than e fth day of March 2025 can I get a roll call please yes Mr Mayor commissioner dollson here commissioner Mercer here commissioner danler here mayor protim Yates here and mayor Birdsong here all
right we have our inv ation Pledge of Allegiance presentation and then we're going to have the uh strategic plan presentation that will be at the end we'll move that down tonight Mr Mayor if I could just offer a comment uh on
5D uh we have invited Jay Jarvis who the director of P County Roads and drainage division to attend on Monday evening to give the commission just an update on what's happening with Thompson Nursery Road as you know from your last Commission meeting we did prepare a letter which you all have signed and
will be sent to the P County regarding the segment or the phase two I think is what it's officially referred to that goes out to us27 and the Winter Haven City commission's preference for a separated multi-use bike Corridor along
that road um but following some uh questions that came up through recent TPO meetings we thought it would be a good idea to get an update just on where that project stands overall and what their coord pathways are and be able to answer any questions you may have so
okay and that'll be Monday night Monday night yes yes okay then we have uh the minutes and we have no audiences first reading consent agenda so um if if you like I'll go
through these rather quickly item 10 a this is to appoint um Zach drum to fill a slot that is available on the airport advisory committee we did a public advertisement for that vacant seat and
then went through uh the interview process in accordance with the resolution that established the airport advisory committee they had I believe seven applications for that and the committee uh that the airport advisory
committee had recommended appointment of Zach drum to that Zach's a local homegrown gentleman from here in Winter Haven who served as a combat Aviator uh for the United States Navy and is now
back in our area and eager to contribute to the community by joining the airport advisory committee okay thank you item 10B this is not too different from something that came to you a few uh meetings ago regarding the woodpoint subdivision this
is an agreement to provide traffic control enforcement on private roads owned and under the control of the lucern Park Community Development D District so you can see the map on your screens there this is going to be due north of the Walmart Distribution Center
uh so out near the Rolling Hills um Cemetery off of Old lucern Park Road uh and again very similar situation that we will provide traffic control enforcement within that subdivision on an as-needed basis the CDD is responsible for all of
the signage and and U items that go along with that okay item 10 C this is an amendment to the uh pulk Regional water Cooperative uh Grant agreement number
two this is part of and I'm gonna ask Gary uh to come forward and offer any comments uh specific to this one this is there's no Financial impact with this it's simply a extension of time Gary can you speak to what this agreement specifically accounts for yes uh good
evening Mr Mayor Commissioners this basically uh is reallocating monies from previous grants and reassigning them and extending timelines so it's uh just start part of the normal process these grants I think
date back uh probably four years already so just extending the deadlines for those and those are grants that we are a party to but that are held by the pul regional water Cooperative that is correct item um 10d and since Gary's
already at the podium I'll ask him to to offer comments on this as well but as you know back almost a year ago now we issued an RFQ for the progressive design build of a water resource facility at the at Pard Road this is really about what is the long-term solution and and
uh approach to addressing winter Haven's Wastewater capacity needs looking to Future growth looking to the age of the facilities that we have now in July of last year the commission had authorized negotiation of an agreement with Wharton Smith Inc that was just recently
approved by the city commission uh earlier this calendar year and what has come forward now is Task order number one um one of the things that I just want to say with this before I hand it off to Gary this is a uh a task order of of significant
expense um at the end of the day this is just shy of a12 million task order that does a lot of the preliminary analysis and assessment of multiple aspects of our wastewater treatment system so everything from plant three to plant two
to reuse systems to the ability to connect plant two and three so we can decommission plant to um the expansion of a new wastewater treatment facility that will take us to 12m GD and ultimately 24 MGD for processing as well
as the structural Integrity of the existing wastewater treatment plant in the in the interim to you know we we we have a capacity there of 7.5 MGD so we need to make sure that we that facility is capable of continuing operation while
these other things are being developed that total project at the end of the day is about $180 million $182 million I think is the the estimated cost so when you think about when we when we do projects we look at what's the engineering design permitting costs that
go along with that it's usually in that 10 12 maybe even upwards of 15% of the actual construction cost this amount is significantly less than that but it doesn't accomplish all of those things but it I guess my point is it is a big
number but in consideration of the total magnitude of the overall project it is relatively right on par with where I would expect it to be I'll also say that the amount of work that is involved in the 12 tasks I think that are outlining here pretty substantial work for the
amount of money that we're expending so with that Gary I'm gonna let you kind of talk through this in in brief detail and be able to answer any questions the commission may have thank you city manager so as uh city manager was saying uh this project has been envisioned for
quite a while uh as you recall we orig Al looked at uh going the withier route to fund this so I believe that was some couple years ago that we actually began talking about you know the expansion of this facility and the decommissioning of
of plant to so we're finally at the point on Monday evening We'll be asking your approval of of this first task order now what does that mean so the first task order basically is a lot of engineering and planning work how do we
take Wastewater from plant two and get it to plant three so there are some Alternatives that we'll be considering we have some existing pipe that's not being used currently in the ground we also need to look at how can we reduce
the flow of plant to by possibly establishing a north south through over on the east side of the city and then there's other considerations do we pump average daily flow from plant two by putting Equalization there or do we pump uh Peak
daily flow um you know just recently we you approved the harmony Master lift station and that is part of this process also we're taking Flow Away From The Chain of Lakes Master lift station to the harmony
Master lift station so that we would have capacity to move uh further flows to the South but then beyond that is we have our existing planet planet three how do we make sure that we keep that facility
operational throughout all of this work and make sure that we don't have any problems from a compliant standpoint so we'll be looking at how we can uh keep operations moving at the same time that all this work is going on and then
eventually we'll be building new pieces of the of a future wastewater treatment plant decommissioning plant two and we'll have to make decisions about will plant two become a storm water treatment facility maybe from taking water from
