e e e e e e e e e going to call the meeting to order today is Monday May 6 is 9:01 we are at the Town Hall Chambers at 2731 Oak Street in Fort Meers Beach Florida this is a regular scheduled Town council meeting all council members presid including Town manager Town Clerk and town attorney if you please rise for the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance be with us today as we consider and take actions for the overall good of the town of Fort Meers Beach help us to choose the wisest and best direction to take and help us arrive at those directions with interactions that are dignified respectful and well informed thank you for the solemn honor of serving the public in our roles and continue to bless those who are fortunate to live here and work here amen amen I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all thank you next is the approval of the final agenda is there a motion to approve the final agenda mayor I'd like to pull C through I of the consent agenda please and my understanding under public hearings item C uh MOS Marina they would like to continue that and I think they're here for representation item C for MOS Marine ordinance 24- 09 and that needs to be um continued to a Time certain okay do we do that once we go through the consent agenda or how do you procedurally want to do this we can go ahead and find out when they want to have it right now okay and then we can do it now good morning good morning good morning do I need to my good good morning Mr Mayor townsel for the record Jenna person mikica of the law firm strahorn person Mikan Fisher on behalf of the applicant and owner of Freeland Florida holding and today we come before you asking for a continuance of the CPA hearing and our request is a continuance of the smallscale comprehensive plan map Amendment until such time it'll be a date uncertain but until such time that the companion um commercial plan development resoning application is ready to come before this This Town Council we applied for both applications at the same time in August of 201 23 and it's not uncommon that the smallscale map Amendment moved faster than the more detailed uh plan development resoning but Mr Mayor and Council and the town has done a great job in explaining the process to to folks that is a two-step process we can't do any Redevelopment unless we get both approved however folks want to talk about the project they want to talk about the details and we want to continue to hear what they have to say so we're asking to slow down the smallscale plan Amendment so the CPD can catch up so we can continue to have those conversations take in the feedback and make make adjustments so that's our request I know under the code that you can continue to a date uncertain and we would just ask for that flexibility to work with staff to marry those up so that they come before you at the same meeting in the future and Mr Freeland just wanted to make a quick comment regarding on what he hopes to accomplish as we move forward thank you Jen uh good morning Council mayor vice mayor I just want to thank you all for your time and all the people who we going to show up today or supporters um those oppos I just want to thank them all for their input I think that's an important part of the process and we've tried to embrace that from the beginning starting well over a year ago so we look forward to working with you we knew the times come to to do that we'll marry these back together want to work with the council find out what what what is mutually beneficial to the town I think from the beginning I've said it's got to be good for the Neighbors good for the community and good for us so it's a three-legged stool so look forward to working with you and hopefully we can find a resolution that uh fits all those goals so thank you Ben and Mr Mayor I I I want to also say if if anybody came to speak on the item today and didn't get the notice that we were planning to continue it um it's my understanding that they can talk during the public comment portion that is coming up and and we're eager to hear what they have to say but we want to move forward and work on a project that's a legacy project for the town Mr mayor council that's our request all right thank you Jenna um Becky procedurally do do a motion on that first before we go to the consent agenda or yes I would because we're still setting the agenda got it okay is there a motion to approve the request to continue to a date uncertain so moved got a motion by councelor Woodson seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously is there a motion to approve the amended uh consent agenda with items C through I pulled by councelor King so move second a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose motion carries unanimously next is public comment mam um first up I have Bill vich I must say that's quite a shirt well when you have workers around the house sometimes you need to spell things out for them um I would just say that uh you know I understand the the uh the strategy with the developers it would be I think consider on their part if they would have given people more notice because I know some people actually have lawyers that they were paying to be here in the morning and coming up with a notification the night before um on a Sunday night seems to be a little short um so it would be good if they're going to you know change the schedule to uh to give more warning for the public so they don't come up with expenses that that they don't don't have problem with but I'm here to talk about I know you guys are talking about the comp plan and there's a couple things coming up in the agenda that have an impact on things like you know evacuation and the um and and the flood insurance rates that we're losing one of the complaints on that is that we have uh that there hasn't been sufficient there's been too many buildings being put up without permits and there's been you know a lack of documentation certainly one thing on your agenda is about a pretty egregious case of someone building without a permit um and I think th those those should weigh on everything you do but I specifically want to talk about the CB zoning District I know you're talking about the comp plan um and uh this is something we talked about before currently the CB zoning district is very restrictive people are allowed to do what they had and that's it so if someone had a a shop they can't put a restaurant in someone had an office they can't put a shop in um I think that I know you guys had a conversation about taking an area which is residential and making it into a commercial kind of Hub you already have those areas I think but and a lot of those are for sale and they're not moving I think they're priced for expectations they'll be able to do a lot more um but right now they they're very restricted so I would recommend when you when you come to the CB zoning District there's a couple these I've had conversations with I they make a lot of sense and one is you say that you open up the use people can have but maybe you make them smaller so when some someone has a 5,000 foot footprint instead of a 5,000 foot restaurant they put a small restaurant and a small shop so that instead of a destination it's more serving the local community they are in a comfortable bicycling walking District what that does for you is it it it doesn't make it um conflict with the neighbors as much and also if people are biking and walking they're not driving they're not getting in their cars it reduces the parking demands and it reduces the TR traffic demands um and then on top of that I think that it's it it makes sense to give people a floor of residential which is consistent with whatever the the neighboring um zoning is and then if someone wants to put an extra floor they could do that if there's like owner occupied housing Workforce housing or critical services like you know hairdressers Banks um you know doctors the kind of things that we think we we really need on this island I think that if you come up with a a plan that is that makes sense that gives certainty to it then you'll get more moving on the CB zoning District which right now there's not a lot going on because of that because of that definition um and uh and that's pretty much it thank you thanks Bill that's all I have signed up in general public comments is there anyone else that would like to speak and was public comment yeah come on up hoe hi my name is hoe Hoffman I've lived on the beach a long time and I just want to thank everybody here for all the help you did with the senior softball we really appreciate it and I just want the council to know you know thank you thank you all very much for a great season and that's about it and where's my seat going to be for your nap no for when I uh run for Council it's the first door on your left okay thanks Howie is there is there anyone else that'd like to speak if not we'll close public comment next we have local achievements and recognitions uh councelor King I'd like to start off by thanking uh ABC7 and nbc2 plus uh the rest of the uh Hurst employees for the cleanup they did on Ford Myers Beach U I think it was a little at the end of April um it was all part of their hearse gives back so thank you for that uh I want to uh recognize the town manager Andy hayatt on reaching his one-year anniversary with the uh town of Fort Myers Beach um it was last year when Amy and I first interviewed you I think that was the first interview we did together uh you said at that time that you were interviewing us as well to see if it would be a good fit and I thank you for choosing us and staying with us uh and lastly speaking of anniversaries I do uh being the cheap person I am want to take the air time to uh thank my best friend and wife for choosing to stay with me for 34 years of marriage and that was yesterday um sorry fellow fun Seekers but uh right uh that's somebody right there that I enjoy more than anything in in the world and there's no one person I enjoy spending more time with so thank you mayor yes sir thanks John and congratulations thank you Vice mayal congratulations there's there's no way I can follow that so I have nothing additional thank you congratulations Council Woodson happy anniversary again thank you ccor Safford uh I want to thank the Chamber of Commerce for the the great event they had um last week it it was a tribute to everybody that works so hard as well you know honoring Mitch as well but it the the vision in that room was moving moving forward and I mean there was 100 people there it was positive it was it was a great Vibe and uh it's a shout out to our community it's not just the chamber it's it's everybody so I was I was really honored to be a part of it and there was a lot of people there it was awesome yeah anything else nope very good uh that was on my list as well but I think you covered it just fine the only other thing I have is this picture that you see right down here in front of us was uh graciously Don donated to us by the FMB Kanas Sandy lepley reached out and uh unfortunately evidently I can't keep a very good calendar I put the put it on the wrong Monday so I wasn't there to receive it in person but we thank them for this picture we'll find a place to put it up it's a it uh it'll go somewhere good in the temporary permanent town hall and that's all that I have uh next we have advisory items reports and appointments Title Basin update good morning good morning good morning good morning Mr Mayor um uh also council members Town staff my name is Jeremy speaks represented tidle Basin I'm the deputy director um first and foremost I want to say you guys should get excited uh title Bas has been doing consistent hard work for the town of Fort Meers Beach as right now we have a total of seven projects uh obligated under female public assistance for a total of $19.8 million C yourself a hand clap because through your hard effort in your work we're able to get that information that we need to push it through for Freeman so give yourself a hand clap but even despite all that we're not done yet we have more project that's still in the pipeline see J Jeremy I'm so sorry to interrupt but could you just kind of take it up 10,000 ft and explain to those who are watching watching what it means to have a project obligated and how that works from a just a 10,000 foot level yes sir no problem vice mayor uh so to the public so FEMA has a process when you have projects that uh you had damages from the storm you have are given an opportunity to get those projects together so in collaboration of with our our company and with the town people we're able to get all the information to document those damages then also get the cost for those damages and how much that has cost now it has gone through the female Public Assistance process so basically it has gone through multiple reviews from insurance mitigation ehp which means environmental historical preservation and to the point that we are finally obligated so now we're receiving funding so that funding has now hit your coffers your bank to be able to do the work that you need to do to restore the town back to where it was before thank you no problem sir but like I said we're not done yet we still have more work to do we have a a total of maybe roughly about 20 projects that we want to get done and completed for the town of Fort Meers Beach and that's for female Public Assistance we also have been working on your Adelia projects there's there's a total of two that we're trying to get finalized for you as well so those can be obligated as well also title Bas is not done yet and we will continue to work because we're also working and making sure that you get cdbg uh money and you know what I believe it's on your agenda on the uh item H or i on the consent agenda because there's 1. $1.5 million that we help you uh get for the cdbb planning uh uh cdb planning but we're not done yet and when I say we're not done yet we're still working to make sure that you have getting 44 mitigation 44 mitigation is very important and you are able to get that Community block grant uh information and so so far under hurricane I Fort Myers has submitted seven Hazard mitigation grants and six are actively under review we have home elevation home acquisition home Rec reconstruction generators Bay Oaks Community retrofit living Shoreline and utility elevations and