ready. Good evening and welcome to the regular commission meeting for May 6, 2025. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Now, if we could please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. City clerk, would you please call the role? Good evening. Vice Mayor Vasquez,
here. Commissioner Clark, here. Commissioner Sison here. Commissioner Dicki here. Mayor Doctor here. Thank you. All right. We are now to approval of regular and workshop agendas. I don't believe that we have
any for tonight. Do we? I don't see any. All right. Thank you. I think we do. The I'm sorry. Approval of the minutes you said. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. You're you're at the approval of the regular and workshop
agendas. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. No worries. All right. Thank you. I see how that uh got out of hand there. All right. So, we are looking for the approval of the regular and workshop agendas. Can I
request something? I'd like to uh request that we move the summer camp discussion from the workshop to the regular meeting and slot it before I4 which is the approval of the bus. If not, we move the bus agenda item to
the workshop for discussion for more information. Okay. Is that a motion or just how do uh how do people feel about it? Do we either uh move the summer camp discussion to the work uh to the regular meeting? I'm I'm not sure exactly where
the workshop for the uh what was that? The workshop for the summer camp summer camp discussion uh and the bus. Um I think are they you're trying to lump the two together? No, I'm just uh one would
complement the other. Yeah. So, just a point of clarity with regard to the um summer camp. If you're looking to move that to the regular agenda, you're just looking that for that to be a discussion item because there's no um accompanying like motion or anything like that at this time or are you
looking to have action on that item? Action. Okay. It's up to the commission as to whether or not they want to move that forward or if they how they want to handle it. What What type of action are you interested in?
a lengthy discussion regarding uh the uh revenue of the uh summer camp. Okay. Now, the revenue is locked in on our fees. So, it it we can't change that for this session that's going to be coming up.
Can we make changes to the summer camp program? Uh wouldn't that be what the workshop would be for would be to discuss that instead of I mean because we're kind of discussing it right now. Yeah. All right. Well, those are worth a shot. Okay. So, we're going to leave it alone. Okay. Thank
you. All right. Is there anything else? Um, Mayor Doctor, can I be recognized? Yes, please. Um, I would actually um I'm I'd like to make a motion to pull item 1.7, city manager review, from the end
of the agenda for immediate discussion after approval of minutes. Um, it's very possible that this agenda item could lead to outcomes where it makes more sense to have it prior to conducting regular business. Okay. So, you want to have it move ahead
of the consent agenda. Is that what you're I mean, if it's possible, I would like to um after approval of minutes. Um, Mayor Doctor, I' I'd like to ask that that not be changed primarily because I know some people that were going to come
here uh later in the meeting that wanted to participate in that part of the discussion and they wouldn't be here if we move it up to the front end. Um, I support the change. I do not support the change. How about we move it up to the first item of business and have it be I1
versus I7? That's fine. Would that work for every Seems fair. that work for everyone except those people that don't get here in time. I mean, I have a feeling it's going to be a long discussion. So, I'm sure they'll show there's a lot of other business that we need to get through and I think I think would be easier to get,
but the outcome of that discussion is going to have a great impact on the rest of the meeting. Do we have a consensus that we move it to uh I1? I agree with that. I do as well. So I think that the
consensus is would be that uh we would move it. Do we need to actually do it by motion? I think just because you have you don't have a general consensus. Just for clarity in the record, I'd go ahead and make a motion to move it to item one and and do the vote. Okay. Can we get a
motion? I move that we move um let's move my paper item uh 1.7 to the top of the I apologize I7 to I1 is that what you're seeking to
I1 yes I apologize I second okay we have a motion and a second uh do we need to do okay no this administrative item Great. Thank you. Vote. All right. So, uh, we have a motion and a second. Uh,
would you please call the role? Vice Mayor Vasquez, I. Commissioner Clark, I. Commissioner Sison, no. Commissioner Dicki, no. Mayor Doctor I.
So, it does motion approved 3 to two. Okay. Okay. Do we have any other? All right. Hearing nothing else, we will now move on to proclamations, recognition, certificates of
appreciation. And tonight we have a recognition of a retiring firefighter, paramedic, Jason Howard, after 31 years. Wow. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight we recognize and honor firefighter paramedic Jason Howard for
26 years of dedicated service to Treasure Island Fire Rescue and 31 years total with the city of Treasure Island. Jason was hired in 1993 with our public works beautifification department. In 1994, Jason went to fire
school as a volunteer with the Gulfport Fire Department and in 1997 put himself through EMT school while still working here beautifying the grounds in Treasure Island. He transferred to the fire department in Treasure Island in 1999 and was
sponsored by our fire department to obtain his paramedic certification in 2004, which no small task there. Over the past two and a half decades, he has served this community by responding to thousands of calls for service,
including structure fires, medical emergencies, motor vehicle accidents, and natural disasters. All with skill, compassion, and integrity. Firefighter Howard holds every qualification available within the Treasure Island Fire Rescue Department
and has played a vital role in mentoring our new firefighters, many of whom are here today, contributing on multiple committees and upholding the highest standards of teamwork and leadership. A true lifelong learner, he has earned the respect of his peers,
supervisors, and the community alike. Jason has been on multiple deployments, including Hurricane Charlie in 2004 and uh Hurricane Sally in 2020, as well as being on the front line responding to Hurricanes Helen and
Milton here. As firefighter Howard embarks on his well-earned retirement, we thank him for his sacrifice, his service, and without question, the legacy he leaves behind. Jason can always be counted on
for two things. showing up ready to work and the coffee pot always being full and hot. You will be missed. Congratulations. He's wearing my shirt. You guys sure? All right. Uh, moving on. Public
comments for non-aggenda items. I know I have a couple of them here. Uh, Ginger Good evening. I know it's going to be a long evening, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet. Hopefully, I can set the tone
for civility. Um, on September 17th, I came here to sing praises for city staff, called them out one by one and by departments. That was a few days before the flood. And
then I returned um on September 17th to sing praises for the city commissionists for their uh words of wisdom, especially uh since two of them were retiring. And there are so many city staff that I
would like to recognize like Brian who put the elevator on the fifth floor before both storms and Tom who walks the eyelets out to their cars for safety after their meetings.
City staff like superhero Stanley, who risked life and limb to haul a heavy piece of plywood all the way down to Sunset Beach because a resident's front door caved in when a wall of water
knocked it down. And I would be remiss to not include uh Jennifer Cohen who has given such wise guidance to the city all these many years. as well as Katherine Yncan, whose
expertise and knowledge will light the way for the future of Treasure Island. Tonight, I am not here to recognize those people again. I am here to acknowledge our mayor, John Doctor,
and to express my gratitude to him. He is exactly what we need at this point in Treasure Island's history. fair wind and calm seas. I personally am particularly grateful to Mayor John Doctor because of
his wise words of wisdom which may well have turned the tide in Treasure Island's history when he said we will lose our grant. With those five words, the commission reversed its divi
decision and they built the living seaw wall. Now, of course, everybody has personal preferences, but let's take a look at the facts. This is the water that we love. These rocks are the rip wrap on
the living shoreline. They slam on the brakes when the waves come crashing ashore. This thirsty sponge is the living shoreline that absorbs absorbs water all day, every day. and has root
systems that go deep in the ground to prevent um erosion. So that is why the living shoreline particularly at that location is so important in district three. Our
resiliency mitigation project the living seaw wall was funded through an FDEP grant. The approval and planning process took over two years. It's part of an emerging nature-based solution to sea level rise and storm intensification. While beach
reourishment is a blessing, it has to be repeated at great effort and cost. I might add that seaw walls crack and crumble, but the living shoreline is everlasting. The nature-based solution is a one-time invest investment with
everlasting results. I asked Lisa to give you a document that I prepared. Forgive me with the copyright. It was less than 10. And typically when something is not available for reuse, there's
a prominent diagonal watermark on it. So, let me credit um outtheorld.com for this small map that I located on the internet. Um, Max Fairfan, community planner with
FDAP, is very responsive. He's wonderful to work with. And on the map that I created here, I put red arrows. First arrow is district three where you can see that the living seaw wall is being installed. And there are other locations
in my opinion that I think might be appropriate for micro uh living seaw walls. So I reached out to Max Farfan, the community planner, and I asked him, could one living seaw wall be divided into little mini or
micro shorelines? And he said yes, assuming the shoreline in question is critical asset and found to be vulnerable to flooding in a vulnerability assessment either city, county, or statewide, and then they would certainly be eligible to apply for
a living shoreline grant. That's my beeper. Oh, I thought I was going to go three minutes. I apologize. So, anyway, I said my piece. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Mark Hoey.
Good evening. Uh Mark Hoey, 225 104th Avenue, 110 District 3. Uh just up to bring up my usual question and not looking for the answer here but hopefully sometime this evening. I don't see anything on the agenda or workshops
about our solid waste outsourcing investigation for the lack of a better term project review whatever. Uh this has been on and off of discussion topics since the past August
and we can't seem to see that that's been moving along. Now, I understand we had a hurricane and we had a lot of time spent on train modification and getting that through the living shoreline, but we can't seem to get this thing out in
the open for review as to just what the merits are, good or bad, so that a decision can be made. And that would be one thing, except that it's critical to a decision about public works building for the future. either we need a big
massive building that can accommodate large garbage trucks or we don't and that's a big financial uh issue for us all especially with all the other financial challenges. So somehow we we find the staff time to be able to write
up new rules of decorum out of thin air, but we can't seem to find staff time to own this project and bring it to you, the commissioners, for review. So I'm hoping we can get that moved along here before we pass the point of no return.
Thank you. Can I address that since Mark is my constituent? Um what? Go ahead. Thank you. Uh is it my understanding that uh the public sanitation discussion uh would uh obviously relate to our wastewater
system acquisition? It would slow things down. If we decide to go with the wastewater acquisition, uh the solid waste discussion would affect I I think those are two discussions that are critical to understanding the public
works facility and the master pump station. answer. Yes. Thank you. All right. Is there any other discussion, public discussion at this time? If not, we'll close the public discussion and we will move on
review. All right. The commissioner reports. So, Commissioner Vasquez, good evening everyone. Um, so I had the honor of sitting in for Mayor Doctor at the Big Sea last Wednesday and during
the meeting I was presented with an amazing gift um from one of our fellow beach mayors. It's a folder and I'll show you all uh containing Treasure Island memorabilia. I know our historical society is going to love this. um one of their residents had
passed away and the children found these amazing uh collections that are actually kept incredibly well and they wanted to present them to us and make sure that they got in the rightful place. And I won't show you everything, but for one,
and I mean very well preserved, the 1941 firet truck. I know the fire department will love that. There is actually um the Thunderbird because we all have that on our hearts. the original matchbox or match and postcards from the Thunderbird when the Thunderbird was just a couple
of years old. Toll coins, many other things in here, very well preserved. So, that was that was a really nice thing to receive at the Big C. So, thank you for letting me sit in there. That was awesome. And um I would also like to to
take a moment um to express my continued appreciation um for the hardworking city staff. they are doing an amazing job. Um they are they're working at a small capacity and and they're making it happen. So I would also um as always
like to um I'd like to also thank our amazing police and fire department for their resilience through their tough times and and living in their trailers as they work. But again, they all stick with their jobs. The staff that we have here, the police, the fire, regardless
of the situations, they're staying with our city. They love our city, and I just want them to know that we truly appreciate them. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Clark. Um, thank you. Let me see here. I have another one
of my PowerPoints here tonight. Um, there we go. Um, so anyhow, I had a meeting the other night with um a bunch of District 2 residents, something I committed to do um when I uh became a
commissioner and and all the things I'm going to talk about tonight came out of that meeting. I promised that I would meet with my residents and understand their issues and concerns. I'll talk a little bit more about that meeting later, but the first thing I want to do is go through the four main topics that
came up. Um, and I don't know, this thing's not working, but maybe I don't know how to use it. Just worked last time. Um, is permitting. Um, so I
continue to get emails, questions about permitting. Um, and I know that uh there's item on the agenda again tonight to to um put some more funding toward permitting. Um, we did get a lot more information this time around what that
money would be used for than we did last time. You know, I I still have some questions and I'm still getting a lot of questions from my residents and you know, it appears that the, you know, the focus is on permit approval. Um, and what I'm concerned about is kind of the
entire process of in all the inspections we have to do, permit closeouts, FEMA audits. Um, I've kind of tried to obtain u from the city manager what we have planned for that and it's not clear to me, you know, how we're going to get
through this entire process and what kind of money it's going to take. So, I'm hoping that we can learn, you know, some of that tonight. Um, additionally, you know, how many permits do we have left outstanding? And like when are those going to come in? I mean, if if we
spend a bunch of money uh over the next 6 weeks and none of these permits are turned in till after the six weeks, then do we need more money? So, I know my residents want those answers. Hopefully, when we get into this permit discussion tonight, we'll get that. Um, and then
the question I always get is about the refunds. I know we've said that the refunds have started. Um I think the first 18 refunds they said were issued. So there appear to be about 1,500 to 2,000 that need to be refunded. So I'm
hoping tonight to get a timeline for um what the rest of of those look like because I know my residents are really interested in that. Um the next thing I continue to hear about is our seaw walls and our infrastructure.
um and you know and how we're going to pay for some of these things. And coming from the private sector, as I've looked into here, it's it's incredibly scary to me because we don't seem to know how much free cash we do have. Um or how we're going to pay for
any of these projects. No one seems to know. To me, that's incredibly scary. Um, you know, Commissioner Seson, at the last meeting, you said we have 7 million cash, 12 million my 18 million's inbound. We got some money in the bank. I generally kind of agree with there's
some money sitting there, but I don't think anybody knows. Some of that money is definitely like ring fenced. It's for certain projects. It's restricted. We also can't spend down to level zero. We have to have some sort of reserve as a city. So, do you know those answers to
those questions? No. Neither do I and neither does anyone else. And and the reason I bring that up is because we have a lot of super important projects that we have to get done. Um the I I listed some questions that I sent to the city manager over
about a month ago and uh as the city manager, you know, and chief administrative, you're required to have a five-year capital plan. Um as of now, you only show projected costs but no financing plan. So there's almost 29 million in projects that we need to move
forward with immediately and we've shown no way to pay for this. Why haven't we seen the plan? And you know if you haven't provided what are the sources of funds for paying for you know the $29 million worth of stuff we said needed to be done the seaw walls the lift station
public works building that you know I don't think anybody knows what's the projected impact on the property taxes. I don't think anybody knows. And and and what specific sources of funds, you know, are in your financial plan besides
increasing pro property taxes? We bought the bond salesman, I guess. So, I guess that's maybe how we're going to finance it. I don't know. But for me, this is incredibly scary. And I put the pictures of the 115 seaw wall up because I just continue to daily get emails about this.
You know, as best I can see that I can find, let's just say out of that all that money that that Commissioner Sesan brought up, some of it's some of it again is encumbered. Some of it's ringing fence, some of it's we got to have let's say we have $10 million. Why haven't we done anything
with that $10 million? Why haven't we started to fix these seaw walls? Why haven't we started to fix the lift station? You know it. And I'm just going to keep pushing on this every day till I start getting answers and we can start getting some of this stuff done. Um, you know, people have fallen into these
holes. Dogs fall into the holes. People fall into the holes. I mean, it's unbelievable. And you know, you can say that none of this stuff got done because of the hurricane. But that's not true because the minute the hurricane was over, we
had people in here making sure we got the living seaw wall done. Okay. So, I'm all for clean water. I love clean water. And it's great, but we made sure we got the living seaw wall done, but we're not working on the lift station. We're not
working on the seaw walls. I mean, I I'm a boater. I love clean water. I'm glad the fish have clean water, but we all had we all had uh sewage backing up in our homes during the during the uh hurricane. So, what I'm learning is if
you want a clean environment to live in in Treasure Island, be a fish, you know? I mean, that that's what it seems like to me. So, um, so I want to get some of these answers. I'm going to keep pressing on that. Um, the other thing that came up, if you could go to the
next slide, in the meeting with my residents was our storm water. And everybody is complaining to me about their storm water bill. And I want to thank um Commissioner Dicki. I know you I know you came back and said that the numbers you gave out were incorrect and
you corrected them, but first it was like 3.2 million extra money we had from the storm water. Then it was 1.2, which seems like too much to me. And I started delving into this and what I found to me was fairly shocking.
Um, so our storm water rates are going to rise 130% over the next five years. Okay. So, I'm going to explain to you what happened. There was a a consultant that was hired, our former mayor and assistant public works hired a
consultant to tell the staff how much to increase our storm water fees um being charged to the TI residents. Um, yet again, we paid a consultant to tell us how much to raise our fees. The consultant recommended increasing fees from $17 to $39 a month. 130% increase
for single family homeowners. I have every single one of my residents tell me that everyone they talk to in other towns, their their storm their water bills are not nowhere near what they are here. And I know mine are completely outrageous. So, it it gets it gets worse from here, which doesn't surprise me,
but if you want if you want to slip to the next page, um the average storm water fees across Florida are $12 a month. Ours are going to go from 17 up to 39. Okay. This ordinance was passed back in September of 23, adopted all the
consultants recommendations despite a huge, you know, detriment to the TI residents. This ordinance needs to be repealed and the fees need to be returned to their levels. So, I'm going to put on the agenda for the next meeting looking into these fees and also
the fees of the um wastewater I mean the wastewater and um between now and then I really would like to have the staff come back to me with what would happen if we went back to the $7 $17 fee and what would be the you know ramifications of
that because what this looks like to me on a is another tax on the residents and what I will tell you is is is that this is what just makes my head want to explode is according to the consultants study excess fees needed need that we
were going to we're going to use from this were for to elevate the w uh west causeway and other elevate ti resil resiliency programs. So here we go elevate you know rears its ugly head
again. So, and of course all the storm water work was going to go to AED. I mean, these guys got a these guys got the deal, I tell you. Um, so the other thing is this $9.4 million to raise West Causeway, I think, still in the budget. We need to take that out. I don't
believe we're going to do that. So, I don't understand why our water bills need to be this high. And residents, I'm just telling you this. I'm going to try to get to the bottom of it. This this whole thing right here to me Um, next uh slide, please. So, the other
thing I want to bring up is property taxes. Uh, because there's been a lot of false information put out there about um property taxes. We had a resident come in to the last meeting and he stood up and he talked about how false
information was being put out about property taxes. Okay. And I believe he said something like it was yellow dog journalism or something like that. The here's the problem I have. That individual came in and gave just as false information about as what he was
saying was being purported online. So I'm I'm going to set the record straight on property taxes. And to be honest with you, after that meeting, I was going to go and type all this out and voila I wake up in the morning and I had a resident do it for me. They sent me an
email that couldn't be more more su, you know, on on on message and correct. So, I redacted his information. Never met this gentleman. And um I'm happy to share this with any of the commissioners if for some reason they think I wrote
this, but this comes from a person I don't even know. Um but he's and he's he is dead on. And what he said is, "Thank you for bringing common sense to the commission. your commission report was the best I've seen in years, blah blah
blah. Um, not happy with the um old commission and the mayor, but but I want to get to the tax part. So, he said, "I also want to push back on excommission Minn's statement that homestead properties could only experience the lower of 3% or the annual CPI for a tax
increase each year." This is false. It is 100% false, and I will explain in one minute. um the cap only applies to the assessed value of a property. However, the total taxes owed is the assessed value times the mill rate. So, he was
correct in one sense and that the assessed value of your home can only go up by 3%. That part's correct. So, if your home's worth 500,000, the most the assessment can go up, the assessed value in a year can go up is $15,000 or
$515,000. Okay? But the millage rate can go up at any time. And and he he he states here directly from the Florida statute that I was going to state that the millage rates can be increased with a commissioner vote as follows as detailed in Florida statute 200.065. the
roll back rate um with a simple majority vote up to 100% of the roll back rate with twothirds commission vote and above 100% 110% of the roll back rate with humanist unanimous commission vote and let's remember he said that taxes could
not go up over 3% and that was all hogwash well he he puts here this resident as example you can see in the millage rate history graphic I had all the millage rates for the last like 15 years um that you presented screenshots
below I didn't include it but uh the rate from 2011 to 201 increased from 2.6 6 to 3.1, which is a 16.7% increase. So during those years, residents with homesteadare property saw a greater than 3% increase in taxes. And
then this last sentence, I happen to agree with 1 million%. And I got to go meet this guy that wrote this, but the point is made worse when you consider the fact that Treasure Island's millage rate is 10 to 15 10 to 50% higher than the rates of other Panelis County beach communities when we really have nothing
to show for it. So, the reason I brought this up is first of all, I wanted to set the record straight on taxes. Okay, your taxes can be increased and they can be increased more p, you know, more than than than um 3%. And with all the things
we have to do and not be able to get any answers, I'm afraid the easy way out is going to be let's just raise taxes again. I'm committing to you tonight, I will never vote to raise your taxes and I will never uh vote to bring on new debt. So,
so I spoke about uh how much more time? Uh probably about three minutes. Okay, thanks. Okay. Um I spoke to my residents. Um again, I I want to thank Barbs. I believe she's here tonight. She's provided me a form at every one of
the Isis Palms pizza parties um to listen to residents, get their feedback. These were the things that came up. I already talked about permit refunds, talked about the lift station, talked about the seaw wall, and talked about um uh the our water pricing. The other
thing that came up, which I'm going to go to public works, we have multiple residents who walk the beach every day. Apparently, there was a something done where we were going to experiment, not putting a trash can at every entrance to the beach and putting two on others. Trash is piling up. So, we need to go
back to putting a trash can at every every opening along the beach. Okay, last thing. I told you two minutes I want to bring up. I This is not till the agenda the uh um the second
whatever you call it, the second uh uh the workshop. Workshop. Thank you. Yeah, but go ahead and go to the next slide. And that is just the attack on residents free speech. I don't know who's seen this, but the first amendment of the constitution is first for a reason.
Every other thing flows from that. People have the ability to speak flea about their government, whether positive or negative. There's absolutely no benefit to our residents in reducing the time allowed for public comment and zero reason for a workshop about this. Do you would you like me to respond?
I finish. Well, I mean, I I thought you were talking about timing. I just wanted to let you know there's no recommendation for a change in the time. There was merely a question at one of the meetings with regard to time and what the other communities were doing. So that information was provided simply to the commission to answer the question, but there's no recommendation
for a change on it. Looked like to me that it was um All right. So you can go to the next slide. I I'll go past that. Look to me. I don't know why we'd do a study to see if what everybody else does if we weren't looking to lower it. But but we were that's why it's a discussion for us to discuss. the next slide if we
could go to um again now we're going back to boisterous behavior. You're you're no longer allowed to clap in these meetings. So uh you know this was tried by our previous mayor failed miserably. I mean I have a letter that a attorney
in Tampa wrote to the city about how that's you know against free speech and I just don't understand. So, I guess we're not allowed to clap for the fireman today who got his got his um you know, recommendation for being here 31
years. Or maybe you're allowed to clap for that, but you just can't clap. I think you're allowed to clap for uh ever since I've been sitting in this chair. Is that what this says right here? Ever since I've been sitting in this chair, ever since I've been sitting in this chair, we have been able to clap for
everything that is appropriate for claps. This is being redlined and not clapped. No. So, this this is a discussion item that we're going to have. I'll wait I'll wait till the end to discuss it. Thank you. That's fine. Thank you,
Commissioner Suzan. Thank you. I have nothing to report. Commissioner Dicki, I just had one thing, but I I'll add make a couple of comments on the on Chris's slides there on Commissioner Clark's slides. I just wanted to remind everybody body about
the May 31st deadline for the waiver of permit fees uh related to hurricane damage that that uh that does expire at the end of this month. So, if you don't have your permits in yet, uh please uh if you want to take advantage of not having to pay those fees, uh get your
permits in in the next several weeks. Uh, regarding Commissioner Clark's slides, there were a couple of things. One is he mentioned that there's no financing plan in our budgets, and I do believe uh I'm basing this on memory, but that there was a financing plan uh
in the budget uh for the public works and public safety uh buildings. There was a plan to borrow money for to finance those initiatives. I don't know how else we could have paid for those if we didn't uh borrow the money. Uh the other one was uh you'd mentioned about
uh that I that I had made corrections in my earlier statements about storm water rates. Those were actually wastewater rates uh that uh that I had commented about before. I didn't uh I didn't uh intend to say nor did I recall say
anything about storm water rates. And that's all I have. Mayor doctor, thank you very much. Commissioner Dicki. Um I I do want to address the uh the beach and we're going to be talking a little bit more about the beach uh in
the workshop as well. Uh but yes, there was uh the um when Mike Hellfrick was here uh they were having an experiment with the trash cans and uh they had pulled them off the beach and moved them closer to the uh to the trail. Um, and
even there they uh there were fewer trash cans that were on the beach. And uh so I I I've heard those. I've at one point I did talk to Mike about that. Um and Mike um has resigned, so he's no longer with us. But I agree that uh we
do need to get the trash cans back on the beach. uh too many people are being upset about it and uh and I think that a lot of folks uh are saying, you know, this this is just so that we can make things easier for the city, not for the resident. And that that wasn't really
what we're what he was trying to accomplish, but uh he it did not accomplish it. So, um we would like to see the trash cans back on the beach. So, and that's all I have for this evening. It's going to be a late one as as I could tell you. But uh let's go
ahead and move on. And at this point uh now this is for the approval of the minutes. I move to approve the following minutes of the commission's regular meeting and workshop minutes. Second. Hey, we have a motion and a
second. Uh do we have any discussion? The the only comment I would like to make is I noticed that uh we're getting caught up on the the minutes that uh the minutes that we're approving right now are from February 7th, the 18th, March 4th, and April 22nd. So, it's good to
see that we're getting caught up on that. Thank you. Okay. Any additional discussion? Okay. Can we call roll, please? Vice Mayor Vasquez, I. Commissioner Sison, I. Commissioner Clark, I. Commissioner
Dicki. Hi, Mayor Doctor. Hi. Thank you. All right. Moving on to our consent agenda. Today we have three items on the consent agenda. HVAC services contract extension, small project general contractor services contract extension
and approve amend amendment to existing Florida Department of Environmental Protection grant for the comprehensive vulnerability study uh for the city of Treasure Island. Do I have a motion? Yes, sir. We're doing all of them. Okay.