the the conine Wetland uh park over there um the same thing at at the plant three maybe we use the old plant three as future storm water treatment so all these decisions will be made through this process and then we'll be
constructing pieces of it bringing back SE SE gmps to the commission for consideration so with that kind of very high level I've got folks from Smith and kimley Horn with us so John fren Carri Cara
Ellie thank Gary good evening thank you again um Mr Mayor Commissioners um we're excited about this like we talked about we've been working close to nine months on negotiating it it's finally come to
fruition this is what we do it's our passion it's a large job for the City of Winter Haven it's a large job for the State of Florida and its resources I'm gonna let Miss car Cara Elliott talk to you about the particulars of the project
and just want again say thank you great thanks John thank you all for having us here today my name is Cara Elliott I am one of the program design managers with kimley horn on this
project I'm joined today by Lewis Bryant who is my co-deputy design manager and Jameson Tandra who will be one of the project Engineers on this job as well um I think that we've summarized the details thank you very much City Manager
for covering that um on what we hope to do with task order number one as Gary mentioned task order number one really focuses is on two primary components the first is the preliminary engineering and planning to support some of our funding
efforts and making sure that we have a really good strategic plan in place to bring all of these elements together to ensure that we have both sufficient capacity and reliable service for the city as we continue to build out this Green Field
facility um the second element is focused on some early out packages at wastewater treatment plant number three these efforts um will support the ultimate buildout facility so we're doing some early design work to harden
and improve the reliability of wastewater treatment plant number three so that we can continue to provide reliable service while we build the new Greenfield Plant adjacent to that property so here you see a kind of a
high level program schedule to help contextualize this first task order so you can see that the initial planning efforts um will come this year and into the beginning of next year which will then be followed by the modifications to
plant three to make sure we have sufficient capacity and reliability we will then begin the construction of rerouting the flows from the north area of the city currently going to waste water treatment plant number two so that those can be rerouted
to wastewater treatment plant number three at that point we can decommission wastewater treatment plant number two all while we're ultimately working towards this vision of building out the 12 MGD Greenfield facility adjacent to
plant three so again just wanted to express our excitement and gratitude for the opportunity to work on this project as John mentioned we recognize its significance in our industry and really appreciate this opportunity and look forward to working with all of you be happy to answer any questions that you
might have thank you um mayor and Commissioners I will just kind of we've done you this commission has done a a lot of Legacy type projects in the in the time that you've been on this commission um the last time that the
city commission was making decisions for wastewater treatment plants would have been 50 years ago and so uh to build out new ones this is one that hopefully carries this community for at least another 50 if not much longer so you're
um your decisions on this one you know it's not just for today but it's really looking out for the long-term um Community as a whole so Commissioners any questions with that one before we move on I'll tell you this
uh until the Wastewater and water facilities I had never seen numbers for design and Consulting work in this range I mean but I just had
never seen it so the only question I have is this okay with task Auto one okay we know what we know we can
fund that all right and really and truly uh that's when you putting together all of the plans that we should be able to
implement and so to the city manager and to Gary we we were talking about whff you and we you know so where are we going with it I mean well GNA spend 10 million so
you you you have a you have a a project of of roughly $182 million that is part of your CIP plan keep in mind your your connection fees your rate study that was implemented in August September of last
year is all built around the CIP as a whole and so that factors in the long-term capital investment in these as well as the continued pursuit of Grants and and uh funding Partners well and and
I get all of that TOA um my my only thing is is that the as we sit here today and planning and we're implementing and then this the task a number one will be done in 18
months and then we would need to move into uh the next one and all I'm saying is if I guess my question would be if we don't get grants where does that put us so as you
may recall when we did the rate study the U the rate study and the rates that were implemented were based on a 5% grant funding level okay this past this past calendar year
we submitted Grant requests to the state in the amount of in excess of $200 million to help support the all of the CIP for the utility not just this project but all
the other projects that are ongoing also we feel pretty comfortable that we'll hit the 25% range I've been to D they know about this project this project is on their timeline so they they know that we're
expecting additional grant funding and Loan funding for this project so the way this project will be funded will be a combination of Grants srf loans revenue bonds and possibly a
whiffy Alan now the whiffy loan we don't know yet because it kind of depends on what the market rate will be at that time with the with the loan the whia loan will only fund 49% of the project
so we still we would still have to issue revenue bonds to go with a whiffy alone so we'll make that decision later in the year whether we'll go with whiffy alone or revenue bonds I anticipate that we
would issue our first bonds probably first or second quarter of FY 26 and then probably another 18 months after that another another Revenue bond issue okay to support these
projects so mayor I think you know to summarize what Mr hubber said you know our funding strategy for delivering this project and others is built around 5% uh grant funding into the overall cost and
certainly we have high level of confidence that we will achieve that and the balance of that is is through um debt financing that is paid back through the existing fees and and connection charges and the like the only thing that
I think stands in the way of successful completion well there's a couple things first of all what's the cost of delivering the projects and what what does inflation do with that um to what extent the the Tariff the know current tariffs have on production of of materials that are needed for these
types of things what does the uh the labor market dictate with that as we've seen in in past years um and then also what happens with legislative uh decisions that directly impact revenues within the utility and
so I think that that further speaks to our need to Advocate strongly on behalf of you know home Ru Powers when it comes to establishing utility fees and and not uh redirecting or or limiting you know the Sur charges and and and the like
that are continuously on The Chopping Block but I I think there's strong confidence that what we did what the commission approved in a in August September of 2024 is directly in line with the delivery of this