we they're currently in the process to getting reviewed by doing the environmental engineering and programmatic RI and that means request for information so as we continue to actively work with you guys to get that information we will keep you updated also we're doing some more cdbg work for Hurricane Nicole and we have a total of five Hazard mitigation uh Grant applications one for home acquisition one for generators one for Bay Oaks uh Community retrofit another for Moss Marina generator and a fifth one for utility elevations and we're still working through those rfis as well and finally we have Adelia Adelia we are submitting two Hazard mitigation Grant applications and that's for critical facility generators as well as utility infrastructure retrofit so as you can see title base is working hard for you because you allow us to work hard for you and we appreciate that and we want to continue this collaboration as we to get you some more dollars so we can maximize your funding thank you cuz we're not done yet we're not done yet Jeremy before you run on yes could you give I know it's it's a hard number to put on it but a rough timeline on the obligation process I know we had quite a few that are in the review process the pool for instance is one is there a rough timeline people you know we get asked a lot of what been you know almost two years since the storm we're still in obligation phases and in your experience and title basin's experience how long do you see these things carry on it it depends Mr Mayor I I'll be honest with you I've seen projects that take a year I've seen a project that take a half a year and a half it all depends on the nuances of that of that project because you have environmental concerns you have mitigation things you also have to deal with insurance so all those review cues are are something that you have to take in the factor so for me to give you like an estimate of like how many how many times uh how long will it take will be very egregious of me so I I wouldn't say that so so therefore I will tell you we will continue to work and keep you up to date on all the progress of the timeline as well as to we as soon get the obligation well I appreciate that sometimes they get tired of hearing it from the five of us understand so to hear it from the experts I think means a lot for people to hear that no just to follow up on that Jeremy if you could the the seven million I'm sorry the seven projects that are obligated for 19.8 M million yes sir so so that means they've already been designated obligated is that a designation in other words and does that mean that check is in the mail or is there still a long process ahead the check should been either to you have already received it or it's on the mail sir I I have to look back at the obligation dates and see where it's at in the FM process of getting receiving that funding okay thank you no problem can you be spec specific what those seven projects are just for public knowledge yes sir uh that's one is your um emergency protective measure expedited project another one is your emergency burm uh another one is your uh Beach renourishment another one is your vehicle equipment loss or damage in Ian another one is Palm Avenue restro trailer another one is some of your management costs and another one is your fort Meers Dr 1206 application certification thank you all right what is the last one what was the last one that you just said M Dr Disaster Recovery oh okay yes alphabet soup thank you thank you thanks chairman thanks chairman thank you we also have the Marine environmental resources task force Jennifer it's right here I just turn it on oh looks like it's on okay so good morning Jennifer Rusk resident of marine environmental resource Task Force member good morning mayor vice mayor Town Council and town manager and all staff this morning I'm here to bring you and present to you the new uh children's activity book that with h the help of our Beach uh school had um contributed some artwork to it um it's finally done we have a few little typos but for the most part it's it's done I'm very proud of it I think Fort Meers speech should be very proud of it um it's going to be very educational so I'm just going to go through it quickly with you okay it's 16 Pages the actual activity book will have a a harder um uh opening in the front um just like this and then it will have regular paper um on the inside so the first page is start see Jennifer just for again for folks who are watching just talk a little bit about what you're going to use this for and how you how you utilize it and how many you give out usually yeah I was going to get to that at the end of the presentation but um if I could just go ahead and go through the activity book so this will be a hard uh harder uh cover flippers and Feathers our Peach friends forever and it shows of course our Shorebirds and a child looking at uh the birds flying and the sea turtle uh the back of the page of the cover we'll have welcome to Fort Meers speech this is where a child can sign her book uh or his book and age this is uh page number three this is information on loggerhead sea turtles there's an activity now this activity book is actually really for all ages we tried to include activities that would be good for younger children as well as old older children and I think will um adults will appreciate it as well so this page basically if you can see it um just starting in late uh April beneath the light of the moon and stars mother sea turtles crawl up the beach to lay their eggs but sometimes they are blocked by S Castle's toys umbrellas or may um or may or they are confused by by lights shining on the beach even big holes might trap mothers and then You' put an x on the things that don't belong on this beach at night and then this is Page Three and it just gives some information on volunteers and what they're doing out there first thing in the morning looking for um uh crawls and nests there's an activity at the bottom uh to to you know Circle the the amount of that might be in that clutch this is Turtle time inks page and it talks about the different species that can be colored page five is a maze and at the top you see you've got to get the babies down to the water from the Sand Dune and mama needs to get up to the top and then there's some information on the side [Music] page six is uh talks about manatees and slow boating speeds page seven is about our Shorebirds and there's activities draw a ribbon connecting the stakes around the nesting area draw a picture of yourself standing outside the nesting area and draw a circle around the birds eggs and baby chicks who want you to be a BFF Beach friends forever talks about our four Imperial U nesting Shorebirds black skimmer lease turn Snowy Plover American oyster catcher and the importance of taking care of them we're so lucky to have these birds on our Island since we're the only Island in Florida that has all four so this talks about the things that we should do to try and protect our SE or nesting Birds keeping your dogs un leash filling in holes not running after the very tired birds and there's activities Circle and eliminate what might be harm the chicks this is Crow's page just gives some information on the different species that we're so lucky to have and should protect talks about fishing gear human food feeding litter how sea turtles can accidentally uh eat a plastic bag floating thinking it's a jellyfish and just about boat boating safety for our Wildlife page 10 is our word search and to the right we have um very proud this is uh some artwork from the beach school and you can see the crab right here they named The Crab pepper which I thought was really cute page 11 is our Coastal plants and the kids or adults can color the different species that you'll find in our sand dunes um in our dunes and our estuaries talks about Dune flowers railroad Vines and the importance of um making sure that our Dunes are planted and well cared for not only to protect our animals and our Wildlife but also for our property as well this one I particularly like how long does it take how long does it take for um plastic containers nylon plastic bags bottles glass bottles balloons aluminum cans leather and other things like cigarette butts to break down and the answers on the bottom page 13 it's time to take the beach friends forever pledge and the beach friends forever pledge is just to name a few I will pick up uh all my beach toys at the end of the beach day I will fill in the holes and dig in the sand that I dig in the Sand by the end of the day I will not take home any live creatures even the ones that are living in shells and so on once they Mark those off then they are officially Beach friends forever BFFs of for my speech here is a little map it's not detailed but it gives the all the locations of our natural resources that we have Bic Park Lin Hall Memorial Park B Oaks Recreation with the address the bound house Newton Park and critical Wildlife Area the back of the page the back of the book Beach friends forever and uh a child uh actually drew the key and at the top of the paper I thought was very inventive the key to a beautiful beach and they drew a beautiful key with wildlife in it so with that that is activity book very proud that Fort Meers Beach will have its own activity book to give out I have now been uh contacted by Lee County Visitor Bureau who would like to hand these out I know other uh businesses restaurants I've had uh a lot of people that have rentals and condos and other places that want to give them out so I'm very proud I'd like to thank uh Town staff uh murf especially um uh the our uh Andy uh Jason Freeman Jeff and Elisa and everyone that helped on this project all I need from you all is um the go to press take it to press also the money that we are murf has decided to print 10,000 copies out we do have the budget for it and uh so that's how many we're going to start with other people and other organizations if they want more they can print it out for themselves any questions go to press that's what I wanted to hear that's what I say anyone else have any objection to or questions second okay nice job yeah thank you so much have a great day thanks is there any other committee that would like to say a few words no all right next we have the approval of the minutes from the town council meeting in April 15th 2024 is there a motion to approve the minutes mayor I've got a correction yes sir under number 11 public hearings it states council member King read the title of the resolution I believe that should be corrected to U change to mayor allers very good and with that I'll move to uh approve as corrected all right is there a second a second a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none the motion carries unanimously next we have the two items that have remained on the consent agenda items a and items B is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved motion by councelor Woodson seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none consent agenda carries unanimously next are the items that are removed from the consent agenda items C through I were pulled by councelor King uh first item is item C resolution 2476 the CD BD cdb gdr application and grants for public facilities and critical infrastructure John well we got a a brief overview of it uh earlier just just a detail explanation or what can be shared with the public so basically what we're doing in this bucket um all all the asks that we go through with the cdbg are considered what we call buckets uh this one for infrastructure is dealing with a a large variety of asks on part of the town uh we're going to be asking for money for the pool uh we're asking that for a couple of different spots not only with the FEMA on the the PA side but also with uh the Dr money uh which you get going a lot faster the project uh we're looking for Newton Park improvements we're looking for instru um infrastructure as far as the storm water aspects that were not covered by the tier one project uh to be included in that as well as maintenance and possible uh repair or Andor additional uh water tower in the north end or West end of the island uh which is currently uh in the in the process of being worked on uh so there's quite a few asks as well as Old St Carlos Lighting project to be put into that bucket thank you any any other discussion and and those numbers are right minimum 5 million maximum 50 million that is correct sir thank you is there a motion to approve consent agenda item C mayor I'll move resolution 2476 cdb gdr applications and grants for public facilities and critical infrastructure second a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously next is item D resolution 2492 Disaster Recovery Services piggyback Lee County agreement John just uh some explanation on that please yes so we uh earlier in I I guess last fall or earlier this spring we adopted a uh our debris monitoring uh for hurricane season coming up this year a multi-year contract with tetr uh for the monitoring phase of that uh was facilitated prior by Thompson Incorporated um this bid here allows us to go on piggyback with the county services for the debris cleanup so it' be using the same vendor that we've had for a few years now uh with Crowder uh but basically using their contract which gives us a a nice Easy Pass and have a vendor in place for Hurricane Season they're just on standby and yes sir yes sir okay thank you any other questions for staff so I have a question um when you had the debris clean up I know that I know obviously during Ian I mean there was debris everywhere and we used um Bay Oaks and we used the south end and that and you know don't want to see that happen again so do we then also piggy back on Lee County locations to a point we're not going to have the same well I shouldn't say that we it it was because of what Ian did to the island that we used the facilities that we used um the South End was currently are immediately kind of closed down to Bringing debris down that way a couple of the contractors that work locally on the island have given us a ton of areas to put debris in um also to your point with the the accesses that Lee County has already um procured we'll be able to use those as well so we're not going to be using the Bay Oaks property the little leak field those type of things we're also looking