And I'll address that briefly so that way. Okay. It's not unusual sounding. Do I still need to say 2025-12? No. Okay. You could just say I moved. Yeah. Just it'll be done via motion. Got it. Good evening and welcome to tonight's
special commission meeting, July 7th, 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 roll? Commissioner Clark, here. Vice Mayor Vazquez, here. Commissioner Sison, here. Commissioner Dicki, here. Mayor doctor here. Thank you.
All right. We do not have any approval of regular or workshop agendas. We do not have any proclamations or recognitions. Uh so let's go ahead and get started with public comments. I don't have any cards for public comments. Do we have
any public comments? Seeing none, we'll close public comments and we will move on. Okay. Uh we do not have any approval of minutes. We do not have consent agenda. And we do have
uh an item. Let me bring it back. All right. The first item of business, resolution 2025-12, appoint city manager and approving the city manager agreement. I move to approve the contract
appointing Charles Vanzant as city manager effective July 15th and authorize the mayor to execute the city manager agreement. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Uh
please call roll or do we need some I'm sorry. We have some uh we have some discussion to go through. Sure. AK pardon. I had uh two points. One is I was expecting uh his contract to be similar
to to uh the previous city managers in particular the salary uh which which is about $10,000 higher than the previous one. Uh was there any particular reason we felt that that we needed to do that?
Yes. uh the uh 19 or the 190,000 uh was the same and uh he has uh deferred uh or not accepted any of the uh medical insurance and that that is larger than the $10,000 of additional
salary. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then one other question. It is really just not even a question, but I think there's a typo on page six of uh of the contract. It has that is uh temporary uh uh uh
living expenses uh $2,500 a month for the first three months of employment beginning uh July 15th and it says through September 15th. That should be October 15th. That would be three months.
So you could just um the vice mayor can restate her motion to say I move to approve the contract with the exception of changing section 12 the date in section 12 to October 15th. All right. I move to approve the contract with the exception of section
12 and I would like to move that date to October 15 appointing Charles Vanzant as city manager effective July 15th and authorize the mayor to execute the city manager agreement. Ardan appreciate you catching that.
Is there any other discussion? I'd like to go last if Commissioner Clark or to Commissioner Vasquez has anything to say. I am actually good. I'm good. I'm good. All right. Well, here it goes. So, I asked Anthony two questions worded
differently many times. Uh, was Trip Bars appointed in accordance with the charter? Yes, my understanding is yes. Okay. Yes, he was. It was a vote at the meeting. So, yeah, that's that's an easy one. And was Bobby Shaye appointed in accordance with the charter?
Uh, there wasn't a formal appointment. Uh, and the truth is the situation is a little unusual for most cities. Usually you have a second a secondary assistant city manager and they automatically become the city manager. Treasure
Island's a little peculiar. It requires a letter to be written by the city manager stating that the assistant or assistant manager or some other executive in the city will be the acting city manager. I'm not in receipt of that letter. I don't know if it does exist.
it can be cured uh very quickly just by the existence of a letter but as I mentioned to you earlier you guys are imminently in the process of onloading quite literally onloading a new city manager so it is somewhat common for cities to just sort of there to be this sort of overlapping period where maybe
you're between two leaders and you know not every single tea is dotted but it's certainly not an infraction for the city uh because the the the charter doesn't say you must approve the new city manager by some time just says you have to have a city manager. So, you're in that process. You're on that onloading
process. So, as long as you're putting somebody in that position, you're good. All right. So, I'm going to read this uh very clearly and slowly. To my fellow commissioners in the public, I want to be clear. I have serious concerns whether each city manager appointment process has been
handled in accordance with the city charter. Any appointment must be approved by the commission in strict compliance with the language specified in the charter. I am concerned whether that happened in each instance. Despite asking for a clear legal explanation on
numerous occasions, no direct response has been provided. As a result, I've lost confidence in the city's attorney's ability to give the commission proper legal advice. This is not about Mr. Charles Vanzent. It's about following the law. And if I'm
asked to vote on any city manager under the process that has been ignored or circumvented the charter, I will have no choice to vote no. This is nothing to do with any individual, including the individual before us today. It is solely about strict adherence to the law in our
charter. That is it. All right. Uh, city attorney, can we just rectify this by taking a vote? Uh, you could do it right now to accept uh,
Mrs. Bobby Lee Shaye is as the acting city manager. It would fix it and then and then through July 14th, which is basically one week. You could put a date on it or you don't have to because his contract would end her tenure.
Okay. So, we're Yes, please. Reference the accusation that I did not properly appoint an acting city manager during my term as city manager. I sent an email on
June 24th, 2025 to Anthony Sabatini, mayor and commissioners were BCC. I'll read the email. It's brief. As acting city manager by charter, I have all the responsibilities and authority of the city manager. As such, I have appointed the other assistant city
manager to act in city manager capacity during my absence. No need to address the citizen concern. I have BCC the mayor and commissioners. This was in response to a citizen concern about Bobby Shaye being appointed as acting city manager. So in fact I did deliver
written notification that a acting city manager was appointed. Great. Thank you chief. Yep. Yeah. And just to really be clear here, I think the issue was that one tenure was ending and there was an opening. I'm
not sure exactly when um the acting city manager's position ended, but I think that maybe that's what Commissioner Sison's inquiry is about. Either way, it's very normal for there to be this slight transition period between two leaders where the things overlap. So,
that's what I would say about that. And anybody who has questions about it, feel free to ask me. Of course, he asked me. I try to be as direct as possible. until a few days ago, I wasn't aware of any outstanding legal issue on it. So, but I don't see any and and correct me
if I'm wrong. I don't see any need to rectify something that is in writing where the acting city manager appointed. I mean, that's that's my opinion. I mean, just need to vote on the current motion. But I can I mean, I'm happy to do a
motion if it makes everybody happy. But if that's the question, is is it necessary to have the motion? I would say no because you the commission's moving as quickly as they can to appoint a full-time leader. In fact, it just did and signed a contract. So, I I certainly don't think that there's any mandatory
additional steps that need to be made during this transition period. Personally, that's my opinion. Okay, let's just vote on what's We have a motion out, don't we? Yes, we have the motion now for the contract. So, that all right. Would you please call RO
city? Uh, Vice Mayor Vasquez. Yes. Commissioner Clark. Yes. Commissioner Sison. No. Commissioner Dicki? Yes. Mayor Doctor? Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you and congratulations there, Charlie. Look forward to working
with you. Yep. Definitely. All right. We now have a second uh issue to deal with. First reading of ordinance 2025-08 amending chapter 65 impact fees. Yeah. So, I'm happy to address this.
Came up obviously last week and having a charter county, you guys have a unique situation. You have a charter county, so you generally partner with your county on a lot of different issues. Um, and the state legislature about a year ago passed a bill requiring
interlocal agreements between cities and counties. And so, the commission asked me, do we have to sign this? Do we have to come into this agreement? The answer is yes, but you don't have to collect the city's portion of the fees. You have discretion on either taking the fees or
not. You can wave the fees or not. You could also remit the fees. Uh but you must sign the agreement because if you don't then panelis has the ability to sue the city and force it into an interlocal agreement. So, um, to restate it another
way, um, all the cities have done it because they know they have to. When the fees are collected by the building department, they're split between the two local government entities. Um, where your discretion comes in is if you want to keep those fees. So, obviously, some of you expressed the concern of we want
to keep impact fees very low, we want to be pro growth, we want to show that we're the most pro pro business, etc. You have that option. You can wave the fees you or you can remit the fees back to the developers if you wish. But what you can't do is not split the fees with your charter county with the county
penelis county. It's also wise to do it because they do all the administration. They have traffic studies etc. That would cost you guys a lot of money if you wanted to do your own own impact fees. If you didn't want to do that and you didn't want to collect, there is the risk of a lawsuit. Uh and that's my legal opinion. Questions?
Can go ahead. You go ahead. Um it was my understanding that um and correct me if I'm wrong is it an automatic um basically pause if we go ahead and vote this in that there is a pause of I believe it was 24 months or something.