project I might add that the way that we've designed this project in the subsequent projects with the sub the individual gmps we're going to be watching the market very closely so that
that if if and when we um issue bonds that we hit the market at the right time um we're not in a uh compliance issue so we don't have really specified timelines that we have to
meet but we got to we got to make sure that we get that that resiliency and redundancy in our system that allows us the flexibility to make timely decisions to construct when it's best for the city
so we'll be watching those markets very closely and deciding which which construction packages go forward and when they go forward if that makes sense it makes sense and and that's what I was in my
own mind just wondering because if let's just say you don't get the grants we have the capacity to because we're doing in different phases
that we could still move forward right we're taking bites of the apple or the elephant yes yeah and I'm and I'm sitting here looking at the whole elephant and that's the problem and and you have to do it in in bites may I mean the fact is we've got to do this early
out package on plant three to make sure that it's it's viable that it's it's it's resilient and it's got the Integrity to to meet our needs while we're look at how do we build the next piece of that the connection between plant two and plant three what are the options for that the decommissioning
plays with that so it's there's sequences within there um yeah so I think that if if there comes a time when hey we can't do this piece of it because you know there's some change in the funding or the cost of it it doesn't
kill the entire project right thank you thank you anybody else just just because it's so I mean it's like so much noise so can you break it just to break out like the total project estimated cost is how much 182 million
182 currently and then task order number one would be how much 12 roughly roughly 12 million and then so are we just doing number one or this also is inclusive of is the number
two abandonment inclusive number one so as part of the number task the task order number one gmps will result of that we'll come back with gmps for individual projects and those will all add up to
roughly $182 million okay and then just uh so I know the the we've got the whia loan option looking for the grants but the city also has skin in the game too as far as being cash available that could go towards
this project as well because we've been good stewards of those transfers of funds from utilities to to the general fund and capping at 12% what would you roughly say is in cash right now available for the for a project like this can I I don't know that I have a
can we know Monday yeah is that but and so the other piece of that is when you look at what what your debt service would be because you're going to have to borrow to do these types of projects but that's the the design of of your fee schedule is looking ahead to
what is it going to take to to provide safe treatment of Wastewater at the capacities you need you when you need it that's why you establish those fees to get ahead of that and be able to pay that down over time you're not paying that $180 million in the five years or the four years that it takes you to
deliver this whole project you're paying that down over the 20 years of the bond and and and such well and and and 30 years of you want that to be the you want that to be the way because it's all the people that are going to be using
this facility over the next 20 30 years should be the ones paying for this ABS that's the concept of the bonding yeah so totally totally get that so I'm just trying and I'm not disputing the project at all I'm just trying to break kind of break it down to a little bit easier um
numbers to understand so just would be curious you know Cashwise what we what we look like on hand not that I'm suggesting that we're going to be anywhere close to paying this in cash it's just good to have all the pieces of the puzzle um when we're thinking about it up here
so okay question for Gary um I know there's a lot of pieces to this when uh how long before we have a new wastewater treatment plant period Well I think that you you'll have the beginning of the new
Wastewater Plant by 2029 time time frame I'll have to come back for that I'll be retired by that time probably me too one Els all right thank you thank you very much I think Gary's comment at the end there was he was trying to get
us to name was to our treatment plan after him I'd settle for a lift station um item Tenny this is our uh this is an annual contract with Ballard Partners this is uh lobbying services that we engage in at the federal level which has
proved very beneficial particularly as of late as you know we'll be traveling to DC in April and Ballard is instrumental in helping organize and orchestrate the appropriate meetings to carry out and deliver on on priorities
for uh the city Commission of Winter Haven this is the same group we've worked with over the past I think three or four years now so this is that contract did not have any renewals so this is a uh completely new contract but at the same price item
10f this is uh these next two are are kind of special items in the sense of really deal with our our community safety pillar and the first one is the purchase of Motorola n30 radios for emergency response and management you
may recall during Hurricane Milton many people had problems with cell phone Communications there was a major communication line that was disrupted over in Hillsboro County that had a direct impact on the availability of cell phone service in our area and
really throughout the central Florida area it's not the first time that's happened in 2004 when we were on the old Nexel systems those completely failed during uh the Hurricanes of of Charlie Francis and Jean um even with our some
of our our services being on the first net AT&T system we vulnerable to disruptions in communication so what we are proposing is the acquisition of um I believe it's 100 Motorola n30 radios these are very
similar to what we're using within police and fire services today these radios would be distributed amongst the water department Public Works parks recreation and culture our safe neighborhoods unit which is Code Compliance and heavily involved in damage assessment as well as the city
manager's office it allows us to maintain active communication regardless of what the situation is at hand we we utilized what few radios we had extra this year during Hurricane Milton and it was a game Cher for us as we were
without communication not only to to strengthen communication but it it creates a constant awareness of what's going on and where our crews are and we can get messages out to them and redirect appropriately these are um this is a
resource that will also be heavily utilized with special events when we're doing parades when we're doing Fourth of July celebrations uh community events and we need to have a strong interface between our Public Safety folks and our on the
ground um Public Works and in parks and wreck folks it becomes a a game changer in that regard as well the cost associated with the acquisition of the radios 440 it's actually $448,900 number of years it really
became a priority when we saw how the the cell service really suffered this past year so I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have with that all right the uh 10g this is an
item that we've just added this week for the commission's consideration so I'm going to ask uh fire chief Drew new to come to the podium to be able to answer any questions but I'll try and give a a high level overview um you know our ability
to respond in Fire Rescue Services is really contingent upon the EV excuse me the availability of the vehicles that we have we maintain a Frontline Fleet of four engines one Tower truck and one squad or heavy Rescue Unit we also have