at one or two locations off Island we're just kind of talking to the owners of those properties that are on um St Carlos Island are just a little bit beyond to help with us on our debris because of those exact concerns okay any other discussion or any other questions mayor I'll move resolution 24- 92 Disaster Recovery Services piggy Backle County agreement I'll second motion by councelor Kings seconded by counc Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously next is item e resolution 2493 demolition Services City of Fort Meers John pranky so to your point sir we're going to kind of uh encapsulate both of the following two ones together because they kind of do flow together the first one is taking on a contract that the city of Fort Meers already procured for demolition contact um this is going to go towards our unsafe structure program that we've got currently in the works um and we thought it wise to not just have one vendor to have multiple vendors so you'll see the next one is a piggyback off of the contractor used by Bonita uh we're also going to have local contractors that'll help as subcontractors uh that don't have to go out for this part of the contract uh to Aid um our our thought process was um we wanted to get the program flowing uh we wanted to get immediate results uh we don't want this to be dragging on for for months on end so if we could get multiple contractors in here all under the guise of the same purchasing price or or basically um parameters for the contract like square footage uh disposal fees those type of things that we'd be able to facilitate the demolition of these unsafe structures in a lot more uh expedient manner thank you any other questions for Frankie mayor I'll move resolution 24- 93 demolition Services City of Fort Meers second motion by councelor Kings seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none the motion carries unanimously next is item F resolution 24- 94 demolition Services Bonita Springs piggyback I'll just go right to you Frankie thank you eliminate the middle it's basically the same answer uh the way we had to do it was this is a contract that's already going so we're able to jump on it uh the other one was a contract that was established so we had to go back to the vendor and to the party that initiated that contract and ask for permission basically the same thing uh except that this contract that we have going here with Bonita is a contractor that's already under contract with them so we're able to kind of just basically Ride Along on that contract as well but it's for the same thing as far as the de part of the demolition project all right thank you Frankie any other questions for Frankie is there a motion to approve resolution 2494 I'll move resolution 24- 94 demolition services Bonita Springs piggyback I'll second that as well all right got a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously item G resolution 2491 it b-231 17- PW change order number one Frankie I'll go with this one oh Andy um this is part of the the street sign project that we got to the to the end of it and realize that we didn't cover all the we the the all the streets with no Outlets uh dead end signs were not included and we wanted to make sure they were this just that additional cost to cover that and that come you know it's covered under gas tax and that kind of thing so it's just uh finishing up the project that is really for all intents and purposes finished all right yes sir if I could Andy I just happened to see this on the agenda and I I I wanted to just reference I received some correspondence from one of our fire Commissioners Ron Fleming and he would he he suggested that there used to be a yield sign as you go from Fifth Street onto the bridge and he said that yield yield sign no longer exists or or it hasn't been replaced I guess is the best way to say it that's a County Road um so he'll need to contact the County but we can contact the County as well going on to the bridge Fifth Street is it I think I think the yield was on Fifth stre I think that was but all the right they put all that in the right of way we will follow up with that and make sure a yield sign is put in that area whether we have to take care of the county but I'll reach out to the county thank you very much then to that is the one on the other side that turns onto Fifth Street there is that one I guess I never really paid attention there used to be a yield sign there as well coming coming off the bridge turning right on Fifth Street okay well it's fifth people look at as north of stero but yep gotcha okay any other questions for Andy is that uh dead end still up at liers Lane because that always gives me [Laughter] chuckle with that I'll move resolution 24- 91 ITB 23-1 17- PW change order number one I'll second you're really pushing to not get to 35 aren you really got a motion by councelor King second by councelor Woodson any further discussion all those signify favor say I I opposed hearing n motion carries unanimously so many jokes there John so many jokes so little time that's right next we have item h cdb d CD vgd planning subrecipient agreement Frankie so this is basically the acceptance of that we were awarded the grant um through the cdbg uh for planning Services um this will be allocated towards a variety of things uh like the comp plan uh Improvement project um things like that so we we already have it spelled out into our work our scope of work this is basically the acceptance of that money through the cdbg and it's 1. 575 million that is correct and some change oh slurp money see I didn't see the change on there yeah I'm sorry any other questions for Frankie is there a motion to approve item H I'll approve I'll move to approve cdbg drr planning Sub sub subrecipient well I should have got my readers on agreement thank you I'll second a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none that motion carries unanimously and lastly item a or I amendment number one extension of band's construction company is it banss or bandies so I have a question on this one um the first sentence is the Fort Meers Beach Chamber Commerce agreement but the the headline is bandies does is this together with the Roxy or should that have not been in there that that possibly should not have been in there sir okay this is actually the facility that's on the corner of Old San Carlos and Estero the large double twostory souvenir uh okay estment the other thing in in in the packet it kept referring to map a and there's no map a in there so can you please repeat where exactly this is for yes yes it's on the corner of Old San Carlos okay yeah and it's north of stero across from Lal park across from Lyal Park yes sir one Cur with the fence around it that is correct and that's what they're basically doing is they're they're securing until that construction is done and they're reimbursing the town for for the leas spots that are we're missing revenue on okay so can we strike that for first sentence in there to clear it up yes sir we'll make sure that all those changes are made yes sir okay thank you any other questions John I'll move amendment number one extension for band's Construction Company all right I'll second and a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed hearing none the motion carries unanimously next our public hearings the next two items on the agenda are public hearings for review of various land use requests for the benefit of the public Please be aware that these items are quas judicial in nature our attorney will further explain um thank you zoning revision special exceptions and variances are all quazi judicial in nature which requires our public hearing to comply with procedural requirements established and forward a law and in our Land Development code quazi judicial proceedings are less formal than proceedings before a circuit court but are more formal than the remainder of our meeting and follow basic standards of due process requiring certain notices application of the correct standards and decisions made on competent and substantial evidence presented to the Town Council in written documents or oral testimony the Town Council will evaluate the testimony and information for each item and draw a conclusion regarding whether the criteria in the Land Development code or state law as may be applicable has been satisfied pure speculation or mere opinion not based on competent facts cannot be legally considered by the Town Council in evaluating an agenda item testimony by professionals who are qualified as experts in a particular area is considered competent evidence by the Florida courts as well as testimony by neighbors and residents who have fact-based information such as minute surveys engineering reports Etc or testimony based upon personal information if you intend to speak please keep this in mind when you come forward please state your name clearly for the record whether or not you've been sworn in and your qualifications or interest in the matter for purposes of efficiency before beginning any of the public hearings I need to dispose of a few matters um town clerk were all agenda items properly advertised pursuant to the Land Development code yes they were um at this time if any Town council member has a conflict of interests that would prohibit them from voting on any of these items please disclose this for the record at this time so that we can assure that we will have a quorum pres present for review of the items Scott I don't know if this Falls I I would like to recuse myself on on the administrative agenda we're not talking about that right now correct no no okay just these two items correct I'm fine Council Woodson I have none I have none vice mayor none councilor King none all right than okay um the at this time if there is anyone present including the applicant property owner staff who intends to provide testimony in any of the two hearings please stand raise your right hand and be sworn in by the town clerk that includes public comment also in case you didn't hear if you're going to speak in public comment you need to stand and raise your hand as well okay all right do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth right all parties have been sworn okay this is resolution 2489 v202 45590 Carlos Circle is a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approving with conditions or denying variance v202 40050 requesting two variances from LDC table 34-3 a variance of 16 fet from the required 25t Street setback and a variance of 5 ft from the required 20ft rear setback located at 590 Carlos Circle providing for clarifications as necessary providing for conflicts of law scrier errors severability and providing for an effective date if any Town council member has had any expart communication to disclose please let us know the subject discussed and the identity of the person group or entity with whom the communication took place any correspondence that you received or any observations that made of the site councelor King none that I recall Vice mayle I don't believe I've had any either I do not have any councelor Woodson I've had none councelor Safford likewise none okay Jason SMY has been qualified as an expert already by this town counc and based on his education and experience has been accepted as an expert in the field of land use planning and development in the town of Fort Myers Beach are there any other individuals who would like to be qualified as an expert witness on behalf of the applicant at this time seeing none no there's one oh I'm sorry yes sir stand up he has been in the past but on other all right if if you've already been qualified you're fine I did I just want to make sure it's been a little while since I formally did it and people are different so but yes good might as well say your name since you're up there Fred dck from RBI planning and Landscape architecture thanks Fred thanks has a property owner applicant seen a copy of the agenda backup materials from staff yes okay take it away Jason good morning counselor staff my name is Jason SMY I'm with your planning and zoning department uh before you today is a request for two variances on 590 Carlos Circle as was mentioned by the mayor uh the first request is for a uh 16t reduction of the front or Street setback uh providing for approximately 9 ft of setback from the front property Edge front excuse me uh front property boundary in the rear they're requesting a 5 foot reduction and VAR uh variance for a 5ft reduction and we'll be providing a 15t setback in the rear whereas normally they would be providing 20 in the rear and 25 up front uh staff uh staff recognizes that this lot is non-conforming in multiple ways uh this the lot was originally subdivided at some point in the early 70s and the lot is what it is it was developed prior to the storm with a with a structure on it the applicant is coming in today to uh re hopefully redevelop that structure again or a new structure and they're requesting these reductions uh staff recognizes that in some um on especially on the Eastern side of the lot it would effectively be unbuildable there for depth of the house if they were required to provide the 45 ft uh Collective setbacks 20 in the rear 25 in the front so um the the staff had presented this to LPA LPA had uh recommended approval and sending this to Town Council unanimously along with one uh additional staff recommendation which is to uh require that the lower level be kept open the applicant has agreed uh to this already to keep that lower uh level open in hopes that that will provide enough parking for any of their guests uh currently the property has a relatively long driveway there's approximately 27 ft between the um the property line and the road road Edge so the request is really just to ensure that they will account for uh any additional cars they may have on site and provide uh provide them parking entirely on site uh as was mentioned earlier Mr dck is here for the applicant uh there's any questions for staff I'm here for that all right questions for Jason have you re I assume I haven't seen any but I assume you haven't received any objection from the neighbors no sir I've not seen any rejections from the neighbors thanks Jason you're welcome red good morning mayor council staff uh thank you for this time um my name is Fred dck from rvi planning and Landscape architecture for the record I do have a