Am I wrong or I remember discussing it last week. Well, it wouldn't be finalized until the end of the year if I'm not mistaken. Um nothing's immediate about this because it also needs to be signed off by the uh county commission. I can double check the day it goes into effect. Okay. But again, anything that you guys
collect for yourselves can be waved immediately upon its issuance. Okay. If you wish to do that, that's a policy decision. But that would still uh they would still have to pay the county portion. They have to pay the county portion. And now who collects that? Who sends out
the statement? Whoever issues the building permit, which would be the city. Okay. Why is it 50% and not 30 or 25%? That's done by chart. That's done by county ordinance currently. Can we negotiate that though? Like can we try to negotiate? I mean I when I
look at this there's some things about to me all the beach communities should be together and then you know Tira Verde is in there and they're getting way more it looks like. And can we negotiate a bigger based on the fact we had hurricanes. Could we negotiate more than
a 50/50 split? I'm just wondering if there's, you know, do we just have to take what they give us or can we negotiate anything is my question. My understanding is the answer is yes. You can you can counter them with a different percentage and see what they say. You can and maybe redistricting uh we want to be
in a different district or you know that's an interesting question too. Um the MO I think is who made the districts or forward panels is what they go by here. Um and the county signed on to that. You can negotiate by saying we'd like to be in a different district. I'm sure that's probably possible
because I just think it's a government local agreement. So really there's very few rules on what you can ask for. Yeah. I think if we could be like grouped with the other beach communities that have all experienced the same thing. Maybe we have more traffic. Maybe we need more. I I just think I'm fine with like moving forward with the first
reading. I just think that we need to tra maybe get together and try to go back and negotiate something a little bit better for us. A lot of questions, right? Yeah. I got a couple questions if I could ask. Sure. So, let me answer that one. So, that was first, this is first reading. So, the two inquiries being, can we
change the rate? Can we change the district? I'll reach out to the county tomorrow. I was on the phone with them today, uh, and see what their interpretation is. Do a formal letter asking for that and then have that ready by second reading. Well, I'd like to make a motion to table
this agenda item for the next workshop workshop for discussion. I don't certainly have the authority to do that too. It's up to the commission with a shot. I don't hear a second. Do we have a second? So here are my questions. Well, hold on. You you got uh you got it
out on the floor now, right? So there's no second so it dies, right? All right. So it dies. Excellent. So let me correct without uh Yeah. So it's it's done next and then we move back to discussion debate. Okay. Can I Oh, go ahead, please. I just think to maybe address your concern, Arthur,
is I'm not sure that we really have to the second reading may not have to be I I heard October like we could have I mean does it really have to be done in two weeks or whatever? That is a good question for the county cuz uh yeah I I have this answer. Um so it's
it's August 5th for the municipalities because after the municipalities it has to appear before the county commission. They also have to hear it twice and their decision has to be submitted by October 1st which is why we end up with the August 5th deadline. Okay. I thought maybe the October 1st we
could have until then to Yeah. to negotiate. That was the reason for putting it on the special meeting was because of that August timeline we shared. Yeah. Yeah. So, I asked uh I sent an email to Nico Nicole and I got a generic response like
she don't have all the right information to give me an answer, but I asked uh for analysis for converting the old True Value building into a restaurant and what that impact fee would be exactly. I asked to do a hypothetical analysis on 10800 Golf Boulevard, which is the empty
lot that was there for the decade where the Buccaneer was, and now it's the Treasure Island Beach Resort. They have 77 units. I want to know what that impact fee would have been. Uh and lastly, what the impact fee would have been for all the Gators property to be built to current code. I assume it'd be
in the millions. And then some of the other questions I have, which I'll uh give it to Lisa to be on the record and hopefully get an answer and not a generic uh no uh of an answer. Uh what benefits will TI receive from entering into this agreement? uh
Penllis County Code section uh 150-40 page 16 in the county fee schedule. Panelis adopted a reduced rate for downstairs to encourage development. However, Treasure Island's downtown is not included. Can you explain and why?
Note, Safety Harbor, Oldsmar, Clearwater downtowns, and others are identified. Uh TI could enact its own ordinance and not pay the county 50% of the funds collected. Correct. Uh, also if we have our own ordinance,
we don't have to fund FOT, St. P Beach, Terraver, etc. According to page 19 for the Ford Panelis PowerPoint, TI could enact its own ordinance. Correct. Uh, isn't it true that the funds the county collects for TI's
impact fees district could be used for improvements on state roads? Uh per page 17 of uh forward panelis PowerPoint, TI has not received any funding for multimodal improvements and the county has spent all the funds it
collected in our district for county bridge and FOT improvements. Why should the TI pay for why should TI pay to improve FOT roads for a change of use or redevelopment under the county's ordinance? Shouldn't the impact fee be
based on the highest or most intense previous inexistence use and not restricted to the last permitted use? And there's three other questions that I would like to answered which I will add
to the uh um to the record. Um lastly, what I uh want to bring up is pretty important and I think it's important for all the residents to know as well. Uh, and it's important for the commission to know. It's just an observation that I
made uh, regarding this. And, um, I I made a mistake at the last time this was brought up on July uh, 1st. I voted to table the impact fee proposal and move it to a public workshop or next agenda and it deserves thoughtful discussion,
full transparency, and adequate time for the commission and the public to understand the implications. Uh, I made my uh motion with the intent for it to be a workshop item, but it um got spun around and back on this special meeting
agenda uh with a holiday, a major holiday in between. So, technically it was turned around in three business days. So, um which is kind of fast for uh city staff. So, um I will definitely
reference, you know, if if something I want something on the agenda turned around, um I will definitely reference this in the future that it could be done. And that's pretty much it. So, I I'll go ahead and add my comments uh if it's all right. Sure.
Okay. Uh I' I've changed my mind on on where I stood on this issue three times today. Uh and and each time as I got more information, I said, "Oh, okay. Now I understand. Now I understand. But uh anyway, as of about 2:00 today, I was I was uh 100% for the uh proposal because
at that particular time, I read uh the uh questions that we got from or the an answers to the questions we got from Nicole and it appears that uh even if we did not uh agree to this interlocal agreement that we would be required to
collect the fees for the county and send the full amount to the counties. So we would get nothing out of it. So that's that's when I said, "Well, wait a minute." That's when it hit me that wait a minute. Our really our choice is really our to go along with it and get keep 50% of the money for ourselves or
don't go along with it and send 100% of the money to to the uh county and uh because we were required by state law I think to collect this money and and remit it to the county. So at that particular point I, you know, I I I
said, "Okay, I get it now. I see why we need to approve this and move it forward." My only and I and a couple of people that had emailed me earlier in the day wanting me to uh stand opposed to this, I sent them this and said, "Now I understand." Anyway, there's still
confusion on the matter and uh I'm fine with moving this uh past the first reading. Uh, so we can do that, but I think we've got to do a lot of clarification uh before the second reading. I I agree with that 100%. I I also we
also talked about I think we can do this on our own, but no impact fees on like renovating or rebuilding homes. We think we talked about that in the last meeting, right? Yeah. And that's where uh we're looking at the resolution. any anything that
brings back a structure to where it was before. There's no impact fee in terms of size, impact, density, use, intensity as they call it in the field. U it's only on what's additional before the hurricane or before any damage. That's
that's what they assess the impact fee on. That's exactly but but I guess we never talked if you tear your house down and build a bigger one, you're going to have an impact fee. the percentage difference between the old and the new house that that that I don't really like because if you if you're you're probably
going to have the same amount of people in there flushing the toilets and you're going to or or if you even if you have more you're going to pay for that in your water bill and all that. So I mean I don't know just just to restate it any portion that the city would receive if your position
is we don't want that money we want to incentivize certain types of development you could wave that. Okay. So, something to consider, but I will get you an answer on that's kind of what my question was. You can weigh different parts of it, right? Are we allowed to implement a moratorum
on impact fees? Is that uh would that be the city's percentage but not the counties? Because because you're a charter county, the county has a right to an interlocal agreement in which they can claim a portion. All right. So, we're going to see either way,
we're going to see it end up on our permitting documents as a charge. Yes. Yeah. And we can't stop that. And we can't stop that. Uh, but we do have flexibility what we do with our portion of the money. Yes. And we can also That's what I believe. Yeah. And we then we can also see if
maybe we can get a little more. He said he's going to check. Yeah. And correct. Yeah. And if you want to make a motion to put the mayor in charge of that process of negotiation or someone else, you know, whichever you want to do. U when I send the letter, we can
then make a formal offer say, "Hey, we want this percentage. We'll give you 7030 something like that if we're legally allowed to, which I think is possible because I'm not aware of any law that allows you to not bargain into in an interlocal agreement. It's worth a try. If you're a small
business owner and you're for this impact fee, then you're not pro business. Just my two cents. Okay. Uh let's move to public comment. And first, Rick. All right. So, because I didn't have any
Oh, sorry, Rick Matthew, District 3. Because I didn't have anything due today. Uh I looked at section 150 and I don't necessarily agree with the residential structure. If you look at the exemptions um specifically replacement of a
building or structure with a new building or structure of the same use not size provided that no additional trips which is transportation that's how we're the the intertwining of transportation to
multimodal it sometimes it's infrastructure sometimes it's mobility um prov provided that no additional trips will be produced over and above that produce of the original structure. That's an exemption to the impact fee.
There's also two other exemptions that that go into play. So I think residential structures whether or not you go up as you said toilets will be flushed. We're not increasing and I guarantee if somebody said, "Hey, my kids just moved out so now I only have
two people instead of four." I guarantee we're not getting a rebate on our impact fee. So uh along with that disposition of funds when they talk about transportation I initially understood this as where's my clock
it's not working I'm okay I'll keep time um so anyway I understood this to be an impact on infrastructure sewers roads everything else no this is for
penllis forward for Kimleyhorn We asked some questions of Kimley Horn. They took cut and paste off of Ford Penllis and answered under their letter head and send it back to us. That's baloney.
All right. Another thing is um that specifically states no funds collected under this article shall be for periodic maintenance. So we can't even use it for roads. We can add to our road, but we can't put a new road in.
So, while I think this is the meaning of extortion that we have to pay this, I I think it's a bad deal for business. Just looking through the uh the fee chart, the way I read it, a single hotel room
will cost the owner $1,300. Extrapolate that over a hundred and we're not doing any business. Well, once again, if uh and I'm sorry, but if there's a hundred units that were knocked down, and that's pretty much here in in the city, everything's
knocked down because we don't have any new development. Correct. They would and they built back the same number. There would be additional units. There would Yeah, there would be nothing there. No cost. So, yeah, that that's in the exemption. And basically that anything above that 100 threshold, then that would be assessed.
