[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] um March 5th City commission work session we'll call this meeting to order Jennifer if you will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stand na God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you and for those of us you didn't have to come up Rob I was just we were just coming down to you uh for those of us who are watching on um social media or our network uh we are going to take a little break in our meeting right now because we're going outside to raise our pmia flag um you'll see pictures of that on social media so we are temporarily [Music] [Applause] [Applause] adjourned [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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wishing to come forward and speak to any item that is not already on the agenda please feel free to do so I don't see anybody okay so we'll go on to consent agenda we have the approval of the minutes from February 6th and 8th board and committee appointments to the board of adjustment and appeal the board of Finance hemic advisory committee and the library advisory committee we have the public art project signal box wraps and we have the Leland Chase outdoor gallery public art project at the Wastewater Plant we have the purchase of a replacement column lift system in the amount of 75,000 and change we have the construction management oversight services for the denan golf course restoration project colleagues are there any items to be pulled yes i' like like d oh okay I would like d and then the golf course so D which is the outdoor gallery public art project and the construction management oversight um vice mayor fry May what did you have as far as signal box wraps go we have the Leland Chase public art project it says 2C public art projects signal box wraps Patricia Avenue and Main Street on my agenda so that no that's not right 2C is the Leland Chase outdoor gallery public art project just looking what I've been given I understand okay so that's not on there can you give me a minute then I better look to make sure that we're all talking I apologize mayor that that 2C is the Le and Chase public art project okay and CU I knew we had a meeting that we cancelled so I assumed we were going to do that single boxes back right gotcha so mayor I was talking about D and D on my list here which is the the lift system just for just some general information and then e was the construction management okay so you don't want the outdoor gallery public art thing gotcha but mayor I went to hang on I was trying to talk to vice mayor first didn't mean to rush any and I had everybody over talking me vice mayor you indicated you wanted to pull something thank you mayor thank you for standing up for me no sorry so I'm going to uh February 6 minutes I needed to pull and uh and I was going to pull twoe but it's already pulled so it's cool twoe meaning the the the golf course but uh John's already asked for that to be pulled so so just a minutes for me commissioner from you well if it's not too much trouble I you know I if if if the commission would be so kind to allow me to pull to see all right which one is it cuz mine's obviously not numbered correctly that's utility box wraps I'm just kidding okay so the outdoor gallery art project that's correct yes the Ws how about you commissioner Walker you know I'm going to support is pulling 2C for the purposes of uh community and Resident awareness jeez we're going to have a long meeting he said it so much more eloquently than I okay so we have a consent agenda let's get through that piece of it with minutes of febr sorry do we have a conf agenda and or did we pull for those who are watching what's so odd what's so funny about this is consent agenda is meant to be able to you know approve a bunch of things with without having to have full presentations yeah that didn't happen today I'm just teasing my colleagues have every right to do that I'd just like to give them a hard time thank you for pointing to me when you said that appreciate that all right so consent agenda the minutes of February 8th all of the board committee appointments can I have a motion to approve so move second okay commissioner gaw and commissioner tor is there any public input on those items seeing or hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes unanimously so now we'll go back to the first item that got pulled uh by vice mayor which is the February 6th work session meeting minutes yes ma'am uh yes I just had a change it's the um 24-17 page about wage uh w bridge bridge and uh basically I rewarded the whole thing cuz it made it sound like the waybridge neighborhood wanted the bridge torn down which they don't want it torn down so I just rewarded it and uh and talked to to Rebecca she said to read this into the record so the per first paragraph instead of what's there would read the waybridge bridge has a long history and there have been discussions by the city the W Bridge neighborhood and the town homes much of the disc period much of the discussion was that when the walkway is no longer safe the bridge will just be demolished since it will not be cost effective to replace it period that's it okay everybody okay with that change and adjustment um I'm not sure um well I mean that's just for the minutes it's not a decision right so so John Let Me Clear well that was we asked didn't we we asked the city to look into it for the ownership right so I was just setting the place so the first paragraph just says what the what the neighbors have been told but now it's a whole new day where actually that bridge can't go away and the minutes reflect that the bridge can't go away we're going to look at doing an assessment immediately about what happens to the bridge and then look at the options for whether the walkway under the new scenarios would actually be coste effective to keep or not with discussions with the Neighbors at the same time so so it just it's just setting the first paragraph which basically says that the neighbors had been told for years once it was not safe it's going to be torn down but our utility director and Public Works director clarified that bridge is not going anywhere um because of the pipes that are attached to it so it's kind of changed the scenario so this first paragraph incorrectly stated that the neighbors were saying that it should be torn down but they never said that they actually would like for it to stay so I was just clarifying that does that make more sense sort of um but I I thought one of the ways we left it um city manager maybe you can help me out my understanding my communication with you um was that the principal issue is the ownership of the bridge and we need to and that's reflect minutes down here too that they'll have to look at all the ownership issues there's multiple the first really sort of the first step because it yes well why don't we just remove the statement of they said they wanted it removed whatever I I'm the one that stated it I see it's inaccurately stated I'm just clarifying it okay so it's it's your it's your statement so now I understand it somebody's microphone is not on right thank you I I I'm okay with I'm okay with the with the with the change as long as we we made the statement about about what what the next uh step really is the next step really is to understand the ownership and that's in the minutes yeah and I'm just going to say discussion ensued with utilities director Bennett and Public Works director Bartlett advising regarding the research done on the history of ownership of the bridge and of the area noting that it is a complex issue and I know they're looking at it now so I think I think it's covered in there as well okay anybody else all right can I have a motion to approve so moved okay vice mayor frainy commissioner Walker are there is there any public input seeing or hearing none all in favor signify by saying I any opposed motion passes unanimously okay then we go to the Leland Chase outdoor gallery public art project um you wanted that Pro pulled but John was that one of yours too uh no no okay it was you yes ma'am okay this is just a is it just a question you have or I no just a short presentation and the idea is this has actually been sitting in in the advisory committee for a very long time and it's finally got some legs it's finally moving forward and it's part of the community outreach it's just I think it's a wonderful project uh Community awareness as commissioner Walker would say didn't mean to steal his Thunder uh but so I just think it's worth acknowledging the residents what's going on where we are okay hello hi good morning mayor vice mayor commissioners uh Nicole Delino strategy and sustainability manager I'm really going to hand this off to Elizabeth brinklow our art consultant and the chair of this subcommittee Karen Raider she's sitting right behind me um will come up and walk through um the details of this project and share um where we are now thank you okay thank you good morning mayor vice mayor and Comm Commissioners um as said I am Karen Raider on behalf of the arts and culture advisory committee and as chair of the Lee lychas outdoor gallery project subcomittee um I'm here to introduce the lelan chase outdoor gallery project to you and the process taken to arrive at our recommended artist and the um design proposal the arts and culture advisory committee formed An approved six-member subcommittee which included a neighbor representative of Ida lubik uh city of dened and public works Brian antonian curator and retired director of marketing from defac David shankweiler um arts and culture advisory committee member artist Simeon leedman CB Simeon is the one who initially proposed this project many a years ago um another member from the advisory committee Scott sards and myself Ken Raider Secretary of the committee and chair of the subcommittee uh thank you to the subcommittee members for their time and enthusiasm for the project we were carefully guided throughout the process by Elizabeth brinklow the City's art consultant the um RFQ informed the artists of the requirements the preferred theme of celebrating diversity and the per artist stien of $100 for licensing of their work each artist could submit up to two works for consideration for the project and there were a total of two public meetings held one was held in November of 2022 and the final meeting um was just held February 21st of 2024 all meetings were conducted under the public art master plan process and honored the Florida Sunshine Law six artists in total submitted nine artworks and the subcommittee after careful review and consideration uh recommends All pelis County based artists per the guidelines the selected artists are D yel Kelly Stony Lawrence Richard Logan Mark Mitchell Heather rippert and Margaret M schy this recommendation by the subcommittee was further supported by the recommendation of the denan Arts um and culture advisory committee on their February uary 23rd monthly meeting Elizabeth will now introduce you to the project and the artwork thank you good morning mayor vice mayor Commissioners staff thanks for having us this morning nope I'll do it I got to go back on okay great um aligning with the city public art master plan to share public art throughout the city the location of this installation is 1140 MLK Boulevard on the public facing exterior wall of the Duneden Wastewater Treatment Center this project by its title Leland Chase outdoor gallery and its theme of celebrating diversity aims to honor two women who made significant contributions in a neighborhood that was home to several hundred people covering roughly 18 Acres with the pelis Trail on the west the hood plant now known as the coke plant Coca-Cola plant to the north Skinner Boulevard to the South and Martin Lutheran King Jr Avenue formerly Highland Avenue to the east the neighborhood was settled in the 1880s by black workers who sought employment on the orange belt railroad alira Chase was the founder and first principal of the Washington school and social Center established in 19 195 it was located at 1114 Douglas Avenue the school was organized solely for black students because Florida's 1885 Constitution mandated the segregation segregation of blacks and whites in public schools later renamed in Almira Chase's honor as Chase Memorial Elementary School the school was closed in 1963 following desegregation within American public and private schools with the closing of the school Lorraine Leland would learn from Chase Memorial parents that their children needed support to do well in the previously all white schools Leland answered this call this need with the coordination of the successful Duneden education and richment enrichment program known as deep um kind of moving forward in time the affordable housing project known as the Leland Lorraine Leland project was in her honor as well and this realized project is in this neighborhood as well on almost it was on almost three vacant Acres on Leland lurine Leland Street between dougas and Martin Luther King Jr Avenues the location of the Leland Chase outdoor gallery with the historic contribution of these two women is what prompted the name to be selected for the project by the arts and culture advisory committee the location of the artwork reproductions will be on seven of the unobstructed exterior public public facing wall panels of the Wastewater Center wall two images on each panel size 4X 6 ft the orientation for which is noted in this Photograph a center panel will display one art image and signage about the outdoor gallery more panel panels are available and there is funding for up to five additional Works they're not included in this presentation because that RFP has not been released nor approved by arts and culture as yet installed on the Tarpon Springs Chamber of Commerce building in 2020 this 25 foot by 4 1/2t commissioned reproduction is a portion of renowned artist Christopher Still's painting changing tides it was printed and installed in the same manner as our proposed project the Tampa company Speed Pro printed and installed this work and is also prepared to complete our project using 3M control Tac graphic film with a 3M gloss over laminate applied by heat it stands up well to the anls as evidenced by the four years the still work has been in place per guidelines six artists submitted nine images for review by the subcommittee artists recognized regionally nationally and internationally submitted a diverse collection of Works including photography watercolor oil painting conceptual pop painting and multimedia pieces these images celebrate the unique Heritage and customs of a wide range of cultures contributing to a broader understanding and appreciation of diversity despite differences in culture and backgrounds there are uni Universal themes that connect us all Richard Logan from Clearwater in his work we are the world formally uh diversity at play while watching his daughter playing with her new friend Richard was reminded that racism or Prejudice is not natural it's taught this Mosaic of photographs represents people from different backgrounds races nationalities religions and Lifestyles it shows that we all belong to one big family Margaret me schy from unincorporated Clearwater kiddos the title of this work was inspired by the celebrating diversity theme of the Leland Chase outdoor gallery project this is an original work for this project and it captured the V vivacity and joy that kids display when they play together one of them is wearing a cape because MEP sees youth as a kind of superpower those who possess it can see the enormous potential of the world without barriers to hold them back Heather rippert also Clearwater her fabulous flamingos she considered the work diversity combined with something representing Florida her fabulous flamingos came to mind a gathering of flamingos is called flamboyance flamboyance or to stand out and diversity a range of human differences led to Turning one of the birds in the flamboyant blue the artist feels this captures the essence of it all dedan Stony Lawrence created folkloric dreams Stony was fortunate to witness the beauty and tradition of Spanish folk dances at a local event she wanted to create a visual repres presentation of the experience that would encourage viewers to learn more about Spanish culture and the significance of traditional dances within it