Good afternoon and welcome to the commission workshop for May 13, 2025. I'd like to call this meeting to order. First item of business is well, first item of business is uh now if we could please stand for the
pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now our first item of business. Does
the city attorney or city manager have any report? None for me. No report. Great. Thank you. All right, roll call.
Let's Yeah, absolutely. Let's call the roll. Good afternoon. Vice Mayor Vasquez here. Commissioner Sison here. Commissioner Dicki here. Mayor Doctor here. Thank you. You have a quorum. All
right. Okay. Okay. The uh the ag the agenda item me move this [Applause] quickly. The agenda item is the fee waiver discussion for elevated homes and new construction and a discussion of
further extension of the existing fee waiverss. And I see that we have staff. Mike, would you please? Sure. Uh Mike Howard, interim finance director with Mary Ellen. Katherine is uh out today.
Is that mic working? I can barely hear. Can you hear me now? I don't think that mic's working. It's working now. Or it says it's working. Is it Is it working? Yes. There. Now it is. Okay. Sorry.
Um bigger micro. Um so Katherine has COVID and not here today. So she asked me to fill in. So have mercy on me because I'm not the community development. Mercy. All right. Um so
essentially you've all seen this movie before. A while back we did wave uh wave fees and we're in the process of the reimbursement process now. Um I just approved $32,000 worth this morning uh
to go out Friday. And not to divert from this, but our goal is our goal is to do about 50 or so um permits a week. We're running AP every week for this. Uh the difficulty
is is that we have a bit of a capacity issue because we have to close the books and run accounting and all that stuff. So um the difficulty uh mechanically is to establish a vendor for each
individual. So we have 475 or so plus uh individuals. They're set up as a vendor essenti because we're running checks and it's going directly to the home owner. And so our goal is to obviously
get it finished before year end and get it as done as quickly as possible, but it's like it's like running payroll. The best you can do is not screw it up. So we're being very methodical and detailed in scrutiniz scrutinizing these things
to make sure they're 100%. And our our goal again is is 50 per week. Mike, but how many uh permit fees will Will we be refunding about 475ish? No, no, more. That was dollars,
I think. $475,000, but uh yeah, it was about 870. 87017 817 plus or minus. Okay. Now, at some point, we stopped charging fees. Correct. We did. Okay. So that is why
there's more permits out there than there are refunds as we then you know there's no harm no foul on them and then we're just we're just playing catchup to get to get the refunds out. So great thank you. 50 week would be about 16
weeks of that that it would take us to get all the permits out at that we want to beat that obviously but but we have to be realistic at time because we can't like crack the whip 24 hours a day. No, I I understand. So the fees are waved
and um we're discussing now uh waving or taking some kind of discount on elevating or an existing structure or full full replacement discuss discussion of extending the existing fee waver and
then talk about fees weighed by other cities financial impact and and discussion. Um, I'm not going to read this. Um, so essentially this recaps what was done
from the get-go. Interior demolition, fence, tree removal, roof repair, and the like. And these are the fees, waiverss that are in place through the end of this month. Um and then re and it talks about the re
repayments. Okay. So the we're taking a look at everything is going to end on May 31st as far as waving the the fees unless we make some action uh in our next meeting on the 20th. Right. Right. That's right.