short presentation I'm not going to BL this but there are some little graph Graphics that I think are helpful for the you know the the prean location and stuff so we'll go through that um fairly quick and I won't be labor the individual points later because we agree with the staff report in whole uh and all their recommendations so let's go to slide two there we go um I am representing the uh the owners of this and and they hired me to help them out there uh with the rebuild of this um the property you can see where it's located um about a half mile I guess North uh of the Time Square on the north side of Aero one property off on Carlos uh Circle The prean View shows I did this to and I know the you know the the property appraiser lines aren't perfect but this gives you a pretty decent idea of where it was located before about 5T from the uh south or Western uh boundary and 7 ft in the rear about 11t in the front and that is a a deck and the and the area included so that goes to the deck was about 11 ft um you can see the Dual driveways and things like that we're proposing a little bit of a different Redevelopment plan um because both those driveways aren't necessary we are showing those but um we are making it uh accommodating the Redevelopment of this that that that the northern driveway is optional and we have plenty of depth to park uh underneath the house and in the driveway with just even one driveway but of course the final development plan hasn't been uh set yet the Unique Piece about this is uh the minimum lot requirements in here are 4,000 square ft um 50 uh we're a little bit over 50 ft in W width but our depth is uh is is short we're only 45 44 to 64 ft deep the minimum lot size is 80 ft deep the uh so the we're requesting um the the front the street and the rear setback difference in order to provide a buildable area within the lot and we'll show you how that worked out on this one the total request then is for 16 ft in the front and it's a 5 foot relief in the rear here's the so here's the layout and uh hope this is clear so in the middle of it the big the blue triangle is what would be left if we adhere to all the development standards extremely small about a 250 foot footprint so mighty unique yeah yeah that would be um yeah be be HDTV be interesting um a little mini tower in there so um so what we tried to do is locate the the uh house in you know in order to comply with as much as we can and improve the rear setback so it was at 5 ft we're asking for we're setting it at 15 um we're adhering to the new 7 and 1/2t setbacks on the uh whichever you want to call it east west north or south but on the sides the side setbacks are 7 and2 ft so are complying and then the front which is kind of unique I mean I know we're measuring from our property line but the the the pavement is actually um you know another almost 20 ft off of the property line so visually it it it looks like we have plenty of room there but where we're proposing the deck only leaves 9 ft from the property line now underneath that uh underneath which one did I point do you know that do you know the distance from that corner that you just referenced out to that center line is that 27 ft that is yes to the center okay to the center I didn't see that on the right yep um and so underneath that the the the uh driveway that is I guess south or closest to a St AB buding that property um on the South and West End there is uh from the property line all the way through the house is about 45 ft and that's going to be kept open for at least minimal stacking there so we don't have to be parking uh required parking in the right away um so that is that the development program and then um you know with the variance criteria staff agrees that we meet all five variance criteria that we didn't create the hardship um and it's not the owner that's causing the need for the variance it's unbuildable and a and a non-conforming lot and so I'm here for any other questions that you may have um and we ask for approval and to move to the second hearing um as soon as we can so they can uh rebuild their Cottage all right that's all I have any questions for for Fred councelor King none VI idh no thank you CC not for Fred so much but since this was unan unanimous Miss vote LPA does it have to come back to Second not yet it does yet okay after today May after today maybe okay thank you oh this quasi it doesn't need a second hearing a yeah it's a resolution not an ordinance so we're good good yeah even faster if it get like it yeah this is great counc Safford uh none I don't have any as well thanks Fred all right thank you yep public comment is there anyone that would like to speak on this resolution seeing none we'll pull it back to the council for discussion and or a vote or a motion mayor I'll move resolution 2489 V 20245 590 Carlos Circle got a motion by councelor King is there a second I'll second councelor by seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion councelor King roll call vote I councelor Safford I I councilor Woodson I vice mayor adhal I mayor allers I motion carries unanimously next is resolution 24-9 se22 40024 6614 Estero Boulevard Island winds condominium this is a resolution of the Town Council of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida approving approving with conditions or denying special exception sc202 40024 to allow reconstruction of a wooden landscape wall in the environmental critical EZ zoning district with conditions for the property located at 6614 EST stero Boulevard providing for scriven res erors severability and an effective date if any Town council member has had any exart communication to disclose please let us know the subject discussed and the identity of the person group or entity with whom the communication took place any correspondence that you received or observations made of the site councelor Safford I have none counc Woodson none I have none Vice may adal I n ccor King well I have concerns about the president but that's neither here nor there Jason SMY has been qualified as an expert already by This Town Council and based on his education and experience has been accepted as an expert in the field of land use planning and development in the town of Fort Mar's Beach are there any other individuals who would like to be qualified as an expert witness on behalf of the applicant at this time seeing none has the property owner applicant seen a copy of the agenda backup m materials from staff they're nodding yes all right Jason good morning again my name is Jason small I'm with your planning and zoning department as was mentioned uh 6614 otherwise known as Island winds condominium uh is requesting a special exception for the repair and replacement of a um of a wooden knee wall or retaining wall this is in the rear of their property on the Gulf side as is required in our code uh they must come through and and ask for uh additional approvals to um to repair or replace this since this does exist in the town's EC or environmentally critical area based on uh staff's analysis going back as far as we could on Lepa to 1998 we can confirm that there was a wall or retaining wall in this area although the applicant uh does make the point that the wall was developed uh fairly concurrently with the original development of the building sometime between 1972 and 1974 uh the applicant is is requesting to replace the U the wooden um the wooden railroad ties I guess is the best way to describe them uh this is being designed is a two course so it'll be two two ties uh one stacked on top of the other although the way that the grading of the beach uh will come down is only one of those ties will be uh visible for the most part above above the s and uh again this is a replacement in the existing footprint of what existed prior to the storm uh best analysis that we can um that we can come up with From staff's perspective is that the retaining wall at its greatest uh is seword of the line 1978 cccl line approximately 12 feet at its widest part at its uh closest part it's generally right on the line so what you're approving today is a relatively um minor deviation from the 1978 line 1978 cccl line uh staff is here for any questions that you may have and Mr nus bomb will be representing Island winds condominium today questions for Jason I seen them thanks Jason you're welcome Dave or would you prefer Mr Nest bomb either way either way good morning Mr Mayor vice mayor counselors and staff my name is Dave nbam I'm president of Island winds condominium located at 6610 Estero Boulevard however because this is a common area the town uses 6614 as the strap number for common areas the retaining wall the landscape wall that we're discussing is a common area and the board of directors for Island winds is responsible for the repair of all common areas within the the condominium complex our Declaration was filed in Lee County in 1974 the land the landcape wall is facing the Gulf of Mexico and was damaged uh by Ian the wall to date is 300 yard from the mean high water mark of the beach so you literally cannot see the wall if you're standing out at the Gulf of Mexico we are a beach of accretion were one of the few areas in Southwest Florida where our beach continues to grow year after year the wall has survived three hurricanes two tropical storms and a tsunami without any damage and then Ian showed up we it was not built to withstand 17 ft of water it actually with stod the the storm surge going forward it was the back surge that pulled the Timbers off and they were left lying out on the beach when we discovered the damage we contacted Terrell Hall which is a coastal engineering firm in discussion with them we hired them to apply to FD FD says after a hurricane event you have the uh ability to armor your beach with landscape timbers or rip wrap uh they issued a permit for us through Terell Hall I brought it back to staff they said we're fine with the permit however you need a special exception to complete repairs or rebuild portions of the wall as it did extend beyond the CCC line of 1978 that was put there after we were there so we got the FD permit went to staff and we are going through the special exception process one of the conditions is that the wall is damaged again we have to go through the special exception process again and we have no problems with that so with that that's my story LPA and U staff both recommended completion so with that I'll stop talking any questions for Dave none all right thank you thank you Dave public comment is there anyone that would like to speak on this resolution seeing none we'll pull it back to the council for discussion Andor motion mayor I'll move resolution 24-9 secz 2024 0024 6614 Estero Boulevard Island winds condominium I'll second got a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion all right roll call vote John hi councelor ccor Woodson Hi V mol hi councelor Safford hi mayor allers is an i motion carries unanimously all right next item C was was continued to a date uncertain does anyone need a comfort break before we start on the comprehensive plan yes yes all right we'll take a brief break and come back at 10:15 e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are on item D of the public hearings this is ordinance 24-10 comprehensive plan this is the first reading and public hearing on proposed ordinance 24-10 entitled ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending the town of Fort Meers Beach Comprehensive plan in its entirety pursuant to 163 3184 subsection 3 Florida Statutes providing for adoption of the town of Fort Myers Beach Comprehensive plan 2040 including amendments to the Future land use element and the future land use map the community design element the transportation element the housing element the historic preservation element the utilities element the conservation element the coastal management ele El element in the recreation and open space element the intergovernmental coordination element the Capital Improvements element and the property rights element inclusive of all Associated tables exhibits and Maps authorizing findings and administrative actions providing for transmittal providing for severability providing for scrier errors and providing for an effective date will now open the public hearing who's going [Music] first good morning good morning Sarah propes with Community Development um eding is here today he's going to be presenting through he's going to take you through the whole comprehensive plan um there are a couple of ways you could do this you could bring up questions like we could bring up uh go kind of Page by Page through it and then if you had have questions we can stop and discuss or you can bring up questions you may have because it is a rather large document it is what is the uh the will of the council would you like to go Page by Page or would you like to vice mayor got any input I I'm concerned uh I I I I watched I I know my colleagues we've all watched the LPA meetings and Sarah you've been leading in this effort I'm so I'm a little concerned about the fact that you're not going to be presenting this uh you have a better knowledge of our community and I'm also concerned that a number of the items that the council members have mentioned are have not been included so I want to focus on I want to leave time to focus on that as well I think there's there's so much technical terms here that are that are certainly very important but I want to make sure the council has an opportunity to have their input as well into this process and since you'll be here much longer I i' I I just I'd like to have you be involved in the presentation yeah I think there's a communication breakdown at times when the other with all due respect when the other consultant gets involved okay so however you guys want to handle that I want to put you on the spot but I just think you have a you've been working well with the LPA you've got a good sense you've certainly heard the council concerns I don't think Eddie's been here to to hear a lot of that so handle it yep so we can uh sort of tag team it and you know he can I think that since he's been involved in the writing he's going to be able to speak to some of the details a little bit better about the actual text that you see um but if you have questions about how we came to that things like that I mean I I'm certainly uh I I'm sure you saw the