Um I move to approve the consent agenda as is. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Okay. Uh discussion. Um, mayor, doctor, I just have uh a couple of comments about one of the items on there, and it's the uh
the extension on the uh comprehensive uh vulnerability assessment. Uh we asked the state for 60-day uh extension on that. uh they granted us a 12-month extension and I would like to just make sure I'd mentioned this to the city
manager already that we get that uh a comprehensive vulnerability assessment in as quickly as possible because there's a lot of grants that ride on us having completed that. So even though we got a 12-month extension, I'd really like to see us get that in as soon as possible so we can uh be eligible for
some of the the grants. Great. Thank you. Anything else? Actually, um I just want to comment on this just because I have seen and I've got a couple of emails why um that some of the residents were curious as to why we instead of putting out another RFQ or RFP, why do
we just extend these? And I just kind of wanted to explain that really briefly. So, when you put out an RFP, part of it or an RFQ is negotiations and extension of contracts are part of those negotiations. So, if we do a three-year
contract, um, we negotiate another three at a certain limit on how much they can raise the price, so on and so forth. So, I I just kind of wanted to touch on that briefly. Um, because I have had some people ask, why aren't we doing this every time a contract comes up? And I just wanted to mention that so that, you
know, it's literally part of the negotiations when we go out for RFQS and RFPs. That is part of the contract negotiations is the extension. So, that was all great. Thank you. I wanted to explain it. Okay. Uh, any public
comment? All right. Hearing none. Roll call, please. Vice Mayor Vasquez. I. Commissioner Sison. I. Commissioner Clark. I. Commissioner Dicki. I. Mayor Doctor. I. Thank you. All right. Coming
to our items of business and we have moved one or I7 to I1 and I don't know what we have uh as a presentation for I1. So I um I'm the one who put this on the
agenda so if it's okay with everyone I'll I'll kind of kick it off. Okay. Um um I felt the need to add it to the agenda um quite honestly out of necessity. I didn't really want to add it to a very long agenda, but for the people of the city and the amount of
people that have reached out to me um literally almost on a daily basis um or I can't even go into Publix without residents um that aren't my constituents that have asked me why, you know, why we haven't discussed this, why it hasn't happened. Um I've had many conversations
um with the city manager. We were trying to figure out a way to work this where it didn't have to come to this but unfortunately um here we are. So I am going to um just basically read my my comments on this just to kind of open
the discussion just to kind of lay out what my feelings are where I'm at. And trust me, this was not an easy thing to do, but it is necessary. And you all put me here for a reason, and that's to do what's best for the citizens. So, I want to take a few
moments tonight and speak candidly and directly to the people of Treasure Island and to our staff and to the commission about something I believe that can no longer be ignored. I have had many discussions with our city managers and our weekly meetings on this very subject to no
resolve. After careful thought um careful thought and deep concern, I believe it is time for this commission to take action and move forward in the termination of the city manager. The issue we are facing, the issues we are facing are not minor ones. They are not
temporary. They are not systematic and they are not the direct result and they are a direct result of poor leadership at the top. Time and time again, Chuck has shown us a lack of leadership. Not only has his inability
to support our residents, but even more troubling in his way that he has failed his own staff. We have lost far too many employees under his watch. And the ones who remain are being asked to carry the burden of multiple roles just to keep
the basic services running. This is unfair. It's unsustainable. And it is a sign of a management style that simply just is not working. At nearly every meeting, we've seen the same pattern. Chuck comes in
unprepared. Simple questions are met with, "I'll get back with you. I'm not sure." Or, "I misspoke at the last meeting." Yet, we're being asked to vote on that subject. This is not leadership. That's not accountability. And it's certainly not the kind of
response the residents of Treasure Island deserve from someone in the highest administrative role in our city. Right now, we still do not have a city attorney. Uh Jen's last day, I believe, is May 30th.
It's Memorial Day. Yes, Memorial Day. We have not received one single application for the job as of this morning for city attorney. We also continue to operate without a finance director despite numerous suggestions that have been
successfully implemented in other beach communities. Suggestions that Chuck has neither explored nor acted on. These failures are especially dangerous as we enter budget season where we are asked and tasked with discussing millage rates
and long-term financial planning without the support of critical leadership positions and under a city manager who has not shown the capacity to guide us through these challenges. And also understand because
I know and I I have a heart. I lost everything in the hurricane too and I'm kind of going off track here a little bit. The things that I'm mentioning are not hurricane related. These are everyday management styles. So please understand that this is not about what
happened through the hurricane. I'm talking about present. I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt until I sat in this seat because sometimes things look a little different on this side. So I just I want everyone to understand that this is not hurricane related
items. Um there are very uh there are many more reasons I believe that the city manager should not remain in this position. But the bottom line is every day that he remains in the seat, our city continues to move in the wrong direction. It is time that we
acknowledge what so many have already seen so clearly. I wanted the city city manager to have an opportunity to prove himself after I took office, hoping that what I was seeing from the outside looking in wasn't what I would see
sitting in this seat. Unfortunately, I believe it's worse. I understand we have had extenduating circumstances, back-to-back hurricanes, etc. However, a true leader steps up and leads and does the necessary things and listens to the
people. And unfortunately, none of this happened. Treasure Island deserves better. Our staff deserves better. And this community deserves better. A city manager who is capable, prepared, and committed to leading with integrity and
vision. For those reasons, I will be making a motion to put the city manager, Chuck Anderson, on paid administrative leave to allow for the city commission to comply with the city charter in bringing a resolution removing him from
office at our next regular commission meeting. And this would be, excuse me, this would be immediately because I cannot in good conscience allow the downward trajectory to continue another
day. We will not be left without a leader as Chief Bars who serves as our assistant city manager would be our acting city manager until we place an interim or a permanent permanent city manager. His ability to lead has been
proven throughout the years and I have full faith and trust in his ability. Okay. So, all right. So, I'm going to guess that this is going to go under a resolution. So, a resolution would need to be brought back in accordance with the
charter. right now. I think this item has just been brought forward. So, um, and I believe Commissioner Vasco has just said that she was making a motion. Um, I don't know that she's made the motion yet. I think she was probably wanting to hear from her fellow
commissioners to see, you know, how they felt about this item. Okay. And though, no, that is correct. And because it is a resolution item, that's why um I don't believe that we can go one more day, which is why um the administrative and
paid administrative leave effective immediately um would um give us time to put that together um the resolution and bring it back at the next meeting and then our assistant city manager would immediately
take the position. Okay. So, at this point then, are there any questions from the uh the commissioners? Um, do we make questions and our comments on this now or after public comment? I forget how it goes. Uh,
usually what we do is we would be having a discussion with staff and since this one was brought up by a commissioner and not with staff, uh, we only have what what uh, Tammy read. And if I'm correct, um, Jen, would that not just be a discussion between us and then public
comment and then back for discussion? Correct. And then the motion. Yeah. Yeah. You would have a discussion among you, then you would hear public comment. Correct. You would make a motion and see if there was any further discussion and then move forward. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. I mean, I'm happy to throw in my my
two cents on this. Um, I probably got 75 emails on this over the last couple of days. Um, and one thing I kind of wrote some things down here before I get into that. I just want to say one thing. I I some of these emails I got today said, you know, Chuck is a nice person. Chuck
is this. I just want to say I'm not I'm not I'm not debating any of that. I mean, I I I think Chuck probably is a very nice person. I think if I would have maybe gone skiing in Montana four years ago and met Chuck in a bar afterwards and had a beer with him, I I
probably would like him. But but that has nothing really to do with um you know job performance. Um so I just wanted to get that out of the way. But I ran as a resident's first candidate. You know during my campaign I campaigned
doortodoor held many campaign events. 90% of the residents I spoke to said that our city manager should be relieved of his duties. Additionally, of all the emails that I received over the last couple of days, um they were not just
from my district, they were from all over the town. I would say about 75% of those emails, um that I received, you know, were for relieving Chuck from his post. Um, and as I thought about that today a little
bit, it kind of made sense to me because I I said that I 90% of the people that I talked to in my district wanted, you know, no longer wanted Chuck to be in this role. And I I received about 85% of the vote. So, I assume that those people
that voted yes for me knew that I was, you know, kind of felt that way also. And then when you look at the whole town, John, who I believe during the no confidence vote voted that he didn't have confidence in Chuck, he received
about 75% of the vote. Um, and that's about what I got of emails today from the entire town. So to me, it's kind of all adding up that the residents do not want this. And and similar to Vice Mayor Vasquez, I decided
that even though 90% of my residents, you know, wanted this, I at least needed to go in here for myself and see, you know, firsthand uh and and and and make a decision here. I have a fair amount of leadership experience and and business
experience. And so after doing that, I agree with my residents 100%. Since I've been working with Chuck, I've clearly observed that he does not have the management experience, leadership experience, or financial experience to do the job of city manager at Treasure
Island. Um, personally, I have found him to be misleading in his dealings with me and make continual excuses for his lack of performance. Every meeting I have with Chuck contains misrepresent misrepresentations, omissions of critical facts, and excuses
on why he has not performed. Soon I will list all the things that he has done to hurt the residents of Treasure Island. But before I do that, I want to list the things that he's done to hurt me. Um I I don't feel that I've ever done anything to hurt Chuck, but Chuck was a key player in the disgusting
appointment sham that took place last November. Um and thank God we were able to have an election in March. Um he tried to suppress my um campaign at every turn. Um and he's most recently
since I got finally on the commission, you know, tried to keep me from putting um items on the agenda. Um so what has Chuck done to hurt the residents? Um I got a list here. I'll try to go through quickly. Has no clue clue how much free crafts we
have we have as a city. Um there's almost 29 million of critical infrastructural projects that we need to move and he has no plan for it. has no idea the sources of funds for paying for almost $20 million $29 million in capital projects. Has no idea what
specific other sources of funds are in his financial ban plan beside increasing property taxes. His idea to offset um loss in city revenue is to bring in the bond folks and let's borrow some more. Um our city manager solution is to
borrow money and raise property taxes, not cut cost. He's tried to set policy which is the commissioner's role not the city managers. We are eight months post hurricane and critical critical infrastructure projects such as the lift station seaw walls have made zero progress. Um he didn't support the
residents when you know option two was brought forward. Um, and even after the commission directed him to move to option two, uh, I think Mayor Doctor had to send a letter on January 2nd, um, you know, forcing him to do that with no
knowledge of the FEMA 50% rule back in August the 24. He tried to negotiate a look back rule that would have helped kick us all out of our homes. um along with all the other supporters of Elevate 2I, Elevate TI uh went around the commission to select option one for FEMA
reporting and delayed permits for the TI residents for months. Um continued to stand by the walk by inspections even after they were proven to be uh inaccurate and I don't know if anyone's read the Tampa Bay Times recently, but that Tidal Basin company
has just been lambasted for what a joke they were. um wanted to send out the agreed with sending out the inaccurate st substantial damage letting uh the commission meeting tapes are full of wrong comments missteps total lack of
understanding of option one and option two midless mid mid misled the city on the FEMA follow-up meeting um continued to kind of side with staff and let's pe let's force people out of their homes with option one
um when example after example was presented that the walk by inspections were um you know not accurate, his response was all communities are having the same issues. Um he didn't really even understand our normal permitting process and how it should be followed
for option two. Um never looked into the fill dirt ordinance that the commission directed him to do. um not allowing commissioners to add items to the agenda when they requested and not doing an outsourced trash comparison when he was
asked about 9 months ago. And again, some of the hiring decisions have been in my mind just terrible. I mean, we went to hire a finance director that had no finance degree. Um and then, you know, the residents were blamed that supposedly they called down to the city
to find out about all the trouble she was in down there. I I don't buy that for a second. All you had to do is go type her name in online. You could find out everything you needed to know. No one needed to call anybody down there. So again, the residents were at fault again. So I do need to stick up for
Chuck in one area and he was sold a bill of goods when he took this job. And and him and I have actually talked about this. Um, this by no means mean means that I support him continuing to do it, but would it surprise you if I
told you that hiring Chuck, who is from Montana, has no coastal experience, has never worked in Florida, has never been a C city manager, was done absolutely by design. Yes, it was absolutely done on
purpose. And I will explain to you why. Our ex- mayor and his staff wanted someone like Chuck with no experience so they could get his help in passing and implementing Elevate TI. They told him it was about to pass and he would be off to the races with
it. And that sentence right there came directly from Chuck. He told me that. He said, "They told me that it was going to pass and I'd be off to the I'd be off to the races." and they thought he would provide a past of leaf's resistance and was someone they could control in order to get all
their environmental vanity projects passed. Our ex mayor's dream was to get elevate TI passed and then travel the state to mayor's conferences and celebrate the fact that he was the first mayor in Florida to elevate the town and this would help his ambitions to move up
in politics. I think we all see how that turned out. So this is yet another reason why I say elei is one of the biggest black marks on our city and Chuck unfortunately is a casualty of that. Let me let me let me continue my story. I think it'll make more sense to
you. Once you know the field of city manager candidates was narrowed down to five, they were made available to the public for interviews and meet and greets. And a group of in influential residents who are successful business
people interviewed all five candidates using the same scoring method. Mr. Sllayton, who is from uh Lake Wales, Florida, was first on everybody's book. Chuck was last. Not trying to rub salt in the wound on Chuck, but the guy had
no coastal experience. Never worked in Florida, never been a city manager. So, you know, the ex mayor and his staff picked Chuck, especially when they found out Mr. Sllayton was not going to go along with Elevate TI. He said, "Wait a minute. I don't think I agree with this.
That this thing doesn't make any sense to me." Boom. You're out. So, we lost. If anyone ever wants to go look up Mr. Sllayton, he is from Lake Wales. He's amazing. He's turned the town around. He's got them tons of money. He
wanted to spend his last 10 years here, you know, because he wanted a boat and beach and everything. And we lost him because of Elevate TI. So, the ex mayor is, you know, once he didn't go along with it, they were able to give us a
commission to pick pick Chuck. Um, which is not hard to believe. I mean during that time mayor doctor was usually the only vote you know of sanity. Um and the rest is history and we got Chuck and unfortunately now Chuck needs to go.
There's no way that myself or the residents of district 2 can support Chuck one day longer. Um, and I just want to lay out, I think that, uh, Vice Mayor Vazquez has got a great plan in place as far as we using the the um,
fire chief um, as our kind of assistant city manager, but if we need an interim city manager very quickly, there's a group called the Florida City and County Management Association that has retired city managers um, that are basically Mr.
Sllayton from over in Lake Wales, he feels bad about this entire thing. He said that, but and by the way, he won't come work for us now because they realized what they were going to lose and now they're paying him a bunch of money, so he can't afford to leave Lake Wales. But he said a lot of these guys
um could be working on the job in one to two weeks. And actually, one of the gentlemen, u Taylor Brown, he was one of our five finalists to be the uh city manager uh this last time around when Chuck Yeah. So, if we need a plan going forward, we
have one. We have the fire chief. We have one of these um retired city managers. And then we absolutely need to start a search uh for a full-time city manager tomorrow. And you will see that is actually in my motion. Thema also is
another one that is fabulous and they're local. So, we don't have to move anybody here as well. And um you'll you'll hear a little bit about that later. anxious to hear it. Are you right, Commissioner Sison? Thank you. Well, I
was preparing for a city manager review. Um, but that's all I got. So, I wasn't prepared for this, but go ahead. Okay. No, I have I have a few more comments than that. Uh, but I'd like to uh save my comments until after we hear the
public hearing, but just know that I uh have worked with uh uh Chuck Anderson for nine months. Uh I I'm I'm almost uh a gasast at hearing some of the things uh heard from Vice Mayor Vasquez and
Commissioner Clark. Uh the previous set of commissioners uh voted for out of five of us voted in support of him. Those commissioners worked with uh Chuck for seven months at the time that they
made that uh they they made that uh uh choice, that vote of confidence. And if they felt they were treated, that they were misled, that they were lied to, uh I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten four fifths uh majority uh support of him the
last time we went through that. So So uh I'm like I said, I'm pretty surprised to hear that. I'm surprised to hear that we considered or that somehow uh the city manager has been being blamed for the turnover that we've had
in this operation. The turnover has been not because of of this gentleman. It's because of the damn uh uh reaction that that he's gotten or that he's got that these people have gotten and the pressure they've gotten from people outside this building. uh the constant
negativity, the constant social media. Commissioner Dicki, I've had the result. Wait just a second. I'm sorry. I didn't interrupt you. Well, it was direct but you directed it toward I didn't. Anyway, he he in my opinion the turnover did not
occur because people were upset with uh with with uh our city manager's uh performance. they were upset with how they were being treated uh else elsewhere. I do have, like I said, some other comments, but I'd like
to hold them until after we hear the public comments. Let's move on to uh the the public comments. First is Mark Hoey. Uh good evening again. Mark Hoey 225 104 110 District
3. You know it is a bit of a a deja vu again. Uh I want to take an opportunity to read some segments out of the letter to the editor I sent in after June 20th,
2024 when the previous mayor and commission selected Mr. Anderson for city manager. And again, uh, let me state up front, uh, Chuck, I have nothing but personal respect for you.
Unfortunately, you were set up. You were set up. On June 20th, we selected a new city manager for our community. This was the culmination of a long, arduous, and probably expensive process.
I followed the selection process from the very beginning. From the selection of the recruiter, the outreach for candidates, the reviewing parring of the candidate field from 60 to the final four and the final phase of
interviews. Along the way, I believed the commission was on the right path for the selection of the best, most qualified candidate to be our new city manager. In the end, I was
wrong. The desired objectives set forth in the beginning, Florida city management experience, a history of continuity in the job, strong community economic development experience, robust academic
and professional credentials went out the window when the final selection was made. Having read the resume and background reports, watched the interviews, spoken to each of the final four
candidates, I believe the weakest of the four candidates was chosen. What a missed opportunity for our city. To me, the final decision was based on style, not
substance. In the end, Mr. Anderson is a nice guy, but will take on the job with the least knowledge, educational, professional credentials, least management experience, never a prior city manager, and no Florida municipal
experience. He will be dependent on city staff to help him do his job for some time while he learns how to be a city manager. Meanwhile, the governance of the city will remain a status
quo. What's done is done. My comments then I will fully support Mr. Anderson and aid him in any means possible. The citizens and the community of Treasure Island needed him to be successful. Unfortunately, nine months
hence, that's not been the case. And again, Chuck, if I was in your shoes, I would have taken the job, too. It was offered to me, but unfortunately the background was a setup that did not do you or the city well. Thank you,
Sarah Pennington. Good evening, Sarah Pennington, Isle of Palms. Before I get to my prepared statement, I would like to address what Commissioner Dicki was just mentioning about um basically I would call it blaming the residents for
uh people leaving Treasure Island um employees here. And I just want to say to you, have you asked yourself why are people upset with some of these employees behavior? Are all of us crazy? Is that what you think? I think people
have legitimate concerns and people should be able to address those concerns. There's nothing wrong with that. It's it's hard. It's scary. I feel nervous being up here talking about this. It's not easy to do, but we have to do it. And I think the consensus, if
you have all of these people saying the same thing and then you're blaming them, it it doesn't add up to me. And I just wanted to point that out. Um, I've been a small business owner for almost two decades and I've had to fire people before. It's not something that I take
lightly or ever wanted to do. When I've had to fire someone, it's because I'd given them multiple chances to write the ship and they just couldn't do it. Did that mean that they were a bad person? No. But did it mean that maybe they were not the right person for the job? Yes.
Sometimes someone is just not the right person for the job and we need to move on. I'm not someone to advocate for firing of people, but I also cannot advocate for continuing employment of someone who is shown to not be the right fit for the job. I can list out many issues that
have occurred, but instead I'll focus on what we need. We deserve a city manager that is on top of everything going on in the city and has direct, clear answers. Someone who is plugged in. We need a city manager with more experience that we can rely on to give honest answers,
work in harmony with the city council and the citizens, and do what's in the best interest of the residents. We need a passionate, experienced go-getter. I think some people may say that our staff was working during unprecedented times with the back-to-back storms, and yes,
that's true. But what I believe is unprecedented times really put us to the test and show people's character and what they're capable of. And what we need is someone who can stand up and get the job done during the unprecedented times. Someone we can rely on during the
unprecedented times to do what's best for the residents, businesses, and the city of Treasure Island. Also, I have a print out. Um, this is directly from the 2025 budget, and I just want to refresh everyone in case you're not sure. At the top of the hierarchy of our government's
government here is the citizens of Treasure Island are at the very top and underneath that is the mayor and the commission and some other boards and below that is the city manager. And so I've seen many times where the residents
are expressing their concerns to the commission, the commission is making directions to the city manager and then those things are not happening. And so that Commissioner Dicki is the problem and why residents are so upset. Thank you.
West Evans. West Evans. Isa Palms. I really don't have much to say. uh uh Vice Mayor Vasquez, Commissioner Clark, you guys kind of summed it up along with Mark Hoey and my sweetheart who just uh stepped down from the mic.