Okay. And that's what we're here to discuss is the the date um on this one. And um do you think we could uh try to take a look at that date? It's May 31st and move it out um so that we're going
to be maybe July 31st. I mean, would you talk to I I've we've been telling people I've been telling people uh and I know the city has too. I've seen on on our website that we've been pushing that May 31st date uh hard, you know, to get people. And I did
notice this most recent week of the number of permits picked up by by uh almost 50 permits from the previous three weeks. So I think people are paying attention to that deadline. That would be eight full months that we've done it. I'm fine with for the purpose of the permit fees that we've waved uh
up to this point keeping May 31st as our current uh deadline or extension on that. Uh now that it's a different discussion for new builds and elevates correct because we haven't even gone into any of the terms and conditions there and I agree with and I 100% agree
with that um because it is pushing people to get their permits and quite frankly um we and the county um are the only two remaining unless someone just did it in a meeting this week that are still waving fees. Okay. I know Bair was
December. Um there were a few in March um and April, but the county is June 1st and we're the last I think the 31st. So I would agree with that as well. I do as well. So I I So we're going to stay with
the May 31st, 2025 or the existing. Some of my constituents asked us to extend it uh to the anniversary of Hurricane Helen, but that's definitely going to put a big burden on us in the future
for reserves. So that will so I think that uh the direction that we would like to give to to staff would be that uh we keep it at May 31st, 2025. Understood. Okay. that that was one of the things we needed to
take care of. And now the other uh the other issue is what you're going to get to is uh homes that have been demolished and rebuilt and and put on stilts. Okay, basically this is what you know this is what we're talking about. Um essentially
we got a couple uh examples here. The first one is um an elevation. Average average cost of an elevation is $287,000. Add up all the details and the
the charge would be 3,400 against that $287,000. So that would be the example of an elevation about 1% of the 1.18% of the total of the Okay.
Next example is a new build at a million one and the permit uh cost on that guy is about 12.8 almost $13,000 about 1%. And obviously it's a lot of it's you
know the cost per thousand. So, next one. Um, this is just a quick rundown of what the other other towns are doing. Um,
like we just mentioned, Bair is sitting is an outlier, you know, to the end of the year. Everybody else is pretty much in line with uh where we're sitting right now at May at uh May at the end of this month. And just to clarify, Belair expired at
the end of last year, not this year. That's 2024. Ah, thank you. Uh, just a reminder that the this is all coming out of the building fund. It's a special revenue fund and by definition,
it's a self-funding uh program. all the all the fees and everything that are charged are used to pay for uh the staff and the expenses required to operate that function.
Um I'm going to skip this for now because we're going to get into it later. Okay, here's later. Um Whoops. So, um here here's here's how it breaks down. I know it's a lot of
numbers, but basically if if you look at I've got a trailing historical there and then March year-to- date figures and then an April through September forecast and then uh F-25 estimate. So if you go
out to the estimate, you'll see that roughly I'm looking at about close to $800,000 in revenues. uh don't know what was going on in 24 why it was as low as it was but um and believe me I did not
like make it up make it go back to F23 that's just the way all the numbers worked out the spending is uh is obviously higher because they've we've spent a lot in that area in order to get to where uh we are now and then but from
a cash standpoint by year- end uh quote unquote normal business uh we would have normally about 635,000 in the bank to operate that fund. So if you go down, I've got a
table there of what we've of the batches, we call them batches of these refunds that are going out. These are the ones that are queued up. These were as of whenever we had to get this chart in to to make Lisa Marie happy for timing standpoint. Um, so, so they're a
little bit different, but the bottom line is there's uh about uh 817 to go, but we have a total of about 958 permits to refund. And the tab on that is about
$475,000. So, if you bake that into uh the right there, then we've year ending 635 in cash and you take out the refunds and then so we're sitting uh roughly
about $100,000 or so in the fund by the end of the year. Okay, would be a historical low obviously. Um so, so there's that. I'll get into the 150 at a moment, but what let's
go. And that's the end of fiscal year, correct? Yeah. Not okay. I just wanted to be clear for anybody watching as well. October September 30th is the end of the school year. Okay. So, let's get into uh
I've already talked to you about replenishing. We can go to the general. We can do a note. That type of thing. Correct. So this is um essentially what what Katherine put together here was a
scenario or two of what the what the effects would be of refunding. So essentially um the average we took uh the elevated interest and then assumed that the demo has a rebuild. So best
numbers and again we are all in uncharted territory with this stuff. So right now uh we're looking at about 300 uh applicants 200 of which would be to elevate and 100 or so would be the intent to rebuild using the aforementioned
um averages that I showed you before the 287 and the 11 and a quarter. So, we've got an average permit fee and then it gives you three scenarios. If everybody shows up,
then full tilt it' be almost $2 million 19 1.9 million coming in. Um, if half of them 981 and then 25% would be, you know, close to a half a million dollars.