Correct. But that that single unit above 100 is $1,300 a piece impact fees of that we'll get 650700 to use only they've kind of structured
we can do mobility studies we can have them do a study like the sununner who's forward penelis we can do all those studies so I would like these changes to be put in the resolution that points without the exemptions so that
later on the resident's not impacted that's if that's possible and I it's totally up to the commission and I would also like to propose because it kind of kicks all this information to
the city manager and I think we've done a lot of studies a lot of consultant fees without the commission's knowledge so I would like for anything that is forward panelis to go before the commission and not just city manager
if that's possible. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Mark Hoey. Uh, good evening. Good evening, Mark Hoey. District 3. You know, uh, attending last week, uh, I was having a
bit of deja vu with forward panelis and discussion and everything. It's like it's stuck there somehow from the past. Well, it didn't take too much effort to go find at least one of the reasons for that. If we go back to a article written
in the uh beach beacon back on February 22nd, 2022 at that the reporter references your meeting on February 15, 2022 in
which uh forward Panelis and our former uh public works assistant director presented a Gulf boulevard travel study. uh proposal which goes through all the stuff you'd consider. You may remember
it. I remember it and all the the pictures and the drawings and micromobility and all that good stuff that was presented for us to participate in along with the city of St. Pete Beach. Well, I guess the the first
question is here we are three years in. I don't see any of those changes. There were all sorts of lighting changes and lane changes and walking lane changes. I don't know how long it was supposed to take and who was going to do it and at
what cost, but don't see that. And the reason I bring it up is it also brought another name forward, Kimley Horn. Kimley Horn was hired by Forward Panelis. It's one of their featured partners to do the engineering and do
the study basically. Now, that's interesting. They're also our engineering firm of choice moved in ahead of AED. But finally, and to the point that was made about funding, and uh Commissioner,
you made a good point. We paid for that study. The commission authorized $58,000 at that meeting to pay for forward panelis and Kimley Horn to do the Gulf Boulevard traffic study on our
behalf. So we didn't even get the money back that alleged impact fees were taking in if we were even participating. I mean that maybe we weren't back then either. I don't know how long this inter local agreement goes. That should be easy enough to find. But it just sounds
to me like we're uh getting in bed with yet another tangled web that's going to spend our money on studies, on pictures, on graphs, on powerpoints. Come present it. We'll all nod our heads and it looks
great and all that and none of the work is ever done. It's never brought to a conclusion. Certainly not with other people's money. if anything was to be done, it's going to fall back on the residents of Treasure Island to adopt those those new standards and designs
that they're advocating. So, I appreciate you looking at it closer. Thank you for that. Have a good evening. Thank you, Mark. All right, I see nothing else. We'll close public comment. Can we have a reading of the motion?
I move to approve ordinance 2025-08 amending chapter 65 to adopt the multimodal impact fees and to move the item to the second reading and public hearing on this date is wrong.
So that would be is it next week? July 15th July 15th 2025. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, please call roll.
Vice Mayor Vazquez. I. Commissioner Dicki. I. Commissioner Clark. I. Commissioner Sison. No. Mayor Doctor I. Thank you. All right. That is the rest of our business
until the workshop. So, uh, I'm now now going to call for an adjournment and let's do, uh, 10 minutes. We'll be back in for the workshop. Let me take a look at space. I know I got lots of paper here.
See? Okay, there we go. A hard time. Good afternoon and welcome to the commission workshop. Date July 7th, 2025. I'd like to call this meeting to order. The first item of business is uh do we have any city
attorney or city manager reports or we're just going to move on to the do you have anything? Uh no updates other than the uh work we're going to be getting on uh that was discussed in the last meeting. So okay great.
Oh I've got a good news. The Browns are here and they have walls. Congratulations and thank you for being here. All right. Um, so our item tonight
is public safety facility scope, location, and funding discussions. Do we uh I don't know how we're handling this. Do we have any staff to make a presentation? And uh and mayor, can I suggest something? We've got three controversial
issues to talk about. Those three that you just mentioned, the scope, the funding, uh and the location. Can we discuss each of those individually instead of all try to try to get agreement on all three? Let's do each, you know, do the scope first and then
and then the funding and then the location or something. I think that's a great idea. Let's do it that way. Thank you. So, uh, we'll take, uh, the facility scope. I guess it's kind of unfair to, uh, to have the two chiefs try to pick and
pull. If we can just have them make a, a, a quick presentation, then we can ask them and do followup. Yeah, there's, um, you know, no new information really. It's a, you know, the same presentation we've made a few times before. Um, we've got the three different locations that we've looked at
next door to city hall here. um a location in the park at about 105th and then over on 108th somewhere in that parcel preferably you know back towards the master pump station to conserve as much open space as possible. Um you know
really we we've talked about pros and cons of each for a long time. Um commission should have that information. I'm here to answer any questions if if you know something else has come up. Um the only other option or the only other
discussion point is do we do police and fire together or separately and put police on the fourth floor. That's come up. So um really we're here to you know to to give you our best advice is as the subject matter experts on public safety and answer any questions you may have.
Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. So let's let's start out with the uh the facility scope. Uh, I think that I think the big thing is what we have to do is we have to figure out if we're
which items were going to to to attack first. And um I think that uh when we take a look at the facility and calling it the safety facility um that would imply at least in the language that I've seen written up
and everything is that it would have the police and fire department in a new single facility. Correct. Correct. Okay. And um and that uh is probably where we jump off for the commission for some discussion. Um, I'll start first if
you'd like. And, um, I do think that, you know, we we first went into a $12 million facility and what we had asked for was 6 million from the state and we were going to match the 6 million. Um, the state did give us 1.5 million. Uh,
but that's quite a bit shy of the 6 million that we were looking for to to build uh the $12 million facility. And so what I would like to uh to offer is that um the police um come into the city
hall and that we would build out the fourth floor for the police department. Uh I can go into more detail about that. Um but then uh second of all um now we've got to take a look at what our fire uh facility is going to look like,
where it's going to be. And I would u propose that that the scope um since we only have one building for the fire department, one one facility um be set next to uh where we're sitting right now
here on Gulf Boulevard. And uh I'd like to throw even one other thing into that. I know that uh the 12 million is is far more than anybody wants to pay. Um but we'd like to take a look at uh an alternate plan. Uh and
that alternate plan would basically say that the facility that's being built would have the capability to uh to actually uh build a additional uh floor onto the facility. And just as an alternate just to see what that would
cost because of course, you know, if you're going to go up in some future date, um the footings and everything have to be built to accommodate that. And that's so um for as an alternate I would like to propose that uh whoever it
is, Kimley Horn or whoever um make sure that they would do that for us. So, I did speak um based on that information, I did speak with the um architect that we had proposed and got uh received permission from the
commission to negotiate with for design and engineering. Um that's sweet sparkman. I did speak with them and they have put together a proposal. They said they could do the foundation, the supporting columns and the roof structure in such a manner that it would
be able to be built upon later at essentially adding a story to it. So if we put police in the fourth floor um you know for a number of years temporarily and then decided that we wanted them in the same building as a public safety building, it would be able to be done uh
at a later date. Um the uh just and this is a draft. We haven't finalized this. I'm still waiting to get an analysis from our public works director and and run down a few other issues with it. Um
but a proposal for design and engineering would come in right around $800,000. Now, that's based upon um cost of construction, and this would be for a standalone fire station uh at
about $8 million. So, that's um 800 or 8,000 10 square ft, only the fire programming, no police programming at all. Um at 8,10 square ft. and they they guesstimated construction costs at about 900 a square
foot, which um and I'll just read their language into the record. Uh for clarification, $900 cost per square foot is used to keep the design fees lower. Costs may exceed 900 per square foot based on historic data and market
trends. So, we did bring to you, you know, what we're hearing in the construction industry is about 100 or um I'm sorry, a thousand a square foot. So, you can extrapolate out and do the math. Um the architect is estimating it
at 900 a square foot, which is the lowest low end of the range that we've heard. Um but he's doing that in goodwill because he bases his fees on projected construction costs. So, it does save us money on design and engineering.
So, in in in summary, you're looking at about an $8 million um you know, seven between 7.2 and $8 million for uh just fire station construction that can be built upon at a future time.
Mayor, could I please I don't blame you for going first because you always have to go last. So, I I understand completely. Can we get back to that Excel file that was up here a minute ago? Was this it? Yeah, this is it here. Uh, I wanted to kind of debunk some
myths uh that that have been going around here about whether we have a joint fire station or a standalone fire station or a public safety facility. The number that you've heard floating around, it's like it's a 4 to5 million uh difference. And I I'm going to make
an argument here that it's not. It's only about a 1.3 million variance. And let me show you uh my logic using the number the chief just gave us of of $8 million for a standalone fire station uh and adding in CBTI's own estimate of
what it would cost to make the necessary uh accommodations for the police department in this building. So now we're talking about uh 9.2 2 million that we would need for I'm gonna enlarge this so I can see it myself here. There
we go. Yeah. So, we'd need 9.2 million. Now, we've got 581,000 already in insurance proceeds. So, net net to build a standalone fire station and put the police uh department in this building, we'd end up spending 8.6 million as
opposed to a combined public safety facility at 12 million. less the state grant of 1.5 less the insurance proceeds that end ends up at 9.9 million. So the difference is not four or 4.5 million
it's only 1.3 million. So that's that put things completely, you know, when you're talking $5 million. I understand when you talk a $1.3 million difference and you just have to ask yourself, are there enough benefits uh by having the
two departments working together to make up the 1.3 difference? And in my opinion, it is. But but anyway, so that's myth number one I wanted to to talk about. Scroll down just a little bit. So on the first one, you have
Okay. I I see what Yeah. I Okay. I I just Thank you. I just don't agree with some of these numbers. I thought we were going to build a 6 thou,000 square foot fire station for about $6 million. Now all of a sudden it's eight. So I don't
understand that number. Secondly, I agree with what the mayor said before. Um but I think we would need to get two bids. I mean, how much extra is this having to build on top gonna cost us? I
mean, is it six million and then eight million because we have to build on top. I mean, I think we should get a quote on both. Um, and see where that see where that leads us. Um, so every time that this thing keeps coming up, it keeps getting more expensive. I mean, it was
six, then it was seven, now it's eight. So, I mean I mean you can work the numbers to however you want, I guess, to make it come out like that, but I I just don't agree with some I think I think the the six million was I don't know where that came from to begin with, but it never came from the one of the chiefs. But anyway, so that's myth level one.