Uh I just want to say uh I believe we've all witnessed it. I've been talking about it for months. There's been a lot of uh instances of the commission being misled by uh our city manager and uh some members of the staff. And when I
say staff, and I I will speak for everyone when I say this, when we get up and we talk about staff, we're not talking about Tom who walks the ladies out to their cars. We love Tom. We're not talking about We're talking about uh
uh some of the heads of these departments who are uh running their own agenda outside of what the commission wants. Uh, and I believe that's what's been happening for a long time. And unfortunately, like
Mark Hoey said, uh, Mr. Anderson, Chuck, I believe you were set up when you were brought in for this. They thought, when I say they, I'm specifically speaking about uh, our former mayor, uh, the one
who tucktail and ran actually once uh, times got tough. uh they brought you in because they knew you didn't have experience and they knew they had an agenda that was not in line with what the citizens of this town wanted. So what did they do? They brought in
someone who wouldn't know what was going on here. So then they could guide you and teach you what to do here. And they're teaching you how to undermine the commission and undermine the citizens. The commission is who directs the city
manager. If we have a city manager that does not take direction from the commission, that means we have a city manager who is not uh doing the will of the people who have elected their commissioners. You guys are here to
represent us. We elect you because you are the people who most represented of the choices we had what we wanted implemented. We want you to tell the city manager what we want to
do. Our city manager now has not been doing that. And I agree with Vice Mayor Vazquez, with Commissioner Clark that it's time to go. No ill will like everyone else said. I'm sure you're a great guy. Love to play Jin Ramy with
you sometime, but it might have to be in Montana. Thank you, Brandy Long. Hi, Brandy Long District 2. Um, with no knowledge of the FEMA 50% in August of 2024, the city manager tried to negotiate a look back rule for
supporters of Elevate TI, all of whom has since resigned. He went around the commission to select option one for FEMA reporting and delayed permits for Treasure Island residents for months and never told commissioners an option two
was FEMA reporting, that option two for FEMA reporting even existed. The commission voted unanimously to adopt option two on November 1st, but our city manager denied their request for over two months. Thank goodness, Mayor Doctor
sent a letter, essentially forcing the city manager to follow the commissioner's direction. For three months, Treasure Island residents developed through research and hard work a better understanding of the FEMA reporting requirements than even our city manager had. The commission meeting
tapes are full of embarrassing and wrong comments made by the city manager. Our biggest failure by our city manager is that he provi he was provided a clear path on what needed to be done with option two, but he failed to change
direction. Our city manager accepted the the colossal failure of the permitting process until May Mayor Doctor took aggressive action. Our city manager did not even understand Treasure Island's normal permitting process and how this
should be followed for purposes of option two. This caused undue mental anguish and financial hardships on the Treasure Island residents. Our city manager denied two of our commissioners, Vasquez and Clark, their ability to
govern and bring forth their ideas by not allowing them to add items to the commission's agenda. In August of 2024, Commissioner Dicki requested as part of the 2025 budget workshop a comparison of the cost to
outsource residential trash pickup versus trying to run our own business, which given the size of Treasure Island is impossible to scale crickets for nine months now from our city manager. In August of 2024, commissioners Mining,
Doctor, and Dicki asked for a simple fill dirt ordinance from Kimley Horn. Our city manager provided nothing and then told everyone to not that he could not get a hold of anyone at Kimley Horn which they were one of our on call
engineering firms. Despite everyone acknowledging our property tax revenues will be declining significantly. Our city manager has brought forward no meaning cap no meaningful capital plan or any proposed cuts to the city budget
for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026. Our city manager tried to deny Commissioner Vasquez's request to put on the agenda a major cost savings idea related to managing Treasure Island
sewer system. Our city manager's idea to offset the loss in city revenue is to bring in the bond salesman and take on debt and raise property taxes. Our city manager solution is borrow money and
raise property taxes, not cut costs. Given the monumental rebuilding task that lies ahead for the Treasure Island residents, a strong city manager is critical. Unfortunately, our current city manager does not have the
experience necessary to navigate all the pitfalls and challenges that Treasure Island will encounter over the next few years. We're at a turning point in the great history of Treasure Island, and it's time to turn the leadership of Treasure Island City to an experienced
city manager with a proven track record of success. Now is an important time to do the right thing for our community. Thank you. Carlos Mero. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Commissioners, I have uh prepared
comments that I'll go into in just a moment, but I I want to very briefly uh mention my friend Ginger Goer. She was here earlier. She spoke about the natural shoreline and I think in some sense she and I are representative of all the citizens in in Treasure Island.
We we both love Treasure Island deeply. We we both are active in helping Treasure Island in number number a number of ways. Um and we both agree for the most part on on everything. There's a couple things that we don't agree on. And I think that's mostly true for
everyone uh in Treasure Island. We we have to understand that we all love Treasure Island. We we just sometimes don't necessarily agree about the best way of going things. So, I'll go into my prepared comments. I'm speaking today to address the concerns about city manager Chuck Anderson's performance, which
under I understand is under evaluation tonight. Obviously, I want to be fair and professional recognizing the challenges of post hurricane recovery, but I must urge commission to consider new leadership to better serve Treasure Island. Over the past several months,
many residents have raised serious issues about Mr. Anderson's tenure. We've heard some of that tonight. Many many believe he disregarded your directive to pursue option two for permitting instead of choosing option one. That whole process, by the way, was a colossal failure. I can't I can't
imagine how it could have been worse. Which led to months of delays and heartache for homeowners trying to rebuild. Some of those homeowners are still trying to rebuild. I still have heartache watching going down my my street on Tarpon and I yes just two two days ago another house was being
demolished. You know that means our community is suffering and in in ways that will never be recovered. These people are leaving and and and I find that extremely painful. This per many process has been described as as the colossal failure leaving families in distress. Additionally there are
concerns about transparency including allegations that Mr. Anderson will failed withheld information about a FEMA visit and failed to bring forward requested ordinances like a filter regulation that's all been discussed tonight and garbage outsourcing analysis despite this commission's clear
instructions which is is perhaps the most troubling of all. You know, we are a city that's led by our elected representatives. And if we have a city manager who doesn't pay attention to our elected representatives, I'm sorry, in my view that's unlawful. That means that we don't have a a city that's led by the
public. Further, residents report strained relations with this commission. It's alleged that Mr. Anderson misled Commissioner Clark and Vasquez blocked their agenda items and opposed Commissioner Clark's appointment in a way that felt personal and divisive. That was an ugly night, Mr. Anderson. It
really was to to read that letter. his his reported refusal to collaborate with Jacob's Engineering, which included delaying their access to critical systems, compounded recovery challenges. Most troubling is the claim that he pushed for a look back rule in
Elevate TI. Elevate TI has been a cancer in this on this city. Thank God we've pushed it back, but it's it's always trying to rear its ugly head again. That could prevented many uh from returning to their homes permanently, a policy that thankfully was not adopted. I
acknowledge that Mr. Anderson's efforts in some areas like reducing the permit backlog as noted in a meeting in February. However, the pattern of non-compliance, lack of transparency and which I've even from the last year I
mentioned lack of transparency and strained trust cannot be ignored. Treasure Island is at a crossroads. Ladies and gentlemen, we need a city manager who aligns with your directives, our duly elected representatives, communicates openly and prioritizes
residents needs above all else. I firmly believe that our community is united in seeking leadership that restores confidence and accelerates our recovery. Commissioners, Mr. Mayor, I respectfully urge you to consider a change in leadership. Our city deserves a manager
who works collaboratively with this commission and puts residents first. Please listen to our voices, attend to these issues, and I look forward to working with you as you guide Treasure Island toward a stronger, more transparent future. Thank you for your time and commitment to the city. Thank
you. Thank you. And our last public comment, uh, Brianna Fox, she left. She was a young lady there with a child. They left. Great. So that was our last public comment. Uh so now
we'll move into the uh I'm sorry. Oh, Bob first. Well, hi everybody. Is this like saving the best for last? That's right. You can laugh if you want.
Um, interesting evening and I wanted to be last just to get in the tail end and hear what the other presidents have had to say. Um, Mr. Anderson's uh certainly on trial. He had a kangaroo court uh this
evening and uh there haven't haven't been any good comments about Mr. Anderson. And yet there are a lot of good things about Mr. Anderson, excuse me, and what Mr. Anderson has done for the
city. There is nobody in this city or on this coast who has been a city manager through back-to back hurricanes. Nobody. And yet, Mr. Anderson was put in that position not of his own valition,
but because it just happened. And there's no guide book. There's no rule book. There's no saying do this next. There's no multiplechoice. And there's no true false. It's all on your shoulders. And he has help from city
staff. But I will venture to say he suffered through. And you ask why city staff, I forget the person who just commented, uh, has been decimated, been decimated because of the people in this room who have
repeatedly, repeatedly degraded, bullied, demagogued, whatever other word you want to say, add to that, the city staff. And if I were on city staff, I wouldn't do it because I'd never give up. Uh but
those people um have feelings and when it's a constant barrage from the same people in this room week after week after week of disparaging comments, you get what we
got. And that's very unfortunate. And so to lay this on the shoulders of our city manager for lack of leadership is BS. Let's put the blame where it belongs. And it belongs on the people who have repeatedly, as I said, downgraded these
folks repeatedly. Let's take a look at what the city manager has accomplished. You got the city's infrastructure and services back up and running after the hurricanes, both hurricanes. And we are one of the few communities who is uh I
might add from tax standpoint uh a fullervice community. We have police, we have fire, we have solid waste, we have water, and we have wastewater, plus storm water and all the others. Our permit application process
got up and running, not without issues, I might add, but thanks to the city manager and assistant fire chief Tom Brennan, um that process has really been refined and has really hit the ground running. I might
add that notwithstanding the commission's whip po polling uh funding uh for the additional staff uh two weeks ago and now it's back on the agenda. So you got to take a look in
the mirror. People live in glass houses should throw stones. the LDRs and the fill dirt ordinances. We heard loud and loud time after time, get those things. We want permits.
We want to bring in Phil. Well, it's happened. And the congratulations, excuse me, should go to the land planning agency, the LPA, P&Z, and of the commission. But they're all under the leadership of our city
manager. Come on. Nobody mentioned any of that. And yet it was the number one focus for a while. We want Phil. We want Phil. And it died because you got it. How about a little congratulations? Okay, let's take a look
at um the shoreline process. Living shoreline that's moving along. Uh the temporary uh housing for police and fell fire. Hopefully that goes away pretty soon. But that's another project that's going to come in front of the commission for funding uh in the future. Uh and I
wish you best with that, but it sure as hell is needed. So go for it. Um normal city functions and operations are being performed. Uh if you take a look around, uh businesses are back up
and running. um our normal services, police, fire, water, wastewater, all those things, all those services are in operation. And all those services, I might add, the heads of those department fall underneath our city manager, Chuck. So, if you're going to lay blame, give
some credit, too. And finally, um well, I just said staff has been decimated. Uh you mentioned the uh Lake Whale city manager. I was part of that interview process and I had him as
number one on my my his list until I sat down face to face with him. Excuse me, John. Can I be recognized for a minute? The last time um Mr. Minning, and I'm not being disrespectful, was allowed to go like four minutes over everyone else. And I just don't think it's fair to
everyone else that each time he gets up he's allowed to speak longer than everyone. I just don't think that's fair to everyone else. Yeah. May I add that Commissioner Clark was given amount of time. Well, he's not on
a fivem minute limit. It's okay. Oh, okay. Well, I won't say anything more than you can have your way. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Okay, Rick. Sorry, I thought I put in a
card. Rick Matthew, District 3. Um, one, I I don't approve of this forum. Um, I think there's probably a different way this could have been done rather than kind of a public lynching. Um, I don't disagree with some of the
comments. Being a military guy, sometime we have a phrase loss of confidence to lead. That may not that may be on the individual. It may be on the organization, but you're not meeting mission. And the first thing they do is remove the commanding officer.
I can't see going forward how this can change. And Chuck, nothing personal. We're we're both military guys, but our ships take it on water and and the captain's the first one to
go. So, I don't know if that's necessarily we we need to move forward with this because we got to rebuild this city. And yes, we've lost a lot of people. I don't know what the personal reasons why they left, why they resigned. Maybe it was the free reign
was over. We're a small city with a huge budget and we got a fiscal management problem. We're bleeding money all over the place and nobody seems to care. One of the residents looked at our budget from last
year and Parks and Wreck brought in, I'll just use arbitrary terms, $1,800 worth of goods at the end of the year they were $1,100 revenue. And he's like, the financial
guy at the time said, "Oh, we'll just take that and operate." No. If you pay $1,800 and you're supposed to make a profit and you have a deficit, that's that's theft. It's not a matter of we'll just make it up. This is the things that
we're we're looking at. I appreciate the comments about getting on social media. We have no other means to do that. We come, we address the commission, nobody takes notes, nobody gets back to us with things. Um, this Crayville couple weeks
ago brought up I thought was a great point. Permits are going to start expiring. What is the plan? Say I I can't get a contractor. What is the plan for extension? Those are the things that somebody should have wrote that down as an action item and came back and said,
"Mr. Crabel's question was this and this is what we plan to do." Instead, we're going to wait until it becomes a crisis and then act on it. When somebody comes up with a great suggestion, somebody should write it down. Otherwise, you have meetings for the sake of meetings.
If there's no action items, the meeting is useless. So, like I say, I I don't necessarily appreciate the way this thing was done. I understand that maybe it was forced, but we definitely now that it's
out in the open, we need to take action. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We will now close the public discussion segment and uh we now will have a
discussion between the commission. Mayor, doctor, can I just address something? I I because I do feel it's important because I I and it's something that Rich that you said and it just kind of hit me and I just wanted to address it. Um trust me and I think even Chuck would
agree with this and the city attorney would agree with this. The last thing that I wanted to do was like this. But unfortunately, when you hold a public office, it has to be done for transparency. We can't discuss it amongst ourselves because of sunshine
law. And unfortunately, that is the way it has to be. We've looked at every possible avenue and it's just not possible because if if a contract was negotiated or something was negotiated behind closed doors and then we came to
a meeting and said, "Hey, we all decided this." Then you all would be like, "Oh, wait a minute. We weren't part of this." So that's why when you hold a public office, whether it be elected or whether it be hired, it has to be dissolved in the same manner. So, I
do want I just really wanted to address that. It's not that we're evil people. Believe me, this is something that was the last thing of how I wanted it to happen, but I also realize, you know, through many, many conversations that it's the only way that it could happen.
So, I just wanted to address that real quick. And before discussion, we do the motion. Am I correct? You you can you can do a motion. a second and then have discussion and then the vote if Yes, please. Yeah, I'd like to get the motion so we understand
what's included in the motion. 100%. So, okay. I move to place the city manager Charles Anderson on paid administrative leave effective immediately to allow for the city commission to comply with the city's charter in bringing a resolution
removing him from office at the next regular commission meeting May 20th and have the assistant man um I'm sorry to have the assistant city manager serve as acting city manager during this time. I also direct the acting city manager
immediately contact the to have them provide candidates for an interim city manager. And I can read it again if you'd like for me to because I know it's long. So yeah. So
um do we need to I'm going to ask Jen. Do we need to uh for this motion to go through and properly fund it? Um, we we're basically going to put him on administrative leave. Correct. What
happens? He's going to be paid for that period of time, but what happens to then how we move forward? So, what I'm asking for is if there's going to be any amendments or a negotiation or anything else. So, um, if if you move forward
with the motion, it's an im immediate administrative leave and I'll seek clarification just to make sure, but I believe that's intended to occur as soon as the motion passes should it pass. Um,
so you would continue to pay for that service. The assistant city manager would then become the acting city manager and take his seat at the dis from that point forward. Um, because it's a termination under Chuck's
contract, he is entitled to his severance. So, there will be a a severance agreement slashrelease because he has to sign a release in order to be able to have his severance pursuant to the contract. Um so that will be developed as well as the resolution
terminating um his employment and removing him from office. Terminating him under the contract and removing him from office and those items that those items will be brought back to you on the 20th. Now I do have a couple of questions just to clarify if the
commission is going in that direction and that is um at one point um there was a discussion we had a discussion with regard to under his contract he has to repay for relocation
services and there was um we had a discussion of of waving that and if that's the commission's will then that would also be included in that severance agreement. slashrelease. Okay. Thank you, Jen. Absolutely. And I And if
you do, if anyone needs me to read it over because it is a little lengthy, I don't mind, but it's completely up to you. You want me to read it one more time? Okay. I move to place the city manager Charles Anderson on paid administrative leave
effective immediately to allow for the city commission to comply with the city's charter in bringing a resolution removing him from office at the next regular commission meeting on May 20th and have the assistant city manager
serve as acting city manager during that time. I also direct the acting city manager immediately contact ICMA to have them provide candidates for an interim city manager.
I second. Okay, we have a motion a second. Any other discussion? Yeah. Well, I do want to say that uh there's no way that I could support the way this happened. It should have been done behind closed doors, but I will
support whatever the mayor decides. Unfortunately, as I stated to Rich, it was impossible to happen behind closed doors. That would have been illegal. Okay. I'd like to read some of the comments that I held back. One Okay. One was from a resident uh Mr. Grant Smith. He was uh
his wife was going to uh read these comments to him, but she's not here yet. I think she was planning on coming later in the meeting. But anyway, he uh he asked uh me to write this if she wasn't available, but uh he wrote this letter to the mayor and commissioners earlier
today. I'm writing my I am writing to express my full and unequivocal support for Chuck Anderson, city manager of Treasure Island. I regret that I cannot be there in person and encourage you to share my letter as you please. Soon after stepping into the role, Mr. Anderson was confronted with
extraordinary challenges that would test even the most seasoned public servant. In the wake of two devastating hurricanes, he he has shown unwavering dedication, steady leadership, and an and an uncommon grace under pressure.
While managing the city's storm recovery efforts, Mr. Anderson has endured harsh and often irrational criticism from a small but vocal group of individuals. These attacks have included unfounded accusations and personal disparagements.
Even as he worked tirelessly restore to restore normaly to our community. Despite this, he has maintained a professional composed demeanor, refusing to be drawn into pettiness or distraction. He has remained focused on his duty rebuilding Treasure Island. It
is worth noting that under Mr. Anderson's leadership, critical progress has been made. Debris has been cleared, beaches restored, and the city is actively rebuilding. While other key personnel departed, often under the weight of personal attacks, Mr. Anderson
has remated committed to serving all the residents. He has de demonstrated a rare trait in modern leadership, personal accountability. He has not only taken ownership of the recovery process, but also has openly identified opportunities
for improving planning and responses in future emergencies. Mr. Anderson exemplifies three qualities that are increasingly rare in today's leaders. Competence, integrity, and a genuine commitment to the public good. He consistently places the needs of the
city above his own and brings thoughtfulness, transparency, and a sense of moral responsibility to every aspect of his work. Treasure Island is fortunate to have a leader of his caliber at the helm during these difficult times. Mr. Anderson is a man
of character. He has my deepest respect, respect, and strongest support. Uh this is from Grant Smith, a Treasure Island resident. Anyway, I wanted to he his wife wasn't here to say that, so I I I promised him
I would make sure that that was read onto the record. Uh here's my own personal comments. We we heard from uh Commissioner Clark and and Vice Mayor Mass Vasquez. Uh but I've got I've got some own my own observations here and I'd like to start out by addressing some
of the issues that I've seen on social media in the last 24 hours and and I approached some of this tonight. Uh, number one, I'm not going to address all of them because we'll be here all night long, but I I will pick out a few here. Number one is the city manager attempted
to negotiate a look back rule in August 2024. This is not true. The look back rule was first introduced to the city commission at a workshop in August regarding the elevate TI program, which has been in the works for two years
before he started working here. The board of commissioners rejected the look back period at that time. Not once did I hear the city manager argue in favor of the look back period. Not once. Number two, the city manager and this is the city manager went around the
commission to select option one for FEMA reporting. Again, not true. I have an email dated October 23rd, 2024 from the city manager to the board of commissioners asking that we agree to an interlocal agreement sent over to us by
the county for them to provide substantial damage inspectors. There was no mention in that correspondence from the county of an option one or option two. There was an urgent tone in the email in the city manager's email saying
please let me know of your support on this so we can be first on the list to get these county supplied inspectors. So at this stage there was no discussion. Nobody even really knew that there were two options. It was just the county sent
this information said if you want to be early on the list let us know. The next commission meeting was for another 5 days. the city manager wanted to be urgent, wanted to get on this list, sought out the opinion of the of the of the commission, and three of the
commissioners at that time, told him to go ahead and sign this. Regarding option number two, once the board of commissioners voted for option two, the city began doing both options one and two based on what the individual residents wanted. Most wanted
option two, but some wanted to wait to get their substantial damage letter before deciding what to do. So, the city staff was trying to accommodate both preferences of residents. FEMA acknowledged to me in writing that most cities ended up doing exactly what we
did, and that's they did both options one and two. And number four, knowing that we will get less property tax revenue next year, the city's manager solution is to borrow money and raise property taxes. Not true again. Not once
have I heard from the city manager or from anyone on the city staff mention raising taxes. Not once. Our long range budgets call for capital spending even before the hurricanes have always assumed that we would need to borrow
money to build a new public works facility and a new public safety building. This has been in our budgets long before the current city manager started working here. I can go on and on, but again, we'll be here all night. Let me just say this. Mr. Anderson has
been our city manager for nine months. His first week in here, he dealt we dealt with Hurricane Debbie. Seven weeks after that, Hurricane Elen and two weeks later, Hurricane Milton. So, his first two months were here preparing for hurricanes in dealing with the aftermath
of those storms. Chuck is a better, more experienced city manager now than when we hired him. Of course, he's made mistakes which he readily admits to and which he has learned from. But I would also add that this commission and the previous board of commissioners, which I've been a member of both, have
contributed to many of those mistakes. The commission has constantly wavered on important issues and has changed direction on staff many times. So, we must accept part of the blame, too. I have worked with Chuck for the past nine months. His learning curve has by
necessity been very steep. He has had to deal with hurricanes and the resignation of a mayor and almost a complete change of commissioners. He has had to deal with a ton of res resignations from key staff members. We have lost the finance director, the assistant finance
director, both co- public works directors, the community development director, the city clerk, and soon the city attorney. How much time do we give a new city manager to prove themselves under under normal conditions? Are we going to the next city manager? Are we going to give
them nine months? Are we going to give them a year? How much time do we give somebody? Are we going to tell the next city manager that comes in here, you are on nine months probation and we don't like you after that, you're out of here? Chuck now is an experienced city
manager. He he now has experience running a city during and after a major hurricane. He has built up his rolodex and now has important contacts with the Florida Department of Emergency Management, with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, with FEMA,
with county, with some of the county commissioners, and with other city managers in the state. Do you really want to bring in an interimm city manager while we are dealing with the next year's budget, while we're going through financial audits, while we're
again dealing with permitting delays, and while we're working on rebuild TI? Do you want an interimm city manager filling all of these important department manager positions? My final argument in retaining Chuck is that we are in the midst of obtaining of
attempting to get millions of dollars in rebuilding TI. Chuck is heavily involved in that process and I believe if we were to lose him at this stage, we would putting we would be putting much of that grant money at risk. We are less than a month away from the beginning of
hurricane season. When we hired Chuck, he had no city government experience dealing with hurricanes. he does now and we will be much better prepared because of that experience. I would love to speak on that and and Ardan, you know, I respect the heck out
of you and you do your research probably better than any of us, but one thing I hear you and and I hear I've heard over and over again and again, the last thing I wanted do and the last thing I wanted to do was do this publicly, but again,
it would be literally illegal if we didn't. So, am I correct? If if you could confirm that. Yes. In order to remove the city manager to terminate his contract, it would take an action of the full commission and that action must be done in the sunshine. Thank you. I just
wanted I I wanted to confirm that. But the one thing that that I I really want to say is I keep hearing the hurricane and you know one and two elevate TI and I'm by no means being
dismissive about those. Absolutely. all of the city managers along or you know they all this was their first hurricane in in our area 100%. That that's done and I hate to say it this way but
the mistakes that have been made in the last few months and the mistakes that have literally been done and the lack of leadership just since I've been sitting in the office has nothing to do with the hurricanes. It has nothing to do with
Elevate TI. You know, I I get where from the outside people look at the staff heads and say, "Oh, they're trying to move their own agenda." No, the staff heads have had no choice but to self-manage. They've had to figure it out because they've had no leadership.
And I will defend them for that. I'm not saying there weren't or aren't well I would say there were a few bad apples, but my point is I see from the outside looking in where it looks like the the heads of staff have have gone
rogue when truly they're just trying to survive. And um another thing that um that you mentioned and that you were surprised that I said and and you know because I do respect you, I took it, you know, hard was that the staff heads
solely left because of a community organization and the people that speak in this meeting. I've had an ongoing relationship with a ton of the staff members for years and years and years from growing up here. I've talked to a
lot of the people that have left. I've heard why they left. And I'm not gonna disagree that a couple of them have left because they're tired of being beat up. I will not disagree with that. But that is not all of them. And I talked to
several employees ongoing that currently are working here and they're at their wits end. You know, we've had we've had one particular head who resigned, if I am correct, I believe in
December, and we still haven't filled her position. And she is, and I'm speaking not for her. I just she resigned and here we are in May
and still haven't filled the position and she can't because if she leaves everything falls apart and you know speaking to some other employees who quite frankly are absolute gems that Treasure Island
cannot afford to lose and we will lose because of lack of support from leadership. Having leadership skills has nothing to do with a hurricane or elevate TI. Having leadership skills is a skill and you
have it. And the you should be a leader through the tough times. When do people need a leader the most is in tough times. And that is that is my point. I do not again I just I keep hearing
hurricanes. I keep hearing elevate TI. I he keep hearing all the other things and other people blamed. And to me, it's not even a blame game. We're here to to analyze the job that's been done by
the city manager and if it's better to keep him or not to keep him. I can st say confidently, very confidently, if the votes are not there to keep him, we will lose more employees
that we cannot afford to lose. We will not be able to hire the employees that we want to hire because they will not come work here. And every job isn't for every person.
