--------- rejourned this we we reconvened this meeting all right and now we're for open public hearing mr paloo mr president this is the second reading of ordinance number
2025-740 an ordinance of the city of Willist Florida amending the city of Willist code of ordinances as amended providing for the amendment of chapter 28 of the Williston code of ordinances to add chapter 28 section 5 prohibiting public camping or sleeping on any public property public building or public right
of way providing for codification providing for appeal of conflicting ordinances providing severability providing for incorporation in the city code of ordinances and providing an effective date mr president this is the sec look I told you I I insist on being verbose and this is my punishment
um the ordinance in front of you is the second reading of the public sleeping um ordinance that you all saw previously again this is handed down from the Florida legislature these are requirements we're required to have penalties for these kinds of things i'm
happy to answer any questions but there have been no changes since the first read okay anybody have any questions can I ask what the penalties are for this yes so on page I think it's 129 of the agenda um the penalty for the first
violation is no less than $50 penalty for the second violation no less than 100 penalty for all subsequent violations no less than $200 my question is is there some place they can sleep other than in a car that is licensed um
normally we'll assist them to get to Gainesville to the city limits okay to Gainesville where there is housing St francis same thing yeah st francis and then there's one in Ok so we do that all the time where we do assist them to get there so we'll drive them down there or reverend drive them down there somebody
will go okay all right I have a quick question who enforces this is this code enforcement because those are fees they don't sound like fines it is a cooperation between code enforcement and law enforcement officers
so how would we find them so is it the police going to find them or is they get a ticket oh they're getting a ticket okay so that's not me of course code enforcement could call the police or code There you go code all right question
donald who gets the money from the fine how you going to make them pay i don't think you're going to collect anything cuz I state that receives the fine or is it the municipality that receives so if you look down to the very next section number three all fines collected from violations or held by the city for the
care of the homeless population to fund any nonprofit organization that provides food shelter medical care at the discretion and selection of the majority vote so you all will hold this money and then you will vote on what you do with it um donate it to some kind of nonprofit organization the reason why I brought this up is because that seems
really cool because what we could do is just invite a bunch of people to sleep out and fund raise off of it if they're okay receiving 50 bucks to sleep on the street right yeah we'll have a pajama party in the pavilion than a hotel so here I mean
okay so this is my question yeah if they're sleeping on the streets they probably have no money and we are finding them how that's what I said good luck collecting it right Mr bishop so the last time you
brought this up I had asked a question and so it's back up again and I'm going to ask the same question major Fortney over there has a gun he can legally use it what's Don got
matt not well it you you said both ways you said the PD can do it or the code enforcement can do it to call the police that's what I said well if he's going to call the police it ain't no sense him going over there my point being is you don't need to send an unarmed guy to a police probably going to see it first i'm just saying we don't need to send an
armed guy to a tent and knock on a tent and say "Please leave." Because you don't know what's inside the tent i know if he sees them I say "Call the police." And he can do that cuz he sees them well we can all do that too yes you could it's a very good point it's a citizen
issue all I'm saying is I would hate for any of any of our employees non equipped to go bang on a tent to ask the guy inside please leave or pay 50 bucks the guy may not like that well then don't do that yeah then don't do it
i mean if you don't feel like do it don't do it i would do it in a heartbeat but if you're telling But if you're telling me you can't sleep here if you're telling him that's his job and he doesn't do it then technically he can get in trouble i told him it was job to call the police that would be any code enforcement stuff though because he's going to tell other people and find them
for their grass in their yard or all the other stuff which is the same talking to someone i've had the same argument ever since we started code enforcement i agree it's a little bit different because when we talk to them about a code enforcement issue we give them time we work with them this is like
a ticket well and and and obviously we're going to ask them to leave and there is we're going to tell them yeah this is what's going on if you don't leave then you'll be fined to that effect so we're going to do the same thing as Don's going to do in one of the houses we're going to say will you please leave and this is the reason why you have to what the ordinance provides
is that Don and law enforcement officers are authorized doesn't make him required to do this and the authorization could just be Don is authorized to contact law enforcement i'd rather see it written down that way than personally i know I'm
being disrespectful and I get it but I I just don't think it's right to have him or any of our employees be involved period to the will of the council i hadn't got a problem with it cuz I know he's going to not do anything he doesn't feel
comfortable doing he'll call the police so if you roll up It's really not any other enforcement issue call them don't put yourself in harm's way and and I can tell you any homeless person who comes to get assistance from my place of
employment I tell them that they can go to the pavilion in the center of town and that there is shade and there's a restroom and especially if it's raining or something but that they have to be gone by dark i tell every one of them that so is this a code violation if they're
sleeping it is a code violation yes subject to a civil ticket okay so it is under the purview of the job description is it not it's a code violation now we
can give him instructions on something different to do than going actually go into the tent which would be to call law enforcement right so well we would need to call the law enforcement anyway because we don't give tickets code enforcement goes to code code enforcement goes to our board of
adjustments and code enforcement and they give fines so we don't write tickets so we'd have to call the police and it for any reason which is fine i'm just saying it's part it's code enforcement he's a code enforcement officer so the ordinance contemplates that they'd work together
okay what on the back side of the welcome to Wilson sign is illegal what happened they can sleep in the back of a vehicle is that what you said he's on the back side of the city limit sign is he illegal yes for us I don't know if the county Well
he's on the front side he's breaking the law but he's on the back side he's legal that's kind He can't sleep on either one of them it's city right away no matter what i move approval of um ordinance 2025 740 on second reading
a second we have a first we got a second any other discussion none anybody all right hearing none we're going to move to vote all in favor say I i those opposed 40
all right mr president this is a second reading of ordinance 2025-743 an ordinance of the city of Willist Florida amending the city of Williston code of ordinances as amended providing for amending chapter 40 article 5 regarding the city's gas system providing additional definition
providing requirements and exemptions for residential developments to provide natural gas providing requirements for gas turnon and proper use of equipment providing changes to billing and rate structure providing for rate stabilization fund and hedging of supply providing for standby mode providing severability providing for incorporation
in the city code of ordinances and providing an effective date there have been no changes to this ordinance since first reading this of course is the gas ordinance that we've talked about previously the only I'm not going to call it a change the only um addition
that you'll see here is like we talked about at the last meeting I just added in the language regarding um the rate structure being via resolution so you'll see that language in here as well what was advertised in the um ordinance and so far it was advertised in the title but we didn't
have um the specific language at the first reading so you'll have that in the second reading and I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone may have i do believe that there's one typo there may be more than one but the one that I jumped out at me that would not shock me
huh on page 134 and I may be wrong but I think it's a typo p uh the very last sentence personal use single family homes are except I think it means I think it should say exempt
um accepted and exempted can mean the same there sort of synonyms in this context I'm happy to make it say exempt rather than accepted says they are accepted from this requirement right it's everything except personal
use single family homes so accepted It's legally I'm happy is it accepted or is it exempt it's to me accepted means it's it's allowed to be accepted means it's it's I know it
outside of the require no to be accepted ex accepted it's outside of requirements so it's except for see I read it totally different yeah now you're think you're think AC accepted and this is ex accepted so the the the
Latin definition is actually different i'm just saying is it supposed to be exempted from the requirement yes and and that's what we're saying in plain language i think that would be something people would understand better and that's fine they're synonyms can you make the change absolutely yes ma'am
thank you okay any other discussion any volunteers for a motion i make a motion that we approve ordinance
2025-743 with the change of accepted to accepted exempted thank you first we got a second i'll second
all righty do we have any other discussion i I have a question or two i don't even know if I can put them together of course I do right i'm the question asker here um how what what the the what we currently
have now hit the highlights for me on what's totally different i mean like are the The structure I know is different no no there's only uh four or five major changes one is the hedging hedging
you're right the hedging is which allows and the other authorizes the city manager to go ahead and make decisions that can't wait for time periods and it sets limits to what they can do okay there's the rate stabilization fund that it establishes yep it is uh further
defined the buyout for development was talked about in the other one but what was requested by council was that formulas and things were actually put in so that it was codified just this is the formula and this is how it works right so that was put in uh there were some definitions changed uh because of
classifying different uses that matched identical with Florida statute on how they described developers residential development commercial development that sort of thing so we basically just matched the language to the Florida statute and I believe the last substantial change was