No, but it's it's $1,000 a square foot and 6,000 square feet, $6 million, right? We never proposed a 6,000t station. The proposal for the combined facility is 11,160 ft. And the proposed if you were to just
separate out the required shared space, which is a lobby, an elevator room, copy room, um, and some other space, uh, just a fire station standalone would be 8,10 ft. And if you do the math, and a couple of questions, I'm sorry, I don't mean to
interrupt if No, couple questions for Commissioner Dicki. Um, in that CVTI estimate up top there for 1.2 million. Yes. Did that include design funds or was that only construction? That I I just that's a number they put
out in their email. So I said, "Hey, that's as good a number to put in here for for discuss." It's going to be something. We I don't know what it is, but I went with their design's going to run you another 70 80,000 on that. Let me let me interject real quick. We're meeting with the architects on the fourth floor on Wednesday and we don't
have any real true numbers yet. There's a lot of estimates floating around from the community, floating around all over the place. I I'm almost say, why don't why don't we come up with a couple options with some real numbers for you and then you can make the decision with the finance director and see exactly what you want to do. I mean, you're pointing us in the right direction. We're we're going forward
with this anyway. We're already doing a phys feasibility study for the fourth floor, but we don't have actual numbers yet. Okay. And we know it has to be hardened. We know there's certain things have to be in there. We know, you know, there's going to be some changes to this building to accommodate that. Our biggest desire is to get into a facility
that we are able to come to after a storm or after an event, flip a switch and rock and roll and get ready to protect the community right now. So, we're not in the situation where we are with parking lot in the parking lot with uh metal trailers that a lot of you have been in and seen the bucket brigade as
we're getting leaks in the ceiling and stuff like that. That's our biggest desire whether that's the fourth floor or a standalone facility. I mean, the men and women of the Treasure Island Police Department who protected everybody after the storm, post storm, and went through this with the community, our desire is to get back to
work as quickly as possible on the island, not off island somewhere. So, if the fourth floor happens to be the place to do it, we will happily work on the fourth floor. If a separate facility or if a excuse me, a joint facilities with fire, we will happily work there. We just we want a and we have the desire to
get something done that we can work out of and that will accommodate us. We're not asking for anything else we didn't have in our old facility. Okay. No. No. Okay. Thank you. I I I do have some other points I want to make here before uh I I uh let go of the the podium, so to speak. Uh another myth is
that uh to to do this to standalone facility, we would need to borrow uh $10 million or so. Okay. That's not a that's not a myth. But the missing part of the myth is that people seem to be thinking if we did a standalone station, we
wouldn't need to borrow any money. And I would argue that that's not the case. Where where else are we going to get this $8.6 million? So either case, to fund this, we're either going to have to completely exhaust our cash reserves or borrow the money. I mean, either case.
So, it's not like, oh, do do this, stand alone, and we don't have to borrow any money because that's not the case. We're still we're still talking about $8.6 million that we've got to come up with some somewhere. So, so anyway, so that that's myth number two. Uh myth number
three, I'm going to get in and and talk about uh debt. Uh let me see if I can enlarge this one a bit too. Here we talk about, okay, how are we going to serve debt? By the way, these debt service numbers came from the presentation we
had when that company came in and and uh uh show talked to us about how much the debt would be. Uh so the $12 million figure, that debt there for 20 years would be $1,35,000. Uh now, I think based on that previous sheet, we're really looking at with
about a $10 million uh uh uh loan if we did the full the combined station. So, our annual debt service for for 15 years, let me go over here a little bit. Annual debt service for 15 years would be $945,000. Uh, so how are we going to pay for that?
That becomes the other question. And every and the the assumption has been the only way you're going to be able to pay for that is you're going to have to raise taxes. According to the CBTI email they put out, we're going to have to raise taxes by 10.14%. Uh we discussed at the last couple of
meetings an alternative. And I know I know the arguments uh both for and against this, but something as simple as raising parking from $4 an hour to $6 an hour would generate for the city an incremental $950,000,
which covers the cost of the annual service debt. At our last meeting, Commissioner Clark rightfully pointed out that, hey, it we might have we may not have the same exact number of of people parking at $4 an hour if we
raised it to $6 an hour. The 1.9 million starting point that I'm using there was 2024 actuals when parking was at $3.75 a rate rate, not $4. So that's about a seventh percent. So I assume I couldn't use 2025 actuals for a lot of reasons.
we don't have it. Plus, for the first 5 months of this fiscal period, we didn't we weren't charging for parking because of the hurricane. Uh so anyway, I again I would like to say so how are you going to pay for it? Well, there's no way to pay for this or the standalone fire
station. You know, regardless, we're going to have to borrow this money. So, how are we going to pay for that? We can either raise taxes which nobody on this dis wants to do or you could do something like this and that's charge a little extra for parking about two
little extra 50% more for parking and generate the money to pay for that service debt so we don't have to raise taxes. Can I say something about your cost of debt? Um it's not my cost. It was a company that presented it to us. Uh, Mayor John
Doctor mentioned that if we put uh the fire station or public uh safety building next door to us, we'll lose about $100,000 in parking revenue every year. So, we'll have to subtract 950 minus 100. Okay.
Be less. But yeah, we can't even come to an agreeance about raising parking revenue. So, uh, no, I think I think everybody on here was was, uh, interested in in in getting more revenue
from parking. But anyway, this is just an example. I'm not suggesting that it's the only way to pay for it. But I am suggesting that it's a way to pay for it without raising taxes. And it's the problem is this isn't the only thing that we h need around here. I
mean, we need seaw walls, we need pump stations, we need all kinds of stuff. It it'd be different if if if we had a disaster that only wiped out our fire station and we everything else was going great and all we had to do was rebuild this. But we don't have any of those
other things rebuilt. The other thing is I I went and looked on my computer on my computer cuz I had I didn't bring it, but through um this is I have the sheet right here that the chiefs gave on the station. The fire was asking for 6525 square ft. This is
directly from from you guys. I mean, it's in my email from a long time ago. It's I I can show it to you guys. I don't understand how we went to 8,000 square feet all all of a sudden. Are you looking at the orange highlighted programming on that spreadsheet?
It's got yellow and orange and blue and red on it. It should it should have orange for fire, green for for shared space, and blue for police. Yeah. I mean, do we still have to have all the shared facility police? We have 5700 square feet upstairs. There could be some
shared space probably here. There could be, but we still need to have a lobby and an elevator room. And I understand this none of it's adding up to 8,000 square feet to me. I I just don't understand why the cost keeps going up every time that we talk about it in the size.
Well, okay. On the other is the other thing I don't understand why you put something about the 1.2 million. I mean, I believe Gary's looked into putting this people on the on the fourth floor and that's about what it was going
to cost. 1.2 million. I don't know why. That's why I use that figure. 1.2 million. Okay. I don't know why I say CBTI estimate. They don't work here. I mean, I hadn't seen Gary's estimate. I saw the only time I saw that figure was from CBTI. So, anyway, that's why I picked that. One last thing and and then I'll
I'll yield. Uh, Mayor, I appreciate the patience here. What about our the other things that we need to do real quick? You've seen some of this. Uh uh Jay uh Joan Goodri shared some of this. These are the grants and or additional funding that we we were asking for. We may not
get any of this. We may not get any of it, but I'm This is what's on the table right now. Our we're asking FEMA for about 50 for about $26 million worth of uh of of of things to help us rebuild TI. Again, we might not get anything.
I'm pretty darn certain we're going to get this 1.436 million that we used for debris removal. That's that's pretty much of a slam dunk. It had we don't have it yet, but it's going through the process. But we have asked for FEMA help with each one of these things. And
again, they that's I don't like throwing this out here because we might not get anything. Just like we, you know, thought we could get 6 million from the state, we only got one and a half million. But anyway, we've asked for things uh for that. Uh the other thing and this is this is something that I'm
feeling much more confident about uh is the hazard mitigation grant program because this has gone through several stages. Uh July 25th the applications have are or is a deadline for getting these in. Uh but it has gone through a process with the county so far and the
county has uh decided now they still have to get the county commissioners to vote that that's the right way to do but they pretty much use an approach where every city that applied for a grant that they were going to put I'm going to call it above the line because they only have $233 million to work with. But they
pretty much said we're going to give every city above the line or give them their first priority project. Well, our first priority project was a master lift station. Uh, and we said it would cost six million. They uh the the hopefully the we'll get four and a half million
and we would we would match the other 15 million. Again, I'm going to speed through this, but the same thing for city walls. The the city seaw walls is our number two uh priority project. It's on here. We're asking for money from from this grant program to get it. And I'm pretty confident at least the first
two uh uh items on there that we uh should get some help with. If if you look over here a little bit, this is we've already have in our budget and have it's part of it. We already have 5.7 million allocated toward the master
lift station. So even if we don't get this grant, we've got close to enough money to do what we need to. We've already got in our budget 1.7 million plus the 400,000 here for city seaw walls. So we've got over two million that's in our budget right now uh to to
go towards uh towards some of the infrastructure needs that you were just asking about. So again, if we put that $2 of incremental uh parking revenue towards this debt, it doesn't mean all these other things are going to go neglected. And I will yield
at this point. Um, I just want to give more kudos to Gary because I know he's going to be doing he's supposedly going to do the lip station much cheaper than we originally thought. He's going to do the uh public works building for much cheaper than we originally thought. Has he been involved in any of of this as
far as seeing if we can make this fire station more economical or, you know, rightsize it so it's not costing $8 million? Yes. Yeah, I received a draft proposal from the architect this morning and sent it 10 minutes later to Gary for his
analysis. He'll probably be able to work his magog. Oh, and I forgot to say one thing real quick before in the other meeting. How about the fireworks, man? That's like the best fireworks display I've ever seen. I meant to say it in the first
meeting. We need to hire those people again. And um that's one of the best displays I've ever seen. Sorry, I forgot to put that in on the first meeting. So, I'll chime in now. Um I I as Ardan I I'm not quite as
spreadsheet savvy as you, but doing the math. Um I came up a little different, but not much. um that the difference in the debt service compared to having a 50 to 60year building for our public safety
as a whole. Um I'm sorry, this building isn't going to be standing in 50 years. I mean I if it is, it would be by the grace of God because um we all know no matter good, bad or indifferent, it's already cost us way more than it ever
should have. But you're talking about a building that is going to be a 50 to 60year building. The debt service would be spread across as it is with every government building, which is why no municipality pays cash for buildings because you spread it
across and you spread it out. Um, to me, um, as you were saying, um, and both the chiefs have said from the get-go, um, their main thing is getting back out here after an emergency, being able to flip a switch and going back to work.