LPA hearing that you know I was up and down and discussing throughout yep okay I wonder if it because this is going to be linked to not have you move up and down if we could maybe have Frankie would you mind offering up your seat to to Sarah for this this portion of it to uh that way you don't have to keep getting up and down it'll make it just easier and actually that would be fantastic okay thanks good idea get my can you say Marshall Dylan what about you John as far as the procedure and how we're going to go through this I'm I'm okay either way counc Woodson well I appreciate the fact that Sarah will be much more involved um and there are some things that I highlighted as we went through so we get to those areas that I either I don't understand or I think it's missing some things and that type of thing Scott yeah I think that' probably be the best approach is just uh start asking questions and getting answers rather than go Page by Page by Page yeah I guess I I can see it both ways there's a lot of intricacies and a lot of things that really don't matter but I maybe as as we can flow the questions as the pages go yeah that's fine instead of trying to bounce all over and ask questions so maybe you know we can look at the page if someone has specific questions concerning that page then ask the questions at that time but I don't know that we have to necessarily go over every exact word change that was in there because some of it's very minor some of it is just shs and shoulds everyone all right with that that's fine okay mhm all right Edie I think actually mayor I I think what would help the public and help us is if we the first thing we do is look at that map because everybody's going to refer to that map so if we can have if it's all right with you if we could have that map up there first I think it's I think it's a great idea Jacob it's on pack it's on packet page 622 can you put the map up on the screen so that it's up there as we're discussing and and the other zoomed in maps are also in in the packet um you can see more clearly exactly the boundaries thanks sorry I don't want to slow things down but I think no I think it's important it's a good idea I I apologize i' printed off all of the maps and they are sitting on my desk so well I think the public should while we're talking about if we can have up on the screen and our website or during our our YouTube thing I think it it' be a great benefit because we're going to be bouncing back and forth between different zones and so is we have a reference I think that'll be very helpful well we can start the discussion I think is they're yeah working out the technology are you ready Eddie Ed all right uh actually allow me ad minute to plug in my laptop certainly so if you could that be fine there's a way for good morning mayor council counselor vice mayor counselors uh thank you for having uh me here today uh as you know that has been a uh rather lengthy process um uh um which probably result in um what I think is the 10th 11th maybe 12th version of this overall comprehensive plan package uh you'll find that over the course of the various uh iterations that you've seen in the past uh a lot of things have changed we've gone through several iterations of let's put this in let's take it back out let's put it in let's take it back out um so um I'm I'm glad we're here today because passing the comprehensive plan then allows you to focus on the really important task which is doing the necessary update to your Land Development regulation which will actually be the more um Salient effort toward rebuilding the town uh um as you can see here in the proposed land you map uh there are some uh major uh uh initiatives here um that had been previously discussed um although not in its uh final form as you see here um the initiative that we had discussed really early on back in oh gosh think 2019 and then carrying over into 2020 and hurricane Ian was the uh was a concept of having nodes uh these nodes were a a respond to several things uh first of which was to think about activity on this island and even before a hurricane Ian we're finding that uh there's a transportation issue um the transportation issue being uh the result of people having more drawn out trips along the length of the island uh we had issues where the uh where there are folks like Bank branches wanted to open a branch on the island and we weren't really able to uh accommodate without going through a lot of different um how do they put it uh regulatory acrobatics um and so this was the uh kind of the response that been discussed uh over the course of uh many meeting to kind of see how can we think about the daily activities of folks on the island bring those uh uh smaller restaurants and cafes or uh even connecting to uh things like uh the market or or good uh Lao mat or bank and be able to spread across the island and in doing so cut down on the length of on the trip and help alleviate some of the traffic problem that were induced by longer tripsin the island itself um what you see here today really um Tred to take those nodes as we call them as you've heard them in the past and distribute them across the island at these uh small uh activity uh uh centers and they're pretty much modeled primarily off of done the existing land use uh designations you'll see that um with some exceptions of uh based on feedback particularly from the LPA they more or less mirror the uh a portion of the commercial and the uh Boulevard uh designated you had before and that's primarily by Design we didn't um want to push so far as to intrude in the neighborhood there was a lot of feedback from the community indicating a desire to preserve your uh single family housing um and this was a way for us to kind of recommend to you a method in order to create that growth that would necessarily might happen into very concentrated areas as also a means to help preserve those neighborhood as well um if I could that's a nice overview in terms of what the what the what your charge was and what the goal was but can you kind of give folks a sense who might be watching as to how things will be different than they were before in in in Lay terms that people can understand sure um we uh really look toward um well our Ino chart would think about uh putting those a noes with more density um through a lot of feedback that we received both from the council and the LPA that had been but my guess my I guess what I'm trying to ask is the nodes that have been created what will change from a practical standpoint the uh the note create the the basis for you to go into your zoning code and say hey we are going to revive the zoning District in a way that uh you can think about the youth differently and think about your regulations on your density your height uh and the form of the building a little bit differently than you have right now so this is our this is the land use map here yes sir so the land use map again for folks who might be watching just sets the general parameters there's still a Second Step that one would would have to come forth to the LPA and the council to get the appropriate permitting is that fair that that's fair that outting the rule for that permitting right so that that's what the zoning does so for the people in the general public the the thought about this is this you have a set of rules that when you look at them you come in you're like okay what can I do and can't I do right and so what this does is set the stage for the council and the L uh the LPA to recommend to the uh the council uh an expand a set of rules at to recovery so that so the land use change by creating these noes allows someone to at least come in to ask where they otherwise would not have been allowed to come in and ask is that a fair that is fair simplification S Fair yeah um so so the next step for staff will be to create the the updates to the the um Land Development code and the Land Development code includes the zoning districts so we're going to build zoning districts based on the future land use districts that are designed here and they'll get more detailed they'll have more of the specifics they'll talk about the height they'll talk about um uses that are allowed there you know maybe square footage of uses get more into the nitty-gritty um and then also so that's going to be straight zoning and that'll be laid in there and somebody can come in and get something that matches with that District but if they want to do something a little above and beyond they can apply for a commercial plan development or a residential plan development and ask for something that is maybe higher than the zoning District allows but within the realm of what the future land use District allows so prior to this land new land use map you may not even had the opportunity to come in because the use was not appropriate Fair yeah there there could have been a variety of things that weren't allowed there but um um but there's still a whole series of steps for folks who might be worried about this there's whole there's a there's a number of protections still for them to have input into what and how it's developed yes because the existing zoning districts still are there so with the future Lan use map getting adopted the zoning districts still apply they're still the same yeah I just sometimes we get so technical here that it's hard for folks to get a sense of what the various stages of this whole process are but but that's helpful thank you can you be more spe specific when if if we approve this as it is and then second reading is June 3rd when will we dive into the the uses because I I think as as Bill spoke this morning there I think I and I agree with him there's still some issues as to what what those uses are so the plan for me is once we get the comp plan adopted I'm going to present to you language for the CB District um that expands some of the allowed uses within that District Sarah can you stop using words like C Commercial Boulevard what does that even mean that's one of the zoning districts that everyone has complained about that only essentially was designed to increasingly just it's just an L an ATM yeah if I could ask I I think we should look mean for sure this the CB District needs to be looked at but I think we should look at uses for for everything while we're doing it we are but I can't so we have a whole We have basically this next year year I'm working on our Land Development code that's going to be involving the community that's going to be a lot of Outreach that's going to be getting the full picture of what everybody really wants moving forward so we're going to be rewriting the entire future or the entire um Land Development code but I as an interim step because everybody has been very concerned about this one zoning District we're going to fix that so that people can start building but I don't want to jump into how do we make these changes without really talking to the community and finding out like this is what everyone wants and getting a Land Development code that's actually good ours here is it's fine but it's been put together cobbled together over decades and it's a mess is it just to try to simplify it even more essentially this is just that umbrella in the sky if you will that does not allow development over a certain intensity or density yes and what you're proposing here even though they're we're calling them nodes or whatever you going to call them it's not increasing intensity or density within those areas that doesn't currently exist today correct somebody could request a commercial plan development up to what's Allowed by the future land use District but they would have to go through processes and I get that but what I'm saying is this future land M use amendment that we're talking about today is not increasing those thresholds from what they are before today no we kept everything ended up staying the same because I think that's an important thing that people understand and then you can get into the second secondary zoning all the other things that have been discussed up here uses all of that this is just essentially the umbrella that this is a ceiling this is as high as you can go but we're not changing that ceiling from anything currently that's in place today that correct mayor uh if it help the mayor and counsel uh counselors to think about it this way you have um something that was a pretend you have a hold and it's water flowing through it you knotted it to the point where you really couldn't get water to flow through um now you're uning it so the water can flow through at the full capacity of the hose and then what you're doing next after this is turning this figure to how much water you want to flow through at the next dep um right now what you have our rul that are really overly constrictive to the point where the example I gave before in the bank bran that actually a real example that came before uh the council at one point you couldn't get it in and that might and and that's something that the residents had wanted to because hey why would I need to drive off Island to do my daily business if we if they're willing to put something here so now you're going to kind of open that up and in your next step when the zoning comes back uh is say okay how much of this we want to flow through do we really need the toast bigot or do we need just part of it I'm going to turn it down a little bit and uh just allow these certain item that's fully still within the mayor and Council control and actly part of deliberate process at a second step down the line right continue um so I have a question do we do we have to wait till the state approves it or can we move forward with with the LDC changes we can move forward with the LDC changes um right now staff is pretty slammed with cases I'm going to be trying to pull myself back so that I can work work on actually getting meetings scheduled trying to schedule Outreach things like that um but the CB language I'll be able to bring forward fairly quickly hopefully I may be able to get it in June um but it may be August um but that that the goal is to get started on that immediately and we don't have to wait for the comp plan to come back from the state in order to start working on the Land Development code there are just other things that are sort of in the way because we have so many projects coming in right now understandable that's great thank you go