the issues uh addressing like small little housekeeping things like defi better defining what meter tampering is talking about that you can't enase a gas meter or residential commercial property in concrete and a few other small little tiny issues like that that had to deal
with safety measures that were updates to come into compliance with what the public service commission recommended okay and the fines for tampering and all that sort of thing uh and not getting the permit like fines fines didn't change it just it just defined them more directly
okay as to what what they were but they're not increased no ma'am thank you appreciate it okay any other questions mr there is my light on it is okay
uh obviously because we got it at such a late date trying to absorb all this is somewhat difficult but I thought I read under this municipal gas system that one of the criterias for
exemption was a builder that was building less than 10 houses a year is that accurate that's correct so so that we defined uh more appropriately what a role of a developer would be we classified it within how many so like
one-offs are under a totally different set of rules and requirements for single family build than someone that's developing couple of houses like maybe a duplex or the town homes or you know they they bought four or five lots together or even built four or five lots that are in different parts of town but
we're doing construction all at once and then there's something that's you know for an actual uh put you know something that's a like a a full-blown development and they had classifications and and the main criteria is not the formula of what the buyout is it's mainly how whether
they're exempted from having to connect to the gas system based on how far they are from that system so for example if you have another country lane estates uh they could be a mile away and they still have to connect to the gas system at their cost but that expectation is not
there for 25 homes for 10 homes and for single family residential builds those uh footages go down significantly to where the point where like on the single family we already allow up to 75 ft so it's very little that they would have to
cover additionally to connect but it does limit whether or not they'd have to pay anything or do the buyout if they were further than that in distance from where the gas is available okay so I'd like to be get clear on this are we talking
about someone building a personal use single family house has to do a buyout of the gas absolutely absolutely yes sir now unless they are so far from where gas is available and then they would be exempted
so for those that happen to be afraid of gas and do not want gas appliances I think this is government overreach that's my opinion so actually I would how would explain it Mr mayor and I understand your thought but the reason why people are moving in this direction in the state is you have to
look at this the same as any other utility think of water think of sewer and think of of electric your rates that each person in this town pay are based on the amount of users that you have enjoying that service so for example if
you have four square miles and you have 2,000 people on electric they're splitting the base cost on their base rate of that operations and maintenance then of course their consumable energy is what pays for the energy itself
in gas we have roughly 700 people on gas if you do not mandate that people coming in and taking advantage of the infrastructure in the town that are not already here I mean these are not people who already have a home no no one who
has a dwelling who wants to add gas or take away gas none of them are talk this is talking about brand new development they then are hurting the rateayers because they're not coming into a system that's designed to take on them as a gas
customer they absolutely can exempt out but they have to understand that loss of revenue has a real financial effect on all the rateayers across the town and you're actually having to pay more as a person that uses gas because of people having the option of coming in and not
doing gas most people if they're given the option will not do it because it's added on to the construction of the house but if it's not if it's no longer uh not an option to exempt other than to pay a small fine when they research this and we talk to builders and they realize
that the price of the home goes up or even people moving into the house the benefits of during a storm when they're out of electricity and what the gas allows them to still do in their home most of the time i would say 95% of the time they then want to put in gas when
they realize that there's so many benefits to it but to get that discussion to happen you have to have a buyout i'll give you an example real life the gym across the street Anytime Fitness submitted plans they were not required to put in guests but we met with the engineers on site we talked to them about just pure business if the
power goes down do you want your business in your gym to just completely stop so we talked to them about their their hot water tanks we talked to them uh or excuse me their water tanks we talked to them about their uh generator for the facility and when they understood that the cost savings that
they would have over many years and the benefit of the energy and I want to point that last thing out when you have electric appliances they're about 30% efficient when you have a gas appliance it's around 75 to 80% efficient so the amount
of money that you're paying for that Part: 2
i still think it's government overreach laura has her hand i want to I want to um just make a comment so remember a couple years ago we all got really upset because houses that were off the grid within municipalities that had utilities were
getting pretty much banned like they weren't giving them permits this is the reason and it wasn't because the government was telling them you know we don't want you off the grid it was because the more and more houses go off the grid within these service areas will put a higher burden on the other people
that are accepting the services and I for a while I didn't understand that i had to look into it cuz I thought it was just mean i thought they just didn't want us to do solar and have our own wells but that's not the reason at all it's to if you have a bunch of people that are off the grid it's going to hurt
the other ser the other service people the other people that are getting the services cuz their services are going to go up well I'm one who believes in in the natural gas i've got four natural gas appliances at my house the only thing that's electric is my air conditioner everything else I've got
essentially is gas um I guess in my washer my dryer is is gas but I still think $3,50 to add to a especially a young person or a retiring person who's building a house to have to pay to not
want something so that's your average you understand paying it if you wanted it so So that's that's your average Miss Jones and and again you have a formula there so it's it's it's got to be dictated by formula it's it's the same thing we do with capacity fees and every
other thing you can't have different square feet right it's based on it's based on thems based on how many appliances and what would be your consumptive use that's what it's based on so ordinance requires when someone puts in gas because the city pays for the meter and the city pays for the line
and the city pays for the connection so what where the where the cost is is you have to have at least three of the four approved appliances and then it's based off of the therms that those appliances use well then it should be the same cost for everybody it shouldn't be it's not
because some some have many more appliances than just three and and some have but it's based on three when you're doing the exemption it's based on the user so when the permit submitted the formula is based on the plans of the building whether commercial or
residential that's what it's based on so like you have a restaurant come in that's gas heavy for cookers and fryers and all that it's based on what they're going to consume it's not based on the square footage of the commercial building family if if I may just to and
Donald please correct me if I'm wrong um I'm sure you will if the if the concern is single family because the cost is so high versus developers and residential my experience with
developers in all of the municipalities that I represent is that the costs that they pay for things like these get passed on to the home buyers i'm sure so it's not a unique situation to a single family home that they would need to pay
this amount you just don't see it in as clear of a way when it's through a developer but they do take whatever that cost will be several $100,000 developer i'm talking about a single family that wants to build a single family house right but I guess what I'm saying is the
cost is passed to every contractor i'm saying that most developers I've seen have done it and to the extent that you could build a house yourself without a developer but you're going to you could act as your own contractor saying that
everybody ends up paying it it's just that the developer pays it first and passes it on to not if there's not a developer that's those are the ones I'm worried about right there's no question about the developer right right i have no problem with the developer simple and that's where Donald's little thing come
in about $4 yeah a month that's true if you've gone through a developer and he's paid it and then it's added but if a single family unit trying to build your own house $3,000 is a lot of money and
the capacity fees are $6,500 i mean that's that's why these things are in place is because you have to make your contribution to the people who are invested in the community who've already paid for all these services so otherwise
you're going to subsidize even these single family residences by the people that are currently here that's that's your you're going to have the same costs you're either going to do it for the people who've been paying for years and years or people are going to come in and pay their part
and I'm like councelor Jones if you're getting the gas I got no problem with that but to to infer that because you're bringing uh your home into Willist and you choose not to do gas that suddenly
you have to pay for the infrastructure that's already there that people are already paying for i just think that this is a case of government overreach i think that the government needs to get out of our personal If I buy a house I
have to do impact fees for schools but I don't have any children there's no difference to that you have to do what when I buy a new When I build a house I have to pay impact fees for children i don't like that i don't have any children i don't I can't say anything about that but I don't like that either it makes no s it's the same thing i have
to contribute because I'm moving into an area i have to contribute two two further points here go ahead Mr okay i understand what you're saying and I've never liked those impact fees for children on the schools and all that other stuff but that is part of being in
the community right personal consumption of how you want to power your house doesn't need to be dictated by the government so Mr mayor I can I can disprove that one point just just in this this way go ahead so where are your gas lines where are they found where