Um, I don't think there's one of us in this community that can complain or say a word about the service we received during our hurricanes. And it is the tremendous service our fire and police did. Um, the amount of
extra service that that Chief Barkley brought in was outstanding. Yet, we still heard complaints about they didn't get back soon enough. They didn't get the roads open soon enough. And God knows they were out here doing everything they could to get it back
open. However, if they have a building where they both can get back out here, flip on the generator and get to work immediately. The difference is and look at other beaches that did it, that have the new buildings, that have the
hurricane fortified buildings with generators and everything else. They got back to it. So, I don't look at it as a cost savings by putting it on the fourth floor. If you know the chiefs say that's, you know, if
if Chief Barkley says that he's, you know, okay with that for right now, you know, I know it's, and I'm not going to speak for you by any stretch of the imagination, but I know it's also due to the amount of pressure and and things that have been put out there um on
social media. Um, and I would agree with, you know, falsehoods and numbers and saying we're going to raise taxes and all of this when there is not one person up here that has ever said a word about raising taxes and we have looked at alternative ways to pay for it. Not
only did the parking revenue um go up to pay that debt service going to $6 an hour, the part that no one looks at is we have people coming in and buying out these houses for, you know, that have
people have owned for 40 years. The the elderly people, they were paying minimal to nothing compared to others on property taxes and they're building three and four million homes. So let's not even talk about the businesses that are going to build and hotels that will
come in and restaurants and things like that over the next, you know, let's say 5 years. Those homes that are being built um in Isa Capri alone, I can't even tell you how many new homes are going in that these old, you know,
unfortunately um you know, elderly people that just did not want to mess with it that have been here for 40 years, their houses are torn down. There's one right down the street from me. The house is not even torn down yet, and the new house is for sale for $3.4 million. So, the the property tax
influx, yes. Okay, we're going to have a a 12 to 18month or possibly, let's even say 24 month, a little bit of a downslide, but as those houses get built and those property taxes start coming in, just
from the homes alone is going to be exponential. And then when you put on top of that the Thunderbird builds back, you know, these other hotels, you know, that are going to be potentially torn down, the Gator's property gets developed, the downtown area gets
developed. Again, that's why you you spread it out. You don't come in with $12 million and pay for something. Um, anybody who thinks that's an outrageous number, by all means, I've done it. Do your research across Florida for any coastal community on just fire stations.
This is such a conservative number. Look at South Pasadena. I think that's the most recent one um that's been built. And look at all of those. This isn't an outrageous number. Yeah, it's a lot of money. And I don't take that lightly, but it is our constitutional duty as a
municipality, as a city to provide public safety. And as we grow and we have more tourists and we have more residents because we have more families moving in where these elderly couples used to live, our average age for the the people in the city of Treasure
Island has dropped a decade in the last 5 years. We went from average age of 67 to 57 the last time I looked. Um, I don't know if it's changed since then, but regardless, we we all know we have families moving in to our neighborhoods where older couples used to live. So,
you're going to have more people here. Just you just are. You're going to have more tourist. Therefore, police and fire are going to be even more important. And it's so shortsighted in my opinion. Take it as it is. It's so shortsighted to
say, "Well, for now. Well, let's do this." You know, oh man, we just had a hurricane. You know, we're all rebuilding and we're coming back and this isn't even going to be done for probably two years. So, by then, you
know, these houses will be built. Our taxes will be back to where they were and even better that are coming in from property taxes. Hopefully, we have businesses that I don't think in two years they'll be built back, but they'll be on their way. And
just having a solution in the short term of the parking rate to pay for the debt service to be able to give our public our our public safety, our our fire and our police the building that hey, I don't think they wanted to get by a
hurricane, but the building they were told they would have 10 years ago. 10 years ago. So, this has continued, you know, and and I have a lot of opinions on it that I won't share because some of them aren't so nice
because I'll be quite frank with you. I think it's absolutely asinine that we're treating our police any differently than we are our fire department. Why do the police deserve less than the fire department? And I think it's outrageous. You know, you don't hesitate to call if
something goes wrong. You don't hesitate to call either one, police or fire. You don't hesitate to call them and you expect them to be there in like two minutes. And they are. They're phenomenal. But yet it it it just it makes no sense
to me, especially when there is a solution on the table to cover the debt in a temporary form where after that we are going to be having the influx. That's why you spread the debt service out. we are going to be having more
people come here. So, you know, if if sorry if um you know, I I appreciate Chief Barkley. I appreciate what you're saying as far as you know, we're looking at the fourth floor because of demand. I'll be honest with you, I get the same
copy and paste emails that go to all of us saying that they want the police on the fourth floor. But I also get emails and I also get texts and I also get calls and I also see people in Publix that are saying, "Keep fighting these firemen." These are people that have lived here as
long as I have or longer, which is the majority of my life, saying, "Build the public safety building. Get our police and fire the public safety building." And so, and those aren't copy and pasted emails. Those are people with passion
that want our police and fire to have not only what they need, but what they deserve. So, that's my opinion on it. Thank you for going to that to those lengths to really break that down because I too agree the difference when
you take out and again the senator who helped us get the one and a half million said this was such a weird legislative session and there's nobody you could talk to in Tallahassee that wouldn't agree with that. He said come back with the big ask next
next year. He's like come back because you will get more. So this is what we got now. That doesn't mean we're not going to get grants over the I mean, heck, we're going to have somebody that's writing grants. So this is what we have today. That's not what we're
going to have a year from now. And I just think it's so shortsighted to look at it that way. And that's that's my two cents worth. My turn. I'm ready. All right. So, um, impact fees will definitely, uh, slow
down commercial redevelopment. That's, uh, I'd like to make that statement. Um, I believe, uh, uh, Commissioner Dicki, uh, part of the funding, uh, to harden city hall. Is that what you guys were working on? Yeah. That's one of the things we asked for.
Yeah. So, I know a generator is part of the city hall improvements. Yes. Yes. So, I make that uh statement clear. If we put uh the fire station next door, uh even though the city is not a 50-year building, we are married to this site
for the future city hall. So, we tear down this building and rebuild the future city hall, right? We're married to it. No one in their right mind will buy this building and turn it into an office building with a fire station next
door. Um so and then u on page three of the packet under funding option two it says financing all or partial project through borrowing with debt service paid from future general fund general fund accounts. Although I don't like the idea
of using hijacking my parking fees idea. Uh we could erase all those words and write and write in raise property taxes. That's just the statement I wanted to make there. Um, so I had uh uh my pros and cons or my cons for putting it next
door, the fire station next door. Uh, we have environmental issues as the land is contaminated. Um, Florida DOT, this is State Road 666. Uh Florida DOT is not in
favor of granting ingress and egress uh from where the building would be to G Boulevard. That would delay the project um quite a while from what I understand. Um yeah, and of course it ruins. All
right. And then u let's see here. So, the option that I'd like to see um and I'm right-handed. Ah, there it is. So, um and let me pass this out for my commissioners so they can see the same thing.
and the rest over there. There you go. Thank you. So uh what I would like uh a direction to go is to allow fire uh department to get pricing for a standalone fire station.
Uh build a fire station so that the future growth can be accommodated including a police station on the upper floor uh later on down the road. um put police in the fourth floor for immediate
uh and future u immediate use and like a four or five year plan until the city is more financially secure to build upon the fire station back on the 108th. Um that's what I like to see. Um we I
blacked out the rest of that. Um possible P3 in the future. Uh as you can see, parking spots uh below. Uh so this gives the fire station uh on two
levels of 2500 ft² each, a total of 5,000 square ft. Um a relocation of the master pumping station on um and as well as a reworked uh public works building um and a total of 58 spaces uh parking
spaces in the back. So, I think uh it belongs back on 108th. We'll have the police uh boat back there as well. And I think the fire uh department has a jet ski, right? Fire department has a Yeah. And
uh that'd be uh for rescues, water rescues and so on. So, that's what I'd like to see the direction go and not in the park and not next door because we'd be married to this location forever. If I could comment, mayor.
Yes, please. Um, first, DOT is is going to be fine with an access out on the Gulf Boulevard. Our engineer confirmed that this morning. Um, there will be a cost associated with that engineering, but you it wraps into the engineering cost
for design. Anyway, um, there is no contamination found on this site next door. We have 13 monitoring wells that the state requires us to have and at this point there has not been any significant contamination. Anything that needs to be
mitigated if we were to build on the site, we would need to remove the well sites or just dispose of the well sites and then replace them afterwards. Um, and we could probably get away with less sites according to our our engineering and architecture firm. And on your
proposal for a 5,000 foot fire station looks like a back-end station. It just doesn't meet current needs or standards. Um I don't see any parking associated with that. This is the first time I've seen it, but just off the cuff, you know, we require uh you know 10 spots
for shift change for personnel plus um additional fire vehicles. We have um a reserve engine, the high water vehicle as well, so I don't see where those would go. And um you cannot move the master pump station. All the sewer lines
in town run to the master pump station. It's fixed. It is where it is. Um I was was told by Mike that it could be moved within a certain radius of its current location. And um
yeah, that's probably a you know, maybe a 60x 60 square foot 60 ft x 60 ft building. Um it will be a smaller building, but it'll be within that footprint because that's where the pipes come up. And uh so
what you're saying is you can't back into the station or I mean can you repeat that section because I know there was a video that Citizens Voice put out. Yeah, you can back into a station. is just not the safest. Um, you know, backing accounts for about 1% of all
vehicle travel when a in a firetruck and accounts for 25% of the accidents in firet trucks. So, it's pretty easy math. You don't want to back in if you can help it. And there's no no provision for storage of our reserve vehicle and our high
water vehicle either. Not to mention future growth. If we have um you know we start getting more vertical with our our development and we need a ladder truck in the future. There is absolutely no space to to add onto that at that
location. Okay, let's open it up to public comment. Uh I have one here. Brandy Long, before I vacate the podium, can I say one more thing? Sure. if I could see that first um
PowerPoint again with the the calculations. So, a bit of a misnomer. If you like these numbers, you're going to love what I'm going to tell you now. Um those insurance proceeds are probably going to increase. We did hire a consultant, Blue
Sky, and um their recommendation uh was about $191,000 higher. our insurance company is doing what they do and pondering that currently, but we see no reason that they're going to um not approve that.