ahead Eddie all right um any more questions on the land use so far I do want to Note One Thing uh as well uh we have previously gone through a noted uh Wetland Conservation and we're asked to revert that you'll see that change has been reverted back in the map I do want to note that this does need to go to state coordinator review they may s back comment on that languaging just because it's not it's it's atypical um so we do want to put that on the record that it may come back and if it does do so you might have to go and change that back to uh change that to what other community do but we're going to submit uh per your request in Prior discussion at Wetlands uh to the to the state if you approve this map as is and and see if those comment come in that's all right with the with the council all right uh bless you uh if there's no further question on the future land use map uh uh um if we're if we're moving on from the F will we will we be coming back to the particular sections of the future land use map or we we should we have our questions now if we have questions on the future land use map I think asking them now makes the most sense if you have them now ask them now so we had an M&P the other day where the council I think almost unanimously suggested that we'd like to make it a little easier for for us to have more retail potential restaurants on those properties that face Aero Boulevard from Church of the Ascension to Santini Plaza and I'm trying to understand what was done as a result of that M&P meeting so um from my conversation I thought we were changing what was allowed in that zoning District not actually changing the future land use map because um these are uh primarily Residential Properties along here um I didn't want to change their future land use District without careful consideration going from mixed residential to what would be um and again just to be clear I'm talking about the properties that face a stero Boulevard and that would still be changing their future land use right when you say when you say residential they are that is condo District so that's why I encourage I know you've got a a leg challenge I was going to have you walk that area because totally it is totally and and there's a lot of interesting properties on there that could be used for a doctor's office a dentist office a restaurant I mean there just and it seems like just based on what some of the challenges we've heard from constituents I think Jason can maybe comment on this if you could Jason what what what what what Paul ker had challenge with with with her property at Lana reality she had two extra units she wanted to have island girl in there and she wanted to have somebody who was going to help with uh redecorating for properties and have a little office there what what was the obstacle she ran into uh well as was briefly mentioned before the CB District uh is seeming intent is to allow for only uses that were existing and could be proven to have been existing um post I believe it was 2003 so finding those records can be difficult but even in the best of circumstances uh many of the uses that are not allowed by CB right now such as uh retail retail use um in some in some buildings restaurant use those are allowed in many of the other districts but are limited in CB specifically because they are specifically allowed to only use what can be proven to have been existing post 2003 have we solved that issue with this new future land use map uh I believe most of that is going to be addressed through the Land Development code um so the Land Development code will will give a complete schedule of uses that are allowed um but from what from what I've understood the intent of the council to be and from what Sarah has has talked about before the intent is to open up those uses by right and uh get rid of some the limitations that say you must be able to prove that this use existed and was viable but the foundational land use map that we see here gives us the flexibility to do that in your professional opinion uh absolutely so this is going to be the skeleton and the LDC is going to be the ligaments that actually make the the body move here and can get us from point A to point B this is just setting a a really rock solid foundation that we can apply those Land Development code changes on top of all right thank you I appreciate it I think we I think if I could try to to help alleviate some of what you're it's hard to see like where the CV zoning District Commercial Boulevard zoning district is within the future land use map so that's very hard to see yeah well so I could see why there's some confusion between the future land use map and how it has to relate to the zoning districts but without seeing on this future land use map where the zoning district is it might alleviate I think some of the vice May's questions as far as there might be there might be a section in there that he's thinking of that is in the CB zoning District but isn't necessarily showing within that what I'm what I'm trying to get at is we've there's and that's why I want you to walk that area a little bit because you have to see it and walk it to get a sense of what is there's a there's a dentist office and a spa that's vacant now because of the storm that's right across from Santini Plaza somebody wanted to go in there and put a nice restaurant in there they can't do it uh and it doesn't affect anyone adversely it'll be a mod sized nice little Niche restaurant and and we wanted I just want I still want the they have input I want the have it to go through the full process but I just want people to at least have the opportunity to pitch an idea that might be interesting to those who live in that neighborhood that's that's all I'm saying that Mak sense before with wacovia bank if you recall it did only thing had be built there was a bank then wovi put a poison pill in their thing saying you can't open a bank I mean you couldn't do anything with that property and we we we can't we got to move forward so so so if we if you look at the area that's orange on there that's a print essentially there there are a few Parcels that are outside of it but that's pretty much what the CB zoning district is so um and you call it the CB zoning Commercial Boulevard zoning the last time at at our M&P you said under a CB zoning District you could only have an ATM machine I didn't say that I thought you said that I thought that was the limit of what you could have under a CB zoning District No so CB is designed it's considered one of the Redevelopment zoning districts the idea was that there were too many intense developments within it and that every time you downgraded so basically residential was the highest retail was the next highest office was the mostly lowest and then there was residential out of the commercial uses once you downgraded so if you started out with a restaurant and then you went down to an office you could never go back to a restaurant you were stuck with office nothing more intense than office so we changed it so that anything that had been in there before we went through this a couple years ago this was a a concern and at the time all the council wanted was to allow the uses that had been there previously so that required that we just figure out what had been there before the way we are going to open it up is by what I'm thinking you know it's going to be based on feedback with you guys once the ordinance gets put together but the idea would be that uh essentially most commercial uses would be allowed but limited on Square footage you're you're getting you're getting close because there are there have been properties in that area even preent that have been vac it for years and we want we want to we want to create activity in those areas and people when I say Activity I mean I don't mean drawing people from the outside I I think it actually helps with traffic because the more options for people on the south end they will not get in their cars they'll just walk they'll they'll take their bikes and and it it it actually eliminates traffic to have more options for the in these nodes so and and we want to do it in a way that we preserve everybody's opportunity to to have input and to objec if if if that if that's their will but it right now it seems like we have we're in this we're in this we're in a spot where we're not we're not uh incentivizing people to to be creative and have options and I it sounds like based upon what you're telling me we're we are fixing that yes okay very good so that's that orange piece is the only I mean Jim was just talking about where the chiropractor and the Dennis used to be next to 7-Eleven What's um I would think that we'd want a larger area not go crazy but we could certainly go down to Santini Plaza is that is that what you're saying Scott yeah I mean like expand the node well yeah so okay there was an interest in that if you go from there down to Santini Plaza there used to be a a doctor's office the the one guy I mean there's it was it was a dentist it was Chiropractic sp there and that's a vacant building well there there commercial Resort um is a use that's along the south side of that and then there are cpds rpds and then residential multif family so on the south side of Aero there are are a variety of uses on the north side of Aero um we had talked about extending the um sand I think it was the Santini Plaza one that we talked about to the yeah and there was no interest in that because everyone was concerned that we were going to be encroaching in the neighborhoods I don't think we have a problem with that but we just need clear Direction on how you want this to go it would might be my goal to expand that have it go from Santini Plaza to church at the Ascension to just those properties that AB a stero Boulevard well so so do you actually want to change the future land use District South of Estero to include all of those or do you want to change the the what's going to be medium residential to say that commercial uses are allowed that are in uh I think you just hit the nail on the head I don't long A Sterile Boulevard it's essentially doing exactly what you want to do without opening up the entire area and making it the Commercial Boulevard correct I mean it would it's it's essentially allowing more uses within the medium residential which would be the purple to allow small scale commercial stuff like you're talking about dentist office things like that and that's where the wording would come in through the district writing of the code correct so I don't know that there's a necessity to increase the size of that what's going to be in that green zone there if you're allowing some small scale residential stuff that obviously still gets vetted through the public in what would be the purple area of that map okay so it wouldn't necess I think that accomplishes what everybody's trying to say yeah I mean I'm I'm think my I visualize you know a nice little store on the bottom whatever that is or restaurant then allowing for a little bit of residence on top but but I think what Sarah is saying and what Eddie are saying is that can be accomplished at the next step not amending the future land use map as there it is now but through the zoning districts you can add those uses within the medium residential to allow for coffee shops things like that and and the the mixed residential currently does have some allowances for that but making it a little bit more specific saying I mean we could update the medium residential language to say on properties fronting on a stero so that there are additional rights in that Medium Residential Group when they front on a stero and that would be something that language would have to go in the future land use map yeah I me we could add that there and then we could make it more explicit by the zoning District that way would align with the zoning dist and we're not going to be encroaching into the neighborhoods that was the biggest concern everyone didn't want additional commercial moving into the neighborhood so keeping it pretty tight along a stero and that's fine just to give you example and and I'm following I'm tracking all the businesses at Santini Plaza that may be coming back or or new ones that coming in there there potentially could be a a lack of a place to have breakfast so that means on the whole South End of the island there's nowhere to have breakfast that hopefully that'll be we'll find a niche for that at Santini Plaza but if not that means people get in their cars they drive off Island South or they drive all the way to the North End and during season you can't do it I mean it's it's it's a it's a challenge so to have a breakfast place on a stero Boulevard is not intruding into a neighborhood it's benefiting those neighborhoods it's a it's a community Gathering Place it's a quality of place I mean that the doctor's office dentist's office uh hair place to get there's no haircut place at Santini Plaza I don't think there's one coming back I hope so we need to create a a business district there that works for the people who live in that area that that's what we're trying to accomplish so so do keep in mind though you do have limited population um so if you create so much commercial that it isn't really in any specific place you don't create place so that is part of the concern if you have so much and I mean the commercial developers are going to make decisions about where they can go and where you know if they have enough people to sustain them because that's going to be really important and if it's the right use for the place but if we put too much commercial in there you risk just sort of making it it's everywhere have you ever driven through a town that just has commercial just sort of scattered around and you just feel like you're driving through the same place over and over again but the market the market will dictate that I think you just described Highway 41 North here yeah I mean I mean so so if you don't but if you don't like create a place then you risk not having a place you just risk it sort of being scattered all over and and not feeling like anything so this is half a mile strip that buts a stero Boulevard it's not all over the place it's not it's it's already condos it's what you would like to do we can do just tell me but that's what we're trying to accomplish though is just to give give these give the allow the