in reserve three spare Reserve engines in one spare Reserve ladder unit the problem we run into is that when those Frontline engines go down you're bringing up the reserve so you can remain in service some of those Reserve engines are of an age that they should
not be operating and their reliability is not um what you would expect from a a city of our of our stature the intent here is you know to to replace engines according to our schedule for vehicle
replacement the problem with fire trucks is it takes what 42 48 months now to from the time you order a fire truck to get that delivered part of that is because we do custom builds so we we spec out those engines to have the exact
same compartments and certain features that that we have become accustomed to in working with suin who is one of who is the manufacturer of the more recent engines that we have acquired we have been um offered an opportunity to
acquire two engines right now um these are that are spec built but the spec is close enough to our custom design that it will certainly fit well within our operation and allow us to remove two two of our engines that
are 1990s are we going back that far Drew 98 and 99 yes sir so those are trucks that we should not have on the road it will also give us I believe probably one of the most modernized fleets in terms of any fire department that is within our immediate area um it
is a true investment back into our operations and an investment for the the protection of our citizens um we have identified funding for this so these engines nowadays in case you're interested in buying a fire truck for
personal use about $1.15 million each um for a grand total of 2.3 million funding for one of these engines is presently there within the capital depletion fund so we've got the money to go ahead and buy it again under normal practices we
could order that today and receive it sometime around 2029 uh by going this route we can have that vehicle likely on board sometime in October of 2025 So within the next roughly five to six months um the second
engine again at 1.15 million is not budgeted but there is uh some available funds to pursue that the the recommendation is to utilize approximately 352 ,000 from the current capital depletion fund for that vehicle
and 698,000 almost 699,000 from fire impact fees which can be used for vehicle purchases you can do that in police and in fire the department will utilize about uh 106,000
$107,000 from within the capital depletion fund to make up the difference to acquire that vehicle that is just borrowing from other vehicles that are funded and we'll need to backfill that in future years as those become ready for replacement Drew I want to offer you
an opportunity if there's anything I've missed with with respect to that on your operations and how these engines play in thank you city manager good evening mayor and Commissioners um we're really excited for this opportunity um one of the things when I came in here to do is
evaluate um our current response models Matrix Personnel apparatus um everything along the ways and there's three things that the fire department needs Personnel apparatus and training those are the three key elements um in order to ensure
a safe Community for our response uh one of the elements that I found over the time that we're struggling with a little bit is the equipment and the apparatus in there um I went back through uh I met with each of the vendors um we explored
vendors that weren't suin we explored vendors in Pierce and e1s and a variety of others at this time to see and ensure that a we're getting the best deal for the cost that we're getting and B what can we do about delivery times for the
fleet um anduin was able to come through for us um they were able to find two units that were in production today um that could be on the ground running by the end of this year that could help us um part of the challenge was we went through to be able to find the funding
sources which city manager went over for you which was a great collaboration with with everybody involved but this will now put all of our Frontline units less than five years of age on the road once we receive them um it'll provide our Reserve Fleet status all under 20 years
of service which is a huge leap from where we are today um I do have a cool cool little story if you heard my speech before I got married and there was one of the engines in there that I took pictures of from my wedding 21 years ago and that unit was 7 years old at that
point in time um so that was the status of our Fleet today so we're really looking to go still in service today it's still in service today it's one of the ones we're replacing it is one of the ones we're replacing and no I do not intend to purchase it for Nostalgia
um but we're really trying to invest in the Personnel um and the apparatus to keep us on the road any downtime that we receive it can be detrimental to the community and we really want to limit any potential d down time for that U for
that stand for any questions are we selling the two old ones and what are you going to get for them and does that figure into calculus at all uh we we did not add any funds for that as far as anticipated um cost that we're going to get they will go
into auction uh the challenge is is any fir Tru that goes over about 10 years of service the amount of money that you're going to get back for that is very very minimal um we're talking maybe $15,000 a piece um but it is a little
bit that can go back into the funds to replace shock you only get 15 grand for something that cost a million one yeah the reliability of of that engine overall the the scrap it for you know the parts and stuff is probably where
they're getting that value out of it but to put that in service creates certainly some liabilities for that Community without investing a ton of money back into it got you the um I do want to just say thank you to Drew and to uh deputy chief Waters and um Lieutenant Strauss
in the back uh they were involved in in really helping Drew vet this out and certainly to our finance team for helping figure out how how we can make this happen I don't like bringing forward uh purchases like this that uh are less scheduled but these are scheduled purchases we're just able to
do them sooner and that certainly is is a benefit so how much customization you mentioned that is is that unique to any every department or there yeah so every fir Tru which is why you don't see a lot like an actual Car Lot full of firet
trucks is every fir truck is speced out per the agency's need um that's based upon their response type um what 90% of what they do are how their fire tactics are um everything is very specific to each agency uh the spec trucks that we
got here have about 95% in line with what we do today in what our spec was originally what is probably the life cycle of this this the unit you're talking about how long it it's going to be the same life cycle so we're we're
going to be trying to get into a closer to a 10-year replacement cycle for these units um so we're not dragging these out 20 years um and we can still get into the resale value to in order to recoup some of the cost to offset um once you get over that 10-year Mark it's pretty
rough to get any money for them commissioner Dawson one of the things um to kind of further speak to that that that we're going to look at this became apparent to me when we had our brand new tower truck involved
in an accident when a oncoming vehicle decided to hit the front end take it out of service you start thinking about okay how many front line units do I have how much bench depth do I have if I don't have sufficient bench depth
um we're going to run into problems as well you know if I'm down for my primaries and I only have three backups that means I'm down one full engine so I think looking to the Future we're going to have to add a vehicle an additional vehicle that allows us to put one more