So, we're looking at about 772,000. It's under review with insurance, but that's a higher insurance proceed. And then looking at the number, the 8 million number on line five, um yeah, my estimate there for a standalone
fire station, that's at $1,000 a square foot. That's 8,000 foot fire station. Um that does not include design. That's just construction cost. So if you that's apples and if you go down to the oranges below it on line 14 that 12 million is
about a million dollars worth of design fees. So that's actually an $11 million construction cost. You do at 100 bucks or a,000 bucks a square foot. You do the math, we're looking at a 11,160
square foot proposed facility. That's just over 11 million. So now your delta's about 350,000 between the two options. Insurance proceeds can't be used for either. Yeah, they're they're all match. They're on both. Yeah, the the number would increase by
191,000 in both both, but the delta doesn't change both scenarios. And again, best estimates based on talking with the architect and speaking with contractors that that do this for a living. So,
all right. Um, Brandy. Hi, Brandy Long District 2. Um, these thoughts were put together before I heard the police chief say that he was okay with moving into city hall. I had no idea that they were even acknowledging that idea since since the
April date whenever it was brought in. So, I just want to preface that. Um, Treasure Islands Island residents remain in a state of recovery from devastating hurricanes confronting an ongoing and laborous permitting process. A considerable number of residents
continue to bear the costs of rent and additional expenses associated with residing in temporary accommodations. I do not think it's the right time to overspend on new projects. We must prioritize our critical infrastructure needs and project projects, focusing on
essential spending to maximize impact. Residents expect responsible management of their hard-earned tax dollars, especially with decreasing property tax revenues in fiscal year 2026 and 27 compared to 2025. The city commission is
now poised to assume leadership of the public safety building project, ensuring it reflects the desires of the Treasure Island residents and the city's fiscal responsibilities. Mayor Doctor's cautious approach awaiting the state's ruling on the $6
million financing request was a wise decision. In spite of the substantial 100% increase in property tax revenues collected since 2019, the city the city is confronting a resource deficit to fund our critical
infrastructure stemming from the wasteful expenditure on ill-conceived and failed initiatives and vanity projects which have yielded no benefit to our residents. We do not require innovative schemes to conceal new fees. Rather, we need fiscal responsibility
and reductions in spending to enable our bloated government to operate within its financial m means just like our responsible residents do. It's clear that a $12 million public safety building is beyond what our community can afford right now. And while we're
hope we were all hopeful for the $6 million state grant, that support unfortunately did not come through. In light of this, it's time for the city island for the city of Treasure Island to move forward with the lowerc cost
alternative that was presented on April 8th. This thoughtful, more responsible plan begins by relocating the police department into city hall, an important first step toward meeting our city's needs in a way that reflects both fiscal
responsibility and care for our community's future. Thank you. Thank you, Brandy. Robert Bazo. Uh, afternoon, Robert Bazo, Alf Capri, just another whiny resident, I guess,
who comes up here and whines every time. And, uh, I'm glad that we're getting rid of some of our older, pesky citizens so we can then rebuild $3.5 million houses. Um, a lot of you know me. I'm not a member of CBTI. um not a whiny resident. I've got some bonafites, got some
experience and um I want the best for this city like most of you. Love our fire and police department. Everybody does. We can stipulate that right now. Um it's also about fiscal responsibility. Uh a lot of you have seen in the news about uh uh a lot of
the beach communities and uh the county teaming up with a new EMS building uh up in MadiRaa Beach. I'd love to hear more about that from the chief. And again, a great example of of of partnerships and spreading money around and building that uh big new building up in MadiRaa Beach.
Uh and I'm not sure the cost, but I think it's almost no cost to the uh to the beach uh cities, but uh uh I'd like to be corrected and I'd like to know what our role in that was. I think we should have participated in that partnership um in that big beautiful EMS
building up in Madiraa Beach that is uh combined with the county money and beach money to build this uh city. That's what we're talking about partnerships. Um, a lot of us here have been in leadership positions in our in our career and again you guys are are elected leaders. Again,
u you set you set the number. You set the budget. Uh we have two excellent chiefs here who are waiting direction, but you set the number. Um you don't budget uh the way some of you are saying to do. So you don't come up with let's see, can we do six? Can we get in seven?
How much do we do I need to borrow? come up with a number, give them uh give them direction. The way we're, you know, a lot of us are projecting projecting fees into the future. One of the commissioners said, "Oh, well, uh, we're going to make more money next year." Well, as if you really
want to laugh, look at when Senator Ted Kennedy got Medicare passed and he got and the Congressional Budget Office looked at the future future numbers. laugh at those numbers because it's like 10 times more expensive than the Congressional Budget Office predicted
those costs would be. Um, we have some projections on parking for next year. Take out off at least 25% of that number. It's not going to be a real number. Projections never work. And you should not be paying money today or or
borrowing money today based on future forecasts. What can we afford today? How much debt can we take on? What is the true cost of servicing that debt? Again, I'm not CVTI. I'm just a I'm just a military guy, but I think if you
borrow six, seven million dollars, it's going to be a lot of money. And I don't think parking's going to cover it. So, let's think about that. Again, you guys give a number, they'll salute. 108. I I've heard about it can't support the load and is maybe contaminated or
too small. I get all that, but how many square feet is the existing fire station? I've heard 3,000. I don't know. Maybe the chief can tell us what how many square feet is the existing station? I don't know. I think it's like 3,000. Who knows?
So, let's take 1008. Is it in fact not sustainable? Is the existing building uh condemned? I don't know. I think that I've been told that it is, but then FEMA is looking at it to see maybe it can be repaired. I don't know. I want the best
for these guys. And I'm not advocating to repair that building. And uh you know, uh Commissioner Dicki, I I think we have a better chance of getting public assisted money uh for the fire station than we than we do for the $ 1.5 million for debris removal for
commercial buildings because that doesn't come under FEMA. I think we're going to get some money in the future, but let's right now come up with a number. Let's say it's seven eight million dollars. These guys will salute. Uh the mode of the C city right now is outsourcing. Everybody is going to be
outsourcing in the future. So maybe it makes sense temporarily to put the police here, fire station standalone, and then give us the flexibility in the future to see maybe we can in fact outsource police. I'm not advocating for
it right now, but let's study it. We did a great job with it with waste and you guys, God, you deserve a lot of credit for making that happen. Even though we talked about it last year, I think it's going to happen. It's going to save us money, be more efficient, and perhaps in the next year or two, maybe outsourcing
the police is going to be effective and efficient. I don't know. But you set the number. They will salute. We love our police and fire department. Nobody here is whining. Nobody here is complaining. We love this city. Let's get it done.
Thank you. Thank you, Robert. West West Evans palms. I'm going to see if prescription sunglasses. I uh not trying to be Joe Cool. I don't have to try. I just am. Um,
I like Arthur's uh plans that he put up on the screen there. Uh, I know uh Chief Bars kind of ripped them to shreds, but I think that's a good uh starting point. You could take the chief's
uh suggestions and rework them. It seems like that space with the pump being there is wasted space for anything other than uh city business. in the future if we want some kind of uh public private partnership, bars, restaurants, private
or public marina, something like that along that space, it seems like we want to maximize that because that ultimately will uh bring in tax dollars. Even though I'm not one that's constantly trying to bring in tax dollars, I
believe in cutting uh our spending rather than trying to constantly find more and more. But uh having things like that in the future brings in more tourists, brings in more dollars and gives us more money to work with where we don't have to worry about how are we
going to fund seaw walls and pump stations in the future. Um I don't think anyone's treating the police department different by suggesting they be in city hall. Uh the staff works in city hall. We come here to get our permits in city hall. city
hall if it was good enough to spend God knows how much money it's been spent on it now. Uh I think it's good enough to host the police department. And I think uh the police department, like uh Barkley, Chief Barkley said, if you guys want them in here, let's put them in
here. Uh if you walk through the streets and you talk to the neighbors, uh a lot of them start talking about outsourcing our police. I personally don't want our police outsourced because the only thing keeping crime away right now are the police and the mosquitoes, I
think. And so I'm happy to have the police around. I love them. I like seeing them, waving to them, knowing they know me, I know them. It gives it that small town feel that we all love. Um, so if keeping our police means
putting them in this building, let's do so. But when it comes to a command station, we are going to build a new fire station. There's no reason why the command station after a storm, which should only have to be used for a week or so before power would
technically be on back on in this building. Uh the command station can be out of the fire department. Uh I'm just sorry I'm breezing through notes I was just taking back here. Uh so yeah, like I said, I don't think that's treating the police any different. I think it actually is what's going to be saving
our police. Um because when it comes down to it, citizens uh at some point they'll look at a cost. They start doing cost analysis and they start saying, "Okay, uh if this if it's going to cost us this much to keep the
police, then we'll just use the county's the sheriff." We don't want people to start thinking that way. So, let's work with what is good for the whole community, and that means uh what works with our community's pockets as well. And I know we like to say that no one up
here wants to raise taxes. No one's ever said they want to raise taxes. My whole life, up until the last 10 years, I never heard a politician say they wanted to raise taxes. Yet, my whole life, taxes have always been raised. So, you guys can sit here and say that they're going to go they're going to end up
going up at some point. So, let's try to do what we can to keep them from going up. And the way we do that is by uh spending responsibly, looking at ways to not spend as much. And uh that's probably all I got to say for now. Thank you.