And this just is not the job. And I'm quite frankly and and I know I've taken some slack and some heat, a lot of it actually, for defending the staff as much as I do, but I'm sick and tired of hearing the staff blamed for lack of leadership. I'm sick of it. It's not
fair. They don't get paid enough. They don't get paid enough to take the blame for something that's not their fault. And the highest paid person in our city is in my
opinion. And we as a city will absolutely, which is why, and I know it seems aggressive, which is why I say we can't do one more day. We can't even finish this meeting under this guidance because our city
can't take anymore. It just can't. We are falling apart. And the only way we are paralyzed and the only way that we move forward it has to stop at the top. It has to start at the top down. It has to.
And one of the responsibility of making really good money is you're the boss. And when you fail as a boss, it's just not the job for you anymore. And I worry for our city is. And that's what I'm here for. I'm here
to represent the citizens of the city and the city that I grew up in and that I love and I plan on retiring in. And I'll fight like crazy to make it as good as it can be and as excellent as I know it can be. But it has to start from the
top down. It has to. I want I want to say one more thing um along the lines of what Vice Mayor Vasquez just said. Take out the hurricanes. Take out the permitting process. Take out everything. I'm talking about right now today. And I'm
talking about tomorrow morning. This sentence still stands. And that is since I've been working with Chuck, I have clearly observed that he does not have the management experience, leadership experience, or financial expan
experience to do the job of city manager of Treasure Island. That's sitting here this minute. And that's also tomorrow morning. Um, so I I want to throw that. And I want to I want to just say one more thing. Um, nothing to do with
Chuck, but this has happened multiple times now at these meetings. And I'm I'm hoping as a commission I'm going to request that we stop doing it. Don't know if that will happen, but I really wish that we would stop coming in here and talking about social media and what
we saw on social media. The fact that we're wasting time up here talking about what the hell is out on social media to me is a waste of time. Everyone knows there's crazy people out there. They're going to put whatever they want on social media. So, the fact that we're up here wasting time. And then another time
we had a meeting where some well someone said something about me on social media and it wasn't too true. If you're going to get worked up about as an elected official about what someone says about you on social media, you shouldn't be an
elected official. And I should know more than anybody. You know, I had someone a commissioner just completely lie and blast me when I was attempting to, you know, become a commissioner and be
appointed and no one cared. So, but I still went ahead and ran. I knew what I was getting myself into. So, I wish we could just stop doing this. And the sad part is that I continue here tonight is the fact that I was blasted from up here doesn't seem to matter. It's okay. The
residents are to blame for everything. And you can blast a resident. You know, Mr. Mining, I don't think you had any problem when I got blasted by Mayor Toth up here with the disgusting letter that was read. But we sure care when when when city uh staff is talked about or
commissioners are talked about. So I I just wish we could stop talking about social media and all that because it's just a waste of time. There's some great comments on social media though. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments before I call
roll? I'd like uh if if Mr. Anderson uh wants to I'd like to hear what he has to say about this if you think that's appropriate. Mayor if if he would like to say anything.
Thank you, mayor and commissioners. Thursday, August 1st was my first day. You know, this first day I started working and that weekend I walked into Hurricane Debbie. Everything I've done, every decision I've made, things that I've attempted and have been
successful at, things that I have done and have not been quite as successful at, have all been done in the best interest of the residents, the businesses, and the community here in Treasure Island because that's who I serve. When I came in here, I knew I was
going to serve that community and I did my utmost to serve it with my best. I have to acknowledge this job is difficult. There's many community needs. There's many projects. There's many items to be done. When I did the interview process with the
commission, the resounding overwhelming consensus of that commission was that there's so many projects that have been started, but nothing is getting completed. And that's what we need you to do is to move these projects forward.
This community has gone through a lot in my last nine months and overall there's been three storms. You have Debbie, Helen, Milton, you know, and there was recovery and preparation done between those hurricanes and response
and we're still recovering as a community. Whether we're talking about rescuing people before the storms hit to the permits to get folks back into their house, I've remained committed 100% the entire time. I've put my job before my
family in many circumstances because that's who I am. I want to say and ask for acknowledgement. There's a great staff here. There's 123 people that work for the city and day in and day out what they do is they go the extra mile. This
morning at public works at 7 o'clock there was a safety meeting, you know. And what are they doing? They're there at a safety meeting to go over items that they know, but also to discuss what goes on on a day-to-day basis dependent upon your specialty. Those folks are
there going the extra mile as are the fire department, the police department, public works, park and wreck, finance, city clerk, PIO, economic development, the rest of the admin folks. They take great care of this
community and I'm proud to be part of that team. Thank you. City clerk, please call role. Vice Mayor Vasquez, would that be a in this particular I'm sorry, but would that not be? It would be a yes. I Yes. If you want, if you
were in favor, it' be an I. Otherwise, it' be I just wanted to make that clear. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yes. Commissioner Clark, I. Commissioner Sison, no. Commissioner Dicki, no. Mayor doctor. Hi.
Mayor, um I know I'm not part of the commission, but I just wanted to ask um we've been going a little while. Do you want to take a brief Let's take a recess. Yep. We're going to take a uh let's give us a 10-minute recess. meeting back to
order and we're going to move into our next item. Give me one second. I two. It's Duke easement. by one two now. Yeah, it's now going to be two. All right. So, we have a dedicated
easement to Duke Energy at one Milican Court to accommodate downtown utility facilities relocation. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Joan Goodrich from your office of economic development to um provide um
this item to you tonight which as you stated is a request that we've received from Duke Energy of Florida for an um an easement of um the city at one Milicanin uh Milicanin Court. Um the city of
Treasure Island has been working with um on the downtown revitalization and barrier to redevelopment at a property on 107th owned by Pirate Square LLC has identified the current utility um that's
on the map there. It's um has been in place for quite some time. Actually was hidden by um a building that was on that property um uh for several years. Um
this utility um facility by Duke was also damaged by Hurricane Milton. So, um, now we're we're trying to identify, um, or this request will allow for the, um, repair and re replacement of this
utility relocation onto the proposed, um, site there, you could see with the blue um, arrow um, on our city land. So, this would allow for the leveraging of our city-owned property for continued
downtown redevelopment at the same time in rebuilding damaged infrastructure um from Hurricane Milton. So, staff is recommending approval of this utility easement with Duke Energy of Florida. There is no budget impact on the city as
all costs associated with the utility facility relocation will be funded by Duke Energy and Pirate Square LLC. Um, so that's basically the item and I will take any questions. Great. Thank you. Yeah, I know Joan, you and I both were
out here uh when Duke had all of their uh there's foremen and supervisors. Um it's amazing the the old building that's out there uh now has been reduced to a box about two or three times the size of the the desk you're sitting at. That's
that's correct, mayor. So, the current condition is what you currently see there when you're driving past 107th Avenue. The proposed location is that image that you see in the middle, which is um you know, kind of like a 10 by7
area. It's 108 square feet. Um and the utility facility at the end will go from the left image to the right image um that you normally see on any um street. the utility facility shown in that third picture to to the right is actually um
the utility that's next to Chase Bank. Great. Thank you. Yeah. And I I had actually uh Joan had reached out to me and I actually met Joan over here and looked at this and again I'm I'm surprised at how small this thing is going to be now and I actually I didn't
see any issue with where it was going to be. I reached out just to be sure to Brad at Ricky Te's, some of the other business owners there. They had zero problems with where it's going to be. So, yeah, this seems like a win-win here for everybody. And we don't have to look at that
eyesore anymore. Yeah, that's right. That'll all be gone. The the only question I I had on that, uh, Joan is, and I'd mentioned this to you when you and I spoke about it as well, was I I approve this 100%. So, so
there's no problem with that. I was just hoping to get something more out of Duke Energy for us uh giving them this property. And I know we've got uh one of our capital items is a $650,000 relocation of an electrical transformer over on 108. And I was
wondering if we could uh by us giving up this easement and letting them install this transformer there if we could maybe negotiate some some uh reciprocal uh uh something reciprocal from them for this. Have Have you had
that discussion with them or have you reached out? Yes, Commissioner. I have reached out to Duke Energy's um government and community affairs team and have asked for uh a meeting with them to um look at what our potential
utility relocation is um on 108th and see if we can negotiate better pricing. Okay. All right. Like I said, I I think it's a very worthwhile project and I support it 100%. But just hoping to get something else out of it. Thank you. Do
we have any public comment? Are are we done up here? Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. Public public comment. Uh Mr. Hoey. No, just a quick question again, Joe. As we've been dealing with,
right, uh Ardan about all these utilities. Is this thing is Duke going to raise that? Is it going to be a raised installation? That's just a question. It's going to be new. Why not? sufficient elevation of it if that's part of the plan. Yes. Matter of fact,
when we were out there, uh they are going to have a base uh and it will be a certain height uh that's concrete. Okay. Is there any other public comment? If not any uh can we have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve and
authorize the mayor to sign the Duke Energy Florida utility easement associated with a portion of the city parcel situated at one Milk and Court in downtown Treasure Island. We have a second. I second. Okay, we
have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Nope. Hearing none. Roll, please. Commissioner Sison, I. Commissioner Dicki, I. Vice Mayor Vasquez, I. Commissioner Clark, I. Mayor, doctor I
Okay, moving on to number two. Authorization to purchase engineering design services from Kimley Horn for Roselli Park pickle ball courts. Evening mayor and commissioners. Uh parks and recreation department is requesting authorization for professional design
services related to the conversion of the existing tennis courts at Rosselli Park into six dedicated pickle ball courts. Uh these services will not exceed $33,800. Will include surveying, designing, permitting, and construction
documentation. For this construction project, the city will be utilizing a design, bid, build model. The design process will take approximately 6 weeks from approval tonight. Uh the resulting information will allow the city to prepare a bid package in accordance with the city's procurement policy.
The invitation to bid will be posted for 30 days and once staff reviews these bids, staff will come back to commission for approval for contract award. Uh the tennis courts out there have undergone multiple repairs over the years and most recently in 2016 and uh January of last year. There's a there's
a giant tree route that's underneath on the southeast section of the court that keeps protruding up through the asphalt and uh the service and fencing at the end of its lifespan and it's uh indicates that a full replacement is needed and staff's available for any
questions. I actually I have a a question. um this is my neighborhood. So, um I actually received an email from um a constituent who plays pickle ball out there quite frequently and um he's out of town or else he would be here um
to speak, but he has I guess he has been on this from day one and he said um just basically I'm going to read it if that's okay. All conversations uh were with Mark or Kathy from Parks and Recre. no conversation took place um
with legally directly. I'm not sure what he meant by that. In the very beginning of January, we were told by PNR that no studies were needed. PNR were told by legal the studies were required based on the dollar threshold 200,000. With the
concurrence of the city manager, the RFP was going to be divided into two, one for the fence and the other for the courts. legal told PNR that the RFP needed to uh to be one. Not sure why that is. Therefore, the studies need to
be done. TI probably would save money on the fencing portion already having a relationship with a fencing company. Additionally, high chance that they would um that the selected construction company could do their own studies even though they would receive the city's
completed studies. So, that was an email he sent to me and I'd be happy to give it to you just if you would like to read if you'd like to have it. I've been somewhat involved in this because I'm a pickle ball person and I I I've heard the exact same thing that for some
reason if we split the fence and the courts, we could save um but that wasn't allowed to be done. But if we could, we could save like 34 grand on all these design services and still get our pickle bar court. what you just read I have
also heard probably because I I know all those guys over there that's probably where I heard it from but yeah so I don't know who can give us an answer on that because if there's a way that we could save $34,000 and still get our pickle ball course and a new fence then seems seems like a good deal to me and I'm going to
plead ignorant on it. I received the email I have question other questions about possible grants things like that but on this particular um you know I definitely would agree. So, I'll try. Um I haven't seen the email and I'm not
sure what um the constituent meant by PNR if um who that was or what that was. Parks and wreck is what he was referring to. Yeah, parks and wreck. Yeah, I don't know. And he said Mark and Kathy is what he stated in the email. So, um, one of
the things that occurred is generally what happens is for parks and wreck is they come up with a scope and they give it to finance, um, and the procurement person there puts it in whatever the right format is and gets it out on the street because the city doesn't have a
procurement person right now. Each department is having to handle it and so they did an RFP. The issue um that we have is in the city's procurement policy. There's discussions as far as how you get construction services and
you do it through an ITB which is an invitation to bid. So they had to change that form. Well, in the ITB you have to have some like basis for if you're doing it as a design bid build some design like
what am I building? What am I designing? So, I think that's what happened is they the staff then contacted the continuing um contract engineer said, "Look, this is all we're really looking for. Can can you give me a quick design?" They said, "Sure, it'll cost this much." And staff
also said, "Um, will you manage the construction contract under that?" They said, "Yes, which is typical in a design bid build." and then they'll go out and once they have that bid it and then that designer will help manage that project and the project will be done. So that's
why it was done. Now with regard to splitting up elements um so you can you could bid it in a way that you have like you know you you have a section and then a bid alternate. You can always do that
but you can't take a project as a whole split it up into parts and bid bid it separately. that's not provided for. That's not allowed in the law. You can't take a construction project and and divide it up. There are different ways to bid it to get those elements, but um we couldn't do them as separate bids.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Uh I I had this question sent to me. I know it was sent to the other commissioners as well. U and it's regarding tennis courts. uh that those used to be tennis
courts and now we're going to eliminate the tennis courts and make them pickle ball courts only. Yeah. So, uh just the logic behind that, please. Yeah, we uh we we talked about that in in parks and recreation, you know, like uh and we our plan was to the hard courts at the
Treasure Bay Center. We're going to offer free tennis there to to that. Not for the tennis, not for the hard true clay courts, just for the hard courts. So, we'll offer that as a free a free uh tennis. So, it'll be kind of the same as doing at the park.
Well, if I'm if I'm a resident over there, I would I guess I would have preferred to and if I play tennis, I would prefer the tennis tennis court to be there instead of go all the way up to Treasure Bay. But I'm going to yield to uh Vice Mayor Vasquez on this since this
is her district. And I I have um because I had the same concerns and I have overwhelmingly heard from the residents that they can't wait for the pickle ball courts. So that and thank you for that because that is something that I you know I'm like okay is that truly you
know what everyone wants and resounding yes that they want the pickle ball courts and I was just out of curiosity um and you may or may not know this um I know we received a grant for tennis courts I I don't I know now there is
like pickle ball associations I don't know if it's big enough yet where they offer any kind of grants for this kind of thing. Um, the tennis court grant came in as a like a hurricane repair grant is kind of what that was. Um, they do have other grants
for tennis courts. We as far as pickle ball, I haven't came across any yet, but always I always get emails from things coming out in the future and stuff. So, we always read them, check in, do our research to see if there's any grants available. Okay. Um, I haven't came across any pickle ball construction grants as of yet, though. Okay. Thank
you. A two things real quick. Um yeah, I used to play over there twice a week and um I mean I think maybe once a month someone would ever come there to play tennis and and and there were a lot of days where we didn't even you we had to leave because it was full of pickle ball
all four courts. So um and then the second thing I saw someone saying that it's only is of Palms people that use the courts over there. I mean that we have a group that from Isa Palms that plays there, but the majority of people that play over there seem to be from Isa Capri. So I just wanted to clear that
up. So yeah, we and staff wanted to get like we have so we have tennis courts at Treasure Bay. You know, pickle ball is a really high growing sport right now. We want to give some dedicated courts because right now they share courts at at the basketball court at Treasure Bay and we want to give them like a dedicated court so they have their, you know, their community, I guess you would
say. I think I asked once before, but we're going to turn them now, right? So you're not looking directly. Yeah, that's part of the plan, too, talking to the pickle ball committee is is is try to get them more north to south so the sun won't be in their eyes during the morning hours. Yeah, it was almost impossible to see. Yeah.
All right. Uh any other comments before we go to public? Okay, public comments. Uh Cara, District 1. Um, I did send in an email regarding this. Um, I live over in Capri, obviously. Um, I am a tennis
player. I don't play pickle ball. Um, obviously I can and I'm would be and I am extremely good at it if I did because I play tennis. Um, but my issue is, um, there's a lot of little ones that are in the neighborhood. Um, and they do and
try to play and take lessons over at Treasure Bay. Um, and with Treasure Bay so up in the air right now with design and where we're going with that, um, I honestly think this is jumping the gun on what is going to be developed over there. And I kind of think this is kind
of a package deal, um, with what's going to happen over there because all of the architectural designs, the things floating in the air with Treasure Bay, there could be 20 pickle ball courts over there. Um, and there could be six tennis courts put in instead. um where
then if we have another six pickle ball courts in Capri, where is the tennis courts? Um USA obviously has given a grant to the city to fix these tennis courts. Um there is still, you know, lots of tennis played all over the country. Um and yes, there is pickle
ball played as well, but um you know, we could play host to both. Um and we could play host to tournaments. um and we could try to bring revenue into the city and um and think about both in that sense. So, I would appreciate
tableabling this item um and especially on a design standpoint of $33,000 for just the design from Kimley Horn because I've also spoken to other engineer friends and pretty much anyone can design pickle ball courts to be fair. Um Kimley Horn is a great company. They are
the white glove of engineering companies in my opinion. Um, and I know we have a plethora of other companies that are contracted with the city that we could probably use um, and utilize their services for a lot less money. Um, so I'm not sure why they were chosen. Um,
so maybe y'all can answer that. But, um, I would just like to see this kind of tabled and go handinhand with what Treasure Bay is going to develop into before we start digging up Capri and potentially creating 50 pickle ball courts in Treasure Island and leaving
six tennis courts. Just saying. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Does anybody have any additional comments? I would like to address that. Um, I have um and I did see your email,
Cara, and um I will say um that was the only uh yours was the only tennis one compared to the multiple residents that said there and I can't say because I don't play, but I guess there's holes
and divots and different things on the court where when people are playing it's I guess it's pretty easy to trip. And so that's why they are wanting it done. And I can tell you I receive weekly, if not daily, emails on getting those pickle
ball courts done. And that started three weeks before I even sat behind this chair. So, um, I appreciate that. I I can honestly say, especially with the tennis courts getting redone, I mean, I would hope the tennis courts do end up
staying there, too. So anyway, I just wanted to address that that your email was not ignored. All right. Uh do we have the motion? I move to approve the execution of the attached work authorization and authorize the purchase of a of asesign
services from Kimberly Horn for a total amount not to exceed $33,800. Second. We have a motion and a second. Would you please call the role? Vice Mayor Vasquez. I. Commissioner Sison. I. Commissioner Clark. I. Commissioner
Dicki. I. Mayor Doctor. I. Thank you. Next we have the City of Treasure Island wastewater system acquisition. So does So Gary, good evening, mayor, commissioners. Gary
Vanick, assistant director for public works department. Um, I wasn't uh entirely sure. I I think that this was a request by the commission for us to look at uh the uh uh outsourcing of the sewer
system. Um the purchasing the purchasing from Penllis County of the sewer system. Yeah. What I was just told it wasn't outsourcing. I was I was told specifically it's not outsourcing. What are we actually trying to accomplish on this? Uh
I believe, am I correct, um Jennifer, that this is approving the because I was told by Chuck that yes, it was being brought here to approve signing the um
Oh, wait. So, I am listening as well. So, as I No, no worries. No worries. As I understand it, um, this item was brought before you, uh, because there is a letter that needs to be sent to Penllis County that authorizes the study of the potential transfer of the
wastewater system. And so there is a draft letter that's included in this item for the commission's consideration. Um, and if if that's acceptable, then um, that letter could be sent with the signature block changed. And I can speak
on that because I was the one who brought it forward as far as that goes. It's a letter of intent and basically and I want to be really clear because I know this keeps coming up. This is costing us nothing. So there's no expense to the city. There's a little
bit of time and it's a study to see if it makes sense for the county to purchase our sewer system like several other communities have done. So, but this is just a letter of intent. There's no cost. There's no anything. So, I just want to make that clear to everybody.
We're authorizing I guess probably that I would sign. Um, we could either have have you sign or we could have the acting city manager sign. Either way. Okay. Either way. So, we just are basically approving that we're going to send the letter to the
county. To the county. Yes. Okay. I was I was asked to bring a few points up. These are things that you might already know but and so I I apologize for that but but basically this is current you know it the wastewater program is operated as part of our enterprise fund.
It does not uh take any money from the general fund. In fact it actually pays into the general fund annually just under $600,000 to help offset certain admin and overhead costs. those funds um
would not be available if we were to say out uh sell the system. Um the this the staff that we have that actually works in in uh managing and maintaining the wastewater system, they are the same
folks because it's cleaning pipes, it's TVing the lines, checking things out for leaks. Um it's the same folks that do our storm water system. Okay? So we share staff. So if we don't have wastewater staff, we lose a component of our stormwater staff. We share those
staff and in fact we also share the cameras and the trucks and things. A lot of the vehicles, they we aortion the charges out within the enterprise funds, they share that. So if if all of a sudden we don't have that that I'd say it's the majority of it is
is paid for by the wastewater collection revenues. we won't have those funds. And the same thing for tools and trucks and things that that are shared collectively. And the last thing and and I I think it's in the package. I'm pretty sure it is because Chuck had
loaded a lot of these things. Um back in 2017, the county looked at the system and said for us to take it over, for the county to take it over, we'd have to the city of Treasure Island would have to pay $5.6 million. Okay. So
that's that's those are just some bullet points that uh that Chuck had asked me to bring up before you pursued the letter of intent because it is going to be a a a cost. Well, we don't know until the study's done if there's going to be a cost because we've had a lot of upgrades since 2017. That's many years ago. And
if it's a cost and it doesn't seem like the right thing to do, then we don't do it. But it doesn't cost us anything to find out. And it's in my opinion irresponsible to not because as we grow and move and I and please understand I know you just got here so please
understand that but as we're growing and we're going to be going through a big building boom and infrastructure is going to be needed and just lots of things are going to be needed that Treasure Island and we just we're not capable of keeping up with and that was
why this was being looked at. Um, and again, if it makes sense, it makes sense. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And it doesn't cost us anything to do it. And and staff will provide, as you mentioned, once the letter of intent is signed, they give us a list of all these things. We will provide that information
so they can Absolutely. Is there any drawbacks with uh signing this letter of intent like uh will it set us back on rebuilding the master pump station or She addressed that. She said we should go ahead and build it because we have a grant for it. She addressed that. And
what about uh moving the uh sewer uh line that goes from our pumping station to St. Petersburg? Uh they would want to reroute it to Mader Beach. That's correct. And that would be at our cost. Gotcha. Wow. And that was from the 2017
study. So again, we won't know the updated anything until they study it and it cost us nothing. There was a 2022 study also that was done born I believe is part of the package and there the numbers were even
worse than the the right and if it is ex again I think it's fiscally irresponsible for us not to look at it as a possible cost saving if only because it doesn't cost us anything to do it well it does if they're going to give us just a list of things and say
hey we need this this no no to see if it makes sense I know but there there is going to be a list given to us that's going to mandate all these things we have to provide to them. It's probably time be some staff hours to go ahead and fill out hours with the
information. It's not money together. We we'll do what they they require provide. If you think that you can do it, that's great. You know, the thing is, you know, the commission will assess the uh the information, determine what's the best way to go. We'll we'll go ahead and
support any. Thank you. I'd like Thank you. Appreciate that, Gary. I hold on one second. Uh Gary, I I understand uh that we can go ahead and proceed with the lift station. So, I'm glad to hear hear about that. Uh what about the public works facility? Does that is that
on hold until until this study's done? We we just well we just opened up the qualifications package on Friday. Um we only had one more submittal for it, but it is for the master lift station and the new public works building. So, we
are proceeding along those lines, but hopefully we'll know a little something before we actually get into spending money on that because um that could be u an issue uh as far as the spending a lot of money and getting into it. But, as
Commissioner Vasquez has mentioned, we have a grant, so it'd be nice to take advantage of it. Yeah. No, the grant is is for the lift station, correct? Uh not not the public works facility. We're going to go ahead and master plan as part of that effort to get it all fit in over. Okay. All right. I Yeah, I'm just
glad to hear that. So, so basically, you're saying we can go ahead and proceed with the with the That's the direction I was given facility uh and not have to wait 9 months or a year for this study to be complete. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, but
that's going to be uh even for the trash, you know. I mean, we need to know all of those pieces that go into the public works. Absolutely. And then if I can just offer I believe there are actually two grants with the master pump station. One is I believe a state and one is a federal. I don't think the
federal grant agreement has come before you yet because my understanding is I think they're waiting for it to be shovel ready. So after design is done and then that would be um presented to you. And the other thing I wanted to let you know is right now the city has a um agreement with St. Pete for the you know
connecting in to that pipe. Yes. um that is a a 10-year agreement and so just if at a later date once you have the study if you decide to go a different way just kind of a heads up we need to look at that agreement as well. Okay. Okay. Thank you. To me to me this is the same
as the trash. There's absolutely no harm in looking into this. If it comes back then they tell us we got to pay them $10 million we just move on down the road and keep doing what we're doing. I mean it's pretty simple. So I you know and I want to officially welcome you. I did it in private, but welcome to Treasure
Island. I've heard nothing for those who don't know, I know several of the people co co I guess it was former co-workers and friends that you've worked with throughout the state and I've heard nothing but good things. So, officially welcome. Thank you very much. I appreciate Absolutely. Glad you're here.