Dia l Kelly from St Petersburg faces of infinity the faces of infinity is an oil painting that portrays the idea of embracing diversity and sharing cultures it is inspired by mother goddess figures found in different parts of the world especially in Africa and the Middle East the painting symbolizes the universal love and care of a mother figure the spiral or shell shape is noted as the most common shape in nature the single line of human Humanity also Richard Logan I love it all humans share a common lineage in The evolutionary process our physical characteristics including skin color are determined by factors such as time location environment and social structure as well however beneath the surface we are all fundamentally the same we are all part of a continuous line of humanity the second proposed work by Margaret me schy taking the grandkids to Honeymoon Island this Lively piece was developed for a previous project that showed her in downtown Den Eden with her beloved grandkids and her skateboard she's a character who likes to challenge stereotypes in this scene they're at the water's edge on Honeymoon Island getting ready to make sand castles Stony Lawrence folkloric Vision stony's photographs celebrate the unique Heritage and customs of Spanish culture contributing to a broader understanding and appreciation of diversity despite differences in cultures and backgrounds there are UniFi unifying themes that connect us all dance is a universal theme that connects us it symbolizes Joy expression and celebration transcending cultural boundaries and highlighting the common Humanity that unites us the last work proposed is by March Mark Mitchell from St Petersburg he a conceptual pop and multimedia artist this piece celebrates the unity and Oneness of humanity it features different races of people holding up a symbol together representing the idea that we are all one people despite our differences this piece promotes the message of Tolerance acceptance and unity and serves as a reminder that we are all equal and should treat each other with kindness and respect this last slide shows all of the images in layout for installation the top row will be to the left of the signage and image in the middle and the bottom row will be to the right so we're asking for your approval to move forward with this project thank you commissioner uh thank you all wonderful presentation what what is the timeline for this the timeline is to have the artwork approved we receive the final images most of which I already have that are sized appropriately for the application needed by Speed Pro and then it will be based upon their timeline of how it works in to their Works work plan but I would say within the next two months two months I'm quite helpful very good right thank you that's all mayor any questions commissioner walker uh no questions vice mayor questions no commissioner torka questions I did have one quick question will the work have um the title and the artist listed underneath yes it will it will it will be recognized also on the signage with a QR code that will lead to the website similar to what's happening with the TD ballpark jwalk project yeah but absolutely identified some of these already have the markers of the artists and my recommendation is that they have their signature and then their um website also within a certain size yeah because I just know we have a lot of walkers in that area and that's to me I think having the title and the artist name and whatever else you think I'm no expert in this area but the title I think says a lot and the you know the artist name recognizing them absolutely but just given that we have a lot of Walkers a lot of children in the area okay actually in the subcommittee uh and also in the arts and culture advisory committee meetings they had hoped um um to be able to uh see a walkway on the side of the Wastewater wall Center to have a winding walkway but I leave that to Brian antonian okay anybody from the public wish to come forward and speak to this item all right seeing or hearing none uh may I have a motion to approve move second okay commissioner gal and commissioner Walker any final comments yes I I just want to say that um there was a great presentation um the execution or the implementation of our public arts master plan is um you know creates the vibrancy the inclusiveness in the culture of our city and I really think it was important to present this present the the great art that is going to be displayed here in our city and also to give the the public a little bit of insight into to the thought and care that goes into this so thank you anything from you what Rob said there you go I'm just going to thank the artists because you know this is a relatively inexpensive project in a lot of ways considering the work that's gone into it so I thanks for you know the interest of them coming in because it it's great I think it's going to look great there so and thanks for you guys' work anything very briefly outstanding presentation thank you and great for all involved nice I love the art I love the art okay all in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed motion passes unanimously thank you thank you so much all right then we have the lift station I believe that was you commissioner Tor yes ma'am did you have a question no I I would just like to have just a real general just so we all understand uh I I had the conversation and I understand what is being purchased and and why okay can we have a very quick presentation hi Scott caterson fleet manager good morning mayor good morning Commissioners um I'd like to show you what you are purchasing Bingo these are truck lifts which is allow us to get underneath access to garbage trucks fire trucks and large trucks um they have a span lifespan of about 20 to 25 years Ours by time we get these if they're approved will be 24 years old um this is necessary our guys entrust their lives to these lifts and that's what you're purchasing that's awesome any anything else the Picture Tells All tells the whole story all right anything else commissioner TGA any question no anything commissioner no ma' okay anything from the public this is in the amount of $ 74,8 5363 can I have a motion to approve so move second okay commissioner torga and vice mayor fry any final comments not for me all right safety all in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed motion passes unanimously thank you thank you and then we have the construction man management oversight on the golf course I believe that was also you commissioner TGA was there something you a particular question um no I I thought it would be good that we we just hear what's happening uh regarding this subject matter and since this wasn't in the budget previously um and uh so I thought it would just be good to to review okay quick good morning mayor mayor Commissioners can I just say you if they're going to do a little presentation I just want cuz my question is going to be and maybe you can hit it at the same time to clearly differentiate the duties of the city MH stanic drmp and and uh Chris Spence because all four of them are doing different pieces of this project management okay yes okay quick so yes so the item before you as uh commissioner torer inquired is um drmp is one of our gec uh engineering firms and they um the T that we uh requested a proposal in scope and fee for was for construction Administration services and that's um different than than to um the question that vice mayor frany had those services are different than what uh stantech and uh Chris Spence is a sub subconsultant to stantech are providing stantek um as you know was the design the design firm that was responsible for um to and as part of their scope they're they're providing construction oversight with respect to the Donald Ross restoration components of the project to make sure that the Project's completed aesthetically the way that that we wanted it to be done what drmp is uh going to be providing is contract Administration services and essentially augmenting some of our staff in in engineering because we don't have sufficient staff currently so we asked them to actually visit the site they came out and toured uh the course with uh Blair and Laney uh prior to developing this the scope of services they were provided the contract documents and the plans they were provided stantex scope uh to make sure that there were no duplication of efforts their services consist of uh about 10 hours a week for a construction administrator and 6 hours a week for a field inspector it's a time of materials contract not to exceed the 64 $62,400 um some of the services they're providing which again are are different than what stantex charge is um they're performing on-site inspections as needed and what we really want them to focus on are those components that are below ground not the restoration components that um Chris Spence design um so we want them to make sure the irrigation system is installed correctly we want to make sure that they are monitoring the erosion control and the bmps because of the proximity to uh K Creek we want them to review monthly pay applications for accuracy and completeness so the the construction oversight is is different than contract Administration contract Administration is we want to make sure that we're compliant with the prompt payment act that we're processing pay applications in a timely manner that we're rejecting them when they're not accurate uh and providing documentation for that there will be U doing weekly documentation of the contractor's activities and providing uh photos and weekly reports they'll uh review and monitor the project schedules and twoe look ahads that's critical in um being able to avoid um and document any delays to try to um mitigate any change orders that might come along uh during the course of the project um they're going to verify um materials that are Incorporated in the project if they're submitting any um uh alternates U Blair's already received requests for that even before uh last Friday's groundbreaking um so and also they'll be reviewing the contractor uh and make sure that they're performing the QC testing and maintaining test records so that we're in compliance with the contract documents so essentially and and they'll also be part of the substantial and final inspections so this is really the contract Administration side make sure that the contractor is doing what they they bid um and that we're complying with all the requirements so that we don't get into a situation where we've got change orders or challenges and requests for additional funds later on through the project because we haven't accurately documented what's occurred during construction not so much the oversight to make sure that it's constructed and looks like what Chris Spence and stantech designed this is more to make sure that we administer the contract and that we get what we paid for any questions John thank you now um fundamentally fundamentally the difference here is a staffing yes question from from Den Eden and we really didn't have the capacity to to handle this with everything else we have going on correct and so we're just really Contracting that service as opposed to providing it yes sir so it was always it was always the intent and and I applaud that because I think that's uh a cause of several problems that we may have had in the past M and we don't want to see that on this project so yes sir I just wanted to have it clarified thank you thank you uh question any questions okay uh anybody from the public wish to speak to this item okay uh we need a motion in a second so move second okay vice mayor fry commissioner Toro any final comments no I'm just going to say I think this is uh Pennies on the dollar uh a lot of good eyes on this project that's critical and we don't want to find out later something under the grounds not been done right or enough fill or whatever so I think it's uh it's smart money so I'm supportive and so when I asked that question which sounded like more of a comment it was a question and and it was answered by our Deputy city manager and and so this is just just a followup just to make sure that everything is done properly so I'm happy about that any final comments I uh yeah I just um in terms of uh proper contract management uh it's really important to dot those eyes and cross those tees something with especially something that got the visibility toist does and uh um yeah I this is I'll Echo vice mayor Pennies on the dollar money well spent needs to happen so okay uh all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes unanimously thank you gentlemen I also think it's important that we had a wonderful groundbreaking we did on Friday so the project is moving forward and plan to reopen to the public in November fingers crossed right November yes great job parks and wck okay uh now we have action items which is the proposed agenda for March 19th um and mayor it does look like I have an addition of a citizen survey Workshop item on that March 19th me agenda yes just joking yes okay so um oh so just going over the survey that's going to go out we're not going over results right exactly so the the questions are are mostly uh the same as we've sent out before there are a couple tweaks that we made to some of the questions and I want to share those with all of you before we send out so it won't take long right it will not take long okay yes ma'am I think you just made the comment that led right into my comment which is if you look at the March 21st meeting the evening meeting not a lot on that meeting not a lot on this meeting merged I think they make a full meeting so I was suggesting Maybe we in this case maybe don't do the Tuesday meeting and we do our Thursday evening meeting so it's just a thought for the commission yeah I just don't want to do that butas my colleagues could you express the purpose of why you don't want to consider it I I just don't want to keep shifting and moving around I think it I think the public is used to having a Tuesday morning meeting and a Thursday night meeting I think continual changes for not a good reason is problematic that's why I I again I just think we have a plan we take to it and I mean I'm fine with leing me alone just to say that this commission's very freely canceled some Thursday meetings and the to me the Thursday meeting is the most important meeting the Tuesday meeting has been intended to be a workshop meeting there's very little workshop on this so I thought it might be good but I'm good I'm not no I I totally get what you're saying but I know when we've cancelled the Thursday meeting that's been drama which is why I say we don't merge or cancel any of them let's just keep them the way they are so that's kind of my motivation I withdraw my request I'm good okay anybody else have anything to add to the agenda okay can I have a motion to approve so moved second commissioner vice mayor frany and commissioner Walker all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes [Applause] unanimously okay how about before we jump into storm water utility rate discussion which I imagine will be a few minutes long maybe we take a quick coffee break coffee break and commissioner vice mayor I really wasn't trying to be disrespectful yeah yeah no no no I'm good you know I'm good I just wanted to clarify yeah no and and I wasn't trying to be disrespectful I just I'm fine I really am but thank you for that MH all right we'll take a five minute break and then we'll come back and jump into storm [Music] water [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] we will resume our March 5th uh City commission work session um and now we go to the storm water utility rate study results and discussion Miss Sue and Miss Michelle good morning good morning we're very happy to bring this before the commission for a consensus direction we have a lot of good information and as you know we have the pro environmental program manager of our storm water program Michelle mono as well as our consultant Raph Talis with um Terry B and Tristan Townson did I say that right Terry right great we're um happy they have a presentation to show you and Michelle has a little intro good morning mayor vice mayor City commission and City Administration Michelle Monaco environmental program manager um we just wanted to touch on a few points prior to getting into the presentation um so we know that