So then we have put together some options uh with respect to uh what we would uh prospectively look at as far as a waiver goes. I will say we we will not
do a percentage that's just off the table. It's just mechan dollar off correct type proposal. So essentially under the three scenarios and and just for the sake of my sanity,
I'll just talk about the $2,000 u uh rebate. Uh it would it would range costwise about you know anywhere from $600,000 which is if everybody comes in
and that's probably unlikely 100%. That's that's I'm more in the neighborhood of of between half and a quarter somewhere somewhere in that neighborhood. So we're looking at the
effect of about anywhere between 300 and 150 150,000. So if you look at the bottom of that uh top section there, the total 300, if a quarter of uh of the party comes in, then the gross would be
490. And so the net off of the 200 would be about uh 3 34 or 140. So So there would be there would be a net.
Um, it it's unclear to me when I built the forecast in the first place because I I was using the law of large numbers and averages and that type of thing. So, I know that within the base I have that there's going to be some level of new
building activity and and so forth. So I I I don't want to characterize this as a net number that this is going to be a net revenue gain uh to to the fund because in drawing on my old retail
experience if I'm if if if all of this is net net found money then I'm going well it's pretty much a no-brainer right? I mean if it's all found money but I don't know that it is. Um so we
have uh a level of risk I'll say within the numbers and it really comes down to collectively your you know what's your risk tolerance you know your tolerance for risk. So I'll go back to the other the other slide now.
So, I had 150,000 which I was using 2,000 as a as as a base and 25% coming in. If you see that 150
there with me? Yep. Okay, great. So, essentially, if we have a hundred or so at the end of the year and we have a net of 150 coming out, then then we go negative. So, and and again, I you know, I want to
be very clear. I don't know how much new build that type of thing is baked into the 796. I'm sure some of it will be additive, but I I simply don't know. And and and and then that's another element
of consideration you need to take into account. So, essentially, let me go back to this guy now. our thoughts on this were we were we to do it. Um I'll be the finance guy for a
second and you know obviously I would want zero I wouldn't want to give any of it back but um but given the level of risk I personally and this is just me personally I'm not speaking for for Mary
Allen trust me no one speaks for her but her. Um, I I would be more in the neighborhood of the one or the two. I think four is four is over over the top. I think that that really doesn't work. The math just
doesn't work because we're only we're, you know, we're not making much for sure. Uh, so um, so I would be in the one to two if I had if I had to make if I had to make a choice. Obviously this
is this is your decision but I wanted I wanted full disclosure about about the elements of risk that as a team we need to take into consideration in making making this decision. Okay. So, one of the things
that we had discussed is that uh the person that's raising the home or rebuilding the home, were they a resident and an owner at the time of the hurricane. So, and and basically
we take it to uh the Milton's date, right? Um, and that, uh, I know that Jen had said, "Well, let's try to make sure that we're not putting too many factors in, but I think that whether or not you
were living here at the time is is a factor that needs to be uh, evaluated and discussed by us because if somebody just today buy goes in, buys a house, and then they want to to do it." I know. I I agree with that completely. I I I was hoping
that we would uh restrict this uh whatever amount we settle on to uh to residents or people who own the house at the time of the uh the storms. So, and and I feel we have to be very careful
and I I agree, but we do have to be careful on that Milton date. And I'm going to speak from personal experience because I was out in my driveway emptying my house after Helen and the guys in the cars were driving around to the elder population and I know in three
days between Helen and Milton, they went in and bought these houses from these older people for pennies on the dollar. And it just was heartbreaking. And um and I know there's no surefire way to do
it, but there were several and I and I'm sure there's a way to look that up to see how many sales happened between those, but not that it's even necessary to do that, but there were those that did happen, right? But the the thing there is that they're not lifting. No,
they're tearing down building. And but that's a third party that's building new. No, that's my point is they purchased it. Yes. And then they are I know there's two of them that are doing a pre-sale right now of ones that were purchased in Miami. But the thing is
that this is basically looking at uh people that are either raising or tearing down the home. That's my point. These people have torn down the home that purchased it between those two. But that that's the purchasers. So that wouldn't be Oh, okay. So you're you're