where are all the gas lines in the city found in the city yes where are they found underground correct yes underneath our streets and our right ofways correct okay most of the gas lines are in the streets so even if you're not consuming
gas and you're not a gas customer you are responsible to pay for the repairs of the road through the fees that you have through the general fund through the roads department so whether you're a gas contributor or not you are partaking in gas infrastructure when a gas man
needs to be repaired a valve has to be dug up when we rebuilt the gate station those monies came out of funds that all citizens pay for so you can say "I don't utilize gas." But if you utilize gas roads power water sewer they're all in
in the same boat because they all have intrinsic costs that are collective you can't separate them out the funds are separated their profit loss margins are separated but you can't separate people's responsibility for that infrastructure that's my first point the
second point I want to remind everybody that up until a couple of years ago gas had not operated in any way in a profit it had operated at a massive and when I say a massive loss for years and years where the electric department was
bailing out by the hundreds of thousands of dollars the gas department so I want to point that out because some of the changes that we're talking about are part of turning that ship around and making sure that each enterprise fund stands on its own and is not being
bailed out by rateayers of another service and this is one of those critical pieces when you have new people coming into the community so that's that's the two points that I had mr barber one with the resident uh
residential customer so if I came in to the city and bought an existing house no fee no fee so it's only building it's only new building it is no no current building if you move
into a house and that house does not have gas you are under no mandate if you move into a house and you want to expand it and double its size no mandate this is talking about new builds only that young family that's coming into
town who wants to build a house doesn't have that extra 3,50 bucks well but you know what when you watch these shows and it's a young couple they move into an area and their budget is oh let's just say $600,000
not around here no but I'm just saying if you watch these shows Yeah not around here watch they've got the money watch on like HGTV and shows like that no but you can still I mean they're going to
put that right into the cost of the loan with a mortgage any other discussion so we can go about this all night long we can already voted so we just need to
Yeah we have well we haven't voted no we haven't voted we haven't voted i wouldn't still be talking so is there any way to separate out the single family hall we were not recommended to do that because your developers are going to litigate this
one of one of the reasons that one of the reasons that it's written the way that it is is that you've had developers who say "Okay today I'm ABC LLC i'm gonna build one
home tomorrow I'm right a B LLC and I'm building one more home and then I'll just keep building these homes and I can have an unlimited amount of LLC's and it doesn't cost me any additional money and that's how I'm going to circumvent the city which has happened in lots of municipalities which is part of the
reason that we've written it the way that we've written it but see I'm talking about a single family person not a developer it's just going to just not possible to put that in that's what I needed to hear right I can't We can't have something that We
can't have something that says John Smith who's building a house he can't change his name he's still John Smith we can't have something that says an LLC cannot do something that an individual can do that's that's not legally defensible they're both considered one
legal entity under the state of Florida law so if ABC LLC can do it John Smith can do it and vice versa even if John Smith's not the developer he's just a single family home abc LLC is going to say the same thing they're going to say "I made this LLC just to build this
building because I wanted to protect myself as an individual." Then he'd have to pay because he's an LLC not a single family home i would not recommend putting What is this about 10 homes a year in this
explanation i think it's that's to do with distance of of if you're beyond the distance that's listed for the 10 homes you're exempt from any buyout fee if you're a single family home and you're 400 ft away you're exempt you do not even if even if you're an LLC if you're
over 400 feet and you're building one house you're exempt from connecting to the gas system i don't have any problem with that i understand that completely so but that's He was asking about the 10 homes i just don't like it i I was just explaining the 10 homes though i know yeah thank you thank you uh so so my
thought is I sure hope no one expects the police department to categorize and count how many homes a person's built in order to tell if they pass the 10 threshold it would be the paramedic i do that that's one of my jobs paramedic
any other discussion all right so with that I'll entertain a motion you got a second you have a motion and a second second that's right for a second all right since we're not going to have any more discussion seeing none all we
will vote all in favor say I i i those opposed no all right three to one you good Miss Wright all right all right Mr president this is the first
reading of ordinance 20254747 an ordinance of the city of Willist Florida amending the city of Williston land development regulations as amended adding reference to the International Property Maintenance Code 2021 edition related to an amendment of the text of the land development regulations providing for amending
chapter section 48 adding section 48-9 unsafe structure and building abatement providing severability providing for incorporation in the city code of ordinances and providing an effective date um this is uh something that Lord dreamed up uh and and helped us out with
um which is incredibly uh helpful this is one of the things that I suggested originally um when we had the issue of across the street um and we had the problem with sort of going out on a limb to get it torn down to make it safe this
puts us on much more firm legal ground having adopted um the International Property Maintenance Code so I'll let Laura go into um depth but this was originally a recommendation that I had made um previously and and Laura has made a reality
thank you Kirsten the um our chapter 48 or hazardous buildings and lands was adopted in 2002 and I've been told for the last few years that we have a very weak code um you guys do give me some suggestions at
meetings of properties that need a little bit of work and a little bit of push from code enforcement but we don't have much other than tall grass and this kind of blanket hazardous building now if a building's falling down our code enforcement officer can pretty much tell
you that that's a hazardous building but if it's just vacant and he's not really sure he needs some more details to be able to bring those people up to code and to help them out so what we've asked um our base board was to recommend for
approval the international code council's international property maintenance code it's not that strict it's not that it's more strict it's that it's there's more definitions so that when we write these letters we can explain to them instead of saying
hazardous buildings and land we can actually tell them hey this is specifically what's wrong with your property and we have a little bit more to that our building official can go and talk to them about so that we can make these changes a little bit quicker first of all cuz you know some of these code
enforcement cases go on and on and also a little more specifically this is not like an HOA we're not telling you what kind of windows you have to put in we're not telling you what kind of tiles you have to put on your your roofs but we're but we're giving him some control our
code enforcement officer and some more teeth to make our code a little bit stronger and there may be things in there you don't 100% agree with and that's okay we can make changes in the future if things aren't working for the city of Williston but this has been
adopted by many cities many counties all across the world it's an international property maintenance code and I will add selfishly that this makes your city attorney's job much easier because the definitions are much more clear than what you have now so we're we're on much
more firm footing are you you suggesting we should care about making the attorney's job easier i'm suggesting I would love it if you did oh okay i can actually speak to this too um because this was something that Safe Build had recommended when I was in Bronson um we
Is it on is it on it's on thank you thank you um so we actually adopted this in Bronson back in 2021 and what it did when you sent out the code like Laura mentioned is you know if you have say a swimming pool that's not filled or
somebody's putting um toilets you know used toilets outside you can very specifically put this is what you're you know in violation of and it makes it so that you it's there's no questions asked you know you're not using just a blanket this is what you've done wrong it's very specific in what you can put in those
code letters so it's very helpful to be able for Don to be able to write these letters to to residents okay so where the state building code is for building this one is for maintenance of that building yes that is fairly stated i mean easily yes buildings that
are that have been there already and um our building official obviously is also a tool for this because he can see things that sometimes we don't and if I know the link that you gave us doesn't show 2021 um it only shows
2018 so I can't really read much of it i did read part of the 2018 one but it's not bringing up the 2021 one it actually when you first sign on to it it comes up in another year and tells you that there's an updated one if
you click on here it brings up the 2018 one but it doesn't give an option for the 2021 one okay i did download it and um it's it's a little bit big but I can email it to you and I don't I don't need it because I'm not going to enforce it
uh but do I have it in my brain correctly that the state building code is for building a new new or remodeled and that this is for for the maintenance of a building that's already built essentially
briefly about right it's the international building code Florida edition not the state it's actually international property maintenance code I'm talking about the other thing you were talking oh the other Oh that's Yeah not this one so I was
just trying to figure out why we needed both but they're not the same they're not the same one is for a new construction and one is for an already built trying to keep it safe and correct not derelict and that sort of thing you got it so that's the reason we need it
um and my next question I guess is you would enforce it you and Don would be the ones to enforce it oh I'm not a code enforcement officer i just do the paper well I mean who who's knows this International Property Maintenance Code no Don does in fact he's going to
concentrate on on parts that are for him so it's not the whole document really isn't for him you know so it's not really for code enforcement but there are parts of it that are specifically for him and he's already started to highlight those and give himself tabs i told him not to memorize it because in
