##VIDEO ID:F-vulzumNoI## all right we will have uh roll call please yes commissioner doson here commissioner Mercer here commissioner Daner he's here somewhere and I think just stepped away oh I didn't see yeah he I walk in the building oh oh okay mayor protim Yates here and mayor berson here all right we'll have our invocation by Dr Steve Negley Pledge of Allegiance then we have couple of proclamations Mr Mayor on that just real quick on the proclamations the first one that is a student I believe a Winter Haven High School Cambridge student who is um was elected uh governor of girl State and as I understand that's the first governor that we've had uh from our area um for girls state so that's a it's pretty impressive young lady based upon the proclamation uh the MLK Proclamation will be accepted by members of the steering committee and we'll give you an update on some of the festivities for MLK Unity week during that uh the Arbor Day Proclamation is um you know that's a one we do annually and we'll provide some information that evening on our tree giveaway that we'll be doing and then the Excellence and Action Impact Awards those are uh you may recall last year we we started this process of recognizing some just outstanding initiatives within the organization that pertain to our strategic pillars and we will make those presentations that evening um and then the the Strategic plan presentation for environmental stewardship we have that queed up once we're done with the workshop this evening with Tanya aers and uh Britney har okay all right we don't have any developments of notes Mr Mayor yes uh I wanted to ask a question if I might uh as it relates to proclamations and uh I know we we had this discussion a while back uh concerning proclamations and I guess guidelines relative to proclamations or are there any guidelines and if so what are they and I'm just curious by that because I know we have a lot of them some of them are are uh uh how would you say uh I guess initiated in various ways for either major or minor things so I'm I'm I'm kind of like where does this kind of is there somewhere that we can kind of get some guideline to that situation because I'm I'm fearful that you know if we're going to proclamate everything that soon as you decide you won't Proclamation give a proclamation to something you're going to have a major problem can I answer that certainly it's your meeting let me ask the L get the sh of it there is a uh statement in the charter uh that basically uh gives the the mayor the um authority to uh approve or disapprove proclamations so all of the requests come to me and uh before they're officially uh accepted our review and give a n as to whether or not to present it to do it so it's and we've had this discussion before before you were on here we we've had the discussion about the proclamations and it just falls on the shoulders of the mayor and and for further context if you don't mind Mr Mayor may I make just a few comments or observations proclamations are ceremonial only in nature and they are not intended to be or reflect official actions of this body by the city commission therefore the mayor as is the charters denotes is vested with the ceremonial Authority regarding proclamations proclamations are um as you all note are signed only by the mayor um they are not voted on by you all as a body they are presented in public session or not they may be presented at a funeral they may be presented at a you know at an appropriate spot but they are not considered official actions of the city commission and in that regard although that may not feel intuitive um it probably behooves us not to get too down in the weeds in terms of trying to set up parameters for these matters because that's where you get into potentially the issues of well this is an official City position and then we have to adhere to it and that's where you get into sit this person's not going to get one this one is I think there's probably some benefit to maintaining and it's consistent with our Charter that it is in the purview of the mayor now if a commissioner isn't happy with what the mayor is or is do it uh acknowledgement because irregardless it's done here in the Forum of the city and so it gives the appearance that the city is in not necessarily in all agreement but recognizing that for sure um that if you if if a commissioner says hey yeah you have the preview to do that but do I have to be in agreement with it if I don't agree with you know you doing that so and then how would that play itself out is just other than you saying hey I don't agree with it and move on which what would it amount to I guess let me I tell you what I I I agree with you I'm glad we're having this discussion because when I was the mayor I I I struggle with this as well and for a couple of years I I tried to get everybody to to view the the proclamations before we approve them and in other words I'd have Vanessa send them to everybody because Mr birdsong's Right he gets it he gets the he gets the petition and then we either sign it or we don't and I think and to John's Point too I don't know if how deep we want to go in the Weeds on this thing but I do think by inference when the mayor signs a proclamation and reads it it's all of us doing it even though on some of the more controversial ones when like the LBGTQ I made it very known that I was going to sign that and if and I would take the heat if anybody was didn't want to be part be participate in that that's fine and I just think we as a body ought to have that right if we want to disagree with a proclamation we need to have some sort of venue whether we vote online or you know John said you you really can't vote against it other than because we don't ever vote on these proclamations an action of the city commission yeah so but we could potentially weigh in electronically I mean I I counted it when I was mayor we did like 40 proclamations in one year we'd all have to proactively vote when these proclamations come in or let the mayor know I don't want to be part of this and that's fine that is the only way I know to protest otherwise mayor's right it's his perogative to sign these or not I think but I think if if if if uh if if we if we go beyond the or what's State what's stated in the charter then we negating what's in the charter and so in order to negate the charter we would need to have a revision to the Charter yeah I agree yes and I think uh uh former mayor I always call you mayor dancer um but uh commissioner dancer I think I think your your thought is is is an admirable one I like the I like the concept of it but it just doesn't work for us because we're a sunshine body and so you can't really be doing an electronic Vote or doing something outside the the perview of a noticed meeting so your opportunity to say I'm not in support of something that's being proclaimed would be at a meeting if you were so inclined to make that statement you certainly are free to do so so you're saying that if vanessa sends all five of us a proclamation and we just answer back yes or no that would be a violation of sunshine I wouldn't yes I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend that that be polling yeah would she would be she would be soliciting your view on an issue outside the scope of a open meeting and I I just don't think that would be a good thing to do um you know it would be one thing for her to ask you are you g to be going to the bridg league of cities dinner you know that's different that's not official business that's not something that's an issue or a matter of of of commission well when we tried it for a couple years it didn't work so it's a moot point anyway whatever work what you could do is if if there was advanced notice of what those proclamations are and if it was the mayor's prerogative to to share with the the Commission in a meeting prior to the meeting at which said Proclamation would be coming forward hey you know next month we're going to have a proclamation for