Thank you, West Mark Hoey. Good afternoon, Mark Hoey, District 3. Um, we've been talking about this for a while, haven't we? Month in and month out, this has come up. And I guess if anything, we're getting a little more
focused, I would say, in the in the scheme of things, mayor, that where we were six months ago, a year ago talking about this. But we're still trying to design this facility by committee. you
know, it's like this giant committee, the public committee, the the professional committee, the administrative committee. We're trying to design this and and pick it apart in many different ways. And that's that's troublesome. I know you got to start somewhere, but a a couple of things with
regards to what we've seen tonight. Um, and maybe there's a quick answer to this. Uh we mentioned or I mentioned about that $1.5 million uh grant from the state or appropriation. Uh it didn't show up on
Commissioners Dickiy's look at the split between fire and police. Is that something we put a condition on or did the state put a condition that it had to be a combined facility?
And I guess this is open workshop. someone knows that answer. Yeah, it wasn't the the state or anything. That's how we designed it. Um and we were hoping that because it is public safety, both the police and the
fire department, that we would get a larger number. Sure. Um I I think though that uh and from what I'm hearing is the the million5 um as long as we're in this facility and the money is going to when I say in this facility this land this this part of our
city center including the two parking lots um that uh that it will will pass mustard uh or muster that uh once we get to um that point where it's like 1.5 million
uh of expenditure, then all of a sudden it kind of comes out of our pocket to keep moving things along. Sure. But we'll be able to verify that with the state uh easily and uh and I'll make a call uh or one of us will be. I mean, we're accustomed to moving money
around within the various funding sources within the city itself. So, it would make sense that yes, as long as you're not going out there and throwing it to the wind, we're still working to get new facilities for police and fire
better than the portables. Okay. So, that's good. So, we need to put that in there. Commissioner, um I'm I'm not as inclined to to go for the parking giveaway. I think the parking fees in
general are an annuity to the city whether we raise them or not or however we manipulate them going forward. That's money that we can count on to help defay cost going forward. Now, yes, a mortgage is defraying the cost, but we're going
to tie up that money for 15 20 years at best. I'm not in favor of that. Um the other projects they'll have to be dealt with as we come along, but the the grants, as I well know, uh from
participating with uh Commissioner Dicki, there's a lot out there. There's no guarantees and some of the timelines are long as far as what you get, when you get it, and how much match we have to have. I hate to make a decision about
financing on grants. You know, I'm not against the police or fire being Treasure Island's own. Unfortunately, a lot of the rhetoric that has been dispensed over the last months and months has come to try to
divide us and uh paint those who question expenditures, common sense, uh financing, lower taxes, less waste, have been somewhat demonized as being anti- police or anti-fire. And
that's unfortunate. It's not true. And last but not least, I'm really tired of being as a citizen, Joe citizen, an old citizen by the way, uh being scolded from d from the dis about
questioning what we're doing, how we're doing it, when we're doing it. I'm done with that. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Rick Matthew. Rick Matthew, District 3. Um, most of it's already been covered. Um,
one of the things that's been kicked around though is uh recovery of 108. If we do move away from there about restaurant, has there been any contamination soil samples done to see if that's even viable? That may be a wasteland over there.
So before we go down that path of reconstructing restaurants and stuff like that, we need to find out if that's even a possibility before we vacate that land and then it just becomes wasteland. That that's something to really consider. Um
also commissioners, your responsibility is to the residents. You need to find out what they're saying. From what I hear and and I know that social media, they're they're they're debt adverse. They don't want 12 million. And uh
listen to what your residents. I I would like to hear because it's a workshop what your residents are saying because people I talked to, they don't want the 12 million. I appreciate the three commissioners and the mayor for giving me eye contact and listening to me. Um
thank you. Thank you, Rick. All right, that will be the end of the customer com or uh customer comments, public comments. Uh so, uh we will end that. Can I say something?
Sure. Bobby, I was wondering if I get a uh copy of the contamination reports for this location next door, please. If they have to find it for you. I bet Gary has that. if they exist.
The commissioner was asking about contamination reports. We can get them through our architect. He he's had a look at them. Yeah. Okay. Got make another comment. That's a good last comment I'm going to make
tonight. Um the the one thing I think is most unfortunate in all of this has been, you know, that if you don't build a $12 million
public safety building, then there's you don't support the police and you don't want the police. And I all I'll say is I think that's incredibly unfortunate. Um, when I ran for this position, I said that I support our police and our fire.
I at this time do not I I I'm not saying at this time I do not want to outsource our police. I think they're a really good addition to have here. Um, and I think that most unfortunately I think it's becoming the
gap is closing, but I still think most of the residents want to keep our police and fire as do I. Um but unfortunately I think because of this whole thing we've
been going through where it's 12 million or nothing. Um it's it's caused the residents to to revolt and say then let's just outsource the police. And I I don't really think that's the right thing to do. Um I will say this. I am I
I will guarantee you and I'm not going to say that I've I've done more, but I will guarantee you I've talked to more as many residents about this as anybody up here. Not saying more. I'm saying and I just
I've maybe had a half of one person want to spend the 12 million and the rest do not. the majority um want the police in um city hall and then uh
you know a a a right-sized fire station. Um it hasn't been till recently that people talked about out outsourcing the police, but again I don't I don't think that's the right thing to do and I don't think that would ever pass anyway. Um,
so and again, I'm not I could care less what's been said on social media. I could care less about cut and paste emails. I've held two public forums. I've talked to probably 90 residents. I've gone doortodoor. I had a resident that's in the room here call me today
about this and he was, you know, he was pretty much the same as what I've heard. I don't think we should outsource to police, but I don't want to spend 12 million. So when I ran for this job, I said I would listen to my residents and maybe other parts of the island are totally different than Isisle of Palms.
But for me, this is the easy one. I I I mean um you know, police in city hall and I I also I'll just be honest with you. I don't agree with that math up there. I call that fuzzy math. I don't know how all of a sudden the station is
$8 million. you can build a damn nice fire station that will support our needs for $6 million. And that's just where I'm at and that's where I'm going to be. Commissioner Clark, are you part of the old population rebuilding million-dollar homes?
No, I am not rebuilding my home. Million dollar home. No. Thank you. All right. Let me uh give a a little history lesson. Uh I've been looking at uh what we were going to do with the land on both sides of the building as well as this whole concept from 2018
17 or 18 when Larry Lun basically said we need to do something and they wanted to put the the uh fire and police station city hall in the park and uh and that got shot down pretty quickly. A lot of folks said hey this is there's only so much green space on an island and we
need to keep our green space. Well, that's when they came up with the idea of the this building being available and uh and they wanted to to sell it and uh so they we bought it, the city bought it for in 2019 for a little more than $5
million, 5.65.7 million. Um and so the more important part of this is I asked what were you going to do with the land that was on both sides of the city hall? there had to be some thought process and Larry Lund did confirm that yes that uh it was
said that on the north side of the building that that's probably where the police and fire station should be and uh so fast forward now to 2021 um I was on the first year on the commission and basically we were asked
to vote where would be the best place for the police and fire station and that commission voted for it to be right next door on the north parking lot from the from the city hall. And then two years later in 2023
or yeah, I believe it was 2023 that was once again brought up and it was said to be what do you want to do with building the new fire station uh and the police department? And this was because we were getting into our capital budget. And in the capital
budget, there was $8 million. And that capital budget uh was to build the the fire station and police station next door. So I think that it was always part of this concept that Larry Lun established and so did that commission establish that basically said, "Yes,
this is going to be our city center." And to have a city center, you need to have a city hall. You need to have the police and fire departments. You need to have parking. You need to have a lot of things. And so we didn't want to take over all of our our green space, but it
was intended to take over potentially the two parking lots. One that was going to have the police and fire station in it. The other one was potentially going to have a parking garage. uh because right now we know that uh some of the studies that have been done with Joan
and and other folks uh that today we need about 250 more parking spots than what we have in the future if when we build out and everything builds out back in the downtown area and everything else, we're going to need about 550 parking spots. So that's that's kind of
the history lesson of what why this was purchased, when it was purchased. And the concept though was always to keep it as a town center. And that's why three different times in the last 6 years that it was said that yes, we should be putting the police and fire department
next door. And I think that uh there's a lot more that can be said about the the the police department and the fire department. You know, that they've been, you know, through everything they've been great to work with. when our streets start to flood, you know, on a sunny day that, you know, they're out
there and making sure that people aren't getting stuck in the water and everything else. I think that uh, you know, we have uh a great police department, we have a great fire department. Um, we need to keep both the uh the city uh amenities. Uh and uh and
I'll tell you there's been a lot of things uh I mentioned the other night before the police officers went to uh to do their duties over on the beach that uh you know Chief Barkley uh brought with him a concept that said, "Hey, when
you're out there working on the streets, you have your windows rolled down because you can hear, you know, a lot of stuff that you can't see." And I'll tell you what, it's exactly right. when you drive by the police cars, take a look. Uh I don't know it'll be it'll be a h
100% of the time, but I'll tell you it's it's definitely, you know, a high percentage of having their windows rolled down. And that that's the type of service that we want to have in this city. I mean, I I always have thought that cities have personalities. And our
personality, I've lived here now for 17 years. Our personality is kind of a country club personality. They love to know people. They love to see people. They like to have concier services. And I'll tell you what, that that's what we're we're shooting for here. And I get
it. The $12 million. Yeah. If it would have been 6 million from the state and 6 million out of our pocket, this would have been very easy to say and do. But it's not. It's it's And that's why, you know, the thing is is I think that when this building was bought, it's a lot bigger than any space that we ever
needed. Maybe even more space than we ever will need. Uh but that's that's the uh that goes without saying you know that this was 20ome,000 square feet and uh it was 13,000 square feet of office space before you know we bought this. So
um I think that we need to to take this very seriously. I think that it's a good idea. You know we want to be you know fiscally conservatives uh conservative and uh and continue to move forward. But uh and that's why I asked for the alternate when you guys come and what
you're going to sit down here on Wednesday with the folks. Is that is that what it is? Yes. So, I would like, you know, to to basically take a look at what it's going to be for the fire station to be built on the north side and then the alternate that basically said that we will build
everything, the pillars and everything else that have to go in strong enough to put another level on top so that maybe a half a dozen years from now that we're in a different situation, not coming out of, you know, the the hurricanes and that and that we're able to to maybe finish it off and have that be, you
know, the fire station and the police station. um you know 6 10 whatever years from now. So what direction are we giving city staff? Well, I I think that uh you know I I maybe if we would have done this a week from now, it'll it'll be a little different because they're going to do
this this Wednesday, but I think the direction is um where are we going to place the building? I think that's that's very important at this point. And who's going to pay for it? And and I think uh that we're well we're the city's going to pay for it. Uh I
don't have uh any any qualm about you know that raising the price for parking. Um I don't want to put it I take it out of the um the general fund and say this is going to be dedicated to anything because for for years we've done a lot
with that money million nine a couple years ago. uh and we need to make sure that at that all those funds are available depending on you know we're a small city we don't have lots of reserves so uh we can't be uh setting aside things that can be general fund um
and and saying no we're going to dedicate them to only one project so yes I guess that's that's what we got to decide right now is what what direction do we want to give to the two chiefs So to be clear, it's right now just
basically location whether it's fire and police or whatever the case may be. Where is it going to be? Right. Correct. I think that that's the important thing. All right. I just wanted to make sure I was clear. I don't know if anybody else agrees or disagrees with that. I agree. No, we have to give we have to make a decision on on
on location on location. I have uh voted before and I'll vote again uh that it be just north in the lot right over here just north of the building. I would agree. I it I'm not as concerned about where it
goes other than the fact that it just be a fire station that is not $8 million. Okay. And I'm uh I'm also in the same that yes, it needs to be right here north of city hall. I think it should go where it always was on 108.