case it didn't pass I didn't want to waste his time i mean because what I can see of it it's only the very first of it that has to do with the maintenance code the rest of it kind of different and would not
necessarily pertain to All right i'm just trying to get an understanding of it who would do it don job isn't going to change what's going to change is when he comes to me and he says there's trash or he can
specifically say it's tires it's toilets and this is the section that it says and it's all in here yeah yeah see I can't see any of that in here from what I'm looking at unless it's under fire safety could be under the fire safety division okay i have a better understanding what
you're trying to do so um some cities do go through their code and rewrite it according to what they want to do and I think that you'll remember that we did that a few years ago and we had some citizens that wrote a beautiful code um but the citizens thought it was too
strict remember and they didn't they didn't want to pass it they came to you I think to city council and had a fit about it being more like an HOA so I did go through that code during CO and I took out those very specific things but
then I was als I was told again don't they're they can't they were too scared um code enforcement did not want to bring it in front of the citizens again they're very comfortable bringing this because this is something that's that's highly standardized and accepted
so the code enforcement board would be the one who oversaw it as well yes because they would be referred to them yes and then to us if need be correct um you won't see code enforcement they might come in front of you for lean reductions or any of the other things
that people come in front of you but not for the part of it yes eventually they do end up in front of you somehow thank you i just couldn't figure out if it was going to take the place of the other but it's not i see that it has totally different purpose any other
discussion then I will entertain a motion i make a motion that we approve first reading of ordinance 2025-747 [Music] i second all right we have a
first and a second any other discussion all right not hearing any we're going to move to vote all in favor say I i those opposed 40 and we are closing the public
hearing m discussion with possible action for closures within the city limits city planner Laura Jones thank you um so we had some properties across the street that had code enforcement on them since
around well starting in 2006 and then again in 12 and 15 and we did finally file leans against the properties in 2023 i wasn't sure um the leans are
approximately6 $16,000 per property and I was having a little bit of trouble valuing the properties because in good condition they were looking around $26 a square foot but they're not in good condition so
um I kind of just thought I would just bring those numbers to you and let you make a decision but we and we did not do a title search for other possible leans we'll do that if you decide to let us move ahead but what we're asking is that you direct the city attorney to begin
foreclosure process of the buildings there's five al together i did put in your packet some information on each one including the leans and the property appraisers reports so you could see where they were and um what they were
bought for in the past and so the taxes aren't too bad but I think they were only up maybe two years or so so I don't think that's too bad of a of a problem the taxes can't be very high but we would like to um move
forward on this we know the foreclosure process takes a while once you give Kirsten the go-ahhead she has a lot of work to do for that so it can take quite a few months do you have any questions about the properties so is the one that says
55 Northwest Main Street a wrong address it's not Northwest Main Street it's a typo it's north it's really just north North Main Street okay i mean it's not on this street in front of city hall it's the one over there yes ma'am
correct what is Oh it's on my list is Yeah it's they're all North Main I believe except for the Northeast First A so I think that's a typo i don't know what the I didn't go to that particular one down here and
look and see what it had on it so 55 i'm looking for a look at it did we get a confirmation on that 55 North Me okay
okay sorry i don't I don't mean to hold it up i just She was still looking all right any other discussion council oh yeah no i'll entertain a motion for discussion with possible action m kirstston you want to do
consensus or motion uh a motion to move forward for the with the foreclosures would be appropriate okay or not to if that's what you choose i will make the motion uh for approval of the foreclosure on the properties that
are listed uh in our packet by the attorney i'll second we have a first we got a second any other discussion my discussion would be what would the process be
we've already got a lean we've already got a lean has already been recorded so then we file a foreclosure suit and we serve the what we call a complaint um upon the owners of these businesses and then they have a certain period of time
to respond if they do not respond we do what's called a default which essentially says we tell the court they haven't responded um we request that it go for a it receive a final judgment the final judgment would be in our favor would include all of our costs and fees
and those kinds of things in addition to our lean and then once that has been ordered then we'll go to a foreclosure sale where it will be auctioned off on the Lee County Courthouse steps um and the highest bidder will receive it we can bid up to our lean amount so the total amount that we're awarded in the
final judgment we can bid up to that so if it were $20,000 we can bid up to $20,000 if someone bids $25,000 then they pay us $25,000 and they receive title to the property or $20,000 for our lean and then $5,000
to the um property owner um in the event that someone does respond and they do contest the foreclosure the process is a lot longer um we go back and forth usually they say there wasn't sufficient notice or they'll say something about um
the fact that you know they're working to clean up the property we've had a couple of those instances sometimes it can be a good thing because the property gets cleaned up and the leans get paid and that kind of thing a foreclosure suit can really be a motivating factor um but we we go through a very similar
process if they um don't decide that they're going to comply um we go to court we approve up our lean and we uh try to get a final judgment on that and the the piece of property that we just you told us about tonight that's the same property owner
that was a a default right that was a default that was that was a default I thought so okay thank you appreciate it all right so we had a first second any other discussion all right hearing none we'll move to
vote all in favor say I i i those opposed 4 All right in discussion with possible action regarding the code enforcement lean reduction program and and its policy
city planner Laura Jones and city attorney Kristen Boo so at the previous meeting we had had a discussion regarding a desire to have a lean reduction policy something formalized something that we can look to
and provide us some guidance um so we put together sort of topics which is what we discussed at the last meeting of if you make certain decisions on these topics how you want to address them then I can create you a more formalized code
um or or um policy rather so these are these are just sort of the the considerations for you all to to keep in mind i put together as well I provided um lean reduction policies from a couple of other municipalities so that
you could take a look at what um pure cities are doing um but these are really the sort of major decisions that we would need guidance from you on in order to create a policy so happy to answer any questions that come up
okay any discussion miss Meredith i mean I I think I expressed my thoughts pretty clearly at the last meeting that you know we're going to continue to have blighted and abandoned buildings long
term in this community if we do not put some backbone into our code enforcement and a 90% reduction is not backbone and I'm also very concerned about any arbitrary reduction because I think that's quite unfair to citizens um that
one person because maybe they know somebody or they built a business or they were the basketball coach might you know and they do good in the community is going to get a a reduction that the next person who moved in and bought a piece of property and it does happen um and how people feel about other people
and their commitment to the community does bias that and there's no way around it for any of us so I'm just want to protect all of us from that myself included i agree we got to be steadfast from here on out i can of all the ones I read I
like Sanford the best i unless I sorry to saw didn't see what you saw i did not feel like there was any structure there was just an application process and a tellyou story and we'll consider it which is exactly what we have right now just in front of the city council i
didn't see any guidelines that Sanford had that was my concern with theirs unless I'm Unless I completely I jumped ahead yes or point me in the right direction miss Jones you got anything you want my
um just a couple things i think the application um is really important don't care what application you choose but having that as part of the records that um because right now the process is they ask um the city clerk to be on the city
council so we have I I don't have it's hard for me to track you know when you do that i mean what if I wasn't even here that day um I have a couple that were reduced that I had trouble finding because it wasn't I had to go back in minutes instead of having just a form so
I think the forms are important um there's a couple different formulas they're all pretty much they're similar you know there's the one to three years the three to five years i mean that's up to you guys the other thing that was interesting that some of
the cities did is they go to the code enforcement board first and ask them their opinion and then they recommend it to you we don't do that right now um we only do that before a lean is filed so that's something that you could consider so that all that vetting is done
previously and in the part two of the agenda on page 29 uh where it this is part of the Samberg one where it talks about the application for satisfaction or release of code enforcement leans that's the title of section two when it
talks about when they would be allowed um and it I thought that was very specific upon payment by the violator or the property owner of the fine or the penalty imposed um and upon request of reduction for forgiveness of the fine or
penalty imposed by the code enforcement board uh and then it has the application that has all the parts and pieces in it that gives you the information that you need and y'all are saying you don't care about the information you just want it to be cut and dry and that's kind of
what I'm hearing i guess I I I would say that I do think we as I mentioned at the last meeting I do think that there should be a very there should be criteria for um circumstances that are beyond somebody's control hospitalization deployment those kind of
situations that they can apply to the um BAC and say "Listen like this was the reason." and they can get an extension or a deferment of the fines and give the everybody some buffer time like I don't I don't want us to be heartless