um you you know Public Works month does anybody have any heartburn with that coming forward you could do it in a meeting ahead of time if if those were known sometimes they're not always known that far in advance somebody dies whatever yeah and I also think by doing that you're setting yourself up as the mayor for okay four of you don't like it but I'm doing it because guess what I'm the mayor and I've decided that this is appropriate to be done that's happen and that's happen and I think I just don't think that's a good recipe for for constructive collegiality amongst the body yeah and that's my concern because that has happened in in other places yeah and I think that uh we could we could be on a collision course with something like that uh it depends on who's who's elected to the to serve correct correct that's why it's important to vote wisely when you when you vote on the mayor I hear you thank you sir all right you're welcome um so Dan we have um am minuts and then comments from the audience and then the reorganization of the commission L on assignments and we will have um be prepared if need be to have ballots that evening uh for the the election of Mayor and mayor proem and we will I believe it's already been presented but it's in the it's in your packet is the current liaison on assignments in case any of you have interest in changing any of your positions you can get a kind of lay of the land of what everybody has is noted in this might be a good time to talk about that leison can we talk about that now Ian any change absolutely might have any problems I don't but I'm just throwing it out there you said where's the list it's if if you go to your on the uh in granicus to your I legislate um it's the attachment shown with that agenda item um 10g didn't we need a new or didn't we need somebody another alternate for something that we had we we added a position we were we gained a position on the TPO um that's right and and so right now our TPO membership is uh mayor mayor Birdsong mayor PM uh Yates and commissioner Mercer got it okay and the alternate I'm looking on here Eric can you help me out here it is the alternate is Cliff cliff dellis and we removed uh it's noted in there commiss mayor PM Yates was a liaison to the Ritz Theater but with that board basically dissolving when the city took over there's not an appointment to that anymore I'm good with mine if anybody else wants one of my committees you can have it I'm good with that I'm just teasing we're good I don't need I'm I'm happy I don't need to change anything unless somebody else wants to change I yeah any changes not unless somebody wants one of the um pension boards such a good job of that almost whole day such an [Music] expert anybody else good so everybody this good y okay I am right now some of those could change if you uh have a change in the um officers if mayor changes some of those are uh could change as the mayor's representation to to certain boards but we'll we'll address that based upon uh the reorganization all right are we ready for the consent agenda um ready to present if okay to move forward ready to move forward on that on the consent yes yes so the first item is a approval of um uh basically data center cage and cabinet space with if and data Suites LLC which is Inland fiber um this is part of our infrastructure for housing technology critical Assets in a in a safe and secure uh facility with the necessary redundancies to protect us um we're actually expanding and and and getting a little bit larger capacity within that secured area uh this is a lease agreement for 10 years that begins this fiscal year at an annual cost of $37,500 which we have within our internal service fund dedicated for this and it increases by 3% each year so this is really just taking all of our servers that are housed there and being able to um expand those as need be and and and have the growth that we need is is our cyber and our technology components continue to expand all right um item 11b is for travel and training this is for mayor proam Yates to attend the Florida Liga City's Federal action Strike Team for the fast Flyin February 3rd through 6 in Washington DC um uh 10 C is for mayor bird song to attend the Florida Regional council's Association policy board meeting uh which is he attends on behalf of the Central Florida Regional planning Council that will take place I believe tomorrow and Friday in Tallahassee and so this will be a ratification after the fact because we didn't get the information far enough in advance and with only one meeting in December um item 11d um and 11e these are both two developers agreements that you have seen before that are coming before you these have gone through the downtown CRA advisory commit I did see Miss scna is here and uh as a member of that committee Angie is here as well can answer questions if if need be but first one is with Derek mcwaters this is for um residential housing Tiff rebate uh at the $110,000 maximum rebate per unit this is for a project that is off of sth Street Southwest at Avenue N kind of just to the west of uh the cemetery yes thank you I'm just I'm drawing a blank this evening um but that has gone through the CRA advisory committee and the CRA board and now comes to the city commission for uh City uh commission approval that's oaklan Cemetery that's what I was stuck on um the other item is the uh an amendment to the it's a Second Amendment to the agreement the developers agreement we have with the Jade which is the former holiday in as we explained during the CRA board they are um expanding the number of units from 211 to 238 so there's an additional 27 units and want to be able to uh apply that incentive that is per unit to the the final count of 238 and both of those were approved by the CRA board I do want to note there was a third agreement that we had a significant amount of discussion on during the CRA board that was for the Hamilton on Central um that was for I believe it was 81 attainable housing units um that uh developers agreement was approved by the CRA downtown advisory committee and the CRA board we had intended to bring that forward however we have been told that that property is no longer under contract uh they there was a need to uh to get some of level of an extension on the acquisition of that and that resulted in some addition costs that have caused that contract to basically dissolve in the process so that project will not be moving forward as presented um not because of anything with the incentives or from the city standpoint but more so the dealings between the the buyer and the seller on that so um if something happens with that project if somebody else puts it under contract or if that existing developer uh reacquires it under contract then we'll go through the proc process of looking at a new development agreement because certainly the parameters of that change with that so um from our standpoint there's no point in us bringing forward a development agreement for which there is not a property under contract that just gets a piece of paper out there floating in the wind that nothing will ever come to if as as the situation stands today so we're just letting that one kind of follow the Wayside and not move forward and we'll we'll see where the chips fall down the road if somebody else acquires that property um and we will report that back to the CRA advisory committee as well as to this the full CRA board at their next meetings item 11f this is the harmony Master lift station uh this is a change order uh in the amount of 92,5 2316 this is to address some infrastructure pieces of that project overall this project is about an $8 million project so this is a relatively minor change order at the end of the day but it ties IT addresses pump based support changes some access hatches with safety grading um some Control Systems uh newly added 12in Force main and extended uh life interior wet well coating so it's just some of the the construction elements the materials