managing storm water is complex with aging infrastructure sea level rise impacts and increasing cost it's been 10 years since our last storm water utility rate study was completed in 2014 prior to that a rate study was conducted in 2010 we've worked really close with reptiles to review categorize and prioritize our capital projects and more importantly we've woven in resiliency efforts into our storm water program to protect our community from impacts of sea level rise tidal flooding storm surge and heavy rainfall events we met with the board of finance and storm water advisory committee twice we presented our preliminary findings in October of 2023 and the final presentation on January 17th um I'd like to hand it off to Terry and Tristan with raap Talis financial consulting they will walk you through the presentation and present their findings and recommendations from our stormw water rate study thank you thank you sue Michelle um Commissioners Madame mayor thank you for allowing us to be here today to present on the storm water uh we have um a bit of a a longer presentation but we're going to try to keep it concise to the extent but if you have questions make sure your microphone is on yeah um T is it yeah is that is that better or getting I know the people at communications need to tell us if that's okay yeah yeah why don't you do that okay I can do that want you to sit yes there you go uh is this better yes it sounds a little bit better okay I'll try to make sure to um speak uh closely probably more comfortable for you too so it is it is much more comfortable um yeah thank thank you again for um allowing us to be here and to run you through this presentation we have a bit of longer presentation if you have questions um let us know we'll try to get to them um uh one of the other things I wanted to mention is in addition to myself in Tristan our firm has a national practice uh that focuses on storm water and so two of our team members that assisted on the project aren't here today but assisted Us in the formulation of the study um and they have a lot of expertise with respect to uh storm water programs all across the country and lent their expertise in the formulation of some of the assumptions that were made during the study so just wanted to um reference Jen tanes and Christina cillo and their role in the engagement as well as well all right so we're going to run you through um uh our PowerPoint we're going to touch on the uh scope key objectives some background issues uh the financial model and basically the the heart of the study with the findings of our recommendations with respect to the rates for the system which we'll uh summarize again at the conclusion of the presentation our findings and [Applause] summary so um the scope for our engagement uh was to focus on an existing program review as well as the development of a revenue sufficiency analysis which is effectively an assessment over whether or not the um fees for service are sufficient to cover um the cost of service and we're going to go into a little bit more detail about what that entails in the um subsequent slides um but as part of that we developed um a 10-year Financial forecast uh it actually goes out uh farther than that but our focus is on the five and the 10year period respectively um and ultimately we're um tasked with proposing or making recommendations about the user fees for service to um help ensure the fiscal sustainability and the overall objectives of transitioning the stormw water fund to a more proactive and less reactive um operation so the storm water um utilities established as an Enterprise fund um you know in the State of Florida you know many are established as an Enterprise fund but not all are um uh that means uh for members of the public and others that uh the user fees for the system have to fully cover the cost of service and that we aren't utilizing any uh general fund Monies to um uh fund operations is what that effectively means and it's uh Enterprise funds are established for a business like operations where there's a service being provided in exchange for a fee um the storm water operations um as Michelle pointed out have to operate in a complex environment of regulatory uh regulations excuse me um so there's a national pollutant discharge elimination system ndps permitting and um the co- permit the uh city is also Co co- permittee with pelis County for the ms4 permit um and so uh the graphic to the right that you see on the slide enumerates the many uh different elements to the permit requirements uh that are responsibility uh for the Enterprise fund activities um such as uring structural controls and storm water collection system operations flood controls post construction storm water controls um elicit discharges um you know among other things so a very highly regulated um uh business operation so to provide a little bit of context we're going to step you through a little bit of the operating and the capital needs as a background um what are some of the things that the stormwater Enterprise fund does um you know the operating level of service is to um address storm Inlet uh storm Inlet in baffle boxes cleanings um street sweeping uh mowing dishes maintaining the storm water drainage systems proper functioning um Shoreline and ditch maintenance um and is also responsible for things such as private contractors such as aquatic weed control but this is just to give an idea about what are some of the operating activities related to the storm water Enterprise so what are some of the capital needs we have some images to share with you that sort of highlight some of the key elements um you know obviously flooding is an issue in Florida particularly for Coastal communities um so that's an important important element of the storm water fund if we have uh properly functioning systems we can help mitigate and help with drainage we have um the need for Capital reinvestment we have an image of the uh gaban um and also water quality um and uh Pollution Control is important so you have the image of the Kuro uh Creek the um financial statements report that the capital investment that the city has made to date at original cost is around $34 million and that includes 59 miles of ditches and about 57 miles of pipes along with canals outfalls inlets uh grates catch basins um so there's a lot of infrastructure investment that's already been made for the um storm water system but I want you to kind of remember that value of 34 million because again that's at original cost and we have some estimates to bring it back to inflation adjusted could give give you a better feel for what that um real investment replacement cost looks like maybe um some additional background is that over the last several years and I know that you hear this a lot I'm sure as well as we discuss it a lot that inflation's been very high and that if we look at the rate at which our user fees have gone up at the last five years relative to General inflation uh we have a little bit of a gap with the cost of service so um we developed this graphic just to help illustrate that point but the main takeaway is just that you know costs have really gone up over the last several years and construction costs as an example um have gone up quite a bit and uh you know we have quite a bit of capital needs identified in this plan which I'll be touching on on a a few more times during the presentation so this was just to kind of point out that you know inflation has been um pretty significant increasing the cost for the city to um uh be able to fund Capital Improvements and other costs of operations here's um some information out of the financials uh the bars represent um expenditures and then the line represents our Revenue growth and our revenues overall and you can see that um the increases that we've seen um uh haven't increased at the same rate as our cost increases the um bars represent our Personnel costs uh you know in dark uh the Stacked bar they're broken out by element you have other expenses and those kind of fluctuate and one thing to be aware of with um storm water operations is that your operating costs can and do sort of fluctuate with uh non anually recurring costs and so we have some volatility in oper operating costs they're Capital like projects that we need to do but they're expenses and they're important and so um you can see what we've done over the last several years and how it's been increasing but that there's um a larger recurring need that's been identified through the fiscal year 2024 budget um and that our revenues another key takeaway are that our revenues basically cover our um operating expenses um and uh will not be sufficient to cover the capital component um and so that's an important element of this plan is that you know as we develop this a big driver to it is going to be the capital needs of the system um and I understand that this slide is a bit uh small for everyone to see um the purpose of this was to to just to demonstrate that uh the city prepares annual you know five 10year plans within um uh uh Finance they put that together and uh prior to us engaging in the study these were the preliminary findings and what it was showing was that even with the plan at the then time which has evolved I know staff has done a lot of work to look at the capital needs of the system um and so there could be some variances in some of the values that you see here relative to what we have in the plan since this is a bit more dated um but it did show at the then time that we were going to have a deficiency um you know within the near term um with implementation of some of the capital needs identified at the then time without any additional change or adjustment to the user fees so this is just to kind of point out that this was sort of one of the uh driving um reasons to maybe engage in a uh Financial uh Revenue sufficiency rate study plan for the stormwater Enterprise fund and I think I mentioned earlier if you remember that value the $ 33.9 million of capital investment at original cost I said that you know we were going to present to you what that inflation adjusted value would look like um and so we calculated or estimated um if we used um the engineering News Record it's an industry accepted uh inflation index for construction costs we use this in many of our rate studies along as our peers also rely on this um measure of inflation and construction costs and then we applied that to um the listing of all the fixed assets because we knew uh what their original cost was in the age and so this table shows and gives you a feel for what's the average age of all that investment at original cost and then what would the replacement cost be in today's dollars and then the final column that we present is is what is the amortization of that replacement value and it's sort of a proxy for the depreciation you might see in your financial statements except for it's been adjusted for inflation and what that kind of gives you a feel for is sort of an amortised reinvestment requirement in in today's dollars of what's needed to maintain that system so it's a helpful uh number to compare to relative to the financial plan and one that I'll be referring back to a little bit later on that weighed in on some of our uh recommendations uh for you so that provides some of the background um the reasons for why we were um you know what we were scoped to do why we were engaged to do the um study um and some background about the storm water operation themselves now we'd like to talk more about the specifics of the financial plan that was developed to support the recommendations around the rates um the first um pre slide that we have here uh gives you a forecast of our operating costs that were based on the fiscal year 24 budget and adjusted for inflation over the next 10 years um you know we've assumed between a 4% for personnel and 3% for all of our other operating costs um we've also uh broken down into a little bit more detail for you um outside of the Personnel cost all that other operating costs we we have that in the pie chart on the Le hand side of the screen so you can see what is comprised by the green bar in the annual operating costs so the capital needs of the system um there were some elements to that that were very important one of them that was communicated by staff going into the engagement was resiliency was an important consideration and um they're driven by some of the city's um uh existing plans uh like the Epic goals and the dream plan as well as um you know the the insurance uh for FEMA Community rating system fud plane studies um and helping to try to reduce our uh insurance cost within the community so um these things all tie into uh resiliency and some of the other uh studies and objectives of the city um so there was a lot of consideration that um staff made when they were selecting and kind of prioritizing the needs but um and I think we touch on this in the next slide if you want to go there um a lot of this did um rely on Independent Consulting Engineers work effort to develop a master plan of those capital needs um some of those projects were um incorporated into and highlighted within this study we've listed several of them here for you um however uh the draft report that we prepared to supplement our presentation today that is available uh does have exhibit to which details um each one of the capital uh projects and the timing those projects in Greater detail um should anyone wish to explore our assumptions there um working with staff we try to identify um a prioritization scheme to help communicate to you and members of the public around the priority of these needs and so uh we created uh not just uh priorities based on uh the need by time this is organized by time but also by program which we're going to show you on the next slide but before we go there I just want to touch on that you know there are some projects that have an immediate or pressing or or high priority needs and what you'll notice is that they're identified uh by the purple colored projects you might notice though that some of those projects and the funding is identified in future years even though they're considered a high priority and that's because some of these things are annually recurring needs so we tried to categorize you know what is an immediate priority but also something that is annually recurring um so that members of the public could understand that there's a good amount of these projects that are pretty critical um to the operation of the system then we have you know IM within the same class the immediate priority but our near-term and maybe not annually recurring like some of these other projects um then we identified you know what is a near-term focused and um identified need as well and then we provided some examples um in the box to the right presented another way we also looked at it uh by the program staff looked at these projects by program so this gives you a feel for how much falls into the category of resiliency how much is roadway in drainage how much is infrastructure repair and replacement um one of the things that's been identified as part of this engagement is a need for significant reinvestment for repair of infrastructure that is at or near end of service life um and you can see that as evidence by um this chart to show some of that annual spending uh by year for the capital Improvement program and then this final chart presents that Capital needs um in one final way and that's by how we're developing our funding plan and wanted to touch on a few points about this funding plan overall we've identified about $70 million in need um it averages in the near term about $5 million per year um that's a little bit more than two times that value I talked about earlier that that was that amortization at 2.8 million but that's because of where we're at in our asset life cycle and we have the need to do much more replacement now so while that amortization um is a good number to look to and we probably don't want our revenues after we pay for expenses and debt to fall below that level um because of the needs that we have today we've got to fund a little bit more uh than that uh to accomplish this uh Capital Improvement plan and all of the needs that have been identified um so uh in addition you know we did understand that there are going to be some costs that are not an annually recurring and um that have long service