Commissioner Banther who says he disagrees, but he can't
articulate it. We have Frank DiDonato over there who talks about trying to look out for the community, but he don't even open up his book. A little respect, Commissioner Eisner. I give him respect. I understand
the chair. And as far as the mayor and as far as your mayor. So that's enough. He is flip flopped so much. You have this board is going to fall on their face with this. I have enough
said. There you go. You said it. Okay, so there's no motion that this issue is over. Yeah. A motion that this item be brought as a referendum in front of the citizens of Tarpon
Springs with a laid out plan of projects. And then once approved, in March, it be implemented into the budget by Ron and staff. Okay. Is there a
second? Okay. Dies of a second. Dies of no second. Okay. Let's go to item number nine, which is the compensation
reorganization. City manager read the resolution. Does he need to read the resolution? Okay, read the resolution. No,
it's just his effort to put on a referendum. Resolution 20 2553, resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida,
authorizing changes to the employee pay plan. Updated job description, city manager reporting structure. Specific department reorganizations, new position requests, and
providing for an effective date. Mayor, this item is coming back to you. We the last meeting a number of changes directed by the commission. We've made all those changes. We had a new
report generated by the consultant. We've included that in your packet. We also made the additional change of removing the two senior administrator positions, which I believe was the desire of the
board. So we're asking for your approval on this resolution so we can incorporate it in the budget. So everyone has seen it.
Let's go to let's just go down the list. I don't have any questions. I'm I'm fine with the the adjustment to the reorg. And Commissioner Banther. No, I
believe everything that we discussed in the workshop has been presented in this final resolution, and I'm in support. Thank you. Commissioner DiDonato. I don't have anything additional. Commissioner
Coolio's. Yes, I got questions about the reorg inside the public services. Mr. Cato, can you come forward, please? Is that public Works director?
He's not here. No. Yes he is. Oh, I thought you said Mr. Kiger. Sir, we recently had
this reorg brought in front of us with two individuals inside public works for for this reorg. And you weren't hired yet. You've just been recently added. All right. Obviously the memo
came in. It came in through Mr. Robertson but included you through to the city manager. Have you really had enough time to see if this reorg is something that you're willing to push forward through, or
have you even had time to set your feet and, and make that type of decision? Because we denied this and we said we want this, the new public works director to come and make that decision. Have you had enough
adequate time, do you think? And if you have, that's a good answer. But if you haven't, I don't like that reorg part being pushed through us when we initially said no and putting
it through the pay study. Okay, well, I, I've been on the job a little over a week and at this
point, you know, I can say that to date I'm favorably disposed towards reorganization, but I'm going to defer to Bob here to
talk about it a little bit more, because he's been here a lot longer than me and knows a lot more history there. Thank you sir. That's what I know at this
point. Thank you. Yep. So Commissioner Bob Robertson, project administration department director, I served as the interim public works director for four months. And we did bring that original item
to you. And as you said, you asked us to bring it back as part of the budget cycle. So that's what's that's why you're seeing it now. I think Mr. Carter is is as he said, he's brand new, but he and I have
had numerous discussions about this as a structure. He does support the idea of having assistance. Public works director. And if you you notice the memo, it's written in a way
that allows him the choice to do it as 1 or 2 and and formulate it however he wants, with approval of the human resources director and the city manager. So there's flexibility
built into that. Okay. I just want to make sure to the the pay rates for those two individuals. Before, when we had this budget workshop or whatever it was, is it changing
now of this organizational structure upon what we originally agreed upon? No, it would target the same pay range as the original proposal that did, and it will function
within the the new pay grades that are being established. Should you approve those tonight. Perfect. All right. Thank you sir. Also, like I
said, we saw how this pay study went. It was one of the city manager's first projects. I'm hoping we really look at the lower level people, field entry people and not ignore them like
we did at this last study. So the only reason why I'm supporting it is because we did take two, did take into account in front and for these field workers. But I'm really
hesitant for upper management, such as a city manager or a few others to receive that raise. Within two years. I thought it should have been within three, but I'm just going to go along
with this to look out for the field workers. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you mayor. I don't remember that we had not wanted
these two positions. I know we didn't want the two positions of the assistant city manager, but I don't recall this. This
actually looks like a good idea, you know, because it splits it up. The solid waste, fleet maintenance and building grounds maintenance. And then you have administrative parks
and parkway streets and stormwater Marina. So, I mean, especially when, you know, I had a nice meeting with Chris today, he would be able to get