actually saying that because Helen correct was first that these people wouldn't be entitled to it because they sold it. Correct. And they wouldn't be entitled. And and if we because I know we can't use Homestead. We can't do any of that because that's a lawsuit waiting
to happen. So my fear is we're going to end up because again I know there's two homes in my neighborhood that sold and have been torn down and they are pre-selling them. One for 3.1 and one for 3.4 4 million and they bought the houses for in the fives. I think one was
six something hundred but they sold it literally like three days after Helen and it is the person that purchased it that's putting these new homes in which hey great for our tax base but that's my only thing and I wouldn't even be that
particular if it wasn't that those numbers speak for themselves. I mean we cannot afford we have way too many capital projects that need to be done to be bankrupt in in our fund and
that is a huge huge fear and also just the opening to lawsuits because whenever you try to restrict and and I know you would be the one to take that you know the minute you give people
an inch you know it's like Okay, lawsuits start. Even if we win them, it's money. It's time um because they feel like they were discriminated against um in doing this. And that um and could you speak on that? Yeah. No,
it's exactly what you're saying. Uh it'd be under equal protection, which is that everyone needs to be treated equally under the law. It doesn't just apply to protected classes like country of origin or sex. It can also apply to anything, which is why Jen has advised you not to
include a carveout like that. So, that's my fear. I mean, we're opening the city up to losses. She really didn't say we couldn't do it. She just said you have to be careful. And the more uh the more things you lay on top of it, the worse it gets. Yeah. that
increases the amount of people who might want to sue the city and right in turn increases the potential liability like Commissioner Vasquez talked about. Okay, I'd like to add this to it. The reason we're doing this is to help the residents. We're not doing it to help
help the carpet baggers for lack of a better expression right now that sweep in here and buy a bunch of homes and you know we're not giving we don't want them to that that wasn't why we're even having this discussion. We're we're trying to take care of the people who lived here and suffered through the hurricane and and to give them some kind
of credit like we gave all the other 817 permit apps. That's that's what we're trying to do here. So, uh uh Jen Jennifer did caution us against using Homestead as opposed to anybody who owned a house and I think we we we
backed away from that. So, I'm not worried about just limiting this to people who were the record uh homeowner of record at the at the date of Hurricane Elena. I'm fine with that. And I don't think anybody's going to sue us over a $1,000
uh or $2,000 permit fee waiver. I mean, that would be uh it would be I mean, a new developer that come in or or somebody new came in and I don't think they're going to take us to court over a $2,000 nonwaver of their permit fee. I
wouldn't worry too much about that. It could happen. And I say it can't happen, but no, I mean, and I'm just going to throw my thoughts out there on all of it. Um, your average, now this is I'm talking about new builds. I'm not talking about the elevating. The elevating is typically most of the time going to be residents that it's they
live in they live in their homes and they're just trying to get out of the flood plane. Yes. So that I'm 100% for doing some kind of a fixed something whatever that looks like. The new builds, however, anybody who's ever built a house or even done a full
remodel knows that the building companies include the the permit fees in the ultimate price of the house. I mean, that's just a standard procedure. So, what are the odds that that that contractor is going to take another 14
$15,000 out because you're talking about, you know, 1.1 $1.3 million homes that they're they're building. You know, $14,000, yeah, that's a lot of money, but is the builder going to give them that back? Is the builder going to take
that off? Heck no, they're not going to. and it's pre-built into the cost of building the home anyway. And again, it's just that overly of we all know in our districts how many homes and properties have sold and you know, not
that you're trying to punish because hey, again, it's good for our tax base in the future. However, we can't afford to be that generous. We just we can't. I mean, it would be fiscally irresponsible, especially with the amount of capital products. Uh, I'm sorry. Capital projects, seaw walls and
and you know, all the different repairs that we need everywhere. I mean, as much as we want to be generous, I mean, there's a reason no one else is doing it. And I think that's something we seriously need to look at, especially on the new builds. Again, elevating, that's typically going
to be your people that are just trying to get out of the flood plane and, you know, helping them. I I I get it. Um hopefully a lot of them have done the elevate Florida. So exactly. So are so you're in favor of giving everybody that