and and design features that need to be incorporated the um 11g is an amendment to an existing agreement with right Pierce Inc so this is for the tied into our septic to sewer project number 6A North and South which is up off of us7 on the Eastern side of Lake harridge um this amendment expands the scope of right Pierce to include final design documents and technical specifications bidding and preconstruction services construction phase support inspections and project close out and assistance with permitting um the the cost associated with this work is $133,100 and that is accounted for within the the project budget for the septic to sewer remediation area uh 6A project so these are just additional services from the engineer of record as we're getting ready to take this to final design get it out to bid actually build it and all the permitting that goes with it so some ancillary services that we typically add in as we move forward with the project and then 11h we have a number of vehicles within the police department that over the years have been damaged in accidents and you know whether those are uh the in Pursuits or in um in incidences that we're responding to those Vehicles typically have a replacement fund set up for each one of them so each year we've been setting aside money to replace those um all five of those vehicles are Beyond repair and and cannot be put back into service so we're recommending to take some of the funding from those uh those five vehicles that is in reserve and using it to purchase three new vehicles and that will again help us ensure that our Police Operations that we're we're properly equipped um to meet the needs of the community so that's not a new expense that's just redirecting reserves for totaled out vehicles to purchase three of the new interceptors all right resolutions so you have two resolutions and and mayor if you'll uh give me a little latitude I'm going to ask for permission to add a third one and I'll explain that once I go through the first two the first one is for uh it's a request by four star so this is the group that is developing Harmony on Lake Eloise and this is for phase four it's shown on your screens there this is going to be in the Northwestern section of that development you if you've driven through there you see where a lot of the houses are on the west side of Lake Eloise drive this is going to be from where those houses are being constructed today up to the corner of Shell Road um this is about a 57.2 five acre subdivision track will contain 322 building lots and 12 common Lots all of the drainage conveyances and storm Water Management areas within this will be maintained and owned by the CDD um there is a performance bond in the amount of almost $2 million that's been submitted to the city to cover the cost of the remaining infrastruct infrastructure items which include the earth work uh sanitary sewer poble water reuse water storm water management Paving in the engineering certification um so when this is all built out just to give some reference to it in terms of taxable values we estimate the the uh the built out lot values at $300,000 per lot and based upon the number of units a taxable value of about 9.6 96.6 million that will generate about $637,000 in adval revenues per year the second resolution is a request by uh VM development or VM VM D LLC which is the vamar project this is for phase seven so again looking at the map you can see um the blue outline to the bottom of that blue outline is the Thompson Nursery Road realignment uh that would would flow through there off of Thompson Nursery Road down towards the railroad tracks that will eventually cross the tracks and make its way out to Winter Lake Road so this is development on the north side of that that is presently undeveloped this accounts for a 108. s acre subdivision area uh would contain 393 building lots and seven common Lots all the internal roadways of this development will be dedicated to the vamar CDD all the water reuse and Sewer will be owned and maintained by the city uh all the drainage conveyances again roadways Street lighting will be be the cdds they have also submitted a performance bond for their outstanding items in the amount of $391,500 th000 per for lot we estimate the taxable value for this development to be about $118 million that will generate about $777,000 per year in adorm revenues and this is all part of the um uh being developed under the Pud ordinance 02172 the the other item Mr Mayor that I would like to to share with you this evening if if the commission is um okay with me adding to this we have been working feverishly on this through the holidays and and really up until five o'clock today to to to make this happen it is a resolution um it would be number 25-5 this is from whip 6 Q zbl LLC I can't tell you what all that stands for maybe Eric or Bruce can but this is a final plat approval request for Intermodal Corporate Park phase three so this is you've heard uh Bruce lion with the Winter Haven EDC who's here with us this evening talk about project Ray this is a large scale um warehousing site to be developed inside the ilc that we just recently uh submitted an application with your authorization to Florida commerce to try and get funding for a rail spur to service this property um this is a 56.96 acre tract it's located generally in the Southeast corner of logistics Parkway and Intermodal drive so if you're familiar with where uh Bruce I'm GNA say where the cocacola uh operations are this is going to be due south of that on the opposite side of intermal Drive in there um and and so they're they're subdividing this vac piece of land out there to account for two um storm water ponds that will be owned by trat trat properties that owns all of the land out there and then they'll be selling off um the a large portion portion of that land for the project Ray development site so in order to be able to do that we'd like to be able to expedite this as I said we've been working with Jim Ford and trap properties um as well as their attorney Tim Campbell for some time so Mr Mayor and Commissioners if you are with your blessing I will have this added to the granicus package first thing in the morning we just have to make one uh small adjustment to the fact sheet and the attachments but it is ready to go if you're if you're okay with that okay you're okay with it yeah okay and I apologize it's not uh it's not my desire to ever push something through this late we like to get that agenda out but but recognizing the economic impact that this can have for our community we want to try and be as helpful as we possibly can um the other item uh ordinances first reading so this is an annexation of four Parcels um this is a request by gain Inc they're requesting the city commission Annex four Parcels totaling 93.4 five acres located um just off of Old Bart Lake Wales Road East of mlan Road and West of Gary Street uh they're seeking this annexation for the purpose of obtaining City Utilities for the future development of the site can you advance one Katrina I believe there's a a site map so you can see where County Road 653 is on the left side of your screen um that uh the the farthest west partiel there to the left that is the uh the new school uh on the on the west side of County at 653 so go back to the opposite side if you could there Eric or whoever's driving and show where the school is to give some frame of reference okay so that's the school um the uh development that Reggie Baxter did is what you see all platted within there and you can see what's highlighted in red is this annexation request this um the current value of this subject property is is relatively low $1,483 uh so certainly that will you know the taxable benefit in terms of Revenue will certainly increase once that's developed um and so we're recommending approval of that ordinance uh on first reading to move to Second reading the last thing that I have on the agenda for Monday evening is item 17A so