the input from two separate experienced people and be able to, you know, it wouldn't be all on his shoulders right away. So, I mean, I support this. I,
I think it's good sometimes to split up the amount of work that needs to be done. It's it's a lot of different moving parts in there. So and, and I
feel very comfortable. By the way, I had a very good meeting. I appreciate your honesty and your, you know, your ability to learn. I know it's the first week, so it's not the time to throw hand grenades at you, but
you know, I appreciated your honesty and your hard work, and I would expect you still to lean on Bob a little bit. And I offered you any kind of help that you could, you know, need
as far as advice, you know. But I was happy with your with the discussion that we had, and I wanted to make that public. So I wish you the best of luck and
anything we can do to help as a board or me personally, I'm happy to help you. Thank you. Okay, let's go to public comment. Is there any public
comments on this item? Well, before you start the time, can we at least get updated information? That's from the last thing. And if you could
put up the organizational chart Peter Lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. First off, I do have some issues where in the city
manager memorandum it. References a number of appendices and the original report was listed as appendix B,
and then the job classifications appendix C, but it does not show up in the backup online fact. I had to make a records request and then
get the records till today to see what attachment B and C are. So if you want to be transparent, you reference an item, put it up there. Now, as far as this organizational
chart, I would like to hear as the philosophy or how the departments were decided on being changed. Now I understand the fire chief is set to be the,
you know, the assistant city manager, and that's maybe why fire is there. But I'm trying to look at the grouping there. You've got building development,
PNC Planning and Zoning, fire Cultural Services and library. Now to me, planning, zoning, building code enforcement. And
you should also have economic development in that because they function together. I don't see why the library and the fire are under the assistant
deputy city manager in that regard. Also, as far as. Where is I'm trying to find it here. Planning, planning and zoning
operational. I think that's fair to move the arborist over there. I don't have a problem with that. It was just mostly the fact that I'm trying to see
why these were, you know, separated as far as in that regards, I don't see a problem with having the supervisors, directors and the way you split
it up with public services and public works, that seems to be a fair distribution of duties there. But my biggest thing was
how these, under the assistant city manager were put together. If you're looking at economic development, planning, zoning, building and code enforcement,
they all kind of tie together. I don't see how cultural services and library fit into that. So I would move those and the fire back over to the other
side and move the economic development with the planning, zoning, building and code enforcement. Thank you, thank you. Okay. Any other comments?
Austin? Any comments up there? There are no hands raised at this time. Okay. Let's come back to the board. Can I have a motion, sir, what we can do
about this assistant city manager thing. What's our current position with it? So the just be the fire chief will be the assistant city manager,
and he'll. We thought maybe that over the next six months to a year, he could determine who would fill his position as fire chief. I'd like to request at this point that we go out to
advertise for an assistant city manager. I've seen what's happened. Now, you know, the whole role of being from somewhere in the department and shifting over to full effect in
this whole finance situation that we're in now, you can call it what you want, but we need a full, transparent advertisement of the assistant city manager position. That way we don't
have any one individual like we see favor department. That puts us in a financial instability, incapacity to do our capital improvement projects. So that
was a good example. And I'd like a full transparent advertisement sent out for an assistant city manager, someone that we can actually develop in the future. Thank you. Okay,
I'd like to entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Is if there's no further comments. Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato.
Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Yes. Okay. The last item is item number ten. Ordinance
qualifying date for candidates ordinance 20 2511, an ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending section two Dash 13 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of
Tarpon Springs in its entirety to provide for qualification dates for candidates to the City Commission, and providing for an effective date of this ordinance, that is, ordinance
20 2020 2511, read by title only on first reading advertised on August 27th, 2025.
Okay. Are there are there any Commissioner comments regarding this? Okay. Is there any public
comments regarding this item? Austin there are no hands raised at this time. I'd like to entertain a motion. So moved.
Seconded. Anybody second? I'll second. Okay. Roll call please. Mr. Panther. Yes, Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes.
Vice mayor Eisner. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Let's go. That concludes all of our items. Let's go to board and staff comments. Chief. No comment.
Sir. City attorney, no comments. City manager. No comments. City clerk I have no comments. Thank you. Commissioner Banther. Yes.