lives so to the extent that they had longer uh lived Assets in the capital Improvement plan we explored the use of debt funding um and that helps mitigate um the need to raise rates because we pay for those Capital plans over you know 20 or 30-year period for the financial plan we assumed a 25e um you know repayment term as an assumption um and then the other element to this and we'll go into more detail about the debt financing in a moment but the other element to this is that is also important is that uh we did identify uh grant funding opportunities to fund the CIP um now I think uh we had a lot of discussion internal with staff about how realistic do we think it is that we could receive the grant funding the projects and um the basis for that were the current programs that are available and known and whether the projects that have been identified meet those criteria and that was the basis for the identification and many of these projects are 50% um Grant match a lot of times so um that you know in some cases it may be 100% like if it's an assessment study for example vulnerability assessment study that that might be fully funded but my point is is that there was an assumption about the user grant funding that also acts to lower the rate increases we identified so one of the slides that we have for you towards the end is to present to you what happens if we were to fully fund it internally without uh the user grant funding just so you can get a feel for what those impacts are um however staff felt that these were um likely achievable given what we know today um but that's something that we'll need to continue to Monitor and evaluate and so one of the recommendations we'll be making a little bit later on is the timing for our recommendation so we're really proposing a three-year plan and I'll hit on more why we're doing that later but some of it relates to learning and better understanding you know the grant funding aspect of this financial plan and and how much grant funding we'll be able to achieve to really fund what is a significant amount of capital reinvestment relative to the storm water fund so as I mentioned you know here's a breakdown of our assumptions when we develop the debt uh funding plan to fund those capital projects uh that we're going to require additional um debt and assume 25-year replacement at 55% interest rate um and that results in annual Debt Service um over the near term of about uh 400 a little over $400,000 per year um we did identify over the 10-year period more debt but this is the near-term debt that's been identified I think some of those programs um that are identified in the other year um uh you know are needed um but the amount of debt that you would issue and the level should probably be reevaluated closer to the time of the need of those improvements particularly in the final three years where you have some major significant uh resiliency projects identified so I mentioned I'd be referring to that you know amortization of that 2. 3 million a few times in the presentation today and um another way that that uh number has sort of influenced our recommendation was when we looked at the capital and the financial reserve policy for the Enterprise fund um currently the policy is um operating working capital reserve of 90 days plus um uh 500 um uh, for Capital needs and we felt the working capital reserve was adequate but we wanted to based on discussions with staff uh provide you with a recommendation on the capital reserve since it's been some time since that was looked at and in recognition that the capital needs of the system have really grown over time um the other rationale for this is that often times um for the ability to budget in appropriate projects we have to have adequate cash to um be able to appropriate funding for Capital Improvements so that's another reason why we're recommending increasing the capital reserve Target and we sought to try to create a basis for this and um our basis was to go back and look at that replacement cost but um recognize that the numbers we were getting um when we factored in some considerations for example we know that not all of the capital is going to be funded from our rates 100% some of it's going to be debt funded so we said okay well if we amorti the capital cost at original cost and our replacement or inflation adjusted cost maybe that gives us some bookends that we can look at to recommend a policy Reserve then we said okay if not everything's um cash funded some of it's going to be debt funded maybe we only want to hold the reserve for what's maybe pgo or cash funded so we applied a 75% adjustment factor to that number to get um some options and then we looked at what would those values look like inflated over time to the last year of the forecast period so with like a 3% inflation and that's where those final four numbers on the B bottom of your page um that was our thought process when we were considering a recommendation for you um where we landed was to try to Target something closer to original cost at that basis recognizing that going from 500,000 to let's say 2.5 million would be a um steep move in a short period of time so our initial recommendation and the financial plan targets staying within the 1.3 to 1.7 million over the forecast period for a capital reserve in lie of the $500,000 existing policy so when we developed our recommendations because we were holding a higher cash Reserve um you know we have to have some slightly higher rate increases to do that um to maintain the higher reserves but we think that it's prudent and recommended and that um we didn't go as high as what we thought you know the total need might be because we were concerned in balancing you know the rate recommendations to not have too high an increase to the residents um and um that all of that information uh was culminated into our final recommendations for the rate impacts and we shared all of this in presentations to the um financial and the storm water advisory um committees and and boards and um took their feedback we had presented I think two times to both um groups and um this is sort of where we land Ed um as I mentioned before um we had u in the past we've adopted or we've done planning for fiveyear increments but we think that um we're recommending right now a three-year plan of adjustments for your consideration that we're seeking to get some guidance um from the commission on um and um uh the basis for that is because of the desire to want to get a better handle on the grant funding situation um there's also the consideration that we have a um significant need in the near- term and that if we want to be proactive and address um the RNR needs renewals and replacement needs of the infrastructure that its end of life that we were going to um need some um uh substantial increases in the near- term what that translates to to a typical residential customer is an increase of about $3.75 per month um per year over those next three years with um additional rate increases to be re-evaluated as needed um there's the possibility that um we may get additional grant funding than what we assumed within the plan um to the extent that that's materialized um relative to what we've assumed um we may not need to raise the rates any further than what's identified within the three-year period absent just basic inflation on our operating costs um the converse could also be true the extent that you know um we may not get as much grant funding as identified and so for those reasons we thought um as a team that it would be better to recommend a shorter term plan and then bring back any future rate adjustments for the commission's considerations uh at you know after that three-year period um should we Implement um the recommendations as as they've been identified um you can see the chart to the right presents sort of the cash flow requirements of the system and the dark bar on the the Stacked bar represents the funding requirements and the dark bar on the bottom represents our operating expenses as we presented before um along with our um existing and proposed Debt Service um in the in the red pink color along with our cash funded capital and the green line um solid represents our existing revenues and the dotted represents with the adjustments and so the difference between those two lines represents the um Gap that we have to overcome if we want to execute uh the capital needs and the capital plan the way it's been constructed with the funding plan we've assumed I mentioned earlier in the presentation that should we not realize the grant funding what would the incremental effects be and we were presenting that and so you can see that you know over time it'd be roughly $2 per month um within uh the last year of the 5-year planning period um but in the the near term you know it wouldn't be as significant but these are greater um if we don't get uh some of this grant funding um the other thing we wanted to present to you is our projection of cash reserves I mentioned earlier the recommendation about the current um uh Reserve policy and their proposed policy and the yellow line represents the current policy the dotted Blue Line represents the proposed policy um and you can see generally within the financial plan we meet or exceed the um uh proposed uh policy targets um only in I think three years do we fall a little bit under but we get back above it um as we're issuing debt in the timing of the capital plan so in conclusion through our our detailed work effort with staff you know the current program has been identified as being somewhat reactive that we have significant Capital needs with assets that are approaching end of life that we have resiliency requirements and other um regulatory driven needs for our Capital plan um that are really driving um the rate recommendations that we've made to you all uh today and um as a result it requires some substantial near-term adjustments but that we think that with um the implementation of those adjustments um the outcome of that would be a more proactive uh Capital Improvement plan to achieve all the objectives of the City identified through the various plans like the Epic and and whatnot so um with that we'd like to um thank you again for the opportunity to make this presentation and open up for any questions you may have thank you very comprehensive I know you guys have worked on this for quite a while and I'm sure there are a lot of questions so I'll go to vice mayor first please thank you mayor um so um actually second time I've seen your presentation I was there for one of the boort of finance and storm water so that helps cuz it's uh pretty dry stuff right yes um you know and a lot of questions I've talked to behind the scenes with Sue and and so I won't um you know get too crazy for the commission um one question I did have it's it's a question that's always lurked in my head and I'm just going to ask it I get asked a lot by citizens street sweeping so when you Street the you you sweep the streets like where does the dust go does it flying air and then come back together does it get sucked into the system like so I get asked that all the time and I've never really asked the question in a good way so can somebody answer that I I'd maybe like to defer to Michelle and Sue to maybe answer that since they're more the experts in this area so for our street sweeping program um what happens is you know the street sweeper comes through the road they collect the leaves the solids we bring it back to our yard and we actually sample our sediment and leaves and all the debris and then from that how that's related to our npds program we're able to quantify from our sediment that we're capturing on our roads how much nitrogen and phosphorus we're removing from our system and that's what also Keeps Us in compliance with our npds regulatory um program thank you Mt I'm sorry can you describe what that acronym is for people that don't know of course um the national pollutant discharge elimination system sorry go that's okay um so when you show in purple something like North Douglas San Mato Drive adaptation plan um that being a priority like have we determined what that will be or that's just we know we need to do something and it's has to be determined so we got to get ready to fund it yeah again I'd like to defer to uh Sue and Michelle um because I think that they could maybe better answer that but um you know I will say that when we developed this that was a question we had internally when we were going through this to communicate this to members of the public and to the commission about the need for these improvements and so um I think that um the question was that you know what are the priorities from an immediate standpoint and th you know those qualified either through the master plan or through the lens of um pressing need it could be RNR driven it could be regulatory whatever it was the idea was that the timing we needed to prioritize that to get it done um and so that was why we tried to develop this to help communicate but yeah I'd like to defer to Michelle and Sue about why they put that particular project maybe in that category correct well what you see here are the some of the examples but within the program so those are the four um categories the big programs there thank you um there are projects within those programs and so what we've done is we prioritized the programs that you can see we've spread them across based on the actual amount and how many how many there are but then in the projects is where we get into the priorization the criteria by which we evaluate what needs to be done first so flooding of structures they're real criteria that we look at each one of the projects that are here if it's already on the master plan they already have the reasoning as to why that project needs to be done it could be a flooding it could be water quality it could be um rehab it could be you know failure of infrastructure um and then we have our condition assessment which is this uh study includes the ability to have more condition assessment of our existing infrastructure so we have included also the program amount for that which is recurring but we know all the projects have not been identified we've identified the projects we know about and prioritize them and as we do the condition assessment we will add that and that will become our capital for those rehab projects so we have a lot going on there but they're all individually prioritized so yes it includes projects that exist um that have been recommended through our master plan um as well as um line items for what we know will be recurring replacement and or rehab also resiliency we know we're going to have an adaption plan and we're going to have um things from that adaption plan so we have a line item for that currently we have included the projects that have been already identified where there's coastal flooding and structures have been impacted then from structures we go to roadways if roadways are flooded so you know it's a priority a prioritization based on a lot of different criteria for that particular project okay so just I'm just trying to have Clarity here so when I see something again like uh North Douglas s San Mato where we know there's a problem do we know the solution when we when we put it as a project do we have oh yeah this is what we need because this is exactly what we're going to do here do we have that kind of clarity May um for that project well they were already identified North Douglas um not not the resiliency the thing that we're working on now we need the adaption plan for those options and actually we're not waiting for the adaption plan we actually have a consultant um looking at different options now as to what could be so the adaptation plan really is looking at the options yes mayor can I elaborate on that a little bit and I think it's important to to note that that we did at the very beginning of January meet with a consultant and in specifically in regards to the north Douglas Area understand that vulnerability assessment is funded but it's it's at you know in the future and we feel that we need to not wait uh for the results of of uh you know the vulnerability assessment or the or the adaption plan and this is the same consultant who did the master plan in 2020 and the important part is though what we put on the table is um we know that we have this problem uh give us a solution and it