obviously but when we've got buildings that have been sitting abandoned for 15 years I don't really think there's any excuse or 10 years yeah but those particular ones I mean they've only recently had fines on them and that's a problem i agree but we don't we don't
assign the fines nobody else does um and when you go farther in there when it talks about the property owner who acquired the property if they acquired the property with a lean on it you do this if they own the property and there was no lean on it then you do this and
if the title insurance was issued and they found the lean this is one you do this if they didn't find the lean then you go back on them i thought it was very specific okay and I did see and I was wrong they did read it it did have some calculations down below for minor
you know minor infractions and um you know and it goes on to say the request of the waiver or reduction of the lean shall not be granted if previously reduced or the amount of the lean uh regardless of whether the request is received or the original applicant for
reduction and and it tells about if they've reduced it once before or been under code enforcement before that they don't reduce it i liked that i thought that was specific to regardless of whether the property was still in the same ownership or not right exactly
and for example Laura's got one right now that's like that it's a second owner and it's just bad again the one darkness was at Yeah that property owner might not know the rule of once it's cleared it has to stay clear because they bought it when it was a little bit treed so they they might not know so we just have
to reach out but you also have the option of not doing a lean reduction don't forget that option we don't have to go through any of this if you just don't want to do lean reductions which is what some counties do yeah and not to be a dead horse in the
ground but it it also talks about the gravity of the violation and the impact on public health and safety and general welfare and how if it's minor it's a 50% reduction and if it's if it's significant it's only 25 so it I thought it was pretty good actually
and at the time and it went on to say in the time that the property was in compliance um it it's pretty much laid out the way on page 32 the way that you laid it out it may be even stricter than what you originally gave us but if
it's under 60 months if it's under six months only 30% consideration if it's six to 12 months only 20% i mean I thought that was pretty specific okay i guess I just read these were to be calculated together so that's how it's written yeah if it's a if it's a a minor
infraction it's 50% plus 30% because So you could end up with up to 90% by the time you get to the bottom and add it all up and I'm not comfortable oh no i didn't I wasn't add them up either yeah that's sorry that's So we could do that different i didn't read it that way but
that's okay if y'all did you obviously did maximum percentage of reduction amounts i didn't know that you could compound it well it's three different categories so it's category of the gravity of the violation and then you
look at those and then you look at the category of time taken well you take all you would take all of them so if you if you look in the right under number three right under where it has the category it says maximum lean reduction shall not exceed 100% right which obvious which
taken together means that you would be adding each of these in if you if you have to say it can't be over 100% well sometimes I think that's what it needs to be it just depends on of course other people don't think that but depending on the circumstances i mean under this
other words if there's no previous history and it was under 6 months and it's minor and it's 100% maybe what it needs to be is is what this contemplates you know it just we're really we have to remember we're not out to make money and we're
really not out to take other people's property we're in and up with a bunch of property but we really are not there to that's not our purpose what people say continuously i don't know if anybody else in this room has had this comment but like what's with all the rundown buildings in Willist what's with all the vacant lots in Willist i mean that's
what people remember when they come to this town and leave and so how can we say we're pro small business and pro community when we don't actually stand behind the codes that keep our community keep it a thriving downtown for our local businesses and keep it a place
where people's property values remain you know stable and not pulled down by by derelike buildings and I just think that if we start shrugging aside codes then why have them well I think if we start at the beginning and do what it
says whether it's this one or another one it won't be that way no I agree because we'll have a code and we'll do it right now we don't have a code it just sort of floats around once we get a policy i'll think it'll be fine no matter what it is
so I've heard like a lot of I've heard the exact opposite that the town is looking better in the past two years than it's looked in many many decades oh no that was and that was not a commentary on the direction that we are going in terms of some of the buildings getting fixed up but it is what people
remember and it we are you know we've been in a in an era of high real estate values lots of people moving to Florida lots of positive growth in Florida in a lot of ways that could change what are we going to do to protect ourselves from that what what happens if we go into a
recession what happens if housing and and all those prices plummet you know we have to have a way to keep this town floating as best possible and again I'm 100% okay with a grace period if something happens we give offer
people a six-month grace period maybe a renewal gives them an entire year but kicking it down the road 10 15 years I don't I'm not okay with that no I agree i've read those same thing i think the only reason it was kicked down
the road is because it was one owner and and it wasn't because he was given specific I won't say he was given what am I trying to say here i won't say it's not because he was given gratus if that's the right that's not the right word but you know what I'm
saying i think that it it was more because of we were trying to give him the opportunity to make it rather than take every piece of property he owned i and I appreciate that i disagree with the number of years that he was allowed to try to do
something because that negatively affected everybody else in the downtown area especially the history and you know him saying I don't want to debate one person i think I just want to talk about how do we protect you know let's say
several other businesses in town go into foreclosure and you know how do we protect town from looking going the opposite direction of the way that it has been going we use our new international maintenance code pardon me
sure come on you've been here state your name and residency and all that good stuff [Music] construction power plants pharmaceuticals
microbiology chemical plants every project I had trouble on was when management started deviating from giving well we're going to wave that we're going to wave that 40 years of experience i mean I've had as many as 40 or 50 NCRs on some projects because top
management would give stuff away the ones I had success with that we closed and made money on there was no gray in that damn contract it was it was what it was and like I say I've been doing this a long
time so you all need to consider that if you start giving stuff away be careful what you ask for brings up good points we just need to do it these are it just not a contract situation mr barber I sit on a board in another
county and I just want to say if gives you all any comfort the mere fact that you're considering any lean reductions is very kind because in the county upon which I reside in the board upon which I sit there is a zero tolerance so you know if people make a comparison and
they say you know you guys are going in a certain direction you can assure them that their neighbors um don't have the kind of grace that you're even attempting to discuss so that's just what I wanted to mention so what's our next step with this so if
if we want to go If we want to go forward with a lean reduction policy then for each of these sort of categories I need a sense from you all and it doesn't have to be a a formal vote just sort of some discussion and
see if we've got some consensus what page are you on when you talk about categories i'm sorry um on it's on the agenda item like just the I'm not sure what the page number is because it's the supplement so on the first page of the item yeah
the one that just says topic discussion with possible action regarding code enforcement lean reduction program and policy okay just the agenda item itself um under where it says prepared by Kirstson Belu city attorney there are going to be four you'll see sort of four categories lean reduction policy
discussion points process to foreclosure should there be a schedule and then other okay so that's what I'm going to call the categories because these are just sort of the topics of conversation the guidance points that I'll need from you all um so for instance topic one can easily be covered
do we want an application a formal application process for lane reductions i Okay yes i I would say that I said yes i'm seeing nodding and I don't know that there needs to be a necessarily at this point yet have we
determined whether or not they get to write their story or it's just an application request for yeah so I think that what what I can do is now that I've got a sense that we want an application I can have a couple of examples um for you all of what that
application may look like and it'll sort of be determined a little bit by the answers to the next couple of questions I have what that application will look like okay so then sort of on our process in category 2 our process to foreclosure whether to require that the leans which
reach half of the price of the property trigger the foreclosure process obviously subject to other statutory requirements we have to record the lean for a certain amount of time and all of those kinds of things do we want that to be part of our lean to foreclosure
policy is that if it reaches half the price of the property then we we make sure that we're moving forward if we've recorded and done all that stuff yes and what we did was we said half of the price of the appraised value of the property appraisers website that way we
don't have to get an appraisal that's what we did before i don't know that that's what you want that's what we need to decide it seems like I'm seeing some nodding on that are we okay half the price of the property okay okay so then we're going to talk about
schedule of reductions from the examples that you've looked at was there a schedule of reductions that you all liked a lot we just talked a little bit about um the one with those three different categories and up to this amount of reduction do we like that
one do we like one of the ones that was proposed at the last meeting which is also attached to this agenda item where where are we sort of feeling that I've already said what I like I like the same one but I'm not sure anybody else does and if we haven't read it well
enough we need to read it again and talk about it next time i mean it was a lot of stuff to read tonight yeah i mean absolutely i'm not trying to pressure you into making any decisions these are just the categories of things that if you want me to come back with a policy I will need some direction on this so we don't have to decide tonight if you if