market to work in this little area in a way that does not intrude to the mayor's Point into these neighborhoods but just you know when when when somebody has to when when Jason's got to go back to 1973 to see if there was a restaurant there or a retail place I mean that that that's absurd and and and it limits people being creative to serve the public that lives there so your interest is changing medium residential so it now says limited commercial uses are allowed at small scales along a sterile Boulevard and then when we come in for the zoning District it would be something like that having certain all we basically don't want Paula ker to go anybody to go what to go through what Paul kiker's gone through it's it's it's just absurd it doesn't make any well and that will be fixed very quickly because that's CB that's Commercial Boulevard and we're trying to get that fixed so so is it I think what you said makes sense with the wording I don't know if you know I think it was a sterile Boulevard obviously if it abuts a St a sterile Boulevard that'll help protect the inclusion or the intrusion into the commercial or the residential area okay but instead of I mean I know you say commercial you know commercial and then that gets diluted down through the the spet if you will through the uh Land Development code but and through the districting but does it make sense to use words like essential Services which kind of is what everybody's talking about here things that you know you need a doctor you need a haircut place you you you know you need a dentist you need things like that but does that include restaurants too essential Services got to eat yeah okay I know but I mean what I just to make it easier for when when people are trying to develop they can they marry up a little easier as opposed to commercial can mean a lot of things right I mean I could make an argument that I need a twostory coffee shop and maybe the neighborhood only wants you know just there's a lot that's a big word right my recommendation is to really take care of that in the uh in the zoning because it's if you have an opportunity that comes along like the vice mayor had uh had alluded to where someone comes in and that's a really great idea you don't necessarily want to change your comp comprehensive plan to do so you can adjust on your zoning to allow those ideas a lot quicker and a lot easier in a lot more Nimble fashion if if there is someone that comes in and the council agrees hey this is a great idea uh um comprehensive plan process he take half a year to a year at time to to do uh and your your point is well taken I just want to make sure we have a future land use that gives us the flexibility to be able to do that in the future if I could speak to that point just a little bit more then what we done here create a core for the the council to to think about we recommended this core not only based on feedback from the LPA because they did tell us to pair it back and we understood why uh uh um but also with the consideration that in the future if you needed to expand from the core because the market dictat and they come before you you can do some small scale Amendment at the market dictate to expand from your core what's important is that you have a core begin with that you kind of think about Hey where's the investment going and does it make sense to kind of expand from that in the future that's another thought to think about as well and I just I mean you I always try to look at if you're trying to make a decision like this what are potential consequences I think putting the Safeguard in there by a stero Boulevard helps with that but when you look at the entire map if Jacob if you can go back to the entire met there's a lot of medium residential that I mean pretty much all North the stero Boulevard would now fall into that not just the south end so making the changes just so that everybody's clear you see all that purple up there is now other if it's a budding a stero Boulevard would have the ability to be able to go through whatever the Land Development Co get adjusted to and that actually was already in place I mean the the comprehensive plan already said that for mixed residential um that small commercial uses that were compatible with the neighborhood were allowed Within These we kind of paired that back a little bit so that it can't be just anywhere in the neighborhoods it needs to be it needs to be more specifically located so it was already allowed um and I mean you you saw that throughout the neighborhoods you would occasionally see like a motel hotel you would see some things in the neighborhoods but um this sort of pairs it back and keeps it more along a stero Boulevard okay I think we beat that one to death questions though uh um are there any other aspects of the uh future land you that perhaps need more discussion or questions why so right here what that's just Recreation uh I'm not sure where you're pointing to counselor's effort right over by Santini um Santini Village is that you're talking about the outlin in the yellow I'm talking believe that a currently designated Wetland within your future land use map um that's uh oh no right here oh so that's that's the critical Wildlife Area if it's like along the water right that uh if we go to oh yeah Jacob if you go to the Santini Village map never mind yeah right you mean the the the the the kind of like a purple beige uh area right that the yeah that that that that Beast nourishment so by how you all had uh had before Recreation we okay I I got it I thought that was like I thought that line was a stero but thank you for the clarification and U you know that you know that was actually one of the comment from Recreation and Wetland and conservation and how that kind of uh might we get might get comments back on on that too okay thank you s just one additional question just so I understand that the Santini Plaza node how does that differ from what we were just talking about from the from Church of the Ascension along a stero Boulevard down to Santini Plaza how does the Santini Plaza node differ from the other area along a stero that we were just talking about so if we were to go to um new policy flu 1 B5 um that's the place where all of the mixed use districts are described page 520 in your your at our book of love that's where it starts you got the Time Square in there you got everything if you go to to e on that one um it talks about the Santini Village um yeah what's what's the answer to the question can you clarify the question yeah the Santini Plaza Village designation MH and this this this this the properties that AB but a stero Boulevard from Church of the Ascension down to San Plaza how or up to the the the node of Santini Plaza node how does that how do those two areas differ in terms of how they're zoned or future land us um they're going to have same intensity same density um they have different purposes Santini also has an option for redevelopment that's different it's based on a previous plan that was accepted by the town [Music] um but otherwise it's it's fairly similar these are intended to to all the nodes are are tended to be fairly similar in density and intensity but with sort of a different focus in order to give it a feeling cuz we're trying to create Place San does have one particular difference than the rest and that is the Marine use oh gotcha all right that's helpful thank you very much yep and I think it's just for future reference I think the very last line in that is is something that it just caught my eye I didn't catch it before but in the Santini Village as you read under the E the very last the very last line says the marina site shall be redeveloped in a mixed use context to promote an active Waterfront with a mix of uses the marina use shall not be eliminated by the site's Redevelopment so that because that Marina and that section is encompassed in the Santi Village they have a little different rules than the other Marina consistency you see what I'm kind of getting at yeah they're not they're not Marina future land use uh they're Santini future land use and they do have the opportunity for mixed use that's different and that was existing before yeah so we're not taking away any of their rights we're keeping all of their rights isn't that Marina also considered commercial pedestrian at the it's basically fishtail Marina I don't know um it's Zone Santini and bear with me uh yes Santini is currently pedestrian commercial yeah H so fish tail then would be considered commercial pedestrian as well yes uh well at this time yes um which we need to change the density or the the intensity the intensity yep uh so good catch thank you um that needs to be changed the maximum uh non-residential f for that District needs to be changed to 2.5 y thank you and you currently had it in here at 1.5 yes correct and again that's what is existing today that's not something that's changing that is not something new what did a little bit more new is you'll see the language for permitted uses include General retail restaurant Professional Services uh professional offices at the dental and medical again to open that up so that you can try to lure those people in and on the sou T of the island where you need a breakfast place or a barber or even small medical offices that people can walk to instead of having to drive across the island yeah I think Eddie it might be important since we're on this subject to go through these future nodes if you will and explain really what the changes are in this area from what they currently are cuz to your point you just said in Santina there's a few things that were changed in there to allow the uses I think it'd be important for everybody hear and understand starting with Time Square and work your way down yeah these are what the changes would be within the future land use man sounds good we'll do well let's start with uh Time Square mixed use then Time Square was actually more envisioned uh when we when we set out um we know that there are people who are going to continue to visit Fort Meers Beach we see it today um this is a destination there's a reason why you CH you all chose this place to live uh uh um it's a great place what time cre was designed to try to do was think about how we can also capture more those visitors before they kind of you know go throughout the island as well so in there there there's a bit more of uh uh when you look at the uses you'll see that there is a preservation enhancement of existing hotel motel multif family a little bit more of that emphasis uh on those uh services that you you derive from the tourism industry just to try to keep them there as much as possible um uh um and and something to note here is we did um we changed we in the comp plan here we have that rooms are hotel motel rooms are based on F not on density because that was that's been an issue for years as we have this weird density issue with hotel rooms so this is we've changed it in this language to be floor area ratio based and how in in layman's terms how would that change to the end user as far as their ability to have more rooms versus what they could have before so that changes because you did have um a six or in some instances a 10 um and you had to use a multiplier based on the size of the rooms to get to the number of rooms that you were allowed six is pretty pretty low if you wanted to have so you'd have to have an entire acre of land in order to have six dwelling units and then a multiplier of like two maybe so that's you'd have to have an entire acre of land and you could get to 12 units um which is not really a usable I mean it it's not you'd never build that yeah it wouldn't make sense financially so this change allows the uh the owner of the property to build to that floor area ratio so um the maximum is 2.5 however the zoning district is going to be below that right now I think the max is 1.8 so um and that's only in certain parts of the downtown so that means that you would be able to build square footage equal to like inside your building Equal to 1.8 times the size of the lot so um you know it's multiple stories and it just makes more sense for the way uh we would want a hotel to be designed anyway are we just for clarity we're keeping right now it's 1.8 along Old San Carlos between 5th and 1st and 1.4 for properties Froning the stero and the Bayfront pedestrian Plaza and one for all all the other properties is that correct uh that's zoning District zoning yeah so um we have we kept the language we kept the um floor area ratio that was allowed Maxim intensity in the comp plan already which was 2 and a half for pedestrian commercial and then there were uh I don't remember what the other numbers were but we did put it in here um so the downtown zoning District gets overlaid on top of that future land use district and so if you were to just use the down town zoning then you would be limited to whatever it says within the Land Development code which is 1.8 along Old San Carlos and I think Time Square and then there's like another number between yeah so there are different gradients based on the um that's the zoning District based on the location but the overall uh future land use district is 2.5 okay so if you wanted to go over in that scenario 1.8 to get to the maximum allowed with the comp plan of 2.5 would require a CPD process or an R RPD process yes that is correct you so you'd have to go through the special rezoning to come up with your own commercial plan development or you go through a deviation now correct um I a development agreement yeah um potentially okay so on the Time Square thing it says the density the the new language says the permited density is up to six units per acre that's that's the last line before you get into B yeah right so I think your point is it's kind of goes against what she just said right exactly yeah so it looks like um we would need to utilize the platted overlay language that we've put in several other sections because on the uh east side of Crescent there is some platted overlay um so we would just need to fix that right [Music] okay um let's see Ed it's right before the um where you going to be Civic Center it's the last line there where it talks about density uh do I go over yeah um do we go over toic Center n uh moving on from town from anyone have any questions any more questions about the Time Square mixed use okayer um