may be Millions it may be it may be much less than that but tell us what the solutions are and then we can make decisions based upon those recommendations so we're not waiting um and and you know we're looking forward to the results and they're actually um uh because they did our master plan they're up and running already very familiar with the area very familiar with with you know the entirety of denen so um but I think it's important to note that we're not waiting for the adaption plan for that particular area no I understand now thank you I just wanted to be clear on what that actually meant in there so I and and again that one says San Mato there there is a project already um identified for uh bua Vista San Santa Barbara um Charles um so we do have some projects that were identified in our step master plan and so even though you saw names and examples they are all different and some are there for different reasons and we just like Baywood um Shores we also aren't waiting on that we're you know moving forward but we we know that the vulnerability assessment and adaption plan will include also recommendations for those areas as well as any other vulnerable areas and how we can go about it so that's another reason why we were supportive of the three-year um rate approval or you know looking for guidance but then come back and look because we'll have more information and we'll have more projects identified great can I can I addion vice mayor can I add to the north Douglas conversation yep sure we already talked about this and um and that's the Cedar Creek and I I know that Jennifer you mentioned that that that will be included in the vulnerability assessment but if you are already going to move forward if you already have a consultant moving forward with some solutions for North Douglas that's familiar with the area then it feels like Kuru or Cedar Creek has to be included in that it's on the task list for the consultant to look at yes for for North Douglas correct yes not just the vulnerability study correct okay thank you cool um go ahead yeah that's okay and then um I think the last thing I wanted to ask for right now is um so the last page of your actual report it gives the the the uh rates for different communities and you know we're you know we're kind of in the middle a little to the right of middle um but of course as we do rate increases we'll be way to the right of middle um so I'm just curious um well I know how the the finance board kind of responded and said well you know we need what we need in our community um and so this is almost we don't care about this and so I guess what I'm asking though is how do you how do you see this comparison play out like you know what's you know is it really pertinent pertinent and and why why the differences why would we jump to the kind of the higher leg with this and maybe people are looking at making changes themselves but just kind of give me your view of this chart and how we would fit into it with these rate increases yeah I I it's a complicated um answer to the question but try my best I think that first and foremost a lot of what you see when you see rates there can be um an accounting element to it so not every one of these are going to be Enterprise funds and they may not be fully um funding the program through the rates and charges for the service um the other element to this is that um you know the needs of the system as you identified in the discussion the needs of the system may be unique um you know a Coastal Community versus you know more Inland community may have different needs um the age of the infrastructure Bears into the consideration if you're if you you've been more um if you if you have um more investment and you have newer infrastructure that doesn't require that Capital you may not have the same need to raise the rates in the near- term and then there's the other matter of you know the overall policy and your communities focus on what you want to do with respect to your storm water system if you want to be um more proactive there's a bit of a cost to that um to um be you know ensure that you can Implement your uh Capital Improvement needs um you know but sometimes you got that weigh that against other factors and you know communities have to make their own decisions about their policies and their rates um there's been some time since this study was published but I believe the Florida storm Water Association had done a survey at one point it might have been 2015 or so or maybe even longer that was assessing at the then time the rates and you know across the state on average what did they look like and did they think that they was adequate and um and this might have been going farther back in time but I want to say that you know maybe it was like5 or $10 per month the average at the then time and they were saying that we basically need more than double is what we really need within the system so I think that just that kind of points to the fact that there's a lot of need out there and you know the fact that we're seeing a lot more climate adaptation plans and the focus on resiliency coming to the Forefront means that these needs are probably going to be growing as Sue mentioned for from the um condition assessment so I think that that was why um you would have noticed that um conspicuously was missing from our presentation today um on the Council of the Committees that you know perhaps this wasn't the best um element to focus on since it wasn't really as relevant to the needs of the city uh in the decision-making process and that's why it wasn't included but included within our report for full disclosure uh no thank you for that and and and it is interesting I I thought it was important to talk about it here even though in in the uh The Advisory meetings you know clearly they had looked at it in detail and felt like yeah this is this is not how we can really analyze what we need so I I I think your answer was great vice mayor if I could elaborate um Terry was right on on point so one of the things that we looked that and um you know we've got several of our staff that work at different agencies for example look at city of zmore uh one of the things is as Terry indicated the benchmarking is not always indicative of the use of just Enterprise funds to uh be able to effectuate those projects that we've we've identified in either the master plan or CP and so you know their charge was to look at a 10-year window but there's there's a method to the madness on why we're having a three-year recommendation and if you could maybe go back to that one previous slide that we had so one of the things that aside from looking at um those Grant funded um assumptions that we've made and um the vulner the vulnerability assessment um now the one that's got the this one um you know we're in 2024 we're looking even though we looked at a 10-year window on the CIP the recommendation that's being made um for the commission's consideration is a three-year window and if you do do the math that gets us to 2027 so if you look at some of these other agencies and how they can manage to implement these projects they're not all funded out of the storm water utility so as we look at the next Penny campaign you know aside from the grant funding that we might get there may be some pretty large storm water projects that we want to make as far as an identification of signature projects in the penny campaign so even though we're looking at a 10-year window we're looking at how can we fund these things not solely on the back of the storm waterer utility so a lot of that that's why you see the spikes beyond the the current Penny Window because we might try to include some of those projects in our Penny campaign moving forward so that we can fund them uh not only with storm water utility dollars but also Penny dollars and then some grant funding as well well Jorge you read my mind I was thinking just that that that as we look at that next Penny I absolutely think we have to see but trying to take some relief off some of the rate structures so um so thank you for bringing that up as well and you kind of already merged in the being a Coastal Community into it so that's that's all I have for right now thank you okay commissioner TGA thank you mayor so I was going to step in and ask a serious question about Enterprise funds because um just for clarification you had mentioned that Enterprise funds pay for themselves through their their rates and and of course this was just discussed you heard the discussion here so it's not necessarily like that so I just want to make that really clear uh we had an opportunity to do a little bit of that um when we had some some other funds currently here we did not um we had 2003 I think you mentioned and 2020 we had plans and things weren't completed out of those plans so we know we have some shortages and we know we have some major issues here um a frust a little bit of a frustration for me is that we always hear we have a consultant that does the rate and we have another consultant that goes out and determines what we need and gets that to uh to our staff um and so right now we really don't know what each one of these what each one of these things are going to cost so I just want to bring that out and just lay it at the table and move right off of that we we really don't know um so we look at some of these rates um you talked about inflation um I am not even going to talk about that at this point in time because nobody can follow that uh we have inflation that's Indescribable to someone we we don't know what the FED is going to do and we don't know how this is going to work out we continue having inflation um so there's always a justification to have to have an increase um I would like to uh first I want to thank jge for standing up and and and bringing bringing that point up about how we have monies that are going to be available for us in in in the future I also want to point out um that just to everyone that that we are a coastal city and we don't have to talk about that because that's so obvious to all of us some of us moved here because it was a coastal city and we now know we're going to have some perhaps issues um that are related to storm water that might that we haven't even discussed here yet um I noticed there's some commun communities that were not NE necessarily mentioned here uh but we've got we've got lots of water coming in lots of different places there's uh I know we have we have houses homes houses uh where people you wouldn't think would have underground water and they have underground water um flowing into their into their not only their houses but into their garages Etc relatively on a constant basis so we have water we know that um frustration again is is that we've always gone so far off into the future and yet we didn't we didn't complete some of those tasks I like going three years okay I don't know that we need to SP we I don't know how much consultant money we need to spend after the three years okay but we know we're going to have a shortage here now the question really becomes for all of us and very complicated to say what should we have this rate increase be commissioner is there a question yeah I just almost did that right there so the question really is how much does that rate increase have to be yeah and you're not you you would probably tell us more if if you didn't know the funding if you didn't know the funding mechanism corre yeah I I think um you know I my background is in economic and finance I'm not an engineer um and so I do have to rely on um the expertise of the professionals that do condition assessments understand how drainage systems work compliance with regulatory requirements to advise relative to the projects I do want to touch on the fact that some of these projects that were not completed were partially not completed due to you know the funding availability is my understanding and that that was part of the comment the general comment being made about going from a reactive to a proactive system so if we increase the revenues to the system we'll have more revenues available to help ensure that these projects are getting done um I think that um you are correct in that the CIP um there could be additional projects that are identified however there has been a need that's been identified um in the interim and we did do some analysis to sort of gut check how does that compare and we presented that for you in terms of the um replacement amortization of the capital cost in other words if we simply say we don't need to improve the system beyond what we already have but if we were to just replace it the way it's constructed today at today's dollars and then amortise that over life the assets what does a recurring need need to be and that was that you know $2.8 million or whatever it was that we presented earlier um uh in the financial plan and as I mentioned the average need within the plan is slightly above that at that $5 million level I think that you need that what's already been identified to start to move you from this reactive system to a pro proactive system um I'm basing that assumption on that you know an independ kind of analysis but also relying Upon Our experts and professionals with regard to the identified needs and these projects uh coming out of these master plan this is a project of gation I I would say that I would say that you need you know in in no system will you have perfect information and you have to make unfortunately difficult decisions without perfect information but I think that this is maybe the best that we have for you today with what we know and this is our recommendation and of Science and of art the um important element for me is to know that what we're doing and how we're doing it is done in the most efficient and effective manner um as we conduct that so for example what I what I mean to say in that let's just say we had our own group that does something that's related to this and so we know they're the ones that going to do it so we want to make sure they're the most efficient and effective when they do that for our uh constituents monies that go into this um that's very difficult to know here because obviously we're always just going out on a bid or or or getting something done and it is what it is so it is that that part of it is difficult to know how efficient and effective we really are at handling this um I think that that's called sustainab ility for us that word was used but sustainability is is really important to us so it's it is really hard I think for us sitting up here to understand which one of these projects and we really can't Define them and and to understand what you've done so what you've done is summarize is for me is you've taken the information that you've seen here you're not sure what part of it it is is is accurate or is it's not sure I mean none of us would know I wouldn't know that if I were sitting there based on the information I got my problem is that I'm not really sure where our priorities really are going to be off into the future so I I think our staff should respond to that please thank you um yeah I do have a couple of comments there's an exhibit attached to the agenda item that um lays out all of the projects that have been identified um they're actually identified with engineering I mean with um reasons as well as potential costs so they actually have been identified we identified everything we currently know about or that was in a storm water study so we do have realistic estimates for those and criteria by which we prioritize those we also um the study includes um the model so our goal with this study was not just to get an answer about the rate but it was to have something that we could use to evaluate what how that rate is doing against the projects that we do and it has a model that we can actually enter and change and see what that impact is Terry mentioned the financial plan that was done by uh finance and um also is um reviewed by the board of finance and so that is a good structure yeah um my goal when I I was hired was to put some of these pieces in place the structure in place for the city to be able to use these and and um when possible to do them inhouse and when needed for expertise or um outside the scope of what is capable for internal resources to then go outside and get those but to do as much as possible as well as setting up some of these measures so that we can tell