in reserve as backup you don't ever want to have to have as many Reserve Vehicles as you actually need and we running the same thing with solid waste you know it's making sure you've got sufficient depth there that if you're down a vehicle you can still deliver the
service so I think in probably in the next two plus years we'll be looking to try and find a way to fund a whole additional vehicle that'll allow us to put instead of how many do you have in reserve now four three three engines so you'll be able to have four Reserve Vehicles which is gives you a little
more sense of safety security there anyone else all right thank you thank you D thank you so we on to our resolutions are 2503 I won't spend too much time on
these uh mayor and Commissioners but Katrina if you could just go to the the map on this one so we we point out where this is this is the willbrook north final plat um approval so they did Issue a performance bond for this development
$7.2 million uh to re uh to complete all the remaining infrastructure items um so we do have that bond that that includes earth work sanitary sewer poble water storm water management engineering certification um this is 132 point9 plus
or minus Acres about 434 building Lots nine common Lots it is a CDD so all that water and sewer is going to be the cities all the roads uh Street lighting and drainage will be maintained by the CDD um this is also not that it has
anything to do with this project but generally what borders our efforts to create Willowbrook Road so that would run along MJ correct me if I'm not wrong I think on the on the inside yes thank you Cat so that's where Willowbrook Road would would extend down through
there so we don't we don't have an idea where all the lots are going to be yet or do we yes or is that yes sir there's a depiction of the the plat in uh exhibit B of your yeah I don't have my
iPad with me I wasn't sure if there was one on here or not I know I'm slacking we don't have one in here I don't think there's a slide I don't think there's there's not a slide we can we can add that for Monday if you if you like but it is shown within the uh the
exhibit it's a 16 page exhibit the item 11b um this is uh approval of a grant with do that has to be done through resolution so this pertains to the uh
the beacon at the airport Troy would you like to speak to this uh since you're the technical expert on that matter yes sir uh good evening mayor and commissioner so the airport Beacon is essentially a lighthouse for an airport if You' ever been driven by our airport at night you'll see it's not always lit up and that's to conserve electricity
from our normal resources out there so the airport Beacon essentially flashes is white green for a civilian double green white for military and white and yellow for a heliport well over the past year the green side of our Beacon has gone out several times the repairs for each time because it consists of getting
an 85 foot Boom Lift Every Time We want to replace a bulb we've replaced several Bobs we've replaced several ballast and for some reason unknown to the electricians the green side continues to go out so I reached out to our partners at the Florida Department of Transportation and they've agreed to go
ahead and replace this beacon in an 8020 Grant uh there's actually two beacons on the field because when the new one was installed they didn't remove the old one so this grant covers removing both old beacons and then adding a new LED Beacon that has a tilt pull that will fold down
to make it much easier serviceable so we won't need a lift anymore good question go ahead what are we with the um temporary or with the the new tower that we've been talking about coordinating excuse me can you give us an update on that yes sir so we actually
had our kickoff meeting about 3 weeks back with frequentes uh the equipment for the Barto site has started arriving in uh later this month for quentes is going to bring out a drone we have three sites identified we're going to take this drone between 65 and 80 feet in the
air and kind of evaluate which side is going to have the best potential where we can see one the lake with brown SE plane base and the overall view of the Airfield um late summer we'll start to see our Winter Haven equipment come in and we've already started equipping our temporary Tower because our temporary
tower that we use for Sun and Fun is going to be utilized as a training tower for the um controllers down at the BTO facility we fully anticipate this Tower to be operational November December this time frame now why that won't we see FAA certification right then the tower will
be advisory and nature which will operate the capacity that it does for us during in Sun and Fun um in light of recent events and uh stuff that's G on in the the FAA world right now I think we're going to see a bigger drive and a push for this technology um lately our
uh our partner uh John Helms down at Barto and Blake Swafford with Hansen they had the opportunity to go up to the FAA tech center in Atlantic City and they got to view this technology firsthand and they are standing there in front of 270 degrees of screen okay
there's a pair of binoculars sitting on the table and mind you they're live at Atlantic City complete training environment John hel asking why there's a pair of binoculars on the table if you're looking at TV screens the resolution is so high on these cameras that when he picked up the binoculars to
look at these TV screens what was a tiny little plane on the screen became full scale so it's amazing what this technology can do and it can pick up an aircraft four miles out with zero visibility so given recent events I think we're going to see a driver push and I think it's exciting that Winter
Haven will be named one of the first truly remote Tower locations in the United States and certainly you know the um so the Beacon's a big safety piece the tow is a big safety piece as you know our trip to DC in April we are F focusing
heavily on dedicated frequency that's job number one while we're in DC is to try and get a dedicated frequency um so yeah thank you Troy right thank you tro item 10 or 11 C this is uh final
plat approval for the Crescent Point subdivision this is going to be located south of uh on County County Road 653 um as you can see here to the north of this is going to be uh chainel Lakes
Elementary so this is 37 building Lots three common lots that consist of the storm water and open space areas lift stations rights of way dedication a water and sewer in this subdivision will be maintained by the city on drainage conve es and storm water areas will be
maintained by the HOA um and so this is recommending approval of the resolution Eric anything you want to add to that no I think only to add that uh our staff engineering department work closely with the developers of this
project to resolve a a water line uh realignment that needed to happen uh on the subdivision that is complete um so they're all ready to go all right thank you IEM item 12a this is a uh request for a
rezoning um Eric would you like to present this one please did I unplug okay um yeah so Avid group LC peti is the petitioner in this request they're requesting to rezone uh a approximately five acre parcel from i1
to C3 their intended use uh is to develop the property uh with a three lot commercial commercial subdivision so it is kind of a Down Zone it's currently zoned industrial i1 um they wanted Zone C3 so they'd be more consistent with
commercial um uses uh it is consistent with the existing future land use uh on the parcel and surrounding uses um again there there would be no Financial impact the Planning Commission did hear this on February 4th and