is raising their home doing like a flat rate like a flat rate of $1,000. Perfectly fine with that. Okay. Whether it's a,000 2,000 whatever we decide. And because that's a different a different thing than the people that are knocking them down. So it's a whole different
class. Mhm. So, I think that that is the way I that we'd probably like to go about it is on the ones that are raising it. Again, I'm I'm fine with with that. What I what I'm trying to make the distinction is just residents who lived
here or owned here on September 27th of 2024. That's what I'm I I'm even on the elevating on the elevating. Yeah. for for anybody who who lived here or owned here and they want to elevate their house and lived here at that time, then let's extend this this uh uh w permit
waiver to be fair to those people like we were the other 800, not 817, 817 are just the ones that were sending refunds to the other 2500 people who got a waiver of their fees. So, it's just extending that same uh uh offer of some
relief, financial relief to this group of people. We're only talking about the elevating I'm talking Yeah, I'm talking about both, but yeah, but yeah, I'm for giving some kind of credit to be determined, which we haven't even discussed, uh, to both elevates and new built. Got it. So, I built my house in
2018 and I personally cut a check to the city of Tron for my permitting fees. The builder didn't pay for them. Uh, it was came out of my pocket uh before the approval. So, um it's my I think we should extend it to a a fixed amount to
both uh elevating and rebuilding. And yeah, and and you're absolutely correct. I mean, ultimately, it all comes out of your pocket. It no question about it. I just know most builders do include that in the ultimate price. Even remodeling a lot of times
they do. And that was my my experience. Right. No, I hear you. What would you what are we going to still use the same date as May 31st? Oh, no. No. This because these are coming in the a lot of these are coming in now. They still some of them haven't even been designed yet.
So, I think we need to How do we carry these over then? What do you mean how do we we I think what we initially when we first started talking about this, we were saying do it through the fiscal year. Uh at this point, you know, I'm fine with doing it through the
calendar year. Uh I'm not I'm not uh this this waiver. It's not even a waiver. It's a credit of some of the permit apps. So I'm fine with either the end of this physical year and we can then later decide if we want to extend it. Again, we're just talking about these two types of categories, not the
other type. Uh so so because all of these are coming in much later uh which you can understand because it requires a lot more uh engineering and designing and architect uh work involved in getting these uh up. So so I'm fine with
having a separate cuto off for those people as opposed to the May 31st ones. Okay. Now, did you have to live here when the hurricane you had to own? You had to own the homeurricane here. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'm suggesting. All right. So, that's what takes care of it
and allows us to extend it to the end of the year. Yes. Okay. Okay. I mean, I would be I mean, I I see the fiscal year more than I do the physical year um extending it. just again we
don't we don't have the money to be crazy and I hate to even say it that way but we just don't we just don't we have to also think of the city's good as a whole which is what serves our citizens and so I just think we need to be
incredibly responsible fiscally responsible um you know I I still maintain for for new builds I I I'm not on board with that elevating. I am definitely on board with
doing a flat rate on elevating. Um I just uh again we we don't have the luxury and we're literally the only ones doing this and there's a reason why. Well, let me because there's so much outgo expenses
and god forbid we get hit by another storm. Then what? Let let me then we're broke. Yeah. Let me most of this uh and you touched on it briefly. Most of this is incre you called it found money, incremental money. Most of these new builds and elevates would have been money the city would have never never
gotten to begin with. So even with the the thousand or $2,000 that we get back, we're still going we're talking about generating, you know, a substantial amount of money, our normal budget for permit fees is 800,000 a year. We also had more expenditures and will have more
expenditures than we've ever had. I understand that. This is all gonna we're only we're talking about really on a on a $11,000 permit fee. We're talking about a you know a $2,000 or $1,000 credit. So we're still we're still getting in substantial amount of money. So So we're
getting in uh you know I I originally floated the figure 20% uh and the the numbers that you have. I still want to I want to argue the the the 1,002,000 and I also want to argue in favor of giving
a new build a slightly uh not slightly but more more of a discount than an elevate simply because one's a $300,000 permit and the other's a 1.2 million uh permit. So So I want to have that discussion when when you guys are ready
for that piece of it. want me to go ahead and Okay. Yeah. Like I just would like to make an argument of again using the 20 I honestly I don't understand why the 20% or or whatever percent is so complicated because all you do is you get a permit uh app of