are we efficient are we doing the the best thing C criteria for prioritizing the capital projects is critical we can do that at another what Workshop we can talk about that um but it is one of the primary components here that allowed us to come up with these elements working together as a team and you're just seeing the surface here but there are identified projects these are real costs and when I mentioned about a line item for things in the future we also are trying to be very real istic and we know there are needs out there that will be identified there's just a line item out there with an based on financial data of our past as well as what does our infrastructure cost now it's all based on financial data and real facts so that we can make good decisions so when we get closer to that we'll have those projects identified and they will have real costs associated with them that won't just be a line item they will come before this commission every single thing comes because it goes into the budget with detail but there is an attachment that has a lot of detail for where these costs came from right now that have resulted in this recommendation and in the study so my question that I was just going to ask was so please relate this to this uh to your reserve requirements here that were mentioned a change in our reserve requirements oh the reserve policy recommendation to increase that and and your question was specifically how does that relate to that yes I was I was going along and saying we have numbers but again I think this is a staff question for why you want that type of res Reserve policy well we we as a team again we talked about our need for having resiliency projects and having enough cash available or Reserve available in order to get these projects out the door um that's been an issue I've seen for the last couple years here not just staff engineering staff that are available but what happens when we do need a consultant and there's um not a sufficient Reserve now to cover what we need to do capital and and you know to have those even when you're applying for a grant you have to have the funds available 100% of them when you apply then you get it back uh the 380,000 for that vulnerability assessment um I think the storm waterer um letter stormw water advisory committee wrote a letter and said that it's being funded by the utility that's because we have to fund it first then apply for reimbursement so it's critical that we have the funds available in order to do the work proactively here there are uh that condition assessment it's going to cost money we need to have that Reserve that's in-house and it will result in more accurate projects with more accurate costs just doing the right thing at the right time spending the right amount and because I come back to the same concept and that is the penny money Andor the arpa money that we use we could have used some of that monies or we can use the penny monies for some of that so we're looking at rate increases and I just want to be I just want to pursue that so I did thank you commissioner gal thank you mayor I was kind of going to go down the same road um just to make sure that I understand this properly uh we haven't had a rate study in 10 years and so we were kind of limping along at I think it was 1.5% and if I did my calculations correctly the recommendation is actually 22% approximately some somewhere around that and that's a huge hit on on the residence and it's for threeyear span and right just so we can tie it all together uh we're also waiting on that vulnerability study to then create the adaption of what the results are from that and uh sorry just moving uh I don't I don't know that I've got a question it was a wonderful study thank you we need to be doing this I think every 10 years is way too late um so I'm a little disappointed in that uh so you mentioned the exhibits that we had um is that something you created or how long have we had that type of modeling how long well we have the capital plan we've had all along all the projects were not um they were just identified as they come reactive and put on the list and then really it was more about funding what's available for funding and then also um what's available to be designed um as to how it was prioritized there was of course consideration for flooding and things like that the things that were obvious um but we now have the criteria defined we used a lot of what was done verbally um to actually put it in writing and Define okay this is the emminent failure and it fits in this category and then that's a higher priority so some of the exhibits are of course came from the modeling that was done in the study and um the the conclusions and the summary um like the benchmarking even so it depends on which exhibit you're looking at the report obviously was what we funded and and were provided so that came strictly from the study if I may this is actually the first time that we've created that resiliency bu as well that's right and we thought that that's important uh for the community so that they can see that we are you know our activities towards resiliency and that there and the funding sources and all those things so that's part of this rate study as well all right uh I I I'll Reserve everything else for comments I really don't have any other questions uh so thank you all very much commissioner Walker h yes ma'am okay so we have implemented a rate increase every single year to the tune of about a about percent and a half right okay yes sir um and just uh just confirmation of my understanding um the your recommendations are based on uh debt issuance in the out years combined with a rate in increase or are those mutually exclusive is one or the other one and the other how how is that yeah they're they're related um and um the chart that I'm showing that um you see here is um a bar chart of how we plan to fund the overall identified needs and um we have identified the need for some debt funding in the near term and generally speaking when you assume debt within a capital plan uh for an Enterprise fund that allows you to pay uh for that Capital over time so you can realize the benefits of making the improvements today um if we were to try to make a recommendation about rates um and it's a it's um a zero sum game here and we didn't have the debt funding we would have to alternatively raise our fees and much higher than where they're at to generate the revenue um to be able to afford those projects if we still wanted to prioritize and execute those projects so the relationship between the Assumption of debt and how we fund the capital plan is such that you know debt can be used when appropriate for projects that have longer service lives um to keep the rate increases lower for um the residents in the near term um there is you know just for full disclosure there is an interest expense associated with that debt um so some folks may be um from a policy pers perspective may be a versa debt but I think it can be an effective tool to help balance um you know uh the uh customer impacts um and also to have the future rate payers that are going to benefit from those assets contribute to some degree um but there is an interest cost associated with that financing yeah um and just so I understand that um you that the the recommendation or the the number you used was 1.7 million over 10 years is that correct for the um the debt uh let me go here so we we were assuming in the near- term issuing um debt that would result in annual payments of uh slightly over $400,000 per year however the 1.7 million if I'm not uh hopefully I'm not confusing things but I think that was relative to the capital reserve recommendation can you help me get there trting um no I I see that that I think that's the answer okay all right yeah I I wasn't sure but yeah that's the that's the 1.7 million so um they're somewhat related but also separate in that you know the the capital reserve Target that we have today is 500,000 and that's really not been looked at at a very long time and um we couldn't find the basis for that and so we said okay well if we're going to recommend and look at comp hensively from a financial perspective and in talking with um you know the city's Finance director discussing around you know what should a recommendation be that we tried to formulate some basis for it and so um that was how we came up with the 1.7 million yeah and can you go back to that Debt Service chart yes sir so we have existing Debt Service um to the tune of $800,000 per year the um um that's three different loans that are outstanding um that debt service is going to drop by about you know three $400,000 after um the 10-year window and then it's fully paid back all the debt including the 2014's outstanding bonds um by I think um 20 um uh 45 so um some of the debt that we've assumed in the outer years would um wrap around the debt that's dropping off to minimize impacts to customers but because those are kind of further out in time we didn't spend a great deal of time talking about that financial plan um for the outer years okay so the this is debt that we have already assumed okay yeah this is this this that you see right here is being proposed to fund all the needs of the system because without this we wouldn't be able to do that those projects or we would have to have much higher rate increases to generate the funds in such a short period period of time to execute the project because we have a limited amount of cash within the fund today okay and when you talk about realizing the benefit of the the debt assumption yes you're really talking about the amortization of the debt itself right well uh yes and also referring to the fact that you get to realize the capital project that's really the main goal is that we're able to fund the capital project I think the other considerations when you're weighing the use of debt versus go I call it pay as you go funding or cash you know funding from your user fees is whether or not that project has a long enough service life that matches with that 25-year amortization and the benefit is to the rate payers today um when you do assume that because the impacts to them aren't as significant if you want to realize the benefit of the project doing the project okay now that makes sense um just shifting gears here just a little bit um you did mention one of your recommendations was the rec classification of staff duties um and maybe this is more for staff um we just went through a reclassification study uh how is this different the reclassification study was basically looking at the classifications ex that exist currently and not what the needs are of the department or the city but just simply how does it relate to other uh cities and current rate rate of salaries um this one recommendation that we have in in the storm water um won't be the last one I be I'll be bringing um you all know we have uh quite a few vacancies that we have um had a hard time filling and so we've really taken a look along with this study at what are the needs and how can we best get to be proactive and what kind of classification what's the right job um for that to be so we're looking at you know combining position positions reclassifying them trying to eliminate um positions that aren't being able to be filled anyway and actually getting what we need from a city perspective to to get this like the condition assessment done so utilizing those in a different way is there a cost associated with that yes there is a cost associated with it which is included in the study um also we've looked at Jennifer's suggestion is you know if we have two positions and they're budgeted you know can we eliminate two to make one and you know we're just open to looking at that in this case um yes there's a cost associated with it um we looked and um uh Nan and I worked very closely together we um and they've been helping us a lot with the Wastewater um camera and and inspection um they have already got their condition assessment for their entire system and now they're just keeping up with it um so they do help us out but we looked at um sharing that equipment and there's just no way that we can do it because they have so much but um which is in the recommendation to add um one a camera we'll make sure that the uh equipment is you know able to be shared if one needs to borrow or the other and as we do with our voring if if one needs to help the other we just jump in and do that but we'll have more educated and they're also going to help us with training so we have looked at that internally and how it will benefit the whole city can and there's a possibility of sharing and unfortunately in this particular case there's not um but just sharing of resources and knowledge cross deart departmental collaboration that's that's awesome um North Douglas I want to just talk about the classification of North Douglas and Baywood Shores um I I have to say the immediate attention purple scheme I um I'm not sure what that means but I suspect that just so I can kind of uh make sure I understand this is is that these are projects that we are actively pursuing and looking towards marching out on expeditiously in advance of the vulnerability study and everything associated with that is that a correct assumption that that is a correct assumption and and because they're so complex there will be more to come um there are some longer term things that will have to take place in order to help secure these areas from such a vulnerable state but short-term and immediate what can we do that's what that's what that purple is about and we are progressing there we have um received one of the valves for Baywood Village um the other should be coming shortly um and we have a an an I know it's a consultant but um again sometimes we have to go there for that expertise or we just don't have the staff um to look at those others to recommend which valves are the best to be placed so that we can get a realistic idea on cost cuz we've looked at a lot of cities and what they have in place and the tremendous maintenance cost for that so is it going to result in US needing more people or other equipment and so they're taking a quick look at that and giving us those results before we replace the rest but those are shortterm quick um before the hurricane season comes and I know that it's not just related to hurricanes and flood it but you know the high tides but uh that is correct we're doing everything we can really for them short term okay um yeah thank you for that and then um the last question um I I know in the board of Finance letter um they talked about uh pursuing federal funds um do we have a idea of what that looks like have we identified specifically Federal uh resources that we can start kind of going after right now and well um we um we talked a a lot about a lot of different funding sources with the finance committee and maybe um less want to chime in um what we some of the vulnerable when the vulnerability assessment and implementation plan is completed it will make us we will meet the criteria then for some of the federal funding that we would like to pursue excellent and so what is that um what does that criteria look like exactly good morning mayor vice mayor commissioner Les to the finance director yeah I think uh most of that from the board of Finance was regarding the discussions I think that staff had during their presentations where we talked about future federal grants and state grants that we hope to apply for so I think that was just kind of their response to that but one thing I did want to mention was we talked about the the rates been 1.5% The Last 5 Years and it was less than inflation but I just wanted to mention that uh over the 10-year period the first 5 years the rates began at 4.5% then they were 4% 3.5 so the first 5 years of those 10 years uh the rates were uh quite a bit more than inflation so we were in pretty good shape I just want to point out that it wasn't 1.5% for for 10 years it was 4.5 4% 3 3.5 and then so the first five years we beat inflation and then the second five we didn't I just wanted to mention that yeah okay and Michelle can I just add a little more detail to that so regarding the crit IA most of our drainage projects do qualify for resilient Florida implementation funding primarily because they mitigate for flooding so yeah that's that's a large criteria and and the vulnerability assessment I mean it just has