as you recall originally it kind of blended with Time Square and then we were asked to kind of scale that back because it used to be continued on the map and it's no longer so after uh one of the joint sessions uh with the lp and the at the council uh the Civic St Miu District really uh want to not be Time Square in that it's focusing more on the Civic the neighborhood the neighborhood itself uh being mixed Ed residential in the area ground floor retail uh some residents above say a restaurant or a barber shop that sort of thing um the hotel and motel uses uh is conditional though they may be allowed but they have to come before the council for approval additional approval uh uh uh uh uh when coming in um we uh kept uh uh uh uh told that the uh the the f is 1.5 the maximum density the S dwelling units per acre of course we adjust that tech for the uh uh for for for the commercial um are there any question on the Civic portion uh we have built impr much around this area being a town Town Hall Town Center area so you're saying that the density also needs to be adjusted there slightly yes with the overlay yes go ahead Eddie cator Island so we had actually initially taken where the public was and the court thought okay at the middle of the island there already a market there how we do about it um so uh uh uh similarly to uh uh uh the cfic center 1.5 six R unit with adjustment if needed um permitted uses uh commercial business professional offices uh restaurants it does have some Marine in the back so uh active Waterfront Marina can be encouraged um and of course the elimination of what that currently exist is uh is prohibited um Jacob can you put that full map back up there [Music] if you look at this um particular one you'll see that the original boundary of this was much much more um it had gone in some of the low density areas we were at to pair that back uh and just so that everybody it's right in the middle there it's kind of that zigzag reverse y looking thing Jacob if you could pull up the center Island zoing in that's perfect it's kind of bulky still right that's the the Orange is Publix right that that's correct man and then snook B the blue right this is where we knew that there were uh existing older hotel motel users on the other side of uh there on on on the South Side the the the the uh the Gulf side um so where we actually was like okay what can we do to to kind of uh combine both sides of the the corridor as well try to to try to make a node we did exclude that portion there that you think just just because that Recreation is uh um Park essentially Park property uh uh um there but the rest of it is uh uh even though it's it it's mixed residential a lot of it is really the older uh uh Motel to tell that you see uh uh the two story one that you see so the blue the blue in back of Publix Publix I'm assuming is the orange so the blue in back of there would be snook by Marina and that is zoned is that that's strictly Marina yes that's strictly Marina um we had initially included hard as to know but through discussion I believe including the joint uh the The Joint Council and LPA discussion we have to keep Marina at a separate uh use and that's where it got paired back out however being it um when you look at the um mix residential on the other uh next to the marina there are some Mar that's attached to some of those residences that we wouldn't want to necessarily eliminate so that's where that language had to be kept here in all of these Eddie and the only reason I bring it up is because someone had sent us an email concerning outdoor dining and I see you have restaurants obviously listen to them but you also have in parenthesis outdoor dining on all of them is there a reason that that specifically has to be written in that way or is restaurants just cover the potential for outdoor dining we uh I personally think that restaurants do cover outdoor dining but not always I'm actually right now in another city I'm doing with having to have someone come in to write a code so that we could have outdoor dining and um so depending on how you write your rules sometimes it's not necessarily a given so we put it in there just as kind of like a fail safe on request if I could ask to to the mayor's point we we did receive a very thoughtful letter uh or email Emil from a constituent who expressed they wanted to they wanted to make sure and maybe we do this in the land of elment code if it is outdoor dining the neighborhood wants to make sure that there's a dialogue with that restaurant and they have the ability to protect the neighborhood right you know with through barriers uh sound you know vegetation whatever but but we want they want to make sure their rights are preserved is that is there is there a way we can do that I think that that more appr proly done through the approval process what you're asking in the Land Development regulation so uh I'll give just a back examp though I'm talking about with another city where I'm having someone come in with uh an outdoor dining ordinance right in that outdoor dining ordinance where I T that consultant to do uh uh uh was to come in and say not only do I need the rule for how you can come in with outdoor dining uh you know with and how many seats but also the approval process so the improval process is what uh you know having the uh the the the neighbor being moved through during the process is what the right may it it it is speaking to and that's very much a a part of that ldr on how do you approve a permit what what what processes and steps are you allow need to take um because it's a special case example I think what the mayor was asking correct me if I'm wrong is that just by that language being in there you're you're not necessarily guaranteed it by right right it just it just allows just an option your your right your bu right come in Into The Zing that tell you the categories for which you can construct that by right into gotcha thank you are any further questions on the uh the center Island no I don't think so all right moving to theer and art Mak use uh when we thought thought about we can scroll down to that uh section as well um we initially thought about this at kind of this uh you're you had a theater there it used to be pink now it's a teal um but we um while they pull that up um um if it's all right mayor yeah Jacob can you move down to the next section the uh down by the church of ascension all right so we thought about this more of a it's a very narrow strip but there interesting of put business is there uh you can do what you did before just go to back M just zoom in on that he went Time Square so we want to go south oh that's Time Square yeah yeah we Time Square we're onid down from that theater and art um it's actually one of your other tabs you have the tab open at the top for arts and theater he's got he's getting there there we go there it is right that's nice it shows the streets was a lot a bit smaller when we first presented to you we were asked in discuss what the LPA to expend it um the Imp behind it was to think about the you know ground floor maybe a restaurant breakfast place with maybe one or two uh floors above being residential like live above your the restaurant not very uh not very overly high intensity because behind this neighborhood towards the Inland side you have the um right you have single family residence so we didn't imagine to be at the to to to be at the quite the scale at the other at the other nodes uh we did keep to what is currently permitted permissible uh um in terms of the uh F and dring unit but the intent is to provide uh small things like art galleries little activities uh um uh provide um maybe even a little bit of a branding uh uh for from an art standpoint to kind of draw that in sometimes you need branding and part of the marketing right uh hate to do this but I'm going to ask I'm not trying to open up a can of worms it's just more of a question the the there's been a number of folks who live in that neighborhood of who've who've been concerned about the beach theater having outdoor dining is that how will that be handled in in this iteration here that's before us well I think the same as I think it's the same as the answer as we did uh uh uh answered in the ldr for outdoor dining if there's a concern uh then it should be be written in the process for how you approve theed whether it's conditional or whether it you have to make sure you have uh a workshop with the uh with the neighbor something or to that effect right maybe some neighbors who like it some who don't but I I think they want at least to have a voice in that process yeah totally totally heard on good on that um the same answer as before right it's about how you build your approval process and your Land Development regulations okay and not trying to get too granula on things but in the in the purpose and in the uses things this is in that area that we they were talking about Paula Kiker and when you look at the uses none of those uses that are in there align with what she does so are we pigeon hauling ourselves by putting these uses in there or is it what I guess what I'm trying to get is because if someone wants to go to put a dentist office in that building next door M could there be an argument that well it's not in the future land use map is a is a continu I know that goes to the the codes but or to the zoning but because they wouldn't necessarily technically align would that be an issue I think we in there we should probably add the word include commercial and before commercial recreation and then you'll be fine and if you want to with that Amendment uh we you know before you go to approval everyone's on board with it I just I think that's a good idea good cat I just don't want I just don't want because we're naming whatever these noes whatever you want to call them right right that it's not just specific to maybe there isn't a dance studio that wants to come oh yeah and you know a doct doit would fit in with like go to the doctor's office while your your kid is at a a ballet dance studio right it's kind of like how do you it's about that um I got only so many hours in a day and I got a family and thing and errands I have to run how do I kind of mix those and combine them right so but I think making it explicit in that area would be very helpful so it does say um it allows um retail and restaurants so we would also just need to include offices retail restaurant that's where you guys come in you I think you get what I was trying to say yeah yes sir and then would this need the same adjustment in the density category as before I would assume they would all I think all of them theed overlay yeah I think they all yeah they all do and then the next one after that is Santini uh which we we talked about earlier just the also just to recap the southern Gateway uh uh uh with the thought about it it's um it does have a current master plan so this doesn't kind of impede on that but if something else comes along and there's a better idea that the that the town was totally things trly wory go for it um a lot of the uh the rest of the um future land use element uh you'll see that um some of it is uh just either wor smiting or in some cases we're just deleting the word category and I word categories so things like that that the tack clean up the language as well um but I'm gr through to see if there's something else I did uh I could uh highlight uh [Music] um um oh yes uh Workforce housing is something that is you don't have to do it but it now gives you the option to you choose to go forward with Workforce housing policies in the future the comprehensive plan doesn't really account for that before um is also good because it also helped bring your housing element into compliance we don't think that if you weren to have even nothing on workfor housing you probably get comment back from the state denying the change in your comp plan is that why all the new categories for Workforce housing because every one of them practically was listed as new so is that something that wasn't in our comp plan before and we're just adding it be because of because we're required to required to now yeah your your comprehensive plan would not pass muster if it did not have some sort of affordable or Workforce housing language in there okay but our our word choices Workforce not affordable correct yeah so that's where you see we deliberately went more toward the workforce housing and the in the item or or or neutralized on that language we had a had a lot of that discussion before um Al uh you saw the latest and greatest in terms of what you could do uh you'll see something that's newer called uh oxly dwelling unit with t tied a commercial uh uh so kind of that work forceing aspect component really just play into that a little bit more um that's uh drawn from National examples actually um let's see uh I think that's pretty much it from uh Scott you had um uh had a question regarding uh Building stories and height uh via email um what we did here was correct what it said it was saying two stories right um and it's actually three stories because we count the ground floor and so we're making the language and the comprehensive plan match what everything the Land Development code said except for one area of the downtown so and we're making that correction at the next hearing well that um there was also there was also a question that was brought up let see if I can pull it up wasn't yeah I mean that that that's I've always thought that's confusing the stories part you're even though you're not counting the floor you're you're counting it as a story it gets very confusing I agree yeah there was there was some language uh in the future land use element it was 4- C4 for the record it said a height limit similar to the 1997 Interim Change will be maintained but an opportunity will be provided to owners of existing Parcels that are so surrounded by tall buildings that it would be grossly unfair to apply the new height limit to them and we kept that language if you uh scroll to it's page 16 in the and in mine it's page 530 is where it starts it goes It's new flu 1 C4 and we we kept that language the only thing that changed was instead of it saying two stories it now says three stories because that's actually accurate so it's first floor plus two or blood plus two no all right um we also if if you scroll down to uh it was policy 4