Okay. Is there any public comment, please? Hi, Kimberly Stewart, Isle of Palms. I just wanted to mention because it seems like maybe some people um aren't remembering that the lady who
spoke about this potential acquisition mentioned that they're currently looking at also acquiring the Bear Creek facility which is right over here and that because of that they would have to be doing something different with their facilities to be able to tie in for
that area. And because of that, it wasn't necessarily that we're gonna have to haul all the way up to Madora Beach. So, I just wanted to remind you guys that there was another alternate mainly because they're looking at other acquisitions, too. Good. Thank you. Great.
Rick Matthew, District 3. Um, just real quick, this isn't necessarily on storm water, but it is public works. Our roads are crap right now. Um, I wrote to Chuck. We did an assessment in May of
22. Now we're three years later and we haven't had any rain since the storms really. But the hydraulic action of a road of a car crossing over all these cracks. If you look 107th on the causeway, this is going to get worse and
it's going to get bad quickly. Our roads were destroyed. We saw 30 years of traffic within two months out here. So, we really need I I brought this up before. We really need to address this. It can't be kicked down the road because
once we start losing those chunks, then you're having to escape the entire road and not just maybe doing a pave. So, we need to get hot. I know it's a big ticket item, but we're talking about pickle ball courts and all this other stuff. This is essential. We have to
have this as essential infrastructure and we don't want to get into well now we got to do the whole city. I I know Chuck sent there's a couple streets here and there. One one's involved with the lift station. Great. That's good planning.
But we also got to remember that our roads were destroyed. Our sidewalks were destroyed. Those have to be repaired because now it's a liability issue. The sidewalks up here are cracked because of those dump trucks coming over. Anyway, just give it some thought. We We really
need We can't wait. And uh I guess the plan was to assess that next year. I I I think now because even if we assess it right now, it's going to be a year or two years in the making to to get those roads done. We've done five repairs
outside of our building and right now I have big chunks of concrete or pavement that's come up. So just doing the patch that that's okay, but we really need to take a hard look at this. Thanks, Rick. Please, Gary.
That was a good point. I've I've noticed it myself. Um the one of the items on the consent agenda that you approved was the amendment to extend the uh uh the grant for the vulnerability assessment and that pro that that is going that's part of that whole thing. It it helps to
actually support grants um for hardening and resiliency and and so that's something that we're definitely going to be taking a look at look at. So that's a you know very uh um I noticed it as soon as I started driving around. If we catch it now, it'll be cheaper than having to
if if it if it fails totally. So, it's great. Thank you, Chief. If you'll make note of that. Okay. So, we'll close the public comment and any additional discussion.
Okay. So, motion. I move to approve the city manager to sign the letter of authorizing the study of the potential transfer of wastewater system. I second. We have a motion and a second. Uh please call roll. Vice Mayor
Vasquez. I. Commissioner Clark. I. Commissioner Saison. No. Commissioner Dicki. I. Mayor Doctor I. All right. Moving on. Approve city manager's purchase authority of
$147,026 to the Florida Transportation Systems, Inc. for the purchase of a 2026 Bluebird School Bus. Good evening. The city owns two buses that we utilize for our summer and winter camps as well as off-site parking
for our um large-scale events and as well as the comprehensive emergency management plan. most recently helping Sunset Beach residents um exit the island after Hurricane Hela. Um we have the bus, we have two buses and the bus,
the first one is a 1999 Thomas school bus. It is a 65 passenger bus and the second is a 20 uh 2008 Ford 550 Superduty 32 passenger bus. The city's 5-year uh vehicle replacement schedule
had the 1999 school bus in the um budget for 2021. However, the city had chosen to keep those funds in there and just keep rolling them forward until we actually needed to replace the bus. However, I had been requested to bring
it forward for this year for consideration to replace the 26-year-old bus that we currently own. The bus is in relatively good condition. Um we replaced the seats, the tent. Um the major issues with it is that over the
years we've added um AC and we've added uh side and backup cameras so it draws on the alternator and the battery so we have to do we installed a kill switch which requires us to shut the bus off so we don't drain on those things. And we constantly are replacing alternators,
batteries, and the air conditioning. Most recently, the air conditioning is dead again and we have not replaced um as of yet. So, I contacted Pelos County Schools and they have um contracts with three companies that are all approved
vendors through the Florida Department um of education and it's Florida Transportation Systems. It was uh Sunstate International Trucks LLC and Matthews Bus Alliance. Um the Florida transportation system is an actual has
an actual school bus. It has all the necessary um safety features such as the lights and the lap seat belts and the safety arm. The other ones are what they call, let me get this right, multi-functional school activity buses.
They come white and they are not necessarily with all the blinky lights and the safety arms. They do have seat belts, but um they don't have the same safety features that a school bus does. Also, Florida Transportation Systems um
with the Florida Department of Education uh contract, they came down from 152,000 to 147,000, which is the price that comes before you. And they also can deliver the bus May or June depending on the approval of the bus.
Um, all new buses, like I said, have the air conditioning. They have the uh safety lights, the arms. So, when our kids get off the bus now, we have a staff member stand out there with their vest and their safety safety uh sign, but now we would have the arm as well, which would be an additional safety
feature. I know that Commissioner Sison had asked about renting a bus and what the cost would be. So to um just for comparison for the 10-week summer program, we actually got a quote from Assured Transportation and um Astroskate and it's approximately $40,000 a um
summer to rent a bus. Um that doesn't include winter camp storms or events. And we do uh rent actually from Assured Transportation for our Sandy Innovations event to give us a few more buses to go into the islands.
And I know they charge us over $800 um a day for that. So um I'm here before you to ask uh for your permission to purchase a new school bus for um use by the parks and recreation department and our old bus
would be taken to the Tampa Bay Machinery Auction to be traded in and you know that price um that auction price would go towards offsetting the cost of the bus. Yeah. So, I know that uh we've had some uh some I guess
they're field trips with the the kids and that and uh we've been stranded on the side of the road. Yes, we do not take the school bus far. Um it stays within Penllis County. Um so, we don't go real far with it anymore. Um we did
get stranded going to Legoland once, so that was kind of uh stressful. So, it stays within Penelis County as much as we can. So, I have some additional information to share. Okay. So, I actually called Benton West Transit Equipment this morning and I spoke to a
gentleman who gave me the lowdown. Um, and uh, so obviously uh, diesel is the way to go. It's most reliable and efficient. Uh, there's also gas, propane, and electric, but those really won't work for us. Uh, I found uh, this
gentleman mentioned he has a IC uh, bus. It's uh meets the same standards as the specs provided in the packet. Seating capacity 71 uh persons. Um it's about 30 to 40,000 miles on on the odometer. Um
and it's appraised at about a estimate $100,000. Uh it's an off lease bus. So uh the the school buses that you see like the typical yellow school buses, that's either IC or Bluebird. Bluebird is what we have now. It's the traditional yellow school bus and it's
the most soughta for, you know, capacity and liability. Uh we also have that F-S series bus. What's the cap capacity on that? It's 34 passenger. 34. So you have Chevy, Ford E, uh Eeries, which is a van. F is a truckbased. They're all
smaller capacity. Um and then there's uh the Ford uh there's other Ford, but then there's Freightlininer and International. They either go from 45 to 77. They're all like kind of like the Mercedes-Benz or BMW of the bus world. Uh Bluebird's more like a Chevy or Ford
and it's the most reliable. And then uh so their buses, although at 100,000, so this is something to consider is uh these are Midwest, Illinois, Kansas, they go through snow, ice, and so on. So you know, their buses usually they sell
at about 120,000 miles. And the gentleman uh mention and they're like like 3 or four years old, you know, 100,000 miles, you know, uh not driven in the summer. Uh he goes he doesn't recommend buying a used bus in the Midwest cuz you're going to have salt uh
and you know, degragation of the steel and so on. They have all the safety feature features that we are requesting. Um and then he goes, of course, you got to look into uh hydraulic brake or air brakes. And then with this bus, you could add a air
conditioner for $20,000. That's the front dash air condition and then two other air conditions in there. And he goes, "Honestly, based on what the information I provided and the information he shared, he's like, we're better off buying a new one." So, well, I will tell you, just for comparison,
when we bought the 2008, we got it for 38,000. And I will tell you, we put a new engine in it for 22,000 like a year later and then more air conditioning repairs. So, I would recommend a new bus as well. Yeah, the F-S series, the E
series, those are all like Ford. I mean, they're, you know, good engine, but obviously you have the same issues that you want to go with diesel. It's low, low horsepower, high torque. Uh, but it's the Bluebird is in my opinion the way to go. I was first that against spending this money,
but it's with tariffs and increases in prices, it's only going to increase. And we obviously kicked this one down the road before. So, and we were trying to stall as much as we could and then I had somebody who had wanted me to bring the bus forward, so I did. Kathy, can I Oh,
I'm so sorry. just for my own knowledge. Um I just want to learn what the bus is used for other than the camp because I again I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. I've seen online that you know it's only used for the camp but I don't believe anything that I see
online. So I'm asking you so it is used for camp I understand. I've actually been on the bus when I've walked from my house to come to events right up at the So just can you just list everything that we use these buses for? That would be helpful. So, it is used primarily for
camp um winter and summer and we keep those buses running um every day for 49 days during the summer. It is used now we're doing more and more offsite um parking and bus shuttles for our events because obviously we need to because
parking is limited as well as going into the neighborhoods and getting people out. Um, we used them highly this year after Hurricane Helen to get into Sunset Beach. Precoid we had, well, actually COVID year, we had I can't call them
senior trips because people were offended. So, we called them day trippers and we were doing bus trips and we had um the Tampa Bay Rays. We were going to Hard Rock and we were doing all these um recreational programming with the bus. Um we stopped doing that
because the bus in that particular year was the tow year and everything. So they got a little unreliable to leave. We also had been a um approved vendor for Penllis County Schools. Know they don't always use their school buses for off-site parking. So we had been doing
that. We also have in our fee schedule um a rental rate for the buses. Now, we haven't rented it as much, but I will tell you the Paradise Island Civic Association does rent it um for their uh trip to the wine place. I can't think of
um Sympotico. Um so, they do use that. So, we are we use it for different functions. I will say primarily it's camp and events. So, is it only civic associations that can rent? Anybody can rent. Oh, you need
a special license. Tell you that Stanley is the main driver. So, um, you get a driver with that, Stanley. Yeah, you get a driver and you get pass. It's per hour. We don't do bachelor parties or bachelor parties. No, but um, yeah. So, Stanley
does have his uh, air break and passenger, you know, passenger endorsement. And basically we have a few other employees that want their CDLs and they will be required because after the storm we realize everybody who has a CDL in our department should have air brake and passenger endorsement. So do you
know is there any kind of a and I know it's hard to say but is there any kind of an estimate what it might get at the auction? I don't know. It's not and I I give our wholehearted 26-year career to Don Sitzma who's our mechanic. He has he
knows that bus in and out and he has taken care of it so well over the years. It's in decent condition. It's just gotten to the point where it's not reliable. Actually, Madura Beach had called wanting to use it for their seafood festival a few years ago doing transportation and we've done that where
we share our buses, but I was just afraid that just the constant, you know, it, you know, it's unpredictable. So, um, but the body is in good condition and I hear that people will buy them. So, I don't know that estimate though. At least whatever it gets, it'll be an
offset. The gentleman I talked to today says that uh those companies fly down to Florida auctions and buy them to bring them up north. All right, let's open it to public comments. And we have Sarah Pennington.
Okay. and Rick Matthew. All right. So, need a new bus. Where's the tradeoff? We have a fleet of over I think it's 65 cars now. 65 vehicles. All of them brand new. Okay. The bus is old,
but where's the trade-off? Where when do we come back to the residents and say, "We need a new bus. We're going to get rid of some of these other vehicles. It's always more, more, and more. We're a small city with a big budget. Let's just buy it. Where is the fiscal
accountability? We have F250s. We have all these new brand new trucks. Where was the fiscal accountability? We need this bus so bad. Why didn't we say, "Hey, we're not going to pay for those cruisers. We're not going to pay for this lift
truck. When's it going to happen? We sat down and reviewed the budget last year. We made all these recommendations. Fell on deaf ears. We're going to do the same thing again this year. Like I said, we're a small city with a big budget. That doesn't mean that there's
no accountability. We got to stop this. We got to stop the bleeding. Thank you. All right, we'll close the public hearing. Any additional thoughts? I just kind of wanted to address that. I think
that's a um to trying to phrase this in a in the best possible manner, but the raised F250 police truck was a replacement for a truck that constantly broke down for
our marine officer and who also is on the streets daily. And so it's used to pull a boat. So you needed the 250 because it's a twin engine boat. the 150 transmission would not pull
it. That particular truck also the air conditioner never worked in it and we're asking our police officers to go out and work in a non-airconditioned truck. So, I just want to defend that a little bit because that was a much needed thing.
That was a much needed item and that was not a frivolous expense. And we talk about kicking things down the road. I've heard that used a lot. We all know what's been kicked down the road for the last decade, but nobody has a problem doing that, and that would be the public safety building. So, I'm going to hush.
All right. Anything else? Give a motion, please. I move to approve and authorize the city manager to execute the piggyback contract with Florida Transportation Systems, Inc. in the amount not to exceed
$147,026 for the purchase of a 2026 Bluebird bus to be utilized for park and recreation activities and emergency operation. The second second. All right, we have a motion and
a second. Will you please call a roll? Vice Mayor Vasquez, I. Commissioner Sison, I. Commissioner Clark, I. Commissioner Dicki I I Mayor Doctor I thank you. Moving on. This is a request for
additional permitting staff. A graphic of what we're going to talk about. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Be sure to provide one to the clerk. Okay, good evening. Um, I'm just going
to open this up with a little overview and then a lot of the details my teammates, okay, Katherine and Jessica are going to fill in. So, great. So, as we stand here today, um the building
department is under blue sky staffing. And what does that mean? Well, that means that they were on pre-torrm staffing as we speak now. Back in April when we had the additional staff, we had
a backlog of 47 permits in the in the bottle. Today this just in grown to 217. Now I just heard that today so it's
not in the chart. Right. So lower staff bigger bottleneck. The solution as as I see it and as we see it is that we if if that bottleneck
is unacceptable then we will need to address it with additional staff. If it is acceptable then we don't need additional staff. You decide which is acceptable or not. That's not our
choice. But right now the growth curve is is up. The bottleneck is getting bigger. There's no reason to think it'll get smaller. Maybe months from now it will. But if we want to solve the bottleneck now, we need to get some additional
staff in. Well, the question is how long? Well, I don't know. This is unprecedented. But I do know that that the team will be working week by week to watch where the numbers move and as they
move down, we will adjust accordingly. Now, how much does it cost? The additional cost per week is 13,000 per week for the additional how long it's going to last. Again, don't know. We're we've got in
the plan 10 weeks. God, I hope it's five. I don't know. But if the bottleneck is a problem and if you agree it's a problem then this is the solution to that. Now the other question is well what about other
bottlenecks? Well yeah we're going to find them but we have to eliminate this bottleneck first and then we jump on the next bottleneck. watch the numbers and as we watch the numbers week by week we formulate plans
to address those numbers but this is this is the situation on the ground now so um that's my opening preamble well I think that all of us well two of us realized that we were
going to start growing the backlog uh as soon as we did away with the additional folks that were helping us. Yeah. And the backlog, the level of complexity is increasing within those within those permits. There's more complicated
permits. It's taking more time and effort to do. So again, eventually the bottleneck will go down with current staffing, but it it hasn't crested yet, and I don't know where the crest is going to go.
And I think and am I good to speak? Am I good? Absolutely. Um, I think one of the um big reasons why it failed the first time, I know the reason it failed the first time is we just we weren't we didn't have any numbers and something that you stated um that you guys are
going to track, you're going to follow, so we'll have numbers and numbers are nice. Numbers are everything and my math teacher taught me that. And if um kind of my thought process and I'm just throwing this out there um because nobody does know exact you know the
exact numbers there's no way right now to know that. So my thoughts were and I don't if it's possible and this is probably a Jen question um on timing wise was if we approved say four weeks that would give us some data come back
before so that we can keep the same additional staff if we need to but come back before it expires and look at those numbers and then we could say okay this makes sense. I would is that is that make
sense what I'm saying? Single meeting what the numbers are and again if we if we are granted the block of of 10 weeks is what we're looking at. If two two meetings in it's down we all
agree. Okay, game over. We're done. We can move on. But you know we we have to be proactive in this in that okay here's here's the problem. We have to attack it. We have to track it. And then week by week by week, we've got to see the
problem. Hell, the the it could still even go up a little bit. It it may have it may level out. So, we may see it's not going to be up here and then go down immediately. It probably get up to this 217, maybe a little bit higher. It It
will probably level out and then we should start seeing the decrease. Well, I think everybody expects it to before the end of the free permits. I said and everybody I think we all probably expect it to pick up before the end of the free permits, too. So, I mean in inclined
wouldn't be surprising. This whole this whole game is unprecedented because we have no historical data to say, well, the last time we had two hurricanes, this happened. Well, we don't have that luxury of data. But we do have the we do have an opportunity here to attack this
thing, learn from it, and god forbid anything happens again, we'll be better equipped to to handle this next time around. Um I I have just a couple of questions. Um first, I want to echo what uh Vice Mayor Vasquez says, and that is
the reason I didn't vote for this first time is we didn't have sufficient numbers on this. I'm sorry. I wasn't just going to give Chuck, you know, $130,000 because I don't I don't agree with the way this has all been handled. So, I do like this idea of it's x amount
per week and and if if this backlog goes down, we then we can say we don't need these folks anymore. Yeah. But the main question down slowly, you know, the main question I have is and I don't I think the answer is maybe we we don't know. I don't know. No one knows.
It says here we've issued like 1,565 building permits. We've assumed that's the people like who's you know fixing their homes, right? So I forget that what's the number that we expect? I mean the total number of homes buildings
that are going to need a permit is it 2300 or 2600 from my recollection. Does anyone have that? I don't I don't have that data. Well, I have a lot of emails regarding this and uh there are still people who are still working with their insurance companies and haven't been paid out. So, even some of them don't
even know what they're going to do yet. And of course, there was request with extending the uh the permitting uh fees. Um and the reason I didn't vote for it for for the first time was because there was also not enough damma uh data,
sorry. Um but uh I actually had a constituent reach out to me today. She just got approval for lifting her home and uh she also wants to know where the bottlenecking is happening and uh the current permitting process asked for irrelevant
Go ahead. I I was Oh, you in the middle. I was right in the middle of trying to So, my apologies. Go ahead. My bad. So, I guess it scares me a bit that no one knows how many total permits we expect to get in, but let's just say the numbers 20. Okay. Let's just say the
number is 2600. So that means we still have a thousand more permits to get in. But I don't think, here's my point, we don't know when those are going to come in, right? People, some people are never going to try to turn in a permit probably. So if we spend this
$130,000 and we go along, we get the backlog down and then nobody turns in a permit for the next three months, then we just wasted a bunch of money. Do you understand what I'm saying? That's why I That's why I like your idea of if what
if we do it for two weeks, we get the backlog down and then nobody else turns in a permit um then we've just wasted a bunch of money. So if we could do it in a measured way where we take it week by week, I think that would be very good idea. I'm a big week by week guy. Um but
to counter your point is that it let's say for the sake of argument that we know that it's done. We're stuck with 27 Mike, could you speak in the microphone? Sorry. Um, let's say for the sake of argument, nothing comes in. We're stuck
with 217. So, the question then would be, how many weeks would it take to get that 217 down to an acceptable level? Yeah. And then once those are gone and we don't get any more in, we don't need to spend any more money until more permits come
in. Probably I don't have I don't have an answer to how long that would take. And I I think two months, I don't know. Also, I think Arthur started to get into it possibly, and I'll let him go after I'm I'm just about done. Um I also think that the permit I I made
a mistake. I I made a statement in here one night where I said that everybody should have had their permits turned in by now. I that was a mistake for me to say because I wasn't thinking. I've met a ton of residents who are just now today getting their insurance money and
I I just got mine a few weeks ago. So, I had I had to fund $100,000 out of my pocket to fix my house. Some people don't have that luxury. So, I personally feel like we should extend the permit uh thing until September 30th. That's one year since the hurricane to give these
people that just got their insurance money and couldn't afford to fix their homes um the ability to file for a permit and get it done. That's not what's on the agenda, but any I'm done. So, go ahead. You first.
iPhone sucks. Okay. Uh just some additional information. uh you use the number 217 per like that's right right are in review there's another 186 that are waiting corrections uh so the little
uh chart that I keep up every week when I get the permit data and please uh Jason keep that uh keep that information coming because I find that very helpful but anyway there's a total of 403 outstanding permit applications as of as of yesterday uh that are still
need either waiting additional information or needed review. So, we're currently in the last three weeks, we've averaged 28 28 permits a week. So, if we didn't, and it sounds like we're kind of all leaning towards putting some more additional resources there, but if we
didn't, it would take us 13 weeks to get caught up with our backlog that we have right now. And uh and that's if we got no more applications, permit applications in. So, so we do have quite a backlog right now that uh hopefully
this money will help us get back together. The other the a little bit of good news when we had this conversation I think it was was it four weeks ago or two weeks two weeks ago three three or four weeks ago when we had this last conversation we were averaging 63 new
permits I'm sorry we were averaging 97 new permits a week that number for the last three weeks has dropped down to 63. So there we are seeing a a bit of a drop off. It's still running about twice as what it normally would run under blue
sky conditions. So, uh, but anyway, we I I think I think from what I'm hearing, everybody's going to I just I just want to re-emphasize that we are watching this week by week by week and we are ready to make decisions on the ground
when the time is right, when we see the numbers tracking in the direction we want to track it in and we know that the track is going to stick. We'll make the appropriate adjustments downwards back to blue sky. So, what I was going to
say, um, was, uh, talking to, uh, the my constituent that raised her home, um, and others, uh, we, uh, the current permitting process asked for irrelevant information such as requiring Home Depot receipts, how many sheets of drywall,
how many gallons of paint are required, information, uh, you know, if the information was reasonable and, uh, judgment was used for these permits, applicants didn't need to make six trips to the peritting department.