you may recall in 2022 we had done an amendment to our procurement manual that allowed for further edits to be made to the procurement manual to be done so administratively and then provided to the city commission for information purposes within 60 days of that effective date and also filed with the city clerk so we have done some amendments Bethany ow and our uh procurement officer uh is here with us this evening to answer any questions on this but briefly what those changes were we require our employees to do a related part disclosure form that lets us know if they work or they have family members that are involved with any businesses that we may also do business with that's part of um making sure we don't have conflicts of interest and we're not doing anything that's unethical normally we would have them do that every year um what we're we're changing that to at this point because that's somewhat um ineffective I mean there's those changes rarely if ever happen we require them to fill out that form when they when when they uh come into a position of employment with us and we are going to eliminate that they do this each fiscal year and instead upon being hired they will fill this out and then thereafter upon accepting a position of influence or one that has purchasing Authority so that helps us make sure that we're not just pushing paperwork here we're doing it when it's actually you know appropriate to do it we're also adding within our asset control procedures we had a unique situation Beth I believe it was Lake Ashton that did the donation this year so Lake Ashton had purchased some uh pretty high-end water fountains as I recall that had like the dog the dog bowl piece to it for their dog parks and they they didn't have a need to install them and they wanted to donate them to the City of Winter Haven well we have policies that speak to how we go about donating our own stuff out like used vehicles or equipment we no longer have a need for we can donate those to other cities or to nonprofits but we didn't have a policy that spoke to how can the city receive donations of such equipment so we have um we've added language within that um uh within the procurement manual that allows us to accept donations from outside groups or organizations and a process for that so these items are just being provided to you for informational purposes of really two minor changes that we've made to the procurement manual to uh ensure that we're being as efficient as we can and and ensuring compliance with uh all ethical expectations for the organization any questions all right so that completes the agenda so we'll go back and uh to you have it for the uh strategic pillars yes sir and I appreciate you allowing us to to present on this tonight I do want to share with with the commission one one I think very positive piece of information and we will provide you a a separate report that highlights this but may recall we do our our process for Community serving surveying twice a year we do it in June and then also in um the November early December time frame and you've certainly seen that during the strategic planning Retreat last year we have just gotten the results from our surveying that was completed uh at the end of 2024 and I'm happy to report that in all of our pillars um Quality of Life Community safety infrastructure responsible government environmental stewardship and economic sustainability we saw increases in customer satisfaction in every one of those between from June of of 24 to December of 2 for so I think that that's you know there's a really depends on who you're surveying and and and you know what their personal perspectives are but um that's something to hang your hat on that that we're uh we're doing some good things and we're getting the word out and and people are are responsive to that overall satisfaction with the organization is at 94% um that is our rolling average it was at 94% in December as well so again a very high Mark for the City of Winter Haven and his elected official is something I think you should be um very very excited about uh we'll put together a full packet report and share that with you but I I shared some of that information earlier today with a leadership pul class that was spending time here in Winter Haven and certainly wanted to make sure you were aware of that as well um I think uh one of the things that had come up and Katrina I'm going to ask for your Intel on this because I don't know that I have it handy maybe I do um I think you had mentioned that uh commissioner mayor ptim Yates at one point had asked about the number of of respondents that we're getting on those um those surveys when we do it we're averaging over 500 respondents each time that we're we're doing those surveys so we're getting you know certainly in a community of 60,000 people that's a small number but you know it's still I feel a St a statistically significant response that we're getting so I feel comfortable with that do we know how many of those might be repeat responses versus brand new responses you speak of that can they work to get new responses each time but they certainly can't prevent repeat but the way that they serve the survey out they're trying to get unique ones and they do look at digital fingerprints to ensure that in each data set they're not using any repeats so we might have a repeat from June to December but they won't that person will not have two surveys in December does that make sense um and then they their goal for city populations of 50,000 to 100,000 is 400 responses to be able to do a statistically valid analysis so we're over that so so is that normal are we seeing normal response levels for these type of surveys compared against other communities yeah I would say yes you are for this approach that we use um certainly normal within what the expectation is there may be other communities that that are falling below that I so let me clarify my response with that and we can ask that question of you know if you were to do a different approach to surveying if you were to do a a very formalized um research study on this you're going to do many different approaches to it and um your your uh your sample group you're going to try and get it as large as you can and and certainly we could do that there's a significant cost with that in terms of time and Financial Resources um and there may be a point in the future where we want to look at doing something like that but starting off to to ask the question you know what do our citizens feel um I'm I'm quite comfortable with presenting and standing by the results that we're getting from how Zen city is working with us with that said we have done I believe now four presentations to the city Commission three or four on the various pillars these are not really the highlighting the action strategies but giving an a sense of what are we doing in some of those specific areas uh you certainly I think you've heard from responsible government Community safety we had a presentation on quality of life in December and so I'm happy to present this evening uh Tanya aers and who is our director of safe neighborhoods and Britney Hart our director of Public Works to share with you just some recent things that have occurred within the environmental stewardship pillar this is one of our highest scoring pillars in our surveying efforts again this is not just about our Lakes but this is Waste Management this is land use planning this is sustainable practices urban forestry so many different things that we do so with that we'll take about 15 minutes of your time and I'll hand off to these individuals to present thank you evening mayor Commissioners ton and I are going to provide an update this evening on our environmental stewardship pillar and the work that is being done to wisely care for our natural resources for our current citizens citizens as well as our future Citizens We're going to give updates on a number of projects we are going to talk about the Lake Silver