1.125 million and the in the uh you do 100 you do 80% of that and that's the amount that you charge. You're right. in principle. But in principle, we could have done the re the refunds on a spreadsheet, but we would run a ground
with the accounting. But this is a different situation because the hardware and the software itself within Intergov makes it a very complex operation because um we we will not be
discounting the fees that go to the state. Okay. So there's there's a number of number of of qualifiers that you have to put into the system in order to do it and we'll have somebody running an abacus on the side figuring out what
what the refund should be this way. You know, a dollar amount. Well, I think that that is a is a you're basically looking at a flat fee, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm so I'm I said I don't understand why we couldn't do 20% or the a percentage amount, but but I'm I'm
moving on from that. So, but here's what I would like to recommend is that we have a smaller waiver fee for elevates uh in this because it's a smaller it's it's 1/4 of a new build. So, for 300,000
uh uh elevate uh job, I would recommend that we give like a $6 or $700 uh permit fee. That's roughly 20%. Give them a a $600 uh waiver. Are you Oh, are you saying credit or? Yeah, credit. Okay. I
just want to make sure like if we're talking about a charge what it would cost or a credit that's all I was so roughly. So for for elevate we give like $600 or $700 and for a new build we give $2,000. So that's because we're getting
in and in in uh we're getting a lot more money out of that new build. uh for a new build, for example, I I had used $1 million just in my rough calculation, and we're get we're getting uh for a million dollar, we're getting $11,000 on a new build. Uh even if we get if we
give them 2,000 credit, we're still getting $9,000 from them. So that's that's a that's a lot of money. So anyway, do we all agree though that we're going to have two separate classes? I'm suggesting that and then hoping to get your support. Okay. So I
agree. All right. So we we know that. So now the question is how much are we going to give to the first class which is the ones that are going to be raised. So here's I'm going to give my little two cents worth. The people that are raising again they're trying to get out
a flood plane. These are people that one either absolutely can't afford to tear down and rebuild um but you know they can't afford to do that and spend the you know over a million dollars but they're still trying to achieve getting out a flood plane and doing the
responsible thing um still costing them a lot of money. I think you know they definitely are in my purview are the ones that any kind of a discount is going to benefit them more and this and I don't hey we all live in the same neighborhood so it is
what it is someone who's spending 1.1 $1.3 million on a new build is is $1,000 or 2,000 off of their permit really going to and I I know that sounds terrible but is it really going to make a difference to them enough to the
difference it's going to make to the city and how much money we have to keep our city moving forward. Is it really going to affect their dayto-day the people elevating? Again, I have no problem
because those are people really trying to do the right thing, right? But they're also probably getting grant money. A lot of them absolutely are. Absolutely. Oh, it's 7525. You're 100% right. So the the state is paying the or state or FEMA or
75,000 may pay 25,000 on the $100,000. And the same goes with a lot some of the new builds as well because if the home wasn't able to be elevated, then the state was going to come in using their builders, tear it down and build a house as well, which is also part of that. So
that could go on either side of it because the Elevate Florida was they and I have two friends that are doing it. one already got approved so it went really quick and they are actually elevating and um but they come in they do soil samples they do foundation studies they do everything else to make
sure that the house is able to be raised and if it's deemed not safe to raise and you want to move forward then you literally get a grant same toward tearing down and building a new home and so I mean you definitely I 100% get what
you're saying and I hope a lot of these people have done elevate. I do. But um so it kind of can go either way on that because it also will do a rebuild grant. So that's just kind of I mean I know I have several just on my street. I have
three streets that are I mean three houses on my street alone, my half of my street um that are elevating. So none of them wanted to wait for elevate. So they're doing it on their own. But they are they're in quue to elevate and um with their builder. Well, I would be
comfortable giving the uh the ones that are raising their homes $1,000. I agree. Does everybody agree? So now what we're talking about is what do we do with the ones that are knocking down their homes and rebuilding between now and the 31st of
or the 30th of September, right? Or do we say the year end? I think it should be year end because there's a lot of contractors. Yeah, December 31st. There's a lot of contractors and engineers and approvals that need to happen with new construction. I'd be comfortable with giving them 2,000.