So, and we have commission meetings every two weeks. So, how would we approve additional weeks if it takes, you know, if the next meeting is May 20th? So, if I can just point out something very quickly, um because I'm
I've just looked at the date. So, if we went out four weeks, we're looking at a June 1st. If we went out 6 weeks, it's around June 16th. Uh moving further, 8 weeks is June 30th and 10 weeks is July 14th. The way we need to notice our meetings if you wanted to try to make a
decision um at at the next meeting. In all honesty, that four weeks might not be enough at this point for us to get enough data and see who's all coming in, especially considering the fact that as of June 1, we would have just ended that free permitting. So, just kind of
throwing that out there for your knowledge. Um, the other thing about the staffing that's currently coming in, um, is that they're well aware of everything that's going on. They know exactly what's happening. We've kept them updated, but these are also folks who are are wanting to come back and help,
which is great. They've already been with us. It's literally just a matter of turning them back on. So, there will be a lot of reactivating their account and they can they can come right back in and immediately begin working. So, we're not going to lose any time for training
purposes. Um, it may be just like a little bit of catchup here and there because they've been gone for four weeks, but other than that, they're ready to kind of hit the ground running. Great. Um, and the other thing that I would also like to point out, um, for the flood plane manager, um, that's listed on there, that is actually the same
person. It's really just a matter of whether or not she is going to be remote. And then we would have maybe about you know like however many hours maybe 30 hours a week because it's less expensive obviously if she's remote. Um if we have her in office we may cut those hours down a little bit. So this
is all very very fluid in the management of how we want to you know coordinate this particular staff completely aware that as permitting starts to get caught up let's take a look at what that next bottleneck might be and then move
forward from there in making the decision. I'm just not sure if those if only approving four weeks right now is going to give us enough time to make those types of decisions or if we're just going to kind of end up in the same situation. Yeah. And I wasn't for I mean if if the timing didn't work out, it didn't work
out. It was just again just kind of a thought. Okay, if we could do that then we could you know because obviously I know we don't want to lose those people either. So that's why I said if it could be before the um expiration and that is absolutely something that we can continue to bring updates on. Um so that
way when you're ready to make um a decision to either just you know end the program or continue on you'll be you'll have more information to do that. What what's the plan for the rest of the permit cycle as far as you know inspections, closeouts, audits? Do we
have a plan for that? Do we is that going to cost more money? what what do we think we need to do there? Kind of. Yeah. In response to um the questions you asked in your uh PowerPoint, we did bring you some other numbers about what those are. Um you would ask about uh the
number of closed permits which are finalized permits. Those are in the report that you already have. Um the inspection numbers are very very high. Um if we look at
um last uh fiscal year was 1669 permits and you look at year to date which is 8 something months. Um it's 4,720 inspections have been done. Um you would ask about FEMA audit. What? I
wasn't sure. Um, we don't actually have a FEMA audit, but we do have like a reassessment where people are coming in asking for their No, I just mean like through the whole permit cycle because our we all we've heard this entire time is FE FEMA's going to come back and look at all these and audit that that's going
to take people to deal with them. Right. So, I'm just trying to find out what are our needs going forward to get to the end of this and and have we have we have we um you know forecasted those out? Are we going to need more people, spend more money? I I I I don't know the answer.
So, so right now we are um FEMA is here as they say to ensure that we don't become Lee County to ensure that we remain in compliance. So, they're coming to see us once a month um with a list of questions. We meet with them. They kind
of tell us what to expect. Uh the next step they have already told us is to come back for and these are called these are not an audit. This is way pre to what an audit would be. So this is called a technical assistance visit.
They did indicate to us in our um April meeting that in May they will be coming with a sample of whether it's a street, whether it's I don't know
10 addresses. They want to see everything that those permits entailed. They want to see the detailed cost breakdowns. They want to see everything about those permits to make sure that we are doing them correctly and that we are in compliance so that we do not fall out of compliance. So everything that staff
is doing right now is trying to avoid an audit and trying to avoid getting to that point. So right now we're still working on that. And just so you um because we've never really had a chance to discuss this, we also have other
audit visits on a regular normal blue sky day. So we have um community assistance visits coming out of FDIM that are yearly. Last year they came they found they pic they drove around and picked out five things they didn't
like or they thought didn't look right. Um, we took a lot of research. Took us about six weeks to resolve all of that to their satisfaction. But we had the records we needed. We had the information we needed. One of the owners was forced to go and get a private
appraisal because there were errors. Um, but we passed and we, you know, keep our ratings intact and keep and that's really to ensure that we're in compliance with state law with state flood plane law. We also have uh CRS
yearly visit, which is CRS's community rating system. That's part of the National Flood Insurance Program. We also have a yearly audit from them where they come, they check, they pick random. So, we've been through this before. We know how to do this, but um and now
we're under like what they are calling technical assistance or FEMA assistance. And they indicated that they're just going to look at this sampling and see where we are. So you mentioned these inspection numbers are huge. So what's our plan to get through those? Are we going to need any additional staffing?
Are we going to need to spend more money? That's just what I'm trying to So the our building services are contracted through Safeu MT Cosley. Um we have as of October 1st a full-time building in
official and a full-time building inspector. Um, we are not obligated to use them full-time, but we have their services full-time, and they have been utilized very much so since the storms. We also have access to one additional building inspector, which is how we've
been able to do this through our existing contract with MT Safe Build MT Cosley. So, are those going to get us through what we need to get through? They get us through what we need to get through. Um, we right now are still within our contract approved contract limits, but we may be having to come
back and and talk about that as well, but we're building monthly monthly on that. And right now, we're age before beauty. We're okay. As you know, we have waved the building funds and we're coming back next week to talk about fee waiverss again at your request. and
um you know we are looking at the building fund being very very deficient by the end of the fiscal year. So um these are hard things that we do need to look at and talk about. Well, what I was going to recommend that
it if Go ahead. Okay. Is that we uh uh authorize the the 10 week amount so we don't have to have this discussion every two weeks. Not to mention the, you know, the planning that required in advance to post these and uh to the public and stuff, but that we authorize it for 10
weeks, but Mike, you committed to giving us regular updates. So, if you would do that and then, you know, obviously nobody wants to spend money that we don't need, but if you can give us regular updates, we'll know how we're progressing and and and whether or not we're getting caught up on or not
getting caught up, but getting getting uh on time with these permit applications. The other thing that I was going to ask since you're up here, since the three of you are up here right now, is Rick Matthews and uh Diana Crrael had mentioned about permit expire dates.
What are people's current options without any action from the commission? What are their options when uh for applying for extensions for a permit? So, normally a permit expires in six months with no inspection. But we and
most everyone in the state of Florida is under a state of emergency that has been in effect since Hurricane Ian and has been extended by all the other hurricanes. But we are still literally under the state of emergency from Hurricane Ian. meaning nothing expires.
Okay. So, we'll make people aware uh when the time comes that they do the expiration dates do and these storms likely even if Ian does expire there's a extension for Debia, extension for
Helen, extension for Milton, and those usually are extended in um on regular basis. Okay. Thank you. I mean in 60-day chunks. I was going to say, is that something Jason could possibly put out on social media so people know that? Cuz I've actually heard that a lot too about
the expirations. So, I didn't know if that's something we could put out publicly or Yeah. People don't need to worry. They're not Yeah, because they do they they're like, "Oh my gosh, is it going to expire?" I think that's like a good learning example because this has been brought up. I mean, uh, Diana
CrarAel came in and brought that point up and I thought it was a very good point and I think Rick brought up before. No one, no one ever, this was a very simple answer. How come no one ever got back to her? I got one question if I can. Sorry for interrupting. What' you say? I have one question if I can before
you go to comments. Mayor John. Yep. Uh, what options are available for outsourcing the backlog? Uh, he was still in the middle. Oh, I'm tired. So my bad. So I guess how can we in the future if there's a simple answer
that someone comes in and it would make us city and all of us look a lot better if we there's a simple answer. How do we get it to them? Not saying it's your fault. I'm just I I mean, you know, well, that's a that's a I think a broader question and and I
think the answer to your immediate question is that, you know, not some one of us, some of us, all of us should have followed up on Diana's original suggestion and Rick's uh Rick asked the question again the previous, you know, the previous session. So, you know, with everything we had, all of us let that
fall through the cracks. But that does fall on us. If somebody asks something to get with the appropriate people, the city to make sure we get answers on these. I do wish and I and I hope we can make this happen going into the future is have something more formal where if somebody does ask a question and we and
we don't have the answers that that that somebody's required to document that question was asked and and that the answer be provided. Can we have a secretary take down all the questions that we're asking? Email it out to us or something. I mean, I think that's a good I'd like to get these people answers if
they're simple as this one was. I mean, gosh, it's note you don't nothing to worry about, right? So, okay. I'm I'm making notes for you. I'm up to number six. We'll get those answers. All right. And if I could, if I could, I would also like to clarify
uh because Mike just just reminded me regarding this that these are not going to be contracted employees. So, we're not paying a third party. These would they would come in as temporary employees which means they do not get any ancillary benefits, no health benefits, no vacation leave, nothing like that. They come in as temporary
seasonal employees basically and then um their time with us would end when you say it ends. Great. Good. And we did do that research. We do have um cost you know when we were going to bring through the other contracts which were much high much higher than hiring
them directly and these people can hit the ground running which is a huge part of what we need because we've been training people for six months and these are some of the we selected carefully the the positions that we really need and the people that could fill them best
for us. Arthur, did you have I do. I'm up. Awesome. Thank you. What options are available for outsourcing the backlog? This is the option. It's the cheapest option around. Are we going to go for the 10 weeks?
Like I said, 10 weeks, but track it, track it, track it. Okay, let's go to public comment. West, that's okay. Thank you. and uh Natalie
Salvatore. Okay. All right. So, no more public comments. Sorry, I'm gonna try to go through the agenda. Kimberly Stewart, Al Palms, I'm trying to go through the agenda packet as we sit here and follow along. And it actually does hit two of these positions
are contracted positions, not direct hire. Both at $137 an hour. 40,000 of the 130,000 for two contracted employees. Just want to throw that out there. It's not all direct. So if I could just clarify again that those contracted employees are the empty
causely employees. Correct, Katherine? Safe belt. Yes. So those are that's a contract that we already have. Those are employees who are already or I shouldn't actually say employees, but those are folks that are already here and doing that work. So, this is a continuation of something that
we've already had in place. Okay. All right. We'll close public comment and I'll take a motion. Well, I can't do the motion until we decide if we're going to do because it has an amount in it. Well, let's do the
10 weeks. So, you Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify before I did following it very closely with Mike. Okay. So, I move to authorize the city manager to approve expenditures up to 130,940 for six temporary employees and
two contracted zoning personnel with MT Cosley. I second. We have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. Vice Mayor Vasquez. I Commissioner Clark I
Commissioner Zison I Commissioner Dicki I Mayor Doctor I thank you unanimously moving forward. All right. Uh terminate the contract with Advanced Engineering Design.
Yes, I'm the one that put that on. So I will go through uh a few things. I think that um one of the big concerns that came up at the last meeting was you know were they doing something that only they could do and that we had no one
else to do. Um we got the list the there's multiple under other engineers for everything that they do. Um I want to I want to also say when you look online I think they have eight employees. um the uh these other firms
have thousands of employees and so I don't believe there's anything that these other that that these guys can do that these other firms can't and I think that um uh Mr. Harris came up and echoed that the other day. I also looked
through um their outstanding work authorizations and I went through them one by one and I don't really see any showstoppers here. Um I mean train modification programs as service as needed. Um all permit reviews proceed as
normal by other consulting partners. I mean this would save us money. Um train modification program not started 45,000. Um assigned I think we could sign that to another engineer Kimley Horn or someone like that. Um, and as I
go down the line, I I can read through each one of these, but I don't see any showstoppers. Um, the other question I have, I read the letter that Miss Yncan had in there, and it it it, you know, it sounds like, and this was my fear, you
know, they came up with train modification manual. Someone goes and tries to bring in fill dirt. it goes to another engineer and then we're paying uh you know AED again to look at it again and I just I just I just have a
problem with this and also talked to a couple people who have who have started to bring in filter and they said that it's been a disaster trying to file the TMN um and that all they keep having to go out to engineers to ask questions is
to understand it. So, I think also if we got some new engineers in here, I think John, you had stated that one of your goals when you voted for this was to make it simpler over time, I think that some of these other engineering companies could help us do that. And I I
personally am just tired of forking the money over to these guys and I think they were a huge part of the elevate TI debacle and I don't see any reason based on everything here that we there's nothing no one else can do. And that was echoed by Richard last last meeting
which I respect Richard a lot. So you you're correct. The uh the several of the work orders or or authorizations could be completed by another firm. But I would like to go ahead and point out certain ones that I think would be best to stay the course
on. Um, we've got a force main contract that's se 70 to 80% already designed and complete and a change. Um, same thing with we have an MPDS permit that is I think of $8,000. They've buil 7500.
Let's get them to wrap it up. And and then the final one was the vulnerability assessment, which is what you approve the amendment on the it's a grant-f funed project. That was one of the consent order items that we approved earlier. So, I'd just like to see if let them finish those out. We won't
authorize any new activity with AED. It makes, you know, the best sense on those those projects. I I'm I'm rational and I ag I'm fine with that. I would agree with that. I'd like to point out the vulner vulnerability assessment. I'm sorry, I
cannot talk right now. um is grant funded and it allows us to go for state grant funds. It's a requirement to have that assessment in order to go for some of the resiliency funding that the state has. It has a a potential benefit to the
city. Um, I do want to say from the CDD perspective, the first item on the um, list of work items is AED working with C CDD to launch some of this. It's the checklist. It's
everything to make it easier for the applicant. Um, and I just want to clarify that they will not be reviewing every permit. They would be reviewing one of each type of permit, which is three types for each of our three engineers. So,
nine at the max. Um, and that's just to make sure that they are meeting the criteria and terrain. It's not a third party review on every permit. Okay. Uh, Mayor Doctor, I don't have a question. Uh I have more of a statement
here in that I I I'm very uncomfortable with uh cancelling uh our our working relationship with Advanced Engineering Design. They've been uh they've had a relationship with the city of Treasure Island since 1999. So
for 26 years they've been uh a competent uh provider of services to this city through multiple commissions through multiple mayors through multiple city managers and they've remained a stable
uh uh partner that we can depend on. uh they do work for other municipalities in Penllis County including Madera, Clearwater, Largo, Gulfport, Belair, Panella County, Panelis County and Simol to name a few. So again, I understand uh
Commissioner Clark's uh uh doesn't like them because of their association with uh the with the Elevate TI program and and terrain modification. But these people uh have done good work for this city for many years and I I think we
should continue uh to have them as one of our providers. They they are of all the other engineering firms, they're the only small business enterprise uh engineering firm that we have as as you heard mentioned. The other ones have 2,000 3,000 6,000 employees. Uh this one
has many fewer. Uh so I would like to uh continue to use them as long as they uh perform to our criteria and I would second that. Uh, Commissioner Dicki, I I think that
you've hit it right on the nose that uh we don't want to lose all that knowledge that we have built up, you know, which literally is what 25 26 years of of knowledge and that uh you know, we can maybe limit what we're giving them or
whatever, but uh I think that we we would want to save uh the contract. I personally kind of what you said, Gary, and actually we discussed when we met. Um I would definitely agree with not stopping those certain projects that
you mentioned. Um especially being that one of them is in my district and and it's almost done. Um I'm fine with doing those three projects and then no more new business. I I like your original. Um, I think that's a I think that's I
think the residents would be happy with that as well. Um, at least the residents that I've talked to that have been concerned about this. Um, it's kind of a happy medium, I guess you would say. Well, is there is there room for compromise? And again, it I hear there's 26 years of
of institutional knowledge and we'll go ahead and finish out the existing work orders that we have those three that as far as from a public work standpoint. Um, but rather than terminating them, we will hold off. But if there's something
that they have unique background experience on, it might be advantageous for us to tap into on occasion. We right now we're looking at Kimley Horn for the master pump station and and and and we'll go ahead and and try and spread
the work out, but there may be some things because Commissioner Dicki did bring bring a point and and and the mayor also that that there may be certain things that that to go ahead and get somebody who has no knowledge on board. It it it might be on those
certain instances be best to go with AD. It's hard for me to believe that someone with eight people has knowledge of uh stuff that huge uh national companies don't. It's hard for me to believe. Well, having been a small consultant
practice, um we provided better service when you called, I answered the phone. One of the employees at AED, who I didn't know this until I came to work here. He actually was an employee of mine years ago. he's, you know, he's many years ago and, you know, they have
good people, but again, if there's, we can always move on. There are other consultants we can utilize, but there may be there may be that instance where it's like, wait a second, remember that we may want to be able to at least have them in the stable still so we can pull
them out if we need them. So if we do that and let them finish out the work they have and basically put them on um I don't even know what you would call on restriction basically just bring them in for those particular things would
that be something that would be and I'm just you know trying to find a a happy because I agree I mean I I would rather look at other engineering firms however I also agree with the 26-year history that means
something. We we do approach the commission for review and approval of a work authorization to them. We better have a good explanation why. Okay. I mean, my big problem is they fully supported Elevate TI and kicking people out of their homes. And I can't
get over that. I'm sorry. They were in that lock step and barrel and they were going to go sell this to other communities. And I think that's just horrible. So I'm gonna raise my hand because I don't want to interrupt you again. So can I say I'm done. I'm sorry.
Cool. Uh so I know their fee schedule is very reasonable, you know. So what's their expertise on seaw walls? Because we have an issue there. So do you know that information because I know I I'm looking at the list and there's no one labeled for seaw wall seaw walls. They're the only ones. I I don't know.
Are they do they work on seaw walls? I haven't talked with them specifically on that. I I I I'll be honest with you. I just went to to lunch with them just to get to know them a little bit when I first came on board. But um I can I can inquire on that and I can add something
to that if you'd like. Um Mike had met with them um I think the week before uh this was brought up that to terminate their contract to talk to them about doing the seaw walls. So okay. So let's go to public comment
west. Could I say one more thing about implementing this for CDD? That first item is really important to CDD. CDD is struggling right now with not enough people and you know implementing a huge new program and the support that they
can provide with technical expertise is really important to CDD. So just want to put that out there. Okay. Thank you, Mayor West. I'm I'm sorry. Can I just I just wanted to point out one other thing. um is that just so you know um these contracts as well as I
believe it lists many of the engineering contracts are all expiring in September of 2026. That's kind of a lengthy process to go ahead. So I anticipate that the city will probably be going out to RFQ for all of these services. I
would anticipate sometime this year because you want to be able to go through, you know, first of all, it'll be a huge RFQ. You'll be going through all of the different engineering services. You'll be finding those most qualified. They'll come to commission for ranking. Then they'll come back to
comm and authorization to negotiate. Then they'll come back for contracts. And you know, it is up to you at that point whether or not you find them qualified if they apply in the areas they are. So, I I just wanted to make
sure that you understood that all of these engineering companies are terminating in 26 and there will need to be that process occurring soon. If only we had an onstaff engineer. Can I just ask you a question? I mean, isn't there
stuff in their contracts that states that, you know, they're 26 years if they can't just abandon us on something that they worked with us on, right? They have to still provide us information and things. Correct. Is there not clauses like that in there? I know when I've done contracts like that, there has been. So, there's clauses with regard to
records and providing you obviously the records, but they're not going to continue to, you know, consult with you on items if they're not under contract. Sorry, go ahead. I just wanted all the information out there, please. West. All right. West Evans, Hila Palms. I would I
agree with Vice Mayor Vasquez and Chris Clark and uh about uh finishing out these jobs that they're doing. Of course, you wouldn't want to end that immediately and try to pick up halfway through with another firm. Uh but I'd
like to say that they have 26 years uh in our community and it seems like in those 26 years they learned that they could uh put a knife in our back at some point with the 10-year look back. That's the most uh egregious. I mean, just
anyone who would present that. If that would have gone through, the city would be none of Well, I won't say none of us would be sitting here because some of you guys would probably like that if we weren't sitting here tonight. But, uh,
the the city would be completely different. That 10-year look back would have destroyed everything we love about Treasure Island. Um, so maybe getting rid of this firm uh will kind of be
a a signal thrown up, a flare shot in the sky that shows uh the other pirates out there that they can't board our ship because we won't just take anyone on uh
that plans on pillaging from us. So um maybe 26 years Um maybe they did a good job in the beginning but they have uh burned a bridge at this point. So I say we move on find
uh bigger and better fish in the sea. Thank you. Uh is Natalie here? I'm here to speak about drum circle. Oh drum circle. Okay. Yes. I thought I was done for
tonight. Sorry about that. Okay, so let's let's get the record straight again. Ard and I appreciate the touchyfey about they work for us 26 years and life's good and they know everything about us. The fact is, and the only reason I know this is I did all
those damn foyer requests during the whole elevate TI, all of them. And I know too much about AED, but one thing I I'll share with you. Bill Reedi was the engineer who started the
relationship with the city up until he sold to Justin Keller in 2023. Justin went to work for him and then ultimately bought the business in 2023 right in the middle of Elevate TI and all that. So
the relationship we have with them as working with us is with Bill Rei who's retired and I'm sure he's still there as kind of retainer and I'm sure he comes around. Hell, you might had lunch with him. I'm not sure. But that we can't let
that be a deciding factor in whether we continue a business relationship because while they're an engineering firm, let me remind you they were taking our money and and subleting marketing programs to sell Elevate TI
had nothing to do with engineering whatsoever. They were taking the money through I mean we gave it to them wasn't illegal but in they were doing marketing with a firm in Madiraa Beach to support Elevate TI. What does that have to do
with engineering and our needs? So just think about that. I mean I'm not trying to burn bridges. It's not the same bridge. It's a different company. It's a different principle. And that's the one we have the most relationship with Chris over the last two to three years is
Justin Keller and what his kind of backdoor stuff he was doing here trying to press Elevate TI. Nothing wrong about the 26 years with Bill Rei. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I want to make another quick comment if I can or do I Oh, is someone
else coming? Yeah, let let's Yeah, let's No, I guess we Yeah, Cara. I'm sorry. Thought I was done, too. Uh, Cara Sim, District two, uh, District One, sorry. Um, so the whole big thing that I think
everyone in the town is talking about is rebuilding Treasure Island. And in that respect, we need to start fresh with everything. We have a whole new fresh face up here, which I think are doing a fantastic job. I think all of you are
and I love all of everyone's unique characteristics, what you bring to the table. I think it's all fantastic. Um, I agree. Let them finish their projects and then include in the motion once they're done, they're done. Um, because
again, like what Mark said, the relationship, it's in the past now. Um, I was told outside, uh, very briefly by Parks and Wreck that having to do with the pickle ball courts, funny enough, um, they chose Kimley Horn because AED
was eight months out. Um, so I think that's a very interesting, you know, thing that Kimley Horn's being used because AED is eight months out. How far along do we have any sort of with what's left on their agenda with us? How long
is that going to take? Do we know? Um, as far as I know, and maybe one of you guys can answer, uh, who are the engineers that we still have? I know we have Michael Baker, AED, and Kimley Horn. Do we have anyone else? They're all stay tech. They're all on here. There's nothing that these people can't
do that they do. Okay. Um, have we thought about, you know, because we have AED is only going to do this now. Michael Baker. Pretty sure you guys ousted him at the last meeting a couple meetings ago. Um, are we opening up the floor to adding a couple anytime soon? You know,
can we can we put the staff in place to throw an RFQ out or, you know, for Yeah, I think that's what Jen was just referring to is that Yeah, we've got basically a year and a half, but like now. Oh, well, you'd start now. Now, yeah, you have to start now to have it
in place by then. just just for clarification purposes, just because we do want to start fresh because from what I've seen the staff do is they just take it upon themselves to pick one because that's what happened obviously with the Michael Baker thing and I don't know
obviously how that comes to be and how they choose. Um but maybe that's from a leadership standpoint or they discuss it with you guys or what. But obviously um maybe we can just do a better job from
the top level down on these engineers so we don't get into the issues that we have now um moving forward and we're not spending bukoo of money and continuing to bleed like we are with all the spending that we're doing um with engineers because obviously I mean we
all know engineers are not the least expensive thing um but we're going to need a lot of for a lot of things to rebuild TI. Um and so we want to make sure that they are you know good and there's a lot of them. There were seven that showed up here on Monday
um for the uh meeting that was for the uh was that the waste was that the yes the public safety. So you know there's seven right there um that came and presented and so we have a lot that are local that would be more than willing to
help us. So, I just would like to put that out there as well. Thank you. I I just for a second want to take a slight issue with something that you said, Commissioner Dicki, that you know, Chris just wants to get rid of these guys because he does not like them. And the
reason that I've been brought this up is because my residents have brought this up to me. And the second thing I heard after I went doortodoor campaigning after we need to get rid of the city manager was what is
going on with the relationship between this AED and our public works our assistant public jerks director cuz they were just in here trying to ram this thing down our throat and and Mark Hoey is exactly right. They're out there
marketing this stuff, trying to go around and sell this. And this Justin guy is trying to build his new business on our back. So, I have a problem with that. And I'm bringing this up because my residents want me to bring this up, not because I have a problem with AED. I
do have a problem with AED. You're correct. But I'm bringing it up because my residents want me to bring it up. And I think we've already kind of acknowledged the fact earlier that the residents are the problem. you know, they're they're the reason why we wanted to get rid of Chuck and they're they're
they're bad. So, I listen to mine and they want me to bring this up. And I'll just a part of the discussion. Um Mark, thank you once again. I don't know where you're sitting, but thank you once again. Um you always bring
excellent information and points when you speak. Um, I was 100% with the 26-y year history because that I mean I've been in business a long time myself. So, it does mean something. However, it does also
change the view a little bit when we're not doing the same that we did 26 years ago. Um, it was taken over in 2023. Um, so that definitely it's not the same history um that we've had for 26 years.