revetment the lake conai Nature Park our household hazardous waste collection event our urban forestry efforts and what we're doing for that program as well as a update on the hurricane milon debris collection good evening City commissioners I am going to start our presentation with the Lake Silver revetment project so this project is was created to address erosion on the western Shoreline of Lake Silver a primary cause for this erosion was a railroad that was put in along the lake back in the late 1800s the construction of the railroad created an unnaturally steep slope making the shoreline prone to erosion a secondary cause has just been over the last 100 years um natural erosion from storms and runoff and then recreational activities that have increased on the lake the old railroad bed is now the Chain of Lakes Trail and the area north of MLK Park which is both are threatened by the ongoing erosion in 2022 the downtown CRA funded a engineering study to address the erosion several Concepts were reviewed the final design consists of resloping the shoreline and constructing a 460 foot Rock rment the great thing about this design is that it absorbs the wave energy rather than reflecting it back to other shorelines and causing further erosion the project was awarded to shore builders for just under $330,000 $250,000 of that was paid through assistance from representative kerw through the Florida Wildlife Commission the project is expected to complete in January and Commissioners I don't know if you've had a chance to see this if you've been down in that area this contractor is moving extremely quickly through there and you could see from the video they sloped that they put down a a smaller size Rock and then this this larger kind of Boulder Rock that you see is the final product um but it's been a fast fasinating process to watch we're we're doing some additional improvements down there adjacent to the skate park that we started before the revetment project and and and then we paused it because we needed to be in there with heavy equipment and that was part of the organization and and coordination of it that is when this is done that section of the trail will get redone and then that former Pavilion that we took down we have some additional skate elements uh that Miss scoin and others helped us acquire from the City of Lakeland that will be placed there as well so it expands some Recreation at the end of the day as well as well all right so our next project is the lake conai Nature Park which you guys have heard so much about over the years so Lake conai Nature Park is a wetland treatment project that helps clean up the storm water from a 400 acre Watershed before it flows into Lake conim before this project got started all of the storm water from that acre that that waterers shed flowed through a ditch along motorpool Road straight out to Lake conine and was never getting any treatment now that water enters the ditch and then flows through a pipe that runs underneath CM Drive um where it enters into our first Wetland um cell or Pond and that's where it starts to get really the the most treatment most of the pollutants are captured there from there it it flows through the rest of the cells and the ponds and and continues to be cleaned as the plants absorb the nutrients and the sediment settles out this project um you can see from the process happening for many of the newly constructed pedestrian Bridges which you can see on your screen at this time it has a wear system which helps the water go from one cell to the next and just moves throughout the whole park with this project we are able to remove about 30,000 pounds of nutrients each year which ultimately is giving cleaner water to go into Lake conine and improving the water quality there as well as the water quality of the downstream Lake which is like smart so when whenever the N the the TR the treatment project was designed everybody was thinking about the future recreation in mind and on top of these burms the park is going to feature um a mile of trail system which will be half pave Trail as well as half um natural Trail there will be a fishing pier there will be a kayak launch so people can kayak within Lake conine there will be a connection to the Chain of Lakes Trail along motorpool road so giving a lot of access to this park and letting the residents of Winter Haven explore the wildlife and learn more about what we have going on here and this project would not have been possible without a number of funding Partners we had P County bccc helped commit funds to this project the FD the Florida Department of Environmental Protection the southwest Florida Management District and then there was a number of FAP funding as well as legislative Appropriations that went into both the water treatment part of the project and the recreational amenities Mr Mayor can I ask a question about this one first of all I want to say how happy I am to see this finally coming in frish we've been talking about this for years and it's so cool to see the pictures finally happening and I'm just thrilled but you know in our effort to plant 100,000 trees which I told you I was going to ask you about this looks like a great place to have a bunch of cypress trees we planted a bunch out there you did already all those little trees you see those were um and I don't mean to interrupt you but I when they built the ponds that's part of the treatment is the vegetation that goes in so where you see those little kind of seedlings popping up okay that's a lot of what went in during the the W okay I just noticed there was a lot of open space that would make great Tree location so go ahead there is a lot of space that makes great Tree locations we're working on all the educational signage that people will be able to review as they come into the parks and it talks about The Cypher trees the sweet Magnolia um the red Maples the sweet gums there's there's a variety of tree species that are planted out there are going to be planted out there and so we have a lot of of planting happening in that top location thank you okay household hazardous waste day so since 2007 the City of Winter Haven has been partnering with P County Solid Waste and keep Winter Haven clean and beautiful to host an annual household hazardous waste day the most recent event was held on Saturday December 7th at the Advent Fieldhouse 225 citizens participated in the event items collected include 20 fire extinguishers 47 propane tanks 51 gallons of paint 53 large batteries so we're talking things like car batteries 172 fluorescent bulbs and I'm just going to stop right there and say that in my many years of doing being a code enforcement professional these are the kind of things that we typically see on abandoned properties and on the side of the road and so I'm so excited for events like this that allow people an opportunity to properly dispose of these items um so they're not contributing to causing harm to our neighborhoods and our environments so then we have 178 tires now to put that in perspective that's equivalent to tires on 44 cars and a motorcycle it's a lot of tires but the biggest one to put into perspective here is 150 ballons of motor oils anifree and gasoline and so the EPA says one quart of motor oil poured down a storm drain can contaminate 1 million gallons of water that's a year supply of water for 50 people even more startling one gallon of oil can create an oil slick over eight Acres of water six gallons of oil is enough to cover the entire surface of Lake Silver so I want to say that these events are this was a very successful event and you know they're very important to make sure that these items don't wind up out there harming our environment how often do we do these events is it once a year yes this partnership is once a year we hold it with in conjunction with P County Solid Waste and keep hi clean and beautiful but the P County Solid Waste has has these kind of all over all of the communities within P County