recommended approval um all notifications were met and staff will recommend uh approval again it's kind of a Down zoning uh right now it's I i1 they could do things like uh Auto Repair um truck repair things like that warehouses uh manufacturing so this
would be uh zoning at C3 for retail office commercial uses Commissioners we did um just so you're aware and I think Vanessa the city clerk has shared this with you we did have one of our residents who is in
this area that didn't speak at a at a planning commission me but intends to attend for Monday night that has expressed a need um she has a a hearing impairment and not that she needs a special accommodation for that but when this item comes up for discussion just
that the commission speaks to their microphones in a volume that she can understand but she doesn't need a special accommodation but I just want to remind you of that if you had seen that email come through and then the last item um after
much effort we have uh our ordinance 2513 which we will basically call our clean air ordinance for our parks and and uh public Recreation areas we don't really have any public beaches anymore but should that change with all the
Lakes we have over time um this in consist which is consistent with State Statute will prohibit the smoking or vaping of tobacco tobacco and tobacco based products in our Park spaces so MLK
Park our playgrounds our sports facilities it does not address cigars because that is something that is Exempted within the state statute um it is consistent with the p County ordinance that is similar in
nature um it does not address marijuana because marijuana is an illegal substance to have in your possession and certainly to smoke within our public spaces uh should that come back at some point for recreational consideration on
the ballot and be successful then I'm sure we will revisit this based upon whatever laws are in place that abide with that but for now this prohibits smoking and vaping in our public park spaces um Julie Adams and her team
researched this with our state Association her peers and agencies City attorney helped craft this I'll give him an opportunity to uh weigh in if I've missed anything you have not and we'll be happy to answer any questions I know this was something that was a priority to the commission to bring back we not
go ahead and just include marijuana what's the downside well first of all marijuana and correct me if I'm wrong but I think if you were caught smoking marijuana that would be a violation of state law Number One S this all came up because people were walking
around down it MLK smelling marijuana burning and we decided to do it through through cigarettes but I'm just trying to figure out why we couldn't list them too I granted it's illegal but I and I would agree with the city attorney on that that if if there's people that are
in possession of marijuana certainly smoking marijuana in public spaces that's a violation of state law medical marijuana can't smoke it in public Spaces by Statute or by by you cannot smoke medical marijuana in state law by state law in public spaces you can
consume it in your home okay but you you can't you can't be out in MLK Park I just don't know why we wouldn't go ahead and include it for posterity but whatever I think um to we're anxious to see that if that does come back and I think that
would I feel that one of the concerns of the the voters from my own perspective on that recreational bill was those very issues of what are the restrictions around it if it were to pass and I think that that's something that the um has
been expressed back to the legislators if this is coming back what are the laws how's this going to be determined where and when uh my expectation is that it would be considered much like an open container that we don't allow open containers in the public realm um when I
was in Denver last week I had an opportunity to speak with some uh peers from the state of Michigan that have recreational marijuana and where that is allowed and not allowed and again in public spaces it's not but in
consumption lounges and places it is um we need to see what those laws speak to at that point in time and I think that this is such that we can easily amend this based upon the rights that would be granted to us by the legislature at that
time right so cigar cigars are commissioner doson I will say that the cigar Lobby in the State of Florida is very strong um strong enough that when the state took away the preemption of
smoking in uh the control or regulation of local municipalities they specifically carved out unfiltered cigars so that means that you can have an Arturo Fuente
but you can't have a swisser site so those tipped cigars are not an unfiltered cigar um but yeah they that's within the statute itself and the same applies to state beaches and all right I will question them any
other questions would all right uh so that's it for the agenda yes sir so now we can have our H strategic update yes sir so Katrina can we go to the next there you go so we are
at the final one I believe of our first round of pillar Updates this is on economic sustainability which you see from your slide there this is about fostering Innovation to ensure enduring success this deals with everything from the job market and Workforce to um how
we procure uh items for our own operations and delivery of services uh what makes Winter Haven attractive to companies and industries that's our incentive packages and and support that we offer our support for local and small businesses so this evening we have
Bethany Owen who is our procurement officer who handles you know this $300 million budget that the city operates everything that is outside of the um the Staffing aspects of that pretty much runs through her office so we're going
to hear from her this evening as well as from uh Eric Labby our director of Economic Opportunity and Community investment thank you thank you good evening mayor and Commissioners I've got the privilege of addressing updates relative to the economic sustainability
pillar along with my partner Eric Labby um tonight I am going to be touching on procurement updates to include our efforts to support local small businesses and finally Eric will be addressing growth in the city as measured by permitting as well as
sharing some success stor and pictures what I'd like to go over first though would be our procurement by the Numbers before I get into that I'd kind of like to give you a brief overview of what our office uh does so by City Charter
expenditures up to $5,000 can be handled within the Departments expenses over that actually must go through a competitive bid process which is where we step in my office uh works with the various departments to issue those solicitations
to make those purchases um so you can see on your screen here that in 2023 we had 56 solicitations that were distributed by our office the following year we dipped slightly to 44
solicitations and it's my firm opinion that that decrease and the number of bids that we've had to go put out and work with the Departments to put out is a direct result of use of alternative procurement methods such as piggybacking and
Cooperative um both of those utilize a publicly announced competitive solicitation by another entity saving us the work and affording staff a quicker Avenue to the end result and frequently lower pricing now the term piggyback it just
refers to our use of a solicitation issued by another entity some something that we have been doing for a number of years saving us plenty of time and you can see that we have um we actually have 47 piggyback contracts we've added a few
more in the last couple of days um reasons that we consider piggybacking go well beyond just the saving some time for instance a good example would be say in Orlando Tampa PT