Um, it is a new one. And again, I am absolutely not opposed. I think we're silly if we don't let them finish what they're what they're what they've started. But um I would tend to with the new information that that I did not
personally know that Mark brought forward that definitely changes my thought process on the history with them because we really don't have that long of a history because it was under new ownership in 2023. So some additional information there. Justin has been uh associated with us
since 2006. That's a big difference being associated though and being an owner. Well I wasn't the owner of the company until 2020. Correct. But yeah, but I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, so I just want to make a motion at this point and stop talking about this forever and let them finish their three
projects and then you know let's get rid of them after that. So what would that look like? Okay, just so just so I'm clear because I want to make sure it's really clear. So on the motion you are specifying that you would like them to continue their work and I'm going off the list that's in your agenda with
regard to um the vulnerability assessment which was number five, the force main replacement engineering which was seven and the annual year six NPDES report
which is number eight. And for the remaining items on that list, you would like us to terminate the work authorizations in accordance with the contract. Yes. That's the motion. You can just say so moved. That's the motion. Okay.
Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any additional discussion? All right. Roll call, please. Commissioner Clark, I. Vice Mayor Bas Vasquez. Hi. Commissioner Saison, no.
Commissioner Dicki, no. Mayor Doctor, no. All right, that is everything that we have for our agenda. It is 5 minutes after 10. We're
going to uh go and have our workshop. So why don't we start the workshop at uh 10:15 15. Good evening and welcome to the commission workshop May 6,
2025. Like to call this meeting to order. First item of business is the city attorney. Do you have any report? I don't other than to say normally around this time I would start to give you an idea of some of the legislation that's passed but because the
legislature has basically um recessed until the 12th and then they'll be back in and they won't be done until after June 1st you won't receive my legislative update. I may give you a few bills at the next meeting but we're still waiting. Okay, great. Thank you.
Okay, discussion items. Let me get first one is drum circle discussion. Chief, good evening, mayor, commissioners. Um, what we're asking for tonight is direction. I'm going to do a little bit of perspective of the drum circle on Treasure Island Beach, which
occurs pretty much every Sunday, weather permitting. Um, I've been your chief for five years, and I've seen this grow. And the incidents that I've seen since I've been chief, include and are definitely not limited to sexual assault, um rampant drug use, marchman acts, which
is when somebody gets too too drunk or too embied, they cannot take care of themselves or in danger for themselves or others. Um numerous ordinance violations. And I think that this has taken a turn and gone away from its um early intentions of a familyfriendly
this is definitely not a familyfriendly event. And um we've asked all of our supervisors that witness this every Sunday to kind of give us a little excerpt. So we get reports on this every Sunday. We're averaging between three and 400 people depending on whether it's a holiday weekend and of course depends
on the weather. And let me just I'd like if I could take a read a couple excerpts from an email from one of my supervisors and I think he really sums it up very well in his his email. He says, "The majority of attendees over the past decade have increasingly dedicated themselves to finding ways to skirt the
laws and local ordinances, especially pertaining to pets on the beach, narcotics usage, and noise violations. The service animal loophole is commonly applied throughout the masses. Marijuana usage is prevalent and impossible to track in the tightly packed crowd of several hundred people and an
everinccreasing groups of attendees after the event concludes continue to test the boundaries of what they can and can get away with in terms of other ordinances such as vending group assemblies and noise. Um it's been a a big problem for us to enforce. Obviously
you have crowds that large and Captain Saves is going to give a little historical perspective. We've been dealing with this for decades. This is not a new problem. We recently enacted the ordinance without smoking on the beach and you cannot use marijuana on
the beach where we can smell it if you unless you're vaping or smoking. Everybody complains and a lot of business owners have complained about the odor of marijuana that comes from. That takes away your your family environment there. Fortunately, at Treasure Island, and we've seen this through the spring break periods, we are known as a family beach, and that's a
great reputation to have. We want to encourage families to come here. This isn't a party beach. You've seen some of the traditional party beaches around the state of Florida do everything they can to discourage the party crowd from coming. And if we want to continue to maintain ourselves as the as a family-friendly beach, I think it's
important for the city to decide, give us direction of how you want us to handle this. Um the flagrant ordinance violations, we've been scouring their social media pages and stuff like this. They openly talk about how to get away from um certain ordinances. Some people
will be so bold as to set up tables and um try to sell things. We've had them trying to sell alcohol in the past. We've had beads, various handmade things, and they said, "Oh, don't worry. If the cops come up, you just say that you're either you can take donations or
you're giving the stuff away." Um so they openly and flagrantly try to circumvent our ordinances. The pets thing is is a real issue. There's um fortunately they they post a lot on social media and they have videos from within the circle and you
can see numerous dogs on beaches which are not not service animals. These are dogs pulling at the leashes. These are all sorts of different breeds of dogs, but everybody understands the loophole. They say it's a service animal. And you know all the only other question we can ask as law enforcement according to ADA is what is your animal trained to do?
And everybody has a rehearsed answer for that. Um it's it's just to the point now where I don't know what liability the city would incur. Like I said, we've had some pretty serious crimes out there. Uh we have an over we had an overdose there a few weeks ago and so obviously people
are not out there just to drum and and watch the sunset. The good people that have intended this has grown out of their control. And the problem is any other group that goes on Treasure Island Beach that wants to have a mass amount of
people, we make them get a permit. We make them come in front of you and we make sure they have insurance. So, I don't know what liability the city could incur. Um, I'm going to let the captain talk about some historical perspective and something that has happened to a former officer.
Good evening, uh, mayor and commissioners. Thanks for letting us speak tonight. Um, I've been um an officer in the city for almost 20 years. And in that almost 20 years, that drum circle has been out there in the 104 block of the beach. When I was an officer, um, I was actually assigned out
there for several years and saw a lot of these things firsthand. fights, domestics, drug use, open drug use, um child neglect cases where parents or guardians would get so inebriated that the child would wander off and we'd have to find the child when it's dark out. Um
many many other things, thefts, uh disorderly intoxications, and like the chief said, protective custody, which is Marchman Acts and and Baker Acts. Um, this dates back I mean we we started doing weekly reports back in 2007 and every week I would have to do a
report and send it to then uh Chief uh Tim Casey and then Chief uh Budro. So this is something we've been doing for a long time. I have an email here back from 2012 from the former uh lieutenant at the time where we had a um
multi-jurisdictional um plan because we found out that there were rival gangs going to this drum circle and we brought in assets from around the county to help us control that. So that was a big thing for us because we had like six or seven agencies that were helping us. The
incident that the chief was referring to was um I don't have the exact year, but it was a former officer of ours who um saw a crime occur. I believe it was a domestic and uh attempted to arrest the individual and ended up tasing the
individual. And while he was handcuffing that person, another person came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head. And that officer had to medically retire and go on disability because of that incident. And he can never be a police officer again. So, um, I tell you that it is shocking
and in my opinion, the drum circle should have stopped there, but it didn't and we're still dealing with it. So, like I said, I've been here a long time. I can answer any questions you may have, and I'm sure I have an answer to them. May I? Sure. So, being a business owner
at 10500 Golf Boulevard right across the street, I've probably dialed 911 thousands of times uh due to Durham Circle. And actually, uh when I was actually I'm quoted in an article in 2004, uh Tampa Bay Times, uh I did
research. I did uh I went to um the police records department and I got every single uh 911 call uh on Sundays uh for set hours and I asked for uh
Publix well before it was TOPS and the fund center um Golf Run Park uh Wind Jammer Page Stairs Bilmar Walgreens uh Allied Insurance Company which is this building and the community center park
and I put together a list of everything that of course the sensitive information was blacked out. Um just hold it till I like could see right through it. But uh uh there was everything from stolen cars in the
parking lot uh you know domestic uh issues uh rape. I mean just very uh pretty horrible crimes. And then what they would do is they would dig a hole uh in the sand and they would smoke whatever. I mean everything. And uh I
mean and that the gang activity you mentioned they were recruiting on the beach. Um and I remember that that was pretty awesome to watch. Um and a little more backstory. It was uh Commissioner Butch Ellsworth uh who
um this was brought up and this used to go on till like 3 4:00 in the morning and they would beat drums the whole entire night and then so it was Commissioner Ellsworth who came up and uh made a motion to stop it at sunset.
So, of course, summer was 8:00 p.m. or when the sun actually disappeared and they were supposed to stop on the dot. And then in the winter, same thing. Of course, that's earlier. And uh sometimes they go on later, it's uh it's back in the day, it's a mess and it's only
getting bigger. So, and luckily the the slide came in and now they're on that side of the slide. So, less problems for me, but still a lot of problems for Treasure Shores. uh this what was the seahorse those condos uh island the
condos next to that and uh I think trade winds and sun coast and west winds and the condo next to Publix. So a lot of problems. So we we started to um really rally around last spring and um
basically put the message out if you don't police yourselves we're going to police you. And that was effective for about a month and then it kind of, you know, we went through the storms and it's come back twice as much. And I I promised you when I became your police chief, I would make this department efficient and effective. It's not an
effective use of our manpower to have two and three officers stand out there just to babysit a bunch of people when we don't have the resources. I can get the resources, we don't have the resources to enforce a city or violations and they just don't care. Big issue is accountability. There's nobody that has raised their hand and say, "I
am the organizer of this group." And you know, so we could have them fill out a permit and come in front of you guys and you could decide whether or not we can have that. And do you have the insurance? And and oh, by the way, you need to hire like we make everybody else do. You need to hire offduty police officers because you have a certain amount of people here. You may have to
hire fire department off duty because you have a certain amount of people. There's no accountability for that at all. Um I know they've used the term, oh, we just come and gather. We just happen to be a bunch of people gathering in the same place. But, you know, it's whatever I said, they they they kind of skirt anything they can do to skirt the
system so they can do what they got to do and to get in the middle of the circle. You know, they're not law enforcement friendly. They're not supportive of rules. A lot of times we've when we've made arrests there, people are screaming, "You don't have you can't tell us what to do on the beach. You don't own the beach." And just things like that. So, we're asking
for direction well how you want us to proceed. We can absolutely come up with a plan um and and take care of the situation. One thing that I want to say on this because I know I've talked to a lot of you guys about this over the years too.
Um, how is it or why is it and what can we do about it that visit St. Pete Clearwater literally has I'm looking at it right here. Treasure Island Beach Sunset Drum Circle every Sunday that it's literally on the visit St. Pete
Clearwater page. What I mean it's not an if it if it's not an organized event with a permit. It's like how how did that even happen and how do we get it off? I mean that's I'm sure that could be handled with a phone call. It's just like the unofficial dog beach on the very south
end which doesn't exist on the very south end of Sunset Beach, which I know drives Commissioner Dicki crazy. We're calling Google all the time and saying stop. It's not a dog beach. And there's been other official governmental organizations in Penllis County that identifies that as a dog beach. We've had to make that correction as well.
Yeah, that's interesting. Can we like Yeah, we need to like make a note of that or something to to We can make that all part of find out. Yeah, find out how we get because I It's funny. I was I because I go on there to look at the events going on and I'm like, "Wait a minute. Why is this on here? It's not an
organized event." So, I was just confused at that because that obviously is just going to bring a lot of, you know, not that we don't want tourists here and everything else and and it's sad because I know the drum circle definitely started off as a fun event and it's sad because I'm sure there's
still many many people there that would love for it to be, but unfortunately that's sad. I think that's a good start is addressing that. Yeah. I mean, I don't think this one is really that difficult. Um, I don't want to tell people that they can't, you know, go
have their deal, but they need to have a permit if they want to do it, right? That many people. So, so you put out online that whoever runs this thing, you got to get a permit. If you don't get a permit in two weeks, we're going to shut the thing down. And then secondly, if
someone were to ever come and pull a permit, and we allowed them to have it, then you got to follow the laws out there. I mean, you can't smoke. You can't bring your dog. You can't do this. I mean, I I love to take my dog on the beach. He loves it, but I I can't
because it's not allowed. So, why do I have to follow the rules and they don't? So, to me, I mean, you make them get a permit. If they don't do it, they can't have it. And then secondly, if there's any laws broken, you you they need to be enforced.
No one is there's no organization. Okay. Well, if someone's not willing to continue to have it, someone's not willing to show themselves after two weeks and say, "I'm going to fill out a permit and then then that solves the issue right there." I guess my problem is how are you going to Well, that was
this thing down there 400 people or control it or something. I'm not going to give out operational plans, but we have a plan. Okay. Okay. We'll be using multiple outside resources. I mean, I think there's someone here tonight that's going to speak, so maybe we can ask her.
who can do who can do a permit and you know if I could just say one more thing I'm sorry I meant to read this earlier but you all know Carrie Hourback of Treasure Island ada beach and I met with her today and I will tell you and she said I can absolutely say this and I'm sure she's watching at home she was really going to come to me in support of
the drum circle she went last Sunday talked to a couple people there who were somewhat the organizers or some of the social media people she had a great conversation with one Carrie says the amount of of trash and everything is ridiculous but she's as the attitudes of the other people she talked to and then
when she walked out um there were two people in the dunes having relations and you know right not even really trying to hide it they're just in the dunes right as she was walking back to the parking lot so she came and says chief I'm 100% I'm forget it because they can't they can't
behave themselves sad so in the past there was a couple people that stepped up and then we would as hotel years we gave out garbage bags and to help out with the clean they would uh clean up after a while and then that ended like at a month and that's what Carrie Carrie
tried to do as well. Yep. That's unfortunate. Commissioner comments or comments. Yeah. Let's uh take some public comments. Natalie, I want to be prejudiced on this one. Natalie works for us.
Um, hi. My name is Natalie, as you guys have heard a couple times already. Um, I will be looking at my phone because I'm bad at public speaking. Um, I am here to speak on behalf of Drum Circle. Um, I've been attending every single Sunday, rain
or shine, for the last three years. Um, during this time, I found a home, a family, a loving community, and my form of church. Um, I've met incredible people from around the world who have come to
Treasure Island, not only, you know, to just vacation, but specifically to come and experience the love and the light that Circle provides. Um, over this time, I've also grown into more of a leadership position, which is why I'm here today. Now, when I say that, I
don't organize the circle. I don't own the circle. No one does. And that is one of the issues that I understand that we're having is that there is no specific leader, but that is how it's been since the 80s is it doesn't belong to
anyone. Um, so I understand that we have been having some issues. Um, Carrie came to me a few weeks ago, let me know about the trash situation. I am one of the people that she's been speaking with. um
she brought me out some trash bags um distributed, you know, and I've been working the last few weeks as well to really work on this issue. I am one person. I'm doing my best um to really
address it. Um I do fully believe that uh as the saying goes, it is a few bad apples ruining the whole bunch. Um myself and others do post every single Sunday on our social medias. Leave the dogs, leave
the DJ decks and speakers and leave the vending tables at home. That is posted every single Sunday. Um we tell people, we tell visitors face to face, your dog should not be here. Hey, you need to pick up your trash. Hey, you need to
leave. You can't spin fire. You got to go. Um but um when we see like the comments like how it was brought up um about how to get away with things, we delete them as fast as we possibly can. If something
does slip through the cracks, we have an admin team of like three people. Um it's a very busy page, but we do our best. Um we try to delete all of the pictures with dogs and stuff like that. And again, we are telling people, leave them at home. You cannot do that. You are
putting us in danger. Um the only thing is we're civilians. Um we just kind of happened into these unofficial leadership roles. We don't possess the power to enforce them.
Um besides like using our voices in the hopes that others are going to have the same amount of respect for our city as we do. Um, so this is why I would really like to ask the city and I would like to ask the Treasure Island Police Force for
their help. Um, I fully believe that issuing citations and tickets are the only way that people will actually start to take these rules seriously. Um, I have a small voice. I am a small person. I believe my voice
carries, but I don't believe that I can fix all of these issues myself, which is why I I am here tonight. Um, I've also noticed as well that the afterparties, um, which I do want to point out are not affiliated with the
circle itself. When things are posted about them, when pictures are posted, we take them down. We don't want that promoted. We don't want that to be the focus of our circle. But I've noticed, especially in these couple months since it's gotten warmer, it's gotten larger
and it's gotten worse and we want it to stop as well. Um, it's an issue and we need it to stop. Um, so I'm with you guys. I understand the issue and I want to help, but I also need you guys to
help us. I said, all we have are our voices. We are welcoming police presence. We are I mean obviously the afterparty people not awesome. Um but us as like more leadership roles
at circle we are welcoming police presence. We're welcoming the city stepping in and being like hey stop because again all I have is my voice. Um I would love to start a dialogue with y'all um about this not only tonight but
in the future as well. Um, like I said, this is my home, my church, and my family. So, I'm open to any and all suggestions and your recommendations on how we can keep this part of our community going.
That's all. Great. Thank you, West Steven Evans of Palms. Uh, I'd like to say, uh, I've never been to the drum circle. I'm a punk rocker, sworn enemy of hippies. You won't find me there.
But I'm also uh firm supporter of all First Amendment activity. And I believe the drum circle does fall in line with that. Um who's to say, like the police said that, you know, there's no organizer. This
is people showing up and they all happen to be into the same thing. and having a gathering. Um, I think the only solution to this is a heavier police presence. You have to hit them in the
pocket with fines, citations, uh, you know, locking someone up for the night or that's probably not going to do anything. That that's a right of passage for a lot of people nowadays. You have to hit them where it hurts and that's in the pocket. Um, the sins of my brother
are not my sins. If I want to go on the beach and uh play a guitar and a guy 20 feet away is playing guitar and smoking crack, you know, I shouldn't be uh uh
told I can no longer play guitar on the beach because that dude committed a crime with his guitar. And that's uh kind of the route we're going down. If we uh try to do some kind of all-around ban on
this, I think it's uh what it's going to end up happening is you're going to get even more people who want to make a first amendment point on this where they go, "Oh, you know what? Now, let's all come out and they can't stop all of us
and you're gonna end up with 1,200 people instead of 400 people. So, I'm God, I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm with the drum circle people on this. Uh, but I'm also with the police on this because I don't want to live in
a town that's smells like weed and has dogs on the beach, you know? So, I think heavier police presence is the only solution. So that's my two cents. Thank you. Thank you.
Stewart with I love Palms. Again, I have been to the drum circle. Um I'm actually a punk rocker, but I have a hippie heart and I've even spun LED po balls for fun out there just because it's a neat thing. Um I I completely agree that we shouldn't deal with any of the things
that they are. and I didn't know about some of that history because I've personally never seen any of the violence or those kinds of things happen. I'm glad that I haven't. I'm I'm not there all day. I I I've never stayed for the afterparty. However, um I can say it is one of the things that does draw people here. Um it is things that
people talk about um like, "Oh, are you going to the drum circle at Treasure Island? Is that really a thing?" And it is a big thing and it does draw people here when right now I don't feel like there's anything else really drawing people here. Um, but on top of that, I go to the beach, I don't know, at least twice a day, seven days a week. And
every time I'm down at the beach, I see dogs. I smell pot, smell cigarettes, smell cigars, which I guess cigars are allowed, but I don't understand all that. You know, if I I don't know that I've ever seen a single citation being handed out at the drum circle. I can walk through the crowd and tell you
who's smoking. Um, so I don't know why it's tough. And even just non drum circle days, I can go down the beach and tell you who's smoking. I I know the dog thing is a little more difficult and that's unfortunate, but um I'm just going to throw out a little bit of support for them, too. Um just because I do think it's a wonderful thing and I do
think there are a lot of big-hearted people out there and I don't think that that is the only reason that there are dogs and drugs and stuff on the beach. So, all right. Anyone else? Okay, let's close that portion.
um thoughts. I clearly I will admit I was kind of surprised when I brought up Trump circle to people and I thought it was going to be shut the thing down and I there a lot of people who who kind of talked like the people that were just up here
talking that there seems to be some some level of support for it. I just go back to, you know, I listened to Natalie and Natalie said that the drum circle is nobody. It's it's just it just exists. But then in the same
sentence, she said, "Well, we don't we don't uh support the afterparty. The drum circle doesn't support the a so there is some, you know, leadership of this drum circle." So, as I go back to what I said earlier, the drum circle, if they want to exist, need to find a
leader who who's willing to step up and get a permit. And then after that, I think, and if they don't, then they're going to have a that I don't know that they're going to be around. And then secondly, I think that, you know, we got to start enforcing laws on the beach,
whether it's drum circle or not drum circle, because you can't allow someone out there at noon on on um on Tuesday to be sitting out there by themselves smoking whatever and not ticket them, but then go ticket the people at the
drum circle. So, I think there needs to be a permit and then I think laws need to be enforced and if they want to have the drum circle, they need to find a leader that's willing to come get the permit. And if not, then there's going to be issues. I And I think what what
they were both saying is it's not that they don't want to enforce, it's that they don't have the manpower to enforce. when you have people out there, when there's 450 people out there and and I mean on any given day, how many officers do we have on duty? Typically three to
four. But so and let me just address one thing. So one of the residents said um that they can walk through the middle of the drum circle and see all this stuff. Well, a person walking through the middle of the drum circle without a uniform is definitely different than me walking. I may be targeted undercover
like my and I Oh, and I'm glad you brought that up, Commissioner, because I did do undercover stuff out there when I was assigned out there. That was one of the things and and I ticketed a lot. And additionally, I mean, we do write tickets out on the beach. I drive the UTV at least twice a week, and I see violations all the time, smoking, glass
on the beach, and dogs on the beach. I don't write them all tickets, but I definitely address it. So, it's not targeted to the drum circle. These are just some of the things that we see out there. I have a question. So obviously we have a big wide beach. Um and so when an officer is driving down the road, of
course someone smoking would, you know, put it out in the sand and bury it. So you can't really surprise them. Uh what about using like drones or something like that? I mean, if you want to approve one in my upcoming budget, a big one. Absolutely.
We had we had a drone, but it was a Chinese drone and we weren't allowed to bought not allowed to use that anymore. So, yes, we could. So, got Yes, we could. Chief, it it sounds like you got you you've given obviously given this a
lot of thought and you do have some things in mind of how we might be able to get a better control of that. So, it's it's it I I'm leaning on my 35 years experience here and I understand people say, "Well, go in there and enforce it then." It's just not that not that easy because as everybody wants to say, we're holding
hands and we're a wonderful part of people. We had an officer punched in the back of the head when he was making a lawful arrest and everybody's holding their cameras out, but nobody assisted the officer and he's now out on disability. He can't be a police officer anymore. So to think that everybody in the circle is friendly and we invite law
enforcement, that's great to say that, but when we step up for enforcement and my officers, I could parade all my officers in here. Everybody's had experience out there. How many people have have said, "Hey, let's help the cops out while they're here." The list is this long. So, I'm
speaking from the reality of it. Whether they don't want to because somebody says, "Oh, they're a narc" or something. We could flood it with undercover people. We could do all sorts of stuff. I could have a drug dog at the beginning of the parking lot right there. We could do all sorts of different things. Basically, if that's why I'm asking for direction what you want us to do, you
know, we started this months months ago. If you don't police yourselves, we're going to police you. And now she's almost, you know, the public speaker, I'm sorry, I forgot your name. Natalie. Natalie. It's you're pretty much saying that, you know, we need your help. And that's what I'm saying, which means it's
gotten out of control where the good-hearted people, it's not it's not happening that way. These people are flagrantly. And she even says, "Well, we took those post off. We take those posts off, but they're on and it's happening every single week. I can't send I can't safely send two officers in the middle
of two and 300 people to make a marijuana arrest or a city or violation arrest. I would need more than that. So, it's going to be an overtime occurrence and resources from outside law enforcement agency. That's how big this money 15 20 people. We're not talking
somebody, you know, they just happen to be in the same place. This is this is a group and they're in a circle and the drums are in the circle and everybody's dancing and doing stuff around them. Sounds like we don't really have an option. I mean, what I would love to see if if if the good people, the
good-hearted people that truly want help because it's gotten out of control and it's gotten away from them, you know, maybe go elsewhere and then let the police do what they need to do with the bad ones and get rid of them and the
good ones can go gather elsewhere. And you know, I mean, that is what it is. is I mean it took 20 years for it to grow to what it is today. But I mean regardless how that happens, I don't see responsibility as a city how
we have an option. I mean, if people are getting hurt, if there's sexual assault, if people are doing things in the dunes and there's drugs, there's I mean, I I can even say I mean, I've never been to the drum circle, but I mean, I've heard
many stories. I've heard over the years from some of your guys, you know, how many people you've taken out of their um drug overdoses and just the immense amount of things that have happened as a city. I mean, that's a huge
liability. And I mean, as much as I hate to say it because I, too, I mean, I absolutely hate to think, you know, people have the right to gather, you know, do what they want to do, but they don't have the right to do things very
illegal and and yes, it only takes a few really, really bad ones to ruin it for everybody. But, however, action has to be taken where it has to be taken. Well, and I think the onus falls on the good people, the Natalies of the drum circle.