you choose um we can have it this discussion at the next meeting i'm good with that table it till that's fine that good do just this agenda item we'll just table it will come back once you've
had some more time to compile your thoughts i mean you can keep going on your categories just so you get the feeling okay but if people would this particular issue is really tough because there's so many examples in here right that if you didn't read all of them you really can't
sure you might need to come up with a conglomeration of two or three okay um so that sort of answers the the next category and then there are a couple of other sort of miscellaneous um do we want to make this part of the
code the like your code of ordinances the pro of that is that it's enforceable upon the citizenry and it's difficult to change so it's difficult to be willy-nilly that is also the con of it is that it's difficult to change you do need to pass a separate ordinance so do
we want this to be a resolution of an internal policy or do we want this to be an ordinance i would prefer an ordinance i mean I think from my perspective this is for the long-term health of the community so making it something that could be
changed every council or patient right out i'm seeing some nodding okay so we'll put it on ordinance one and and I on the other hand would consider it as a resolution first and if
it works then make it an ordinance and that's just the way I'm thinking about it i'm not objective to an ordinance outright but if you did it as a resolution and it actually worked and you saw for a while that it worked then you could codify it the only issue with
that is is everybody that's here voting may not be here how how long are we looking at testing it to see how long if it's going to work i you'd probably know within six months to a year if it was
working laura would know probably right away whether it was working yeah but we don't get very many so there's not going to be a lot of time to test them right i don't know of any that are because sometimes I know when they're coming um I know property's getting sold or or
somebody's passed or lawyer starts to call me i don't know of any more right now that are coming the ones we've got on the table so we can make the resolution ordinance decision later i can come to you with policy and then we we can sort of punt on that for tonight no problem
um the ordinance is silent right now on who does the lean reductions our practice has been that the council has done them but we could change that process to have the applicants bring their reduction requests to the code enforcement board which is what many other municipalities do is they have
because a code enforcement board is who does um who levies the fine that that is the board that they go to for a lean reduction request um so we could do um where it goes to them first and then comes to you if there's an appeal or we could do that it just goes to them and
doesn't come to you or we can have it come to you miss Jones would you like it to come to you yeah so it's it's it's a little bit complicated so the code enforcement board does see reductions in fines that haven't been leaned against because a lean remember is filed so they
may be getting a daily fine but that's not necessarily a lean so they do those on their own um the reason that your city council has always seen lean reductions that were recorded is because now you have a
financial um portion of it because you know you've had a lawyer that has done this you filed it and so our code enforcement board is not on that same level for the financials so what I do suggest is that
you let them recommend something like we do with the planning because um they can listen to the story and they can do all that they can vet it for you and then they can make a recommendations for you and it's not that the property owner can't still come and and make their plea again but at least the property owner
will be more prepared about what you're probably going to say sounds good all right and I would add too that um all of our other boards not just not code enforcement uh not base but the all the others meet
often and are very well-versed in what they do the base board meets so in I won't say infrequently but sometimes they go months without meeting and they're not as wellversed in that
unfortunately for them and for me um that's not going to happen anymore we're probably gonna have them monthly once we get this international property maintenance that's how I feel about it and it also is one of the heaviest bases I've had so I only have I think we have one opening right now which is good cuz usually we have much more we have some
new people on there so um Kirsten I'll probably ask her to do another orientation for all new members and we'll get them up to date but unfortunately for me yeah it's going to probably be monthly that's good and you know how you know I feel that way that even you and I have had that discussion before that even if
you don't have any business I feel like they need to meet and learn more about the code mr barber had so again I I sit on a board in another county and the only thing I would recommend to council just just to consider the one aspect of whether this is on the board or whether this is on the council as taking out the
political equation we're appointees on our boards and so repercussions are not the same when you're talking about lean reduction and things of that nature but other people that may be close to certain dates of certain elections sometimes there's
pressure that are put on for certain elements so that's why like our county commission has decided that no we're going to put that on the appointed board and not on the elected officials so I just wanted to give a different perspective just to consider on on that
makes a lot of sense sorry you don't know me very well it doesn't no that wasn't a judgment on anybody i'm just saying that that's that's what they decided to do what's that neat my mouth just opened
um okay okay okay so then the only other sort of open-ended that we can talk about again next time but just something to be thinking about is I sent you a couple of different of those policies it's it's the entire policy so if there's anything that you see in there that you say "Hey that's a a good provision i want to make sure that ours
has that just shoot me an email and I'll be happy to make sure it gets added um to ours." So the items that I have that we're sort of punting on for tonight are um the explicit reduction schedule which I will just leave a blank for and then whether or not we want to pass this as an ordinance or a resolution so I'll
just bring you sort of the meat of the policy at the next meeting and we can have a discussion about those two points and I just have one just to clarify the difference between the the leans and the fines and maybe Laura can help me with the answer to this question which is by
the time it becomes a lean how often have the fines been forgiven if at all never so where where's the tipping point where it goes from fines to leans to a place where you can no longer take them off that they have to come to us to take
them off currently so right now um I'm I'm trying to file all daily fines as leans it's it's just it's it's paperwork so um we only have I
think one which was $2 a day and I really thought he was going to come through for us and um I think that's the only one that's getting a daily fine right now that's not been leaned okay so I try not to um some municipalities you
have to you have to lean it right away um but we you know so they can come in and just pay a fine and then we don't have to go through all that um recording with the lawyers we try to wait a little while but I that can be part of the policy if you wanted to yeah that was my next question would part of like the
sort of grace period like that sort the time to tell your story and ask for forgiveness be a period of time a phase that it is a fines only after which a certain number of months we're like and
now automatically so then it takes the burden off of you to say well in three months I this person went to lean but six months this other person I let them have six months which again back to the arbitrary concerns but It's like at a certain point at a certain timeline then
it becomes leans and then there then it's very strict how much we forgive it by whereas prior to that it can be you know if somebody makes effort or they have existent circumstances that prevent them from being able to some do I make
any yes I understand what you're saying and we should find out what other people do because there is a there's no reason for me as soon as they put a daily fine to go and lean it and then in three days they clean up their property and now I have to release a lean that's cost to us
much more than the $25 $75 absolutely so we need a a a black line between the period of fees and the period at which point it becomes a lean i think and that's up to the board of adjustments i mean we could give them a policy to go
by yes that I think it needs to be the same for everybody and it all depends too on Dawn working with them and if they're actually working on it and but if that's the case if they're actually working on it they usually don't give them a fine they're still working on it
they don't they don't do the fine and sometimes if Yeah and then sometimes they they do the fine and they still have to clean it up and they don't take the fines off the daily fines off until they are finished that's what um and that's at the point they can forgive it
and it doesn't ever make it to us at all we don't even know about it at that point deposit something like that yeah fair from citizen to citizen i don't think it should be three months for one and six months for the next and nine months for the one after i just think it has to Yeah it just depends on how
sporadically they're cleaning it up and if they're if they are they are and if they're not they're not and if they're sporadic about it okay yeah okay all right so we're going to table this the next meeting yep i'll come back with more specifics based on this all right oh
discussion with possible action regarding concept for RFP for rooftop top of the hill property attorney Kristen Bel okay so this is at the last meeting um Council Member Jones
requested that we talk a little bit about this RFP and as Donald and Laura and I were going through it before we put together this beautiful detailed RFP for you cuz this is crazy we want to make sure that you're sort of on board
with this concept of what we're trying to do so that we don't spend a ton of time this is my concern so that we don't spend a ton of time on something and then you guys say no thanks um so the concept is and and Donald has a much better sort of understanding of it
because he's been really um spearheading this move but the concept is we've got this property and instead of selling it if we put out an RFP such that a business came
in built a building sort of like we do at the airport and then ran their business on our property and paid us money every month to do so that would be a recurring income to the city rather
than a one-time sale of property um so Donald's has some thoughts on who we can target with this RFP and then I'll I'll have him kick it back to me and I'll finish so we already found interest in a couple of different people who asked that if an RFP was put up in this manner
they would be interested in placing a bid this is in lie of a lot of the bills that seem to be making traction yeartoyear in the legislature that talk about wiping out adorum that talk about wiping out certain funding sources that talk about limiting transfers from