and I believe they shoot for six a year how challenging would it be for us to hold additional at least maybe one more in the summertime and then one more like like how challenging would that be I don't know that it would be an extreme Challenge it's getting getting the resources and the Partnerships together that is something that we are working on through a uh litter and illegal dumping mitigation plan right now and as we work through that and get approval on that we'll start to Implement different strategies um which one of them includes holding additional collection events throughout the community and is an event like um old appliances or anything like that is that ever available or is that something where residents really just need to either take that to the dump or put it what about old appliances so right now the way that we do old appliances is that's scheduled as a bolt collection um in in that illegal dump being in litter mitigation plan we have outlined an idea of of having a collection event and and maybe that's in the different quadrants um but as this time we don't have one that we advertise that is I'm not sure if that's something that you guys have done previously before my time here yeah we used to do the spring clean up but now you know we you just call it in and and really mayor proam it with appliances being able to get that to a destination is tough so we do a lot of that curb side appliances Furniture those types things so we're running those routes daily um and it's based now on a call-in service so you can get it to the curb call us will come pick it up one of the things Brittney can you talk about the um the technology disposal that goes on with this as well would you mind commenting on that yes so um with this household hazardous waste collection we're obviously collecting things like oil and paint and and those various things but it's also the eat waste the the TVs and the computers and those type of things and they had over a 30 yard rolloff fil with electronic waste that was disposed of through the event however the county goes through that this the county partners with us and does all of the counting thankfully and they are still working through counting how many TVs were thrown away how many fax machines how many computers were all thrown away so they can provide us those numbers in the future but there's a lot of e-ways that went through this program as well great thank you well I'd love to see an additional event if we can make certainly we can we can pursue that and of course you know if anybody has these things and you don't want you're cleaning out your garage Springtime you can always take it to the landfill as well they have a household um hazardous waste at the at the main uh the Castro road point that you can take those items to and and um they're they're wonderful to work with there but we can certainly explore another time to do that all right so urban forestry so we are wrapping up all of the priority One Tree removals and prunings which were outlined in our urban forestry master plan and that was adopted by this Commission in late of 2023 the priority work included 43 tree removals and 31 that needed to be pruned and those were decided on um classifications because they were they were classified as high risk for various reasons either they were dead or they were severely diseased we saw relatively minor tree loss during Hurricane Milton of the city trees and we feel that that was was due to the pruning and the removals that had occurred of those Priority One trees so we are moving on we're going to start the priority 2 removals and working through that list other big things we've done in urban forestry that I think are important is the city updated a lot of our landscape ordinances which hadn't been done since the early 1990s and that updated focused on protecting our urban forestry and adding some clear definitions into what that really meant it also focused on establishing tree protection requirements during construction and then creating a process to mitigate removals of protected trees um I think a number of you were at the ribbon cutting at the Winter Haven Recreation and culture center or I'm sorry the groundbreaking at the Winter Haven Rec culture center I'm moving it along really fast in my mind real fast um but you would have seen there was a number of beautiful oak trees on that property that were being protected during construction and so when there is a ribbon cutting of that project they will have a beautiful landscape full of very mature healthy trees because we had taken steps to mitigate their removal so now there's also penalties for unauthorized removal of trees we're still working um with a consultant for a second update which will address some things like the landscape buffers and tree canopy requirements on private property but we'll be bringing that to you on in the coming months as we work to develop that so as we moved from the priority One removals our priority two removals were a little bit higher and so we realized that in order to keep this plan moving we we needed some additional help and we advertised an invitation to bid for urban forestry services and received three responses we have executed agreements with Summerall environmental to help with those priority 2 removals and some of the pruning work that we need as well as an agreement with evolve professional landscape to plant new trees and then help maintain those as they get to that growing in Period so this map on your screen is showing available planting spaces within City properties and City rway so this is city-owned facilities properties RightWay um and the colors represent the es of the different types trees that could be planted in that area so some of them could accommodate very large trees some of them can only accommodate very small trees and so there's a range there we have just over 4,200 spaces available for plantings and according to the plan we need to plant about 150 to account for a non net loss and our team's goal is is more than that 300 350 range each year um we're planting trees from an approved species list there's about 75 trees on that list so we're working through that list to make sure that we're diversifying the canopy and we're starting to work with evolve to identify exactly which neighborhoods we're going to plant in um we're looking and starting around the the PK state area which was at 2005 number um and working our way outwards but we're going to start identifying the exact neighborhoods which trees are going to be planted there and when so we can start those notifications so if I could just jump in for a second for commissioner dancers's benefit I know we we talked earlier today about 30 million trees or whatever the number was thousand so four years you know and I don't want I don't want anybody to to say oh my gosh we don't have room to do that we have 4200 there about space is on city property that's in our right of way that's in our Park facilities um to accomplish your goal um of trying to get to 100,000 trees that's why events like our tree giveaway which we'll talk about in a moment are so important because that is what helps get trees planted on the private property um our canopy our Urban our Urban canopy isn't just our spaces it's everybody's spaces so we really want to try and fill the the balance of that tree planting goal with the help of our residents and our businesses beautiful can I say something yeah um are you working with utilities so that those do not get you know on top of pipelines and things like that and that's really what drives this in in being what a lot of people might consider a low number at 4,200 and we're a you know a 42 square mile community that doesn't seem like a lot well you have to contemplate you know where can you put this that it's not going to be under a power line over top of a utility line where it's not going to be a tree that we plant today and in five years have to take out thank you yes and like I