City manager I do want to the things that Commissioner Dulac has talked about in the opening public comment, the lights at MLK in 19, mirrors in 19 are
definite concerns. Alter 19. Sorry, I'm not sure what that process is, but you know that shouldn't be a hard fix. If it's possible, we could follow up on that, please. I do
support his comments about Lyman Safford. I know that that's a bigger issue. So thank you. I believe on on changing
the light. They're 19 and MLK has to go through D.O.T. We had to do that when we did it with Tarpon Avenue. And so but I agree that that should be
changed. I've said that like many, many times and just just that those are requests that we frequently have made to D.O.T. they've been rejected. Some of it has to do with the waiting on the lights. That is what
they tell us. But I've already sent Corporal Smith an email or sitting here about getting with the state on that again. Okay. The other thing I'd like to say, I appreciate everyone for being
here and those of you that that that likely listened. I came here with a thought of maybe even saying, hey, let's have a workshop and we'll make it open to questions and we'll have a
special session. And as I listen to the presentation of which most of it was, was repetitive, there was more information tonight in the laid out better. I want to thank
staff for that, but I think it's been covered rather well. It is puzzling, though, that when you attack somebody's
integrity, that it really demonstrates that you don't have any yourself. And I don't think this body should, should be doing that to any of us. There's a place one on one for
that kind of thing. We all are trying to do our best each and every time we're up here, and to attack anybody up here or
out there or whatever I think is conduct unbecoming. So I just want to say that for the record, I agree, Commissioner. Yes, yes, I'd like to see where
we're at with the the CRA submittal for this downtown empty space. We haven't seen anything about it in a while. We need to have a report as
well as this jitney situation. We need to get this. Has there been submittals? Has there been not. We haven't been following up as far as this item tonight. We've proven beyond reasonable
doubt this this board is willing to take on capital improvement projects that inflate automatically your rates. That way we can
subsidize what the loan that we're trying to borrow both in your water and sewer rates at the minimum of $9 a month. And if you think that's really helping you out during this
cost of inflation, I'm, I'm, I apologize on behalf of this board. Also, the board is recognized that they're going to pull out substantial amounts of money from the departments in which they claim they're
going to be funding over the next ten years. That's going to deeply affect future boards and capital improvement projects, as we can see. And as far as anybody taking shots at me
about integrity, look at yourself when you were mayor, as integrity. So as far as that, I got nothing else to say. And if anybody takes shots at me, including the mayor, for not wanting to have a transparent
view for the residents to vote, well, then I'm just going to fire right back. So I'm proud of what I do. If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't have thousands of people knowing about this loan that you guys didn't even
want to let the community know about. And it's it's it's disappointing that you guys hide behind your, your so-called dignity, but yet you don't let the people know what's going on, and now
they're all going to get taxed for it now and later on. So I'm embarrassed for this board and their decision making. Thank you. Okay. So you want me to
speak. Oh I'm sorry. Sorry I know I'm small, but I was going to walk out there. Mike. So I wanted to read something to just share. You know, I do
follow federal government quite a bit, as the mayor knows. Just to give you a throw out there, Miami-Dade is $400 million in
deficit for the fiscal year 2526. And they finally found a little bit of like $66 million. But they are in so much trouble,
and this city is not in that kind of trouble. The other the other thing is of the financial state of the cities in the United States, a report has found that 54 cities did not
have enough money to pay their bills. So we are not anywhere near there. You know, I will say, after four years of heavy
duty inflation, it has made the entire United States a spending. You know, just to keep up with things. Every city is feeling the pain of this, but we still
have to give the residents infrastructure and make sure that we keep the city running. There's even one more that I'll just read. Events like
wildfires and flooding have two fold effects on city finances. First, money has to be spent on rebuilding damaged infrastructure such as roads, water lines, public buildings.
Second, if a disaster, cities may either act on their own or be required under state or federal law to make expensive investments in preparation for the next storm. Which is
exactly what we just spoke about with the with the waste program over there, with the electrical I did cover for the mayor. He wasn't feeling well.
I took I did the ribbon cutting at the Elfers crossing over there. You you were sorely missed. But I will also say that you tell better jokes than
I do. Yes, and I tell better jokes than he does. It was a very warm event with the sun. But I will say this. I did also speak with some of the people
there I would like to try, at least in Tarpon Springs. Get motion sensors at all these lights so that the approaching bicycle, you know, doesn't have
to stop, push the button, and then hopefully somebody, you know, stopping their car. So if we could get that in, I can't seem to get Pinellas to listen
to this at all. So if we could do that and somewhere down the road, I would like to have that as an agenda item. It's not brain surgery to put a motion sensor. Everybody's got them on
their house. So that's it. Okay. Well I want to thank everyone that, you know, we're we're getting one step closer to having our budget finalized.
We're going to get a lot of things done. That's important. That's what the residents want us here for. And with that said.
We look at that. Adjourned at 1030. I want to know who
predicted 1030 at 1030.