utilities to general fund so staff is like looking at what is Mount Dora what is uh Sanford what is uh Jacksonville what is Tallahassee what are small towns middle towns large towns like what are they doing in economic development so one of the things that we found is is
that when cities or counties have land that's possessed by them instead of just releasing that similar to our main street concept that you offer certain types of caveats to what you want to see a good example for Williston is what
happened with the old high school is someone came in as a developer to you guys gave you guys some beautiful drawings and said "Look we're going to have a bell's outlet and we're going to have a shopping center and we're going to have all these wonderful things and then asked you to change the zoning and
then built whatever they wanted." And so what this allows you to do because you're the property owner is it allows you to control the type of development that is so for example we have Waw Wa going in across the street from the top of the hill peso property uh the old
pawn shop the concept is Wawwa is going to be 24 hours so you know if you're going to allow things that are 24-hour diners or something of that effect you want them in the same zone so that PD and emergency response knows that they
have to concentrate on an area so this is a way of controlling development in a positive economic way and focusing that in and it's being it's being done very successful in many different places of the state your economic councils that you're a part of and many other people
including chambers not our chamber but other chambers are are directing towns and counties to work toward this effect so you put out an RFP that's formulated to allow for certain types of businesses they put it in and then it gives you a direction as to how that property is
going to be developed instead of turning it into a parking lot or overflow from big O's or something of that nature and it also then in turn provides a sort of the same way that the airport has a model a a a constant income coming in to
replace revenues that may be depleted in other areas outside of your control so that is why we brought this concept to you and there are people that are interested if the RFP were put out to to be making a bid matter of fact we actually have the central bidding that you guys heard so we even have a broader
scope now they were excited about this concept when we talked to them about putting it out to companies all over the southeastern United States um and and when you look at the downtown you talked about leans tonight on those and if the city contained and and got control like
we did the other partial it's the same way there do you want a hotel you write that RFP to focus on a hotel do you want a a a gym do you want a boutique shop what type of retail do you want to focus you write that into your RFP and because you're the property owner you legally
get to control how that property is developed instead of it you know instead of Cafe Risque decides they want to try and push in another uh place here on the downtown you know i mean that's that's the sort of sort of things that you can really strongly prevent so that's that's it
makes sense so the concept is step in as a sort of landlordesque entity rather than selling it for a one-time fee and have a recurring control over the property so
we've got some ideas of of sort of how to do that what some of the things that we've talked about um that may be of interest to this council um are making sure that we have in there um that we would give preference and RFP decisions
to people who intend and have a a certification that they're going to hire local individuals maybe a certain amount of local individuals so you can really you can build the RFP to to look the way that you want it to look and to attract um and incentivize the kinds of businesses that you want one one other
thing too you know the grants that we've talked about with large companies i know that even Benton has dealt with this about if if a if a company offers to come in and they offer so many jobs through the Department of Economic Opportunity through the state of Florida that there are grants that if you say I'm going to employ this many people for
this much and this is their salary you can get grant funding the city would be in the same position to assist a certain type of business because we'd be the property owners it would be a cooperation between the two to again apply for those same economic grants that would allow us to say you have to have this many people you have to pay
them at least this living wage and give caveats to how they treat those employees and there are a lot of companies that are interested in having that kind of relationship they don't want to be property owners believe it or not there's a lot of retailers that will not purchase property it's amazing when
you start going out there and having conversations with them and I'll give you one other example the Villages people thought The Villages was crazy because they went even further it wasn't even that The Villages owns the property that Home Depot and Walmart and others are on they went further and wrote into
their RFPs profit sharing so they actually get percentages of profits from the sale of that Home Depot and that Lowe's and that Bells and that Culver's and that Golden Corral because they are on leased villages property now I'm not recommending that we do that at all i'm
just saying that this concept's gone even further than what we're suggesting is simply being the land owner and receiving income for some of the development that happens well since we don't know what the state tends to do we
have to protect ourselves because if they cut money from us we got to find out ways to make make it up many cities are considering that possibility
okay any other discussion council i think it's very forward thinking and I I I agree we need to be thinking not just tomorrow but 10 15 years down the road i'm not I'm not convinced that I want to
be a lease holder you keep saying that i am yes I am but he asked my comments that's my comment but you own a business no you say it almost every time we talk about it but you have a business what's that got to do with anything the same thing if you own the property it's not so because they they could build and
Donald's saying that there are companies that want don't want to buy the property they want But why would you come and build a building that cost a million dollar or $500,000 on a piece of property and not on the land i know this is going to
sound crazy but some of the companies don't want to get into land possession because it's disadvantageous to their stockholders their investors their options um their stockholders do not want to get into the real estate business and the reason for that is because look at I'm not sure I want to get into Well I'm not suggesting we do
we You are no I'm suggesting that we maintain ownership of the land which is the real estate business that the the building that's built would be the same way as if Monterey tomorrow decided to bail guess who owns the buildings that are on it so I'm suggesting the exact same thing that we have uh I guarantee
Monteray wouldn't leave until they had a new lease a new buyer same thing with Butler Plaza and I'm not sure that they correct they're making a lot of money well again what I'm saying is there are many companies and when you talk to about economic development that if you look at the if you look at the trend of
the big box stores I don't know of any others how many big lots just closed and are now starting to reopen they did not want to be land owners they were leaser lease leases because had they owned the properties they would not have been able to liquidate reformulate into a certain
type of chapter bankruptcy and then be bought out and have their businesses reopened that is many reasons why the large retailers do not want to get into the landowning business that's the trend j Penies are going out Macy's are going out Sears went out but then some of them come back immediately red Lobsters
closed 200 locations and then a couple weeks later reoped a hundred of them because they reorganized again they're not land owners they lease the property so this is a trend so WA does not own their properties they lease their properties i don't I don't know that
it's a trend and if it's a trend for cities I would like to know who's doing it we are what cities are doing it we are at the airport this is exactly what we're doing at the airport because they won't give us any other choice the federal government will not let us stay on the layout i mean we could do
other things with the airport mount Dora does this the Villages does this tallahassee does this orlando districts in Orlando do this alultimont Springs does this i didn't write that RFP myself i got it from other town what RFP the one
that I gave you yeah this one is from North Miami we didn't want to spend I didn't write that creating this i know somebody didn't write it i mean there this is crazy what we have in here well I didn't write it i gave her a demo of another even have our It's got everybody else's brother's name in it it has our
name someplace somebody else's name somewhere else our address is here somebody else's address there it's got a lot of errors in it so like I said this is not at all what would be so we didn't want to as we were going through it making the edits we realized maybe time out because this is going to be a big
undertaking and maybe let's just see if the council's even interested before then so there this is not what would go out even a little bit oh yeah I thought it's not but you were asking what other cities do it and I got it from another city yeah and again I mean it's not like staff wants to get into more work i mean
despite what one of the gentlemen said earlier tonight we do have some things to do um it it's it's really a matter of a lot of the things that you guys hear frequently is you know if we had realized 10 years ago or 20 years ago we would have done some different things
we're trying to be more proactive in seeing you know where are we going to end up and what are the pitfalls coming into the future and that's that's trying to learn from the people who are doing a good job in other places and this is what's really being pushed because the
only asset cities at some point are going to have left is their property i mean the main street project is based on this entire concept you all adopted the main street project the Main Street Project requires the city to maintain ownership but talks about the
development there's even CDBG grants to build housing and and and commercial businesses for startups on that property and to get into where now we don't just own the land we own the building as well so that is your main street project that you adopted that you got funding for and
if you get a Main Street director that's what that individual is going to work toward so you've got it at the airport and you've already introduced it in your Main Street project this is simply expanding it to other areas of the city we haven't bought any any land at the Main Street project that we didn't already have i I'm not suggesting we
bought more what I'm saying is you adopted a plan to develop the land that you already have that's an adopted plan given that discussion with possible action ends at this point um and I know that
Deborah still has concerns but what's the next step so again this is going to be quite an undertaking to take this RFP and make it something that isn't full of errors and doesn't have everyone in their