to meet um certain like elevations have to be in it there's just benchmarking information that must be present that is not just it's just not missing from our vulnerability assessment our previous storm water study but pelis County a lot of agencies um are pursuing this because they're missing a few components that would make them eligible okay good um and I'm sorry one one more question on this just to put this in perspective um can you pull up the rate chart again real quick the comparison or uh sure that that's fine yeah this one yeah that's that's good um so when we start looking at that I mean this the base rate you know if I read this correctly and I should know this but I don't um is the base rate is $12.62 two cents per household per property per per equivalent residential unit a single family household yes all right so when we start talking in terms of you just the proposal the recommendation of a rate increase if we're looking at the 22 whatever it is talking about $2 per month basically uh $3.75 per month is what the um recommendation is uh just to make sure that you weren't because I had presented a slide that showed what the additional cost would be which is this slide if that was $2 if we don't get grant funding to the plan and we were to fund it from the user fees exclusively so wanted to clarify that but um we did assume that we would receive some grant funding and based on that we developed a near-term recommendation and it's um $3.75 um per month increase per per year of the threeyear recommendations okay all right no great U good presentation thank you thank you okay I've got a couple questions um and I know you may not know what this is so this is first sta these sea level rise projects the sea level rise adaptation plan implementations um starting in 2027 you have any clue what those projects are or is it just a guest um it at this point I mean it's it's we know some of the technologies that are out there that include you know pumping putting in pump stations per uh providing barriers raising floor elevations raising um uh seaw walls um changing the drainage putting in these check valves the Technologies are out there but what's specific for that particular area really comes out of the vulnerability assessment so you you just stuck a number in there which I'm fine with yes we did we did I have no problem with I'm I'm just I just wanted to know yep we did well we did that based on just our first look at North Douglas frankly and we we kind of got a little sticker shock there from some of the I just found funny that you know there it wasn't just an even number like okay 190,000 it was well it was whatever it was it was hund you know 34,100 I was just like okay that mean must mean it's something specific we're dealing with Engineers too huh go ahead Terry yeah there there's care yeah okay it doesn't matter um and then in looking same list I guess it's more philosophical you I don't know if anybody can and maybe it's you Jennifer what is our goal regarding curb and gutter Citywide and I guess I'll follow that up with a question do we is our goal ultimately that every Road in our city will have curban gutter no that's not the goal the goal is that when when we're well when we put in a a road that it's considered that's not happening too much a new road but um when we go back to rehab the road whether it's Paving especially you know resurfacing Paving um we are looking at that curbing gutter which is really part of the roadway and how does it function to get the road the water off the roadway and down to the storm system so it without going under and affecting the base or going where it's not supposed to go okay so maybe I need to be more specific are you saying that there are roads out there that don't need curb and gutter at some point or another yes because the water flow is okay because goes a separate place it's a different cross-section it's a rural cross-section with a ditch that carries the water versus a cban gutter so there are different types of um roadway systems some include curban Gutter and some don't okay um I didn't see CU you mention any number of neighborhoods here of stuff in here and I didn't see a mention of Baywood Shores there is line item called Coastal outfalls and for the for the drainage things MH right that can't be the only thing we're thinking about doing for Baywood Shores it's it's part of the coastal outfall drainage system so you know our goal would be right now I mean as far as the drainage out there it's water coming into the drainage so again shortterm we're looking at the check valves um long-term outfall um a and sustain ability both the vulnerability may come up with more for them but at this point until we get that adaption plan we don't know what else might be suggested and so it's not called out as a project but it is in the program because remember we're putting dollars to programs and then we're identifying the projects so the reason you don't see Baywood on there as a project it wasn't in the capital for 24 it's being done in housee now so the check valves in coastal subdivisions line item is what you're referring to yes that they're included in that yes if I could make a recommendation I think you need to make Baywood Shore as a line item because I mean that was the first thing I went looking for I'm just saying I understand but we've got two very vulnerable neighborhoods that need need to feel like we're identifying the need mhm and we're working on it good point um okay those were all my questions otherwise they all got answered um so anybody from the public wish to come forward and speak to this item all right um I guess I'll let allow everybody here to have some final comments and then we'll look for the consensus Direction I'm going to start this way commissioner all thank you mayor um again a wonderful presentation I think if anything it shows uh there's a lot of moving Parts uh there's a lot of buckets that have to be looked at um and and so I I get that I understand it it goes back to the impact to the residents and uh resiliency isn't a new term anymore we shouldn't be considering it a new term it's been there for years and so part of me kind of feels that we were hedging bets we were um maybe looking to the next Penny to help us out but until then we'll hopefully nothing nothing will go wrong and and and I I I get that you guys are are busy and I don't disrespect the professionality of staff I think you guys are topnotch uh but I think just as a community if we would have been looking at this a little sooner um we might be a little farther along in in in this and the the fact that this is going to be a hit to the residents this is expensive that's not justified and not that we wouldn't be there maybe just the incremental impacted we started you know we do capital projects on six-year increments and we went 10 years without even looking at at this kind of looking at our reserve it seems like going okay the reserve seems good look at our capital projects okay we'll just keep going instead of starting to do a deep dive uh the issues we've been having in our our neighborhoods the ones that are most vulnerable those aren't new issues they've been there a long time um and so it just seemed to me that it took a volume coming from those neighborhoods for us to really kind of wake up and that's kind of disappointing I do expect more from us as a commission and us as as a staff to do a better job at that um but overall I again I'm glad we're looking at it here today um It's a Wonderful study and it's just it's it's just a start so those are my comments thank you mayor thank you commissioner commissioner Walker thank you mayor so um I I don't think anyone will disagree with this storm water infrastructure is one of our most important assets important systems here in denan and the reality of it is is that over the last few years inflation has significantly impacted everything we do from a cost standpoint um I uh I I applaud the efforts and I believe it's absolutely necessary that uh we do have as the mayor mayor indicated we've got two vulnerable neighborhoods here in denan and we need to start addressing their challenges now Vice waiting for the vulnerability study so I'm encouraged by the fact that that language um has been included in this discussion um you know sitting on the commission our job is to make sure that we are looking ahead for future generations and we are a premier Coastal Community the emphasis is on Premier and Coastal uh the coastal aspect does make us more vulnerable able to storm water and subsequently um I don't see personally how we don't make the decisions that allow us to be proactive and I like that part of this discussion too proactive Vice reactive and so I I you know I don't see how we don't make the decisions that put us in a proactive position to ensure that we are maintaining our infrastructure to the the highest standard that that we can so um those are my comments uh great presentation I think you laid this out very nicely um and uh anyway thank you so it sounds like we have support from you okay I just confirming mayor yeah um commissioner that was really well said um and and when you said that about the premier Coastal Community all I could think of was our our state of the city and I think one of the last categories was um was resiliency and sustainability and uh the picture that got put up on our screen for all our citizens to see was our wonderful Coastline and and the comment I think the city manager made I think it was city manager not the not the mayor but was you know that what makes us so special and so beautiful also is is a responsibility that we have to take care of and we have to take care of our neighbors that align with that our neighborhoods so um again I like the term proactive I um uh of course Board of finance and the storm water advisory both um unanimously were on board with this I think it was unanimous um and and I think you know based on some of our current storm and sea level rise challenges this fund these projects are very critical to the important goals uh first of all important goal number one is first and foremost we're up here to take care of basic service levels of our community you know St Patrick's STS fun but we really need to look to Basics and make sure we're covering them and and then just the infrastructure for long-term sustainability of our city and more importantly our neighborhoods and and it's been brought up we've got some vulnerable neighborhoods things happening here that we need to be on top of uh what we can do what we can't do but we need to be all over that um I'm just going to add um quickly um I'm um Vice chair of Tamp Bay Regional planning Council um this year um probably will be chair next year if things go well but of course this this is resiliency and sustainability is their big issue now and they're all over getting grants and bigger grants to give grants to cities um they have a new lays on program now and Alana who works with Tamp Bay Regional planning is going to come and meet with a big group of us U Michelle Shinu and city manager to just look so we can be right there to try to take advantage of any opportunities we have to get help here for our citizens and bring in those monies so I wanted to add that and I also totally I'm board with the commentary about the next level next level of Penny you know kind of really being able to look at that closely to see what kind of relief can we give as we move through we we know right now as we look out for Generations our issue right now is sustainable and resiliency if we're going to keep this beautiful place that we call home so thank you and I definitely support this this move okay commissioner Tonga thank you mayor I I have been and remained fully supportive of the storm water plan I'm very desirous uh over the past few years even on additional monies that we've taken in to support the storm water um situation here in Den Eden for all the reasons that have just been mentioned so I don't have to go over that uh we of course have not spent a lot of time on a sea level rise issue and so that's also in this uh in this equation equation I am not against um some of the recommendations that were made um uh specifically the reserve fund um I think that that requires us to add some additional planning and as mentioned as mentioned previously Penny fund and other funds that we can take money uh from to to uh make sure that we have taken care of the storm water or to the best of our ability if we lose one little piece of Duneden um due to a storm water situation that's not good at all we don't want to lose one piece of it one part of it and so we have we need to pay more attention to this and I'm glad that we're doing that now again I I'm going to make a comment though I am not supportive of the increase in the reserve fund would like to come back in a uh in a year to see what we have done to make sure that we have any and all grants both Federal as well as state and then specifically other sources of funds that we may have that we can add to perhaps even speeding some of this up um because I think I think that we have things that we've not done that we should have could have and will do so let's just do them thank you okay um I'm very happy happy to see this phase one if you will of what we're doing with um the fund I understand what commissioner G is speaking to um we did take an extra long time to do our master plan we were also without a city manager for a long time so um and it we had a different Deputy city manager and so I mean I I'm not making EX excuses I just do understand it and when the master plan was done we went right into a pandemic so I I understand the because I was the one back then asking for all of this and complaining about it I've complained enough I'm just happy to have it um but I will say I do understand it and I thank you for the hard work um I remember when our rate was $4.50 I want to say it was 2005 this is what you get for institutional knowledge um and I remember our plan before I think we spent I don't know 30 some million dollars on storm water not on $4.50 as it as it went up I think we spent some $30 million and we spent a lot of time touting that to our residents and so to now come back and have this as a priority makes me very very very very happy not that it wasn't a priority before but you know you can only do so much I get you um I am not concerned about the increase you know skewer me over a fire pit but um we do have infrastructure that we have to manage it is an Enterprise fund and we have to pay for the costs of those I get that those things are based on estimates and that you're going to have more information later but it's certainly won't be lower we all know that and I you know I understand rate increases don't go over well but I also understand it being a leader and saying these are our priorities these are our community priorities this is for Community well-being and I think our residents want this to be a priority as well and so in being a leader you have to stand stand up and say this is really important and it costs money but if you think about it let's just talk about 2387 I think the messaging and I'll I'll look to Sue I'm sure she's Somewhere listening to this the messaging is how many millions of dollars of projects are we getting done for an extra $3.75 a month that's what the message has to be this is not the same as other Enterprise funds it really isn't and the preservation of our community is so important you know we need a coastline to remain sea level rise storm water all of those things are really really important I agree as well about the penny this year this this Penny tenure cycle we've had a lot of various projects but but certainly a lot of recreational type things which begs to say that next time infrastructure can be a primary focus and it can be storm water it can be sea level rise maybe basic storm water or maybe storm water projects are are covered by the rate and maybe the um sea level rise and that type of thing and the conversion of our buildings to being more energy efficient and the solar and all of those things maybe that's Penny I I don't know y'all are fig figured that out but I absolutely think that that's okay um you know we'll have our Marina master plan by then that'll be in there so that's more recreational um I won't be here to make that decision but I if you look at all the past pennies