mentioned we're still working with a consultant for our second update to those l aping ordinances and one of them includes looking at is is the current way that everything is written as no tree within 12 foot of any utility the way that it needs to be do we do we need to make all changes to that um so the 4200 spaces really doesn't seem like a lot especially whenever we have lofty goals set for us at a 100,000 trees a year um so we are the things like updating our Landscaping codes and making sure that we are are prioritizing what it looks like on private development but then that that Arbor Day Giveaway so we're celebrating Florida Arbor Day on January 18th and we are going to be having a tree giveaway for that we are going to be picking those trees up next week we're giving away 2003 gallon trees so not not baby ones but not fully mature ones in South Central Park um the residents can come they can talk with us they can get some education on pruning and planting as well as right right tree right space and kind of what was going to work best for them at their homes um and then they will be able to take one one of those free trees away we've also submitted our application for the Arbor Day Foundation to continue as a tree City USA this will be our 32nd year as a tree City and this would if we receive it be our 17th year as a growing city when receiving that growth award and so that's really exciting and just a commitment to that work we've done with with our urban forestry yeah and then lastly an update on the hurricane milk debris collection so this video is flying over where we have been dropping all of that debris since October this is right next to the motorpool site you can see all of our garbage trucks in the back for scale and these piles are huge 25 foot or so and just all of the debris this is being monitored for us through our contract with P County for debris hauling Services um the city began debris hauling on October 12th which that storm came came through and and just one or two days later we started debris hauling Tucker Paving was amazing they called and said hey we have trucks that aren't busy and do you need them and we said yes and so our our trucks were collecting it and then they were dumping them into Tucker Paving trucks and they would go to the landfill and sit for quite a few hours I was looking at load tickets and trying to figure out how long they were there and they were sitting for two two and a half hours we were able to collect 85 loads with their assistance and that was about 120 tons and just the work that we got done with Tucker wouldn't have happened if we were having to send our trucks let them sit for two two and a half hours to the landfill go back out do collection and then back to the landfill we would have gotten maybe 12 to to 20 trips in that time period so we were able to haul 85 loads with the assistance of Tucker Paving and that that was spun up really well the the landfill was willing to coordinate with us they were accepting letters that they would address the fees to the City of Winter Haven if it came in in a Tucker truck so there was a lot of good collaboration that occurred to allow us to start collecting the county didn't start debris hauling until the 16th so we got about four or five days on everybody else with that collection process and to date countywide there has been 20,000 loads collected I know at some point somebody had said they felt like this hurricane didn't have such an impact as other ones hurricane Ian previously but 20,000 loads we we are very close to what we were collecting during Hurricane Ian today the county has collected just over 730,000 cubic yards of debris so once that holler came in they stopped quantifying it in tons and went to cubic yardage um and of that the city has collected right at 1100 loads and 21 cubic 21,000 cubic yards so just tons of collection most of that collection here with that is the collection of our Winter Haven team our trucks that is not the assistance of the debris haulers even though we have seen them coming in a little bit later in the game um as of today we have officially completed three passes of colle collection we have collected all of the debris that was out we started with a second collection which was the debris and the bags and the co-mingled items and then we did one third third passive collection and we have officially completed our hurricane Milton collection we are resuming noral operations of our debris collection and resuming our scheduled bolt collection and so we're working with our Communications team to make sure we're getting that message out of we've resum resume normal operations we're back to scheduling our bulk and we're sending out mailers and things to remind them of that as as well as our our recycling goals um so just very excited to to bring that in for for a landing and a closure of that project and so with that that is our environmental stewardship update really exciting stuff we've talked about the Lake Silver rment And how that project will be completed this month the lake conine Nature Park and the work that our Parks team is doing out there to make that a recreational space our household hazardous waste collection event and just how much of a success that was our urban forestry operations as well as that hurricane Milton debris collection and we're already starting to plan for next hurricane season even though I hope we don't don't have one you all have any questions or here to answer them I have a question um so we've made you said like three passes how has the county itself Beed because I've getting calls and I actually went and looked and it was storm debris but it's it's in the county it's not in the city limits of wi hav so um you know different communities kind of approach this in different ways Mr Mayor and certainly I give a tremendous amount of credit and kudos to to Britney Hart and the city's Public Works team to be ramped up with all of our trucks preapproved for hauling and having a sight to take things to ahead of the game she said day one we're out picking up because we have the resources to do that some of the communities don't have that resource they don't have their own Solid Waste operations so they're completely dependent upon the county Support City of Lakeland does not join in on the county contract the countywide contract they have their own private hauler and they were they were successful you know where they could get to but a lot of in Lake they were delayed because of just the water issue that they were dealing with that's the report that I've gotten from from my counterparts there we have tried to coordinate as much as possible with Britney's counterparts at the county when we have folks within our utility service area but they're not within our garbage collection area so Country Club Road we were just MJ just uh worked with a resident two weeks ago I think it was that had some concerns about the amount of debris that was out there on West Lake Hamilton Road on Crump Road and so we were able to quickly get on the on the call one of the streets that I got a call from yeah so we um we got a hold of uh the county folks that are they're responsible for that contract to make sure that they had an awareness of that and I believe they've already begun addressing that but I have no doubt that there are probably communities within P County that it's going to take a little while to get to still just that it whether it's because of of standing water that was there for several weeks afterwards I think it's it's kind of a a mixed bag throughout the entire County though okay a quick question on the urban forestry um part how are our trees doing on Central the the cypress trees the cypress trees yeah excellent um I'm G knock on wood as I say that this is something MJ and I we we talk about regularly as we walk through downtown right tree right place we had a the state the state Forester help us identify what's the right tree to put in there they were put in in