I mean, they can get the word out that this has to stop. And they could also nominate some sort of leader and and have to come get a permit and realize that the permit's going to be pulled if they don't behave themselves.
They don't seem like they want to do that. No one wants to step up and be the the good leader of this group. And if that doesn't happen, I don't think there's going to be a way not to to to to, you know, shut it down. Yeah. I don't think it's going to happen. You're not going to get an organizer to walk
up. All I'm saying is maybe all I'm saying is maybe we give them the opportunity and that's it. And it it's probably not going to happen and and then it gets, you know, that's all I'm saying. Sure. Um, so Cesron talked about this earlier where we had this meeting where they changed it to sunset and it
was almost like a negotiation. I don't know if you remember that. And there was no, it was a negotiation between the then city commission and the drum circle leadership organizers, but still no one at that time wanted to take responsibility for it then. Of course.
So it's the same, it's just the same different year. Yeah. So, and again, this is not a first amendment issue. people can go out there and and lawfully gather, right? I want to make that clear. We're not telling people they can't go out there and play their music, but we expect them to to follow the laws
of the state and of the city, and a lot of them aren't doing that. You need permits, you need uh insurance, you need uh if you expect a certain amount of people, you need enough bathrooms. That's a huge expense. Go ahead. I would think it given what I've heard uh how these people are described, I would
think a lot of them aren't paying for parking. Are we enforcing parking and giving out parking tickets at that time of the day on a Sunday? Some some of them pay, but you know how fast the the lots fill up, but yes. So, but but anyway, we are enforcing parking there.
Okay. How late do we uh enforce parking? I mean, on Sunday, parking enforcement is only here till a certain, but the officers can write parking tickets, too. So, I mean, we're we can write parking tickets 247, right? That's not do your primary no target at that at that time
of in the afternoon or evening or whatever. No, because we're out on the on the beach. But when it's closing, the officers do tend to go into the parking lots and write parking tickets as well. So afterwards anyway, if it the reason I even raised that as a subject, if if people are having to pay 20, $30 to park
there for, you know, four hours or whatever, it may uh it may taper off a bit. Yeah, I think that West basically said it as good as any, you know, that it's all going to follow the money. You know, it's if you're writing a ticket and it's
an $80 ticket or whatever it is, it's not going to disperse the the people. No, but if if you're doing it on a regular basis, um, you know, it's it's going to change some people's habits. That's for sure. You can afford to buy crack, you can
probably pay for a parking ticket. I mean, my my opinion is you do what you got to do to disperse it because we can't continue to have and this is just mine. Um I hate it for the good people. Um I know Natalie personally, she's a wonderful person and it breaks my heart
to even say it, but it could be her one day that gets sexually assaulted. And that is a horrible thought. And we I don't know how we don't fix the problem in whatever manner you need to do to fix
it. In my opinion, that's and I'm I'm going to end with that. People like Natalie that I wish it could continue, but uh it sounds like the bad apples have taken this thing over and there's no one in their organization or drum circle that's willing to stop it. So, or
can stop it or you know it sounds like you have the full support of the commission to go forth with your plan when what and present it to us what what your plan is to address that. But but clearly it needs to be addressed and and uh I think we're probably not uh we're
at loss right now with what the solutions are, but you've given a lot of thought. So, we'll we'll stand by and hear your recommendations. We'll put it in place and uh we'll advise the interim city manager and he can let you know in your meetings. But as I said, it's an operational plan which is not up for
public consumption. But right brief you. We're all saying the same thing. So I think that uh yeah. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Okay. City Commission rules of procedure. Yeah. And now it's time for
the exciting stuff. Um, so before I leave, there have been several meetings where items have come up. Um, there's also been two uh recent relatively recent lawsuits that dealt with public comments and how um your rules should be
structured in dealing with those. So, looking at those changes in the law in those cases, as well as some of the comments, I've come up with some um revisions, but these are I just want to be sure we understand these are your rules. So, if you don't want them that
way, then that's not the way they're going to be. These are just literally um changing some of the language that I felt like probably needed to be strengthened based on those cases and then or clarified and then um giving
options for some of the the issues that have come up or questions that people have had to provide that information. So in I mean going through it quickly, I don't know if you've had an opportunity to look at it. Um but with regard to the first section which is really dealing
with scope and um applicability, there are different levels of public forums. So you can have um an open public forum in the sense of like if think about it if you're standing on the sidewalk or gatherings in public places, beaches, parks like
that. Um, a limited public forum is more is generally when we're in a public meeting and that's because the purpose of the meeting is to accomplish the city of the business or the business of the city. However, you want feedback from
your citizens as far as the business that you're conducting. So, primary purpose is conducting business but also allowing that feedback and that's a balancing act. So, we have identified it as a limited public forum and that's really what you're dealing with on the
first page. Um, the other item, let me go through. So, we were trying to clarify when matters are going to be discussed. So, if the matter relates to an item that's scheduled on an agenda for
discussion, then that's when that public participation is going to happen. Okay? If you don't want that clarified, we don't have to have it clarified, but there has been dispute on that in the past. Can we move public comment on this issue or that issue? And generally when you're considering the issue is when you
want that feedback because that's what you're focused on. Um the next item, and this is where I I'm looking for some additional feedback from you. Um there's language in here with regard
to commission meeting starting at 6. Now, I'm just giving you this option. This is not anything I'm advocating for, but there are some communities that say the meeting is going to be from 6 to 10, let's say. And if we're going to go past
10, we can, but the commission is going to have to agree to that. Some people have done that because they only want to stay in a public meeting so long and they want to make sure that everybody, you know, that there's a majority of the commission that want to stay to continue the business. You do not have to do that. you can have six o'clock and you
can run it until you finish your business. It's just whether or not you want to have that time frame in that. Um, some people have that because they also feel like um it may kind of make it more focused
and steady with regard to staff presentations and commissioner comments because the public's already limited. So, just an option for you. Um I took it there was a lot of redundancy. So I've taken out some of that redundancy. Um there were also
things that um the city's been doing now that they hadn't always been done been doing that way. So for instance, same board as your PNZ is your LPA. So instead of having an LPA meeting on the second Tuesday in the evening and your
P&Z on the third Thursday in the afternoon, those boards have often asked, can you rather than come twice, can you just bring it all at once and we can meet on everything? And so we actually go through two meetings, but this is just clarifying it in your board, I mean in your rules that that could happen. The other thing is is that
you have a special magistrate who handles code enforcement. So I wanted to make sure that your rules reflected that as well and when they meet. So the public's aware of that as well. Your um and then I'm just I'm just looking at this and seeing
um I mean that most of this was kind of kind of clarifying and going through. The other question I had was with regard to workshops and this is really um kind of a historical item and I'm not sure how you all would handle it. When I first came to the city, everything went
to workshop. Every single agenda item except maybe proclamations went to workshop. You went through everything there and then you had a consensus direction as to yes, move this forward or no, bring it back. I need additional information and um and that's how it
proceeded. So when you think about that that means every ordinance would come to workshop even if it was like a budget amendment or something come to workshop go to first reading go to second reading at one point the commission was like this is taking it it's making a really a long time you're talking six weeks then
to pass an ordinance at a minimum and that's if we can get all the um notice in on time. So there became exceptions to the workshop and oh I'm skipping ahead but I sorry I was looking at that thing there was a
different one and there are exceptions in here and those exceptions were when certain things didn't have to and then there became a more blanket exception that allowed it more at the city manager's discussion and so my question to you all is it hasn't been operating that way. Do you want your rules to
reflect the way it's currently operating and are you comfortable with that where we can just say, you know, you have items on your regular agenda and then these kind of items go to workshop and that's it or do you want them to continue to reflect that you're taking almost every you're supposed to be
taking everything to workshop and then to regular meetings. So, it's another point for topics. I don't know if you want me to pause after each one and get feedback or that would be easier that way we don't have to. I mean, does everybody agree with that? Yes. Then we can just address it as she goes. Yeah. Okay. So, let me back up and go as to
the ending times. Do you want that? Do you not want that? I I have a more broad question. So, when did we decide or who decided to start looking at these? You decided to do that or did the commission actually I kind of requested a little
bit of it parts of it. What's happened is over multiple um meetings there have been like issues that have come up and been questions of the commission that have been like well did the rules say this? Does it mean this or that? So I've made note of those and I wanted to
clarify those so that you had clear rules. I'm only here until um Memorial Day. So I didn't want to leave and not do it. Well, that was my thought is I I've read through this. Um, a lot of this looks to me like limiting
There's a lot of parts in here that look like limiting public speech to me. I'm not at all comfortable with that. Um, I think there was a history of, you know, past mayors and commissions that attempted to do that. I I I am totally
against that. And I think since you're leaving in the end of the month, I think this is something we should have taken up by the new attorney that comes in here. That's just my spec. That's that would be my request and that's absolutely fine. Just so you
know, there's no intent in here to limit public speech. But what there was in your old rules um and I think um you even mentioned a prior letter, there was general language that talked about um disrupting the proceedings with
excessive commotion, excessively loud shouting, or other noise. that was previously interpreted as being applauding or booing or whatever jeering whatever you want to call it but it wasn't clarified in there and that was a
question does that mean that or not and there was a case on it recently as a matter of fact in I think late 2024 and it came out and said you need to define this so if I what I've done in here and I think that was um in one of your
slides was defined it You do not have to even have it in there if you don't want it. But the the goal was not to make it so that you can't clap at all. It was to define when it has risen to the level where it is
considered. And let me pull the exact language. Let's see. When it is um boisterous. And that is basically when you're talking about it, it doesn't matter what the content is. You could be
in support of it or you could be against it. We're not going to regulate content in any way, but what with your speech, but what you don't want to have is a situation where it's boisterous to the point at which you can't conduct your business. So, I want to give you the tools in which you can run your meeting,
but make it so that it is in legal in accordance with the recent case law that's come out under no I mean, you absolutely can wait till the next city attorney. I just didn't want to tell the board that I was going to do something for them and leave without doing it. Yeah. I'm just going to stick with the
fact that what I read in here I'm not comfortable with and it seems like um you know stifling resonance speech and I would just prefer to wait until we get a new uh look on this. That's what that's all I'm going to have to say on
this tonight. Okay. The way I I read this and I didn't see I didn't see those same thing that Commissioner Clark saw. Uh, I did wonder about the first chart, uh, Commissioner Clark, that you brought up earlier, and I was wondering if somebody was going to
suggest that we change the amount of, uh, time that we allowed for public comment, and it looks like we're on the high end on that, and I would not, uh, recommend at all that that be changed, but it's good forformational purposes only. So, so I don't see there's nothing
to change there. I did appreciate having the city commission rules of procedure. I read this uh a year and a half ago when I first started, but I hadn't read it since. So, reading it, going through and reading it and reminding myself of the rules of procedure, I think was
helpful. I appreciate you doing that. You've done a lot of work on this already. I don't know how many hours you spent on it. So, I'd hate to throw that work away. I would rather proceed like you originally said and go through and ask the questions that you that you want
to change or that that you're suggesting that we consider uh one way or the other and go forth with us. And Commissioner Clark, I want to be very respectful of your concerns because if you see something in here that you think is trying to limit uh public comment, uh I
certainly would not be for that as well. it it's at the will of the commission. If you want me to continue, I'm happy to. If you'd like that I don't continue, that's fine. Um, just also one real quick thing I wanted to bring up with regard to like public comment. Um, one of one of the other things that came up
and I think this came up with regard to um, one of the residents had asked, do you have town hall meetings or can you do things like that? And you didn't have those in your rules. So what I did is I put in options for if you want to have a town hall meeting what that would look
like and if you want to have they also call them listening sessions. Um and so there's a distinction. So I put both of those options in there just for you to consider if you want to include those as type of meetings you have you can. If you don't you don't. But I just wanted to make sure that we were picking up on some of these things that have been said
and they didn't just go unnoticed. Which one would be like a Q&A session? So the town hall are generally for they're on predetermined topics. Um and then it allows for inter interaction
between both the public, the staff and the elected officials. So there it's more of a communication. Um the listening sessions are really generally when you have one issue and there oftentimes is a
facilitator and the public leads more on that one issue and the facilitator kind of helps with that transaction. That's how I've seen it done. So I've put that language in there. But I know that was something else that was brought up that you know can't you do these kind of
things? and we kind of tried one but it it wasn't um it wasn't defined in your rules. So many city managers ago Reed Silverboard he had like a uh in the community center like a informing the residents of an upcoming election what's on the agenda item. Which one would that
be? I would say educational I would I mean you certainly this that's not with you all that's with the city manager. So, the city manager can absolutely call a a public, you know, have a public meeting, invite the public in and talk to them about an issue. Um, but if the commission's going to be there, you
know, we want to make sure the clerk's there, the city managers there, the attorney, all the people that you all need and then allow the interaction to be structured however it needs to be handled. You know, whether it's publicled, there's a facilitator, those
kind of things. I think you spent a lot of time on this. I think we should review it. I agree. I think 5 minutes is fine. I spend a lot of time on that podium and I felt sometimes 5 minutes is not long enough. Okay? You know, unless you present facts, you know, granted you'll have people up there filibuster
and ramble, but as long as you're on point and another thing I also think that, you know, sometimes the hammer needs to be hit more often as whatever that means. So, okay, I'll agree with that, but probably for different
reasons. So, I'm sorry. I said I would agree with that, but probably for different reasons. So, I have two that seem to want to go on, one that doesn't. That's fine. Um, what do you what did the other two What's your pleasure? Because I also
understand it's late. So, um, just I lean more on the late side than anything. Quite frankly, it's not. But I also am not discrediting with the work that you've done. Yeah. I And I'm fine. It is getting late. I think all of us are getting tired. So, but I just don't want to throw away the work that you've
already done. It's a public record. It's in there. Um, I don't remember if I included the case citations, but I'm happy to do that so that the next city attorney knows exactly why some of the language was changed. Um, and like I said, that's really that's really it.
This was just a productive or just supposed to be an open conversation of how you wanted to do your rules. There were some questions that you all have had with regard to like adding agenda items. So, I put some potential language in there. again just more for your consideration, but your your next city attorney can absolutely we table this to
our next meeting. Can can I just bring up one thing about meeting um decorum and it is something that I think does need to be addressed and I know we're all new commissioners but we were given um when we first were sworn in we were
given our books and plus the Robert's rules. I mean that's old school but it does give just the basics of the decorum of the meeting and unfortunately that doesn't happen in our meetings um most of the time quite frankly um and I think
there's just a couple things I want to touch on and sorry I it just it needs to be said and it this isn't Tammy's rules this is is is Robert's rules and rules are for a reason and it's so that a meeting runs smoothly and the ultimate
authority to um to recognize people goes to the mayor. And unfortunately that is not the way it has been happening in the mayor's uh I mean in the meetings. Um the mayor gets talked over other commissioners get talked over.
Um it's not waited for for the mayor to recognize people to do motions. Um the motion's jumped on um before the mayor finishes the last word and I just we really as a commission need to work on our decorum of how we run the meeting
because it's just it's it's not good. It's a bad look again for our our city and how things are ruined. And again those rules have been around if I'm correct since the 1800s. And rules are rules for a reason on that. Has nothing
to do with limiting speech. Everybody still gets to talk, but there is a certain decorum to it and that's why we have a mayor and that's why he is to run the meetings and not let everyone else
run rogue. And um I just wanted to say that and um I I don't know what I just I wish everyone would read over those rules again and see how meetings are supposed to be ran and um and I think we would just have a lot smoother meetings
and then I'll leave that lay and just another thought kind of or question is I wonder with the way that the DAS is can you all see one another because sometimes I feel like you're going like And I'm wondering if um I can
almost see everyone. I'm wondering if there needs to be and this some thought can be given to this as far as I know at some cities they have like an electronic thing that shows okay you push a button oh they're on to speak so that if you're sitting in the position you know okay this is the first this is the second. It
kind of shows an order. I don't know technology-wise what that expense would be and I'm not advocating that but I don't care even if it was something placed out front so you knew there was someone on deck and could see around and the other commissioners could or something happened today so my my
apologies and I brought it up because there was some talk over today and I thought I bet it's because they can't see each other very well right so just thought okay so where do we go with this one I I
mean, the direction that I'm receiving is that you've got this and you're going to take it to your next city attorney. They can build off from it. You can certainly um take in public comment on it if you if there is any. There are two public comments, West
and Sarah. Okay. What happens with it? Like, do you We're going to take it and we're going to review it. be voted through. We're waiting for new city manager. I mean, I'm sorry. New
city attorney. Yeah. Is that what happens? Yes. Yes. So, all of these rules once they decide if they want any changes and what they'll be, they actually adopt a resolution. It ens occasionally there's a little talk over. I believe the mayor does a fine job running the meetings. I think
they're going uh perfectly smooth. Uh if the attorney had no intention of making it look like, you know, they were going to shorten speaking time or anything like that, then there's no issue there. Um I don't even remember what I was going to say originally because this
ends up not even being what we thought it was going to be. So, thank you. All right. Okay. So, let's close the p public comment and uh let's move on to our last
item and then Treasure Island summer camp discussion. So, I put this on the agenda um and want to bring this to uh the rest of the commission's attention uh that summer camp uh has been losing uh quite a bit of money. Um, and really
the only thing I was going to say was the reality is that we should not be losing a ton of money running a program where the vast majority are not vast majority of children are not from Treasure Island. Those people should go to programs in their cities. Uh it is uh
of my opinion that uh TI should run a great smaller program uh for TI residents and employees uh kids at uh as close to break even as possible. It's just common
sense. And um I got the fee schedule here. Um a 10-we camp uh for residents uh taxpayer is $700 for 10 weeks. Uh res non-residents 900 um and other cities we have uh Madira
Beach uh $1250 uh residents a,000 so they get a discount and uh to send a kid to the YMCA for 10 weeks is $1,800. $1,800. $1,800. Actually, someone got this in the mail and sent it to me.
Um, and you know, um, I think no one on social media or at the podium is in favor of losing money. That's it. I had more, but
Oh, and I'll I'll just tag along with Commissioner Arthur's comments there. Uh, I I agree. I don't think we should be uh losing money on this and especially uh the information that I think you had provided Kathy is that 74%
of the attendees uh tend to be uh non-residents. So if we're going to you know if we were subsidizing residents I would understand it but I don't want to subsidize non-residents. So so that's a a legitimate point in that regard. uh
the did the uh comparisons done that I that I looked up myself again uh with 12 we tend to be of the four that I looked at which was just Treasure Island, Mad Madera Beach, St. Pete Beach, and Clearwater. We were we are the lowest ones even with the $100 uh rate that you
increased and I figured out a break even for 2025. Instead of charging 900 for non-residents, we'd have to charge $1,152 uh dollars for non-residents to break even. Uh that's uh but that's still less
than Madiraa Beach and St. Pete Beach that they're at $1,250. Uh the only other and and for uh for residents that are paying 700, the break even would be $864. So that's one thing one way to look at it. Uh, I do recommend whatever
changes we might make in this program going forward that we allow the city employees to pay the resident rate and not the non-resident rate, which I know currently they're paying the res the Treasure Island employees are paying the
non-resident. And I think we should extend that resident rate to the employees. I agree. That's a great perk for our employees. Uh, again, I I think this one to me is pretty simple. Um, and I probably sound like a broken record, but I I I would I
think it would be great if we had all this development here and we had all this money pouring in and we could afford to subsidize this for kids and families and all that. And maybe we lose a little bit of money on it and that's a
great thing to do. But the problem is, like I've said before, we don't have the money. We've chosen not to have development over the last 10 years. We've chosen to waste money on Elevate TI. So, we don't have the money. So, to me, this thing should just break even.
And that's the way it needs to be. And we go forward and we have it. We break even. We don't make money, we don't lose money, and everybody's happy. So every budget um session we do our
adopted fee schedule and we make recommended um changes to our fee schedules for all our programs and I believe I sent copies to everybody of um our adopted fee schedule and I have no objection to raising the rates to break
even. Um, one thing to keep in mind, and I know it's a high number of um, um, non-residents, but I will say we're very generational, our camp. I have kids of former campers and I have some probably
with their grandchildren here. I won't tell you how long I've been here, but um, it is very generational and I am going to toot my own horn. We have a darn good camp. And um I think that's why people come. A lot of our
non-residents are from St. Pete. They're from the Readingtons who don't have camps. Um and we have the general area of St. Pete. And then we also have a lot of the other um businesses here. Their kids are in our camp. So um it's kind of
a melting pot there. But I don't object by any means to raising the rates and for future years. So yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome. I I think it's a great thing, you know, and I'm one of those generationals. I do. I
have a lot of Please don't tell me you came to camp. Um, but yeah, we do have a lot of generational and I am I am very fond of the children in our camp and their families and I know many of them and like I said, I have grandchildren. I have former campers kids and yeah, so I
won't age myself, but All right, public comment. Rick, you had uh I'll make it. Okay, thank you. I'm not getting up either. All right, Matthew, District 3, I I applaud. Um I
know a lot of people read my social media, at least three of the commissioners I know of. Um the overwhelming response was camp's a good thing, but we need to make it viable. So I I think you guys all did that. Now some of the things that weren't factored
in were the cost of the bus, the facility rentals, stuff like that. That should also be factored into the cost. Agreed. You know, fuel fuel for the bus, whatever, transportation. And if we can't do that, we got a new bus so we
can drop the kids off Madera Beach. All right. But anyway, thanks guys. Thanks, Rick. That's all for me. Can we go? All right. Everybody's tired and punchy now. All about uh summer camp. My son is this
will be his second year. Um I think I sent a few notices to y'all that the moms of TI will rain down on you if you mess with camp. and I love my mom's and um but we are all about obviously fully supporting it and helping in any way we
can. Um it's obviously an amenity to Treasure Island and what a lot of cities lose, you know, going forward is they forget that amenities are there for the residents and you normally don't make money on amenities um because that's
what they're there for. Um so yes, obviously this is, you know, this is another thing that the city staff will work out and figure out and um budget properly for for 2026 because we're already all signed up for 2025. So don't
lose money this year, Arthur. But um we'll make money on the bus because I know 15 friends already going to rent it. About a lot of party buses, you know. There we go. I'm sure Stanley will love it. Good info. All right, we done.
Go home. Sorry, I thought I turned in a card on this. I apologize. I'll make it quick. Sarah Pennington, I love Palms. Um, I've only heard great things about this camp. It's obvious that people love it. It's a well-loved and well attended program. Something that caught my eye on the
agenda packet was the amount that we spend for staffing on this camp. It looks like we are spending about $16,000 per week to staff a summer camp based on that um spreadsheet that I saw.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong and I would love to be corrected on that if so because that seems extremely high especially when we're staffing many teenagers as counselors. So I really had a hard time understanding how that was
happening and I do 100% agree with you. We need to make this uh not only um not losing money, but possibly even making a little bit of money would be great. I realized that basically we're losing enough money to buy a new bus on this camp every three camps. So every three
camp camps according to that spreadsheet that I read, we're we're losing enough money to buy a whole new bus and we just can't continue on if those numbers are correct. Thank you. Okay, so our summer camp personnel, first of all, they're not all teenagers. Um, they age from 17
to 64. So, I am not the oldest person. I have Penllis County retired PE teachers. I have Penelis County bus drivers that act as coaches as well and drive the bus for us in the summer. I have administrative staff for Penelis County.
I have college students and I probably have a few um high schoolers. Um, a lot of my summer camp coaches are used for events as well. So, that money is incorporated in there and it's just not broken out because we don't have that
ability without manually doing it. But, they do work and you'll notice the kids when you see parking during Sanding Ovations or those people during Sandovations, those are my summer coaches. They just work the back to the beach event during the hurricane. They actually drove golf carts for Sunset
Beach residents. So they are pulled in for different events and that unfortunately is part of that cost that you see and chief bars or interim city managers children work for me too both campus and now college
students. So okay do we have anything else? If not we are adjourned.