I I'd agree with that. I'm not for it. I think I would be in favor of it. So, so I think that we now have the direction that we want to move. just to clarify. And also uh I'd like to add uh
that the waiver should only extend to the property owners that were on record the day before the hurricane. So on September 25th is the day before Hurricane Helen. Okay. We I think we had pretty much said
yeah putting the date in. Yeah. Exactly. Can we ask real quick as No. Now does that would that leave us and and I'm just trying to cover legalities. Would that leave us liable? Do you feel um which aspect specifically? setting the date to home ownership the
day before what is it the 26th I believe 25th is 25th September 25th 2024 does that leave the city liable for I mean do you foresee anything it could be challenged into the same theory I don't think it'd be as strong a challenge as the um
homestead homestead exemption one but it still could open the city to liability which you know the commission has discussed right and evaluated the risk of that and the commission can do this if it wants too. Okay. Again, I I think the risk is very low.
Yeah. So, I I would I would agree. Oh, and I would in doing that way, I would agree. I I'm sure it's very low. I just wanted to make I always like to make sure we're covered. Okay. So, um I think what we're saying is that for people elevating their home between now and the
31st of December, it gets $1,000, but they must have been a property owner on September 25th, 2024. We are straddling the fiscal year. I'm sorry, say that again. We're straddling the fiscal year then. We're rolling into Yes, we are.
And is that a major issue? Well, don't complain to me about the numbers when I present the budget, but facitious. No, it it it Let me let me ask you. You just need a budget for it. Okay. What about a happy medium? How
about we do it till the fiscal year and then we revisit it at the end of the fiscal year and then we could I mean just a thought again because we have the flexibility to extend those. I'm fine with either. I'm fine with either. That's my thoughts. Uh I I do know as as
uh Commissioner Zahan was saying it these are going to be much slower in coming because so much work has to be done before they even apply for the permits. So uh you know September is only what uh four months away it's it's going to be
here months away but then but but we can revisit it. We can revisit I mean that's my thoughts then we can revisit re-evaluate. Okay how many have come in? How many do we feel are still out there? whatever is up to you. Okay. So, let's use the date then of uh September 30th.
Okay. And we will plan to revisit likely during when we when we talk about budgets that will be part and parcel of the conversation. Okay. So to be clear, for elevations,
it's 2,00,000 for elevation, 2,000 for new builds, for and our current ones, we're going to let them expire. Correct. Okay. Does anybody have anything else? Mayor, doctor, I I had something else
that's not related to this. Is it possible for me to bring that up? Uh, I just wanted to ask you guys or or or throw this out because it is time-sensitive. Uh, uh, the rebuild TI group, uh, you know, you you got a piece of, uh, heard heard a bit of this the
other day, uh, is looking to ask the city to, uh, come to the commission for approval for a grant manager position. Uh, we think it's incritically important that we get that. And I'm not asking for anybody's approval right now. What I am
asking is if we could we ask the uh as could we give the city guidance to put together the job description uh s get a good salary range for it and present it to the commission at uh at the next meeting uh a grant manager to help us go out go after all of the grant money
that's out there. So I'm going to direct it at both both of you Lisa Marie and and uh city manager bars. Um, are you comfortable pulling something together for the commission to take a vote on? Um, yeah,
we should be able to put some information together for the uh May 20th meeting. Okay. Yep. Okay. We've uh they we've given them a copy of the uh Sun Santael Island uh grant manager job description so they could they can work off of that and it's got a salary range
too. But but yeah, to have that uh this is timesensitive. We missed uh a couple of deadlines and it's not anybody's fault. It just we we don't have anybody focused specifically on that. We missed the Florida small communities deadline uh because nobody knew about it until
after the fact and we missed uh uh another deadline because we we would just there's so many deadlines for so many different grants that we you know nobody's watching that. So having a grant manager that does grant writing as well will help us do that. uh 11 of the
municipalities in Penllis County have grant writers full-time on staff. Uh most most of the the larger ones, the smaller beach communities don't have it, but but uh we're competing against them to get this grant money and we I think we need that. So anyway, I wanted to
make Okay, good. Thank you. All right, moving on. Do we have any public comment? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.