County solicitation that Sol solicitation has very likely reached a a broader pool of suppliers than even we could here in town so they would then also get potentially a better price than
we might here in this city so the end result for the City of Winter Haven when we utilize those is better price as well as the time savings and that is certainly a winwin for everyone a more recent tool that we have added to our procurement toolbox
is uh the national purchasing cooperatives sourcewell and Omnia Partners now these co-ops offer the advantage of readily piggyback contracts for immediate use currently we have 40
of these agreements in use Citywide recently these co-ops have also launched platforms similar to what you and I utilize when we purchase off of Amazon and in fact Amazon and Walmart are both available to us for purchase um
through the Omnia Partners contract staff is currently working with CFO Scott to implement a Citywide Amazon business account to expedite purchases obtain public sector pricing receive
rebates and to track and monitor our spend so procurement local reach one of the things that's near and dear to my heart is as well as the cities is engaging the local community in our growth and part of that involves
employing them to Foster that Community Spirit as well as to keep our taxpayer dollars local a recent initiative implemented has been the use of social media to Market our bid opportunities locally so that our local vendors can can
respond additionally uh staff has also presented at the central Florida business expo held at the RP funding Center and that was at the invitation of the City of Lakeland and in concert with procurement professionals from Lakeland
P County and the sheriff's department that event is an annual event and it focuses on inviting small and minority businesses to the table to teach them all about how we issue our solicitations and how they can get on
board so what's ahead for procurement sometimes that actually takes a look behind to see where we need to go forward as you all know 2020 was a very difficult year for everyone some more
than others and one result was a failure of many businesses which we saw as a reduction in the pool of suppliers locally with that reduction utilizing co-ops and piggybacks helped but it didn't always do the trick so one of the
challenges for us has been locating experienced suppliers so anything that we can do to help those new small business in town helps everyone out for example minor changes to things like our longevity
requirements creates opportunities for newer businesses to participate instead of requiring say 10 years of experience in the field we work with the Departments to talk to them about the doors that that requirement closes
and how if they were to reduce that to say three to five years of experience for all of the new businesses they're coming around that that can actually open up doors to those new small businesses to help them out which of course helps
us last but not least what is on the horizon for us here in procurement well staff is going to be implementing a a new training session targeting small disadvantaged and minority Enterprises so watch for that in the near
future everything that I have talked about tonight has been small steps but we're really hoping that those little small things that we can do will make bigger benefits for everyone I appreciate your attention this evening and with that I will turn it over to
Eric to talk about development thank you mayor Commissioners as we um fly over our beautiful downtown I want to talk about economic sustainability um Economic Development resiliency and what I want to communicate with this aiel is that it's really we are playing the long game um
these are efforts uh for the long-term betterment of our community uh as we grow and develop and and remind you that you know the initial conversations about redeveloping our downtown initially happened more than three decades ago they were talking about maybe trying to
set up a CRA to do something in our downtown you know fast forward to the C's being created in 2000 to the library being uh relocated downtown a number of complete Street projects that revitalized um much of our downtown and
encourage the private sector to invest that's really what economic sustainability Economic Development creating resiliency in your local market is all about we've done a good job in in the City of Winter Haven and we continue to work uh again playing that long game
uh doing things now that will impact um the quality of life in our community you know 30 40 50 years down the road um so a little little snapshot in time um along the commercial development side um we prior to to fiscal year 22 we we
generally issued somewhere between 5 six S8 commercial permits a year was kind of our Norm in 20 uh 22 we saw 12 commercial uh permits these are for new construction uh projects in 23 we saw
jump to 23 commercial projects um mainly because of multif family apartment buildings um contributed to that uh increase they are actually permitted as a a new commercial permit uh you can see in 245 and so far in 25 um just through
January from October to January 31st we've issued 14 so generally we're seeing an uptick in commercial permits and we're seeing kind of a transition in commercial permit permitting in the city of winter heaving we're we're seeing more um National Brands and we're seeing a
lot in terms of uh health care and new retail that is associated with a lot of the growth that we've seen in the last you know 10 or 15 years um sort of uh sping on that that national attention some of the things that we have at in our
toolbox um to help on the commercial development side uh one is at the count county level that's the Ador tax exemption uh that they offer this is mostly for targeted Industries so warehouses manufacturing um it's based around job creation and investment so a
lot of the um the new warehousing and Manufacturing that we see in the City of Winter Haven at Large Scale can utilize that adorm tax exemption uh we implemented tax increment rebates you all know what that is is all about within our um cras uh as well as we offer
reimbursement grants grants um for businesses I want to highlight that we are working on um two small business grants that are in development one is uh as it relates to the retail strategies that you all approved um which is that online platform where businesses can go
on and and learn uh how to how to better run um certain aspects of their of their small businesses but we want to couple that with a small Grant available through the crra to implement some of those ideas that they learn as well as a Florence Villa small business grant that
we are currently working on the the outline of how would work within the the Florence Villa um CRA couple of pictures to share um if you haven't seen them on the healthc care side this is Millennium um Physicians uh building if you remember that building right here in the
heart of our downtown that was really kind of like two separate buildings with a Breezeway through the middle that had a few offices in it uh that Breezeway has been enclosed uh it will h house about 20 physicians in there um so great jobs uh great new healthcare opportunity
and of course the Advent um er that will soon be coupled with a fullscale hospital out on Cypress Gardens Boulevard um kind of more in the downtown area we see the Upper Crust Pizza which which uh right out the right out our door here which I say I frequent
quite often um they utilize a couple of incentives available through the CRA including facade Grant and Alleyway Improvement Grant um to help get that business up and going as well as a new Sunny barbecue we're all happy to have that back in town um on the Industrial
Development side this is where where we really get our bang for our buck as far as our efforts um in terms of create being able to buy new fire trucks being able to create value in the City of Winter Haven um there's job growth um which of course is good for the economy
but they have a high taxable value compared to a low impact on public services um which is really creates that diversification that resiliency that you want in your local economy so here's the little Drone footage of the ilc I know
that Bruce is behind me in the audience so I won't say too much but um that's the 400,000 foot Coca-Cola building and as we pan to the left you'll see that in comparison to the 1.2 million square foot Warehouse building that we hope
very shortly will have a tenant um that is in the works and that's all I'll say about that um Florida can which you saw on the north side as you panned over um was recently purchased by ball as you know who has expansion plans um that they've communicated um as well as
project Mist who began their site work out there um we hope to get them up and going again soon as well as project Ray which has been communicated to you in the past these are all highly taxable um projects that create good paying jobs in
our community we we really work hard um in conjunction with the Winter Haven EDC to um to get these here and then we have Redevelopment opportunities um this is the site on us7 across from the Fieldhouse um that was in the newspaper
for potentially a new National big box um they are working through the entitlement process uh no deal is is done until it's completely done so there's you know still a hundred things that might you know fall apart in that transaction but we hope that that site
will be redeveloped uh very soon um within the City of Winter Haven that is a gateway into our community and so we're looking forward to getting that that project up and going um this is an interesting slide that I want to share with you around housing diversification and we worked
really hard to bring um some multifamily uh into the City of Winter Haven and I want to show you why um for about three decades in the City of Winter Haven um we hovered at about 34 to 35% of our
housing inventory in the city limit was multif family um if you look at this chart the orange represents your percentage of I think that's orange percentage of multif family in your community the dark blue is single family
and the green is is other so um mobile homes that type of thing um and you see we hovered for about three decades at about 35% multi family it started to tick down when we started experiencing
growth you can see in 2014 it was 33% and then 32% and then 31% and then 30% um by 2022 2021 it was
27.4% that is the lowest percentage of multif family that we had in our community since 1980 um and people were feeling it people couldn't move they couldn't find places to live they couldn't find apartments um and so we worked really hard on trying to get um some more units
we permitted about 1500 units um as you know in the City of Winter Haven there's some more under construction currently that has brought us up our 2024 number has brought us back up to about 29% of our housing inventory as multif family so we're getting back closer to
where we want to be uh in terms of housing diversification still a little bit more work to do um some of those projects include the Waverly out on Cyprus Gardens Boulevard um Carlton to Lake Dexter which is beautiful which by by the way mayor over a thousand trees were planted on that property in
conjunction with with the apartments um where there weren't any trees on that property before if you remember it was an old burnout Grove um that's great news this is the breeze uh under construction right here in downtown and this is actually a picture of not of a multif family apartment uh complex this is a picture
of the Publix that's under construction on Dundee um I threw that in there to say that as we add new units for people to live in and as we attract more re retail and different opportunities for retail in different locations it will change our traffic patterns in the City
of Winter Haven um and we anticipate it will change them for the better instead of coming all the way to us7 or coming all the way downtown for health care services now we have more options and people who live closer to these new options will have shorter traveling
distance to get to their services uh again the pros you're familiar with that and Florence Place um that opened right up here on MLK Boulevard and that concludes my presentation we'll stand for any questions you may have and I think
question go ahead bro well you already answered one question so apparently target has not pulled a permit but um can you tell me if Publix has pulled a permit out off of um out thomp Thompson Nursery Road that's the latest room I keep hearing out near the 7-Eleven or whatever Ruby lake at Thompson Nursery
let let me verify for sure I believe they have an approved site plan but let me verify and I'll have that answer for you on Monday thank you yes sir one we talked several times about small business initiatives um either through the CRA and this is one thing that I'm
I'm hoping to talk about Monday night in our CRA meeting but the heart for Winter Haven is on the heels of launching the first cdfi in P County and they will service not only P County but Highlands
and Hardy County as well but this going to be in valuable going forward once this thing gets off the ground to have a cdfi located right here in the City of Winter Haven so I want to be sure number one I think it would be important for heart forner Haven to come do a
presentation on the cdfi not a lot of people actually understand what that is uh or how it operates or what it's for um and then also I just want to be sure you know I'm G again discuss this Monday night but that we are you know actively
participating to do whatever we can from our C to help facilitate the cdfi launch and provide grants and funding uh to them so that they can facilitate that out because generally these are folks that can't that are not bankable yet
they their businesses that are just getting off the ground they're within the first two years of of operation they can't go to a bank to get financing and so a cdfi really fills that Gap and uh provides funding so that small
businesses can get established so we need to be sure that we're helping and that we're a backbone in in getting those things launched as well yes sir mayor PM I fully agree with what you're saying there and I think as soon as that program is ready to to have investment
in it the city is uh uh I would recommend to the commission through through budget and other means um to support that because it does go right back into the immediate community and it is uh safe safeguarded investment you know they are they are putting in play
the the necessary controls for that the people would not necessarily be able to get as you said Bank qualified loans otherwise so I think it is a a very important tool for helping get small business off the ground for people um our next update will occur in
on Wednesday April 9th I may tweak that a bit because as I'm uh sharing with the commission uh in some briefings that we're doing we have planned out our um uh strategic planning Retreat update for
uh this first year of the plan so I believe Katrina that is April remember the dates it's right before Good Friday it's the Wednesday FR Thursday before Good Friday that um 15th and 16th of April and we'll be getting that agenda out to you once it is completely
finalized um so we will judge that around the uh the responsible government pillar it's actually 16 17 sorry the City attorney is correcting himself it's the 16th and 17th the 15th is something else it's good Tuesday yes all right
that's it that's all we have this evening sir we have no other reports so Iain entertain a motion for join me stand join right