Okay. Well, I think the consensus here is that uh that yes, we we want to utilize the space next door or the uh fire station slash the police. And that's why the alternative, let's see what they're going to give us, you know, at at uh if it was the one single
building, building it today for fire and police, and then the alternative that years from now we're going to be able to build up because there's not a lot of green space to build out. I mean, I think the other thing is I did Did I interrupt you? I'm sorry. Oh, I was just going to say that I think the
other thing we I'm hearing and I think we need to come to consensus on is is does do the does the police go into city hall? I don't think we do that until we have pricing both ways. I mean, I I I think the pricing needs to be number one two separate things and
you I think they completely separate. One without the ability to build on top and one with the ability to bail on top. And I I'm still incredibly comfortable uncomfortable with what I heard tonight of all of the sudden a $6 million building is all of a sudden eight. I never heard $6 million. So I'm not
sure where that number come from either. I have never Have you heard that number? Me either. I've never heard. The fire station's always been 8 million on its own. I've never heard the number six million. But you never heard six. I've always heard six and six. But uh yeah, it's been tough with that.
I never heard eight. I've heard six. I heard seven. Yeah, I'm seven maybe. But I've just always heard a different number. It was budgeted uh two years ago in the CIP at 8 million for it was and it just can't happen. Costs have gone up too much.
Yeah. Well, does that does that not mean then the other building is 14 instead of 12? Not at 1,000 a square foot. Correct. Yeah, you're looking at a thousand a square foot. And just to be clear, I I' I'd like to comment on some of the citizen comments that were made that
were inaccurate. um you know just just explain and I know they're well-intentioned and I know you you like me have the city's best interest at heart but um things that are said at the podium have a tendency to become facts when they are not. So um
you know we we had proposed when it was a police and fire together um reducing what we currently have from the old building by 360 square feet. So, um, you know, that was built in 1967 for 1967.
Um, what you normally do in these situations is you build a 50-year building for the future. We're actually decreasing the square footage from what we currently have, which was built to 1967 standards. So, we're able to do that because we're just improving the efficiency of design. Um,
you know, our our uh the comment was made about um the county building us a building. Um, the county by its charter is required to provide EMS service to the residents, first response advanced life support service. They do that by
contracting with the 18 municipal fire departments or special districts and fire departments in the county. Um, our entire EMS budget is currently paid by the county. Uh we receive 1.254 million every year to provide EMS. Uh up in the
Readingtons where this new station is being built, there is no fire station. So there's nowhere to put a fire department-based EMS unit there. So the county is building an EMS station there to house that unit that is contracted to the fire departments up there. So that's
just it's a little bit of information that was that was taken and run the wrong way with. So that's just not an option or a possibility. And then being good fiscal stewards, the city is also paying rent. Those two sets of buildings you see out
there cost $87,000 a month. $87,000 a month. We're fortunate that FEMA is paying 75% of that and the state is currently picking up another 12 and a half%. Um, but that's only going to continue as long as we're making
progress towards getting ourselves whole again. They're not going to support us forever. uh your police and fire chief have come up with a less expensive alternative. Uh that's uh 15,300 a month and FEMA currently is paying 75
and the state 12.5% of that. Um but make no mistake, you know, we are sitting on land that we own and we're paying rent elsewhere. So, um it's 18 months to 24 months to open the doors once we decide
to say go and begin and design. And you know, we're not even there. So together, stand alone here, there, anywhere. We need to move forward at this point. We're at your mercy. Um,
you need a public safety building. You need a fire fire department. You need a police department. They need their homes. Decide wherever you want them or however you want them, but we need some direction. I assume you want us to go forward with the feasibility for the fourth floor as
well. Yes. Part of this. Okay. And the I would just like to add because I don't want to sometimes when you go early in the conversation it uh you lose sight of it. But uh if if if we walk away with anything, let's walk away with the realization. I hope that it's we're
not talking about a $5 million difference between a public safety facility and a uh sing a standalone fire station. it is substantially less at whether it's 1.3 million or 1.5 million or 2 million. It's not $5 million and
you need to look at the advantages of of that. So I think I think we've got consensus at least on the location. Uh so hopefully you can go forward on that. Uh, and it's, you know, let's I'm just asking everybody to keep stop saying $5 million cuz that's what when I talked to
my constituents, uh, Commissioner Clark, yeah, they don't like the $5 million spread. Uh, if they heard of 1.3 million, they might have a different opinion on it. The other thing is is the feeling that we only have to borrow
money if it's a combo station. It's we're going to have to borrow this money one way or the other. So whether you like the parking uh idea or not doesn't matter. We got to if you want to if you don't want to raise taxes and we have to come up with something else and I don't mind it going into the general fund as
long as we know that it's there and we can use it for the next two or three years or however long we need it. It doesn't matter where I don't care. It doesn't have to be dedicated but it's just an idea of how we might fund the the public safety facility or the fire station without raising taxes.
Um, I think a few residents or people that stood up and asked how big was the old fire station. Uh, fire, just fire or police and fire? Uh, I guess just fire. I don't have that number. Um, I know the
combined facility was 11,000. Sorry, 11,530 ft. I think police itself and this is a guess from what I've heard was 3500 just for police that was over here correct
so do the math there and that would what was what was police chief 3500 I believe somewhere around that yeah it's like around eight 8,000 but you You got to remember that um almost 5,000 square feet of that is garage
base. All right. Anyone else have anything? I think that uh for now we've accomplished and given you some direction and uh and I appreciate it.
Thank you. So at at this point uh do we have any other public comment? West. I just when it comes to the building estimates uh for the public safety buildings, uh
you said 5,000 square feet of it is that's roughly what it is for the garage and then I guess around 3,000 for offices and uh uh all the other space. So is that with our estimates of building a new building, uh do they
count garage space in the thousand square feet? Like is that or is it uh I know as people are lifting their homes, you know, having garage on the bottom is cheaper than the finished building that's being built on top. That's what I'm asking. Is it uh are we
going to have 5,000 at the bottom and 3,000 square feet at the top and we're being charged a,000 for the garage space a square foot as it's just a I'm thinking this out loud. Sorry. I'm not an engineer or construction
manager, but that's that's an average. So it may cost 2,800 bucks a square foot to build living space and 700 bucks a square foot to build garage. So whatever the math is, it works out to a,000 a square. Got
Robert. Uh first of all, this back and forth is is excellent and again uh uh the chief just gave an excellent answer about the EMS. I wasn't being contentious. I was uh actually he answered perfectly the MS question and again that that's fantastic. I I I would like to know
exactly what what operational space the existing fire station is. We'd like to know that answer but again I think we want a station. We want a police station. He deserves the best and I think out here is fantastic and he's all about cost. It's about money. It's about
about money really and it be fiscally conservative. you guys give a number, they'll salute and we'll we'll get this done. Now, we talked about taxes and and and property taxes. I think our I I I've heard that our budget our revenue has
increased d like doubled in five years, something like that. And uh our military rate, I think it stayed the same. I think our military rate is still one of the highest of all the beach towns. Now, uh I lived in Maryland and uh in Virginia where I held positions like this and again when property values uh
you know went up, military rates went down. Okay? So kind of like our property taxes remained the same, our property values are not going to go go down and it looks like a military rate is not going to going to change. So I just keep that in mind that let's uh let's budget
for what we have now and that forecasting numbers are never never going to be correct. So, if you forecast $100 next year, it's not going to be $100. Let's figure out $80 and do our budgeting that way. Thank you.
All right. Thank you, everyone.