brother's name in it yeah um I'm sort of looking tonight just for a headnod of this is we think as a council something that we're at least willing to consider in its final form that it won't be a waste of staff's time to move forward in this direction we will then
as quickly as humanly possible turn this into something that we can actually put out but I just sort of want the head nod go for it okay i can I can tell you what I would prefer and I'm obviously you're here with three people that are just one of
me i would prefer that we put out an RFP that has two options one to purchase the land and build a building and one to lease the land and build a building so that people can choose there may be somebody out there who does want to buy
it but but we're protecting our future by doing it what if they move out tomorrow and don't pay it back why don't we just vote on this time rather than discuss it tonight because we have to get rid she can come up with both and we can
vote on which one we want and I'm just asking for come up with the one that you presented and the same RFP i'm not asking it won't require any I can I can tell you exactly what an RFP for sale will be because we already have a bunch of those so I'll just bring you a forum proposed one i won't I won't you know
belabor that and I will come back to you as rapidly as humanly possible i will not guarantee the next meeting but maybe the one after that i'm sorry Miss Deborah could you please repeat the two options i just said one for purchase an RFP for
purchase for what we want it to be obviously you know and we haven't talked about that at all what we want it to be we did before but we haven't tonight um of what we want that RFP to be a specific We talked about a specific business before yes and we haven't mentioned that at all tonight well we
we've been avoiding that subject because you have to be very careful when you have that discussion that you can't favor or or direct it toward anyone in particular so we're we're being careful and broad we just said account type of business yes so there there's we've actually already worked on language and
we turned it in specifically to identify the type of business and when she brought back the RFP you guys would see that in either option that the the style of business that we would be soliciting i would like to to figure out what we want it to be and then we do an RFP for
sale of the land for that purpose or lease of the land for that purpose and you can put them in the same RFP and let them choose option one option two they may give you both we can vote on which RFP we want to put out yeah we can do that too but you may have a company that wants to buy and not lease and you're
going to lose them mr barber let me see if I can correct me if I'm wrong with the way that I'm going to say it company comes in they build a building it's all nice and pretty 5 years they go under we have the We have the
building another company comes in they remodel it so it gets a fresher look that's all on them that's not on us correct because you would just put out another RFP for the same piece of property um but if let's say you hypothetically had sold it and they
close up shop you can't control what's done at the second point of contact so what if they close all right I lost my thought what if you what if they close i lost it because you kept talking so so if if you're talking about if they closed let's say there was a grant
contingent on it like economic development that that's bonded and insured it's a developer agreement there's a strict contract and there's things background that would allow the project to continue to fruition like let's say it was half built no if it's not paid for that was that was the
statement close bill is when they would be awarded the bid part of that would be just like any other developers agreement they would have to put up a bond a license an insurance all of that so if they abandon the project the city would have the funds to complete it as the scope as as and then we would just have a free building what I'm saying if if
somebody come here and they build a $500,000 building yes including everything that's in it and they close in five years mhm but they haven't paid off the $500,000 they would be bonded and licensed and insured and all that and the building would be that would pay
for it for the price of the building yes correct the the property wouldn't be indemnified by it as if that's what you're inquiring it would be on them so that would be part of their bankruptcy that would be a lease on them but it wouldn't be paid for so the next person would have to pay
the mortgage no I don't know how because it would be bonded and if I if I may the um bonds I'm used to so you don't have to explain that to me what we're talking about here is not something that you can get a mortgage on so you you can't you
can't have a bank a bank will not provide lending on a piece of property that you don't own they do it there for all they keep explaining keep going yeah you keep going but that's not quite the
case you can't have a piece of real property so building is one thing real property cannot cannot oh not the real property that that's what I'm saying is that you cannot have talking about the building's
not paid off what I'm saying can finish your statement Miss Jones and then comment please okay so a bank cannot provide lending with a with a security of something that is not owned
right so like the land itself that is that is not an issue to your your question that you've clarified the building itself is why we have the bonds and the shies and the requirements we say you're going to bond us up to the
cost of your building however much you're going to mortgage so they're going to go and they're going to say "Okay we've got to build a $500,000 building." They get a $500,000 loan from a bank to build a $500,000 building we have a shity bond that
says you are bonding us up to $500,000 so in the event that you leave the building and it is not finished or it's not paid off or whatever the case may be we take on the shity bond to pay off
that that remainder because what is built on the property similar to at the airport will become our property does that make sense okay Miss Jones does it not make sense i'm happy to to clarify more makes sense
it's just not necessarily the case at the airport they don't require bonds at the at the airport you may in this RFP but out there they're going and getting a mortgage and they're building a building well we've got lots of different Yeah ways that we do this at
the airport absolutely true so we're going to bring this back to the table yes I will bring it back okay um Miss Wright did we talk about this on the
last on P did we have that conversation we voted on it on the last No we did not that's why it's back on here this um P was brought to the council on August the 6 of
2024 and by my minutes it said that the council approved to move forward with changing the plan to meet the IRS code so you found it after you first time you looked you couldn't find it no so now
you found it that Yes I did okay that it doesn't need to be here except I don't think we did the 185 plan no we didn't so we need to do that one okay p discussion with possible action florida municipal plan she couldn't find it so but it wasn't passed okay well
she's found it i'm talking to Darth she said the last question and and so evidently she's looked again and she did find that it was passed that's why I asked Miss Right if we were going to car put it on here and she said that or I wouldn't have put it on
thank you so we P B P B P B P B P B P B P B P B P B P B P's done q discussion with possible action florida municipal plan and trust FMPTF parenthesis plan for the
police 185 pension major Matt Bortney is going to be exactly like P we have to update it and that's it um then they will do it they have the plan already all that stuff in place and that's in the packet yep in the packet ready to go
miss Gearson what do we have to do consensus a vote would be appropriate vote all right then i am open for nomination i move that we approve the Florida municipal plan and trust
plan for the police 185 pension as written in the packet second we have a first we have a second any other discussions all right hearing none all in favor say I i
i those four All right item eight public participation we have anybody who wants to speak you're the only one left everybody else I think the other young man wanted to
speak but I guess I know item nine announcements he did i asked him and he wanted to speak he I asked him what he would tell me so item nine announcements staff got any announcements yes yes ma'am had to do
with this i just want to let Mayor Goodman Council Member Jones Council Member Martin May 13th investature ceremony will be at 6:00 am I not on there too
you should be you should be they have to get sworn in again i thought it was down i'm sorry i'm sorry i got it wrong i do apologize let me repeat that again vice President Hines President Cox Council
Member Martin investor ceremony may 13th give me the date again may 13th 8 may 13th i thought you said 8:13 no May 13 may the 13th i just want to give
everybody a heads up so you can mark your calendar it's the meeting between the meetings correct which is what the charter says it has to be yes all right staff anybody you done Miss Right i'm sorry
at 6:00 did you say May or He's gone yes ma'am yes ma'am council uh just remember the only announcement I have I don't know Major Fortn Major Fortnouth about the law
enforcement memorial um it's the 23rd at 9:00 um it's going to be in the pavilion i just wanted them to know i I do know that but I At what time 9 o' 9:00 a.m april 23rd at 9:00 miss Latricia has to
think and we have plenty of security and I would like council just a reminder July 3rd 4th of July parade we're in it so bring your guests significant others
families i I I do apologize uh when we were at the Levy County Municipal County gathering the question of the veterans parade for November came up i know that we've rotated everyone's lost track of
that and I think the indication was does Willist want to host that this year if we start over the list to give direction to Sue or is it we don't want to host that this year so cuz they're going to I think ask the next time that they get together next month that's $8,500 for
the parade when it was our turn there was a hurricane something and then it went to English I believe and they didn't do it english didn't do it they didn't do it well we offered to do it that year we had missed ours yes so I don't know whose turn it is i guess well they're they're going to just I think the idea was just to recreate the list
so they had asked "Do we want to start off and do we want to do it this year?" because we need to know soon if we're going to do it because it needs to be in the budget and other things and just remember that the city clerk does special events i started to say I'm looking to see if and again I'm not saying we should i'm just saying you
know just No I'm just letting you know thank you november in the middle of Hey it's after budget after 4th of July so we're good that's November right i think we should I'll help you if you need me just let me
know okay we'll all help her i don't think we've done it in a long time been a long time chief L are we done any other anybody
else all right item 10 i vote we got to let me finish time is now 10:23 p.m and second we have first we got a second all in favor say I i this meeting is adjourned
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