midf Fall of of 23 as we were wrapping up that project we did not see a lot of defoliation of those those cypress trees at all really I mean a little bit see a little color change with the cold snaps that we've had but they are holding up extremely well we're seeing growth on them so I think that's a a good case study of don't just go with what you think looks right get the experts in to to really help identify that thank you so our our next presentation Mr Mayor and Commissioners will be in February and we'll be talking about infrastructure those include things like roads and bridges or sidewalks and and pedest and Facilities certainly water and sewer and Gary will be a Gary hubber and his team will be a big part of that with everything they have going on our our vertical structures fiber lighting all of those different things so we'll be working on that starting tomorrow we have our first kickoff meeting internally to begin putting together that presentation for you and look forward to bringing that to you in February all right thank you can I ask a quick question under because it's kind of under that same category as well um and I just I just I wanted I didn't want to wait any longer um to bring this up uh so we attended the TP meeting a couple weeks back and heard a presentation from Sheriff Jud as well as superintendent Hyde and one of the things that they are really pushing for and there's multiple things but the one that really stuck out to me and really I think should be an easy thing to do and accomplish is that we need to have landing pads for school bus drops on all new communities so how difficult is that to get put into our code and how quickly can we make that happen so I'll look to Eric to to weigh in on that but I I heard that presentation and you hear about students that are that are standing roadside in the road in the RightWay that there's not a a landing pad a bench any type of of safe zone for students to be in dark I don't know if any of you had seen any of the footage that superintendent Hyde had provided to Ryan Corde came out earlier this week that showed some of the video footage I it was shocking absolutely shocking what what what is in there with people passing school buses and kids that are getting ready to cross the street in the dark to get onto that school bus so one of the things that that certainly came up was can we require something like that so Eric can you speak to how we go about doing that yeah so so in in the land devel unified Land Development code we certainly can require private developers to make a improvements within certain sub within subdivisions um and within the road rights of way um that are consistent with the impacts of their development so that that that's something that can be written in code that the key component of that is we would need to um be able to coordinate very closely with the school district with the school board and and particularly their transportation department um because we wouldn't be the experts on where to put those um you know they they schedule their routes um often based on picking the students up in the front of the subdivision at the on the the public road which may be a city road which may be a county road which may be uh you know a private privately held um roadway um and so that would be the key component is make sure there are elements of that coordination that um we would have to if it's a County Road for example the county would have to have similar requirements in their code um requiring those types of improvements but it's certainly something we can look at so I guess my my concern is I and I've said this before up here so I apologize for saying it again and we're we're part of it but I don't want to over government this problem I mean it if it's a problem now and the developments that continue to come on so I mean can we not say you know it's required and then go through X Y and Z steps to at least like if we can go ahead and get it in there and get it in place then we can go you know as that development comes about we can then go to the school board and and or the developer can do and go through that process if you will that you just mentioned I just don't want to like 12 months from now we're still trying to work with we got to cut the tape out and we got to get it done yeah I understand I think the the concern is that we wouldn't want to um put in an improvement in the wrong place and then it never be used well that's fine but but but like I said I mean if it's not we we can debate that issue you know after the fact we've we've got to get something in place that says hey Mr developer you've got to have a landing pad we don't know where we may not know where it is but you got to have one and that's and you've got to go through that process to get it done I have a question do we still have to City have to get a permit through the county in order to do things like that if it's County property in especially roadways in County rway yeah that they would be the permitting agency yeah okay good point thank you for bringing that up that was a very telling presentation that sheriff Jud and superintendent HUD did very eye opening so what are they doing in immediate yeah the the presentation commissioner Dawson was really about safety for our students in the uh an update on the Stop Bar cameras that they' put in and and how they did their warnings for the first month of that and then how many citations they're writing from that point forward um and that was the that's the biggest concern for it when they place as I understand it from speaking with the district in in years past their their efforts to locate the school bus stops they try and do that as they're planning them out we need to pick so many students up from here there or wherever to make make sure they're in in the most appropriately lit and safest places certainly there's challenges with that but the biggest concern is the inattentiveness uh the lack of of people just abiding by the law or paying attention to our students that are out there one of the other things that they brought up is the continued um I would say displeasure with the state legislature for the mandated changes in school start times and what impact that may have ultimately on the time at which students in this case I believe the biggest area of concern is the elementary school students who could be standing out there at the earliest possible time and that is a big concern and something that the the school district is still advocating against that we need to to not have that requirement it doesn't necessarily provide the well what may meet certain um benefits that they're hoping to achieve at the state level it creates some ancillary negative impacts that we're very concerned about could we potentially get some language from the school board and what that might need to look like and what we need to send to our state representatives to inform them that this is a this the impending big issue so we met Katrina Hill who handles a lot of of our our legislative Communications she met with myself and deput C manager carnavali yesterday we've begun crafting um our political or our our legislative platforms at the state and federal level to present to the commission here relatively quickly based on items that our department directors through their professional associations have brought forward items that you have brought forward and we closed that meeting with the notation that we need to get with PK State College we need to get with the p County Public School District and other partners that we have in the community to identify what their legislative platforms and priorities are for the coming session so that we can Advocate on their behalf for those very items so yes sir sure I mean I'm ready to fire out the emails I just I just want to be sure that the the content of that email is you know accurate and and relatable to the City of Winter Haven as well yes sir anyone else not motion to a join so move a join right