and there is a sheet out there that all it has to be done is updated where we did the percentage of what we've spent Penny on in each decade and you can see it's cyclical we spent Penny money on eight reclaim water projects back in the day back in 06 0708 because we didn't have the money but we we said it was that important to expand the system so there's precedent for it um but I'll leave that to people that are here in the decision making um I will say that I think Cedar Creek is really important and we've ignored it you know you're talking about stuff I feel very strongly that we had a draft plan and then we had a final plan the draft plan that was presented to the commission at the time we were told one thing and the final plan we were told another it changed um but it definitely said that the sediment that sits in Cedar Creek is coming from Upstream had come not coming had come from Upstream it did not come from the Gulf if you have a creek that doesn't have as much water in it or doesn't have as much depth in it as it did 30 years ago it is going to cause flooding and I think there I you know I think that uh we solved a lot of sediment flowing projects I think we spent about 10 or 15 million on those sediment reducing projects Upstream on Cedar Creek and I think we have to go back and do what we said we were going to do and get rid of that siment because I also think it has an effect on North Douglas I think all those mangroves do too and I know it's a state law but I'm sorry all the sediment then the mangroves then flooding that flooding wasn't happening when I first got on this commission I'm telling you it wasn't not like not like it is today so it's definitely something I think that needs to be looked at um and I'm very willing to support it I think that's it I'm sure I forgot something but I I do thank you all thank you um certainly willing to support it so I think I think what I heard is a 4 to one is that what I heard commissioner Toro in order to make sure that we have the whole plan put into effect uh we can discuss the year issue at another time okay but you're not you're not in consensus of moving forward with this rate increase is what you're saying I'm I'm going to be in I'm going to agree to oh you are okay okay so you have consensus Direction 5 thank you guys appreciate all the effort well done thank you okay now we have informational items I didn't get anything on commission discussion city clerk's update welcome back from your vacation thank you anything you have to tell us um mayor I just thought I would go over the election changes um for the um candidates real quick this is all out on the website and actually post it out on the um the back side of the building but I just figured I would give an update real quick we do currently have three running for mayor moini John TGA and John shine I have two running for seat one Tom Dugard and Shane worth and then currently two I'm running for seat three Stephanie joins and Stephen sanber but I just thought I'd give that update real quick okay question sure so when they get on that list does that mean they've actually also opened a checking account they come and F get the paperwork from me to go go open that checking account so they done the other paperwork yet to be okay I just wanted to clarify because I heard differently that somebody hadn't open a checking account and I thought it was the reverse so I just want to no they can't open the checkin account until they come in and do the initial paperwork so when they leave um my assumption would be that they're going to make that open that a checkin account but if it doesn't happen for a day or two I don't know that understood absolutely understood I just want to make sure I understood how they got on the list yes the list is the initial paperwork okay and uh any other questions for the city clerk all right um city manager update Jennifer I know you haven't announced I do have a couple things actually mayor and I want to uh extend uh my gratitude um and uh uh uh just thanks gratitude and all those sorts of things to all those people who put on the state of the city and and sub beress and her staff um they worked tirelessly the two videos that they did the the one that that kicked it off and then the one at the very end that that you know was was just a just such an uplifting video it was fantastic I mean they thought ahead of time they got the actual poet to to read his own poem um along with that video and um um I want to thank Nicole Delino actually uh as our chamber liaison she worked hard with the chamber and the government Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Commerce to help us put on the uh the state of the city I thought it was a fantastic event uh the food it was was wonderful as well uh by Chef John right and um uh I heard all sorts of compliments in the food so typically Chef John and Chef Debbie Chef John and and Chef Debbie so yeah it was just an absolute magical night and I'm I'm very grateful to everybody for all of their contributions so uh the other thing that I had uh mayor was the um The Binding cost estimate the BCE for the undergrounding for Duke uh the city commission had approved uh the agreement at a price of 1 point just over $1.5 million um we understand that that uh we're expecting Duke to lower the amount um of that binding cost estimate we're not sure exactly by how much um but in in working with the city attorney um and with Jorge and Doug Hutchin who are working on this project Bob iron Smith um we want to get ahead of it and so the uh attorney I won't speak with her but but she's okay with me executing that that new binding cost estimate when it comes in if it's less than the amount that you originally approved so I just wanted to let all of you know that okay so thank you mayor as long as it's at least a half million dollars I no great we hope will you let us know what that final number is absolutely and it's certainly because I berated them I'm sure yeah it's all about your wonderful negotiation skills good good job Jeff anybody else have questions for the city manager okay city attorney's update I have no update okay any questions for the City attorney no okay uh commission comments vice mayor okay I have a long list no I'm just kidding okay so uh well um first of all on Bay News 9 I saw a great uh little piece on our mini ambulance and it was well done and it said we're like the only one in the county that's done it but it gave all the reasons why it's so proactive and good especially for special events for privacy getting in and out of areas um it was great it was really good and of course they just rolled that over and over so I think it's great PR for us so um so that would be one uh I was also going to say thanks to Su and her team to city manager to the mayor I thought you guys did a fantastic job at state of the city the number one comment I continue to hear is wow it really proud of our city but now I'm so I'm more proud of our city and I didn't think I could be more proud of our city I I just thought it was really well done and I I do have to give a nod to Jennifer you did a lot of good jokes too and some people have commented but Jenn you're the joke to the shout out for the lobby people there A lot of people s l that was we organiz that ahead of time that was great yeah they loved it they loved it so anyway then then the thing that the the alcohol was out there was good too that mayor okay maybe that was the mayor anyway it was me it was you guys did an awesome job but Sue's team they they're just their next level it's very impressive and I think the citizens overall just really it was a great night um and then the last item for me is that um I did an hourlong podcast last night from a Toronto podcast link which Su knows what it is but anyway it was great and had a chance to just talk about All Things Blue Jays and all things doneen and and all things are Canadian visitors and why they're such a part of the fabricc of who we are and then how much they've added and and how and the partnership which of course is in its 40th year and uh they termed it a marriage so I guess we're going to be ready for our golden wedding anniversary in two years with the Toronto Blue Jays so it was it was really fun to do and it just uh again when you do stuff like that you just you you get both the facts but you get the sentimentality of of what's been accomplished over the years and I'll just I'll end by this because I was having this conversation with former mayor Manny Kutz Ras who of course was here in some of the Inception with the blue jays and he said you know mo like we probably never had any business you know getting you know trying to bring a major league team here but that is the power of denan right and the power of that commission who said you know let's just kind of put our toe in the water and and they did it and and now here we are in this just amazing unique special relationship and so uh kudos to to commissioners of the past who had that foresight and uh and the ones that kept it going so um so I just wanted to share that that's it thank you commissioner Toro thank you mayor I just wanted to give one summary report about the gulf course and uh and the board and uh and I really want to talk about the board there they did such a fantastic job um in the last I'll say specifically in the last couple years um of of just bringing that home to us um solid solid a million dollars in the bank um they all just really cared about the golf course and and they all worked really hard on it so I just want to give kudos to those folks all of those folks I won't do it by name but they're just wonderful people outstanding thank you thank you commissioner gal uh thank you mayor um you know I was probably the only uh member of the commission that begrudgingly did the videos and just oh oh God do be really uh but I will eat those words until I die that was one of the most wonderful events I'd ever been to and the continuing idea that we are the most unique City and do it well and that we don't do anything behind doors I if any other City wants to copy us it's right there in the open it's there's no secret sauce there's no anything and the idea that I I I hope that other communities see what we did and how we did it and mimic I you know I I you know I just think that type of stealing is the best form of flattering right if we see somebody copying what we do it was wonderful to have the County Commission here U we might have been a little harsh on them at times but but it's some he has to be talking about me and oh no names no names or titles no but the percentage of tax was fabulous get property yeah that was genius I had to say it no uh but it was just it was just a wonderful event it just showed how we do it how we do it right and uh I hope I do see that copied uh as far as the my leis on positions the schools uh there is so much going on I just I just can't it's wrestling is fabulous aotc is fabulous Performing Arts are great um robotics just everything at that high school just the more you know what goes on in our schools the more insane it gets so we're all doing wonderful wonderful things uh holling games coming up April 6th pipan March April 5th it's going to be a great day so good things thank you mayor thank you commissioner walker uh yes ma'am thank you um and I got to tell you we we had quite a weekend that started on Thursday here in denen and uh you especially I will uh I'm going to pile into the state of the city um staff uh did did an amazing job I you know it if the the comments that I got back from residents and constituents was to a person um flattering um I think that one of the takeaways was is that um the the update and everything that we have accomplished in the last year was incredibly informative and I I think it was a huge you know just a huge opportunity to provide um you know really kind of what we were able to accomplish in the last year and uh if you take a look at what we accomplished last year it was significant I mean four capital projects and you know the reason we were were able to make those decision is because of the the position the city's in and the position the city is in is good um as was eloquently put at the end of the state of the city address Madame mayor thank you um it was great to have Manny there and uh I you know Manny's Manny's a rock star uh Switching gears um Saturday was the needing youth Guild um you know I I'm always impressed by that group because of the fact that one you know they've been in in they've been in around for 60 years they are celebrating their 60th year this year and uh this weekend was 50 years of the fashion show um the passion in in giving back to our den and youth is just incredible um finally uh Sunday obviously we uh we had the denan cares Gayla um and I did have an opportunity to talk to Terry um she's going to come to do a presentation for the commission on on how this all turned out uh they are uh they're still running through their expenses and the financials but uh I I think they are guardedly very happy with with how things turned out and uh I'm look forward to getting more information on that here shortly so very good anyway that's all I have okay um just a couple of things uh still working with for pinelis on the um fairy sorry I had to think about it on the fer so looking for updates from what uh next week I'll be cheering forward pelis because Janet won't be there so um that'll be fun [Music] um just for your edification I'm no longer on the visit St Pete clar waterer board and um but I am still working closely with Brian on the funding of this uh Ferry as well as other things so just keeping you informed who took your place mayor uh don't know yet mayor's Council appoints it okay yep um the history museum has a a history comes a live event this Saturday from 10 to1 would love to have everybody come um as you all know the May's challenge we lost by one point to the Phillies so yesterday I had to drag my tushy to a clear water work session and wear my Phillies Jersey um to um and present uh Vince and I had to and present them with the mayor Cup trophy that says they are winner yet again in 2024 this has happened over and over they didn't even have to buy me in New Jersey I had it in my closet and and interestingly enough I walked from Broadway to the parking lot behind crown and bull four people said what are you wearing that Jersey for at this was at lunchtime and I I mean now I had my blue jay shirt underneath but I I thought that that tells you something and how important what we do here with with the Jays is so I thought that was really cool um upcoming for the Highland Games we have uh the parade the night before I will be hosting and I'm sure I'm going to reach out to you Jennifer I'm going to be hosting um County Commissioner Brian Scott to do a 90-minute walking tour around downtown um and he you know he just wants to know what's happening in our city what are the things he needs to be looking out for um you and I work on the list of what I want to push I would say what I really want to push is that fery um but there are a lot of other things as well Partnerships I think and then he has since he's going to be here that day he's agreed to be a part of the the um Tartan parade I don't know what we're calling it The Tartan parade he and his wife so commissioner frainy by the way his wife's coming too okay I just found out got a six person cart so we're good so commissioner um fry and Peg or vice mayor frany and Peg have agreed to um have me and and commissioner Brian Scott and his wife on on their cart so we're all covered but it'll be fun um I am too very excited on on the Andre result of the state of the city I think it was really good I I was very happy to be able to that we honored Manny Karas um and I also thank the staff and then finally we do have uh International Women's Day brunch at uh fona Petit from 11: to 1 and the reason it's a brunch and not a lunch is because we have a 1:00 spring training game and we not messing with that so people can leave even and we have three great speakers Janet from Bowsers um Katie du the chair of uh the chamber and our very own city manager Jennifer Bramley I better start writing yeah you did it this weekend I know I want to hear secrets secrets in your speech come on dig deep none so that's all I have um thank you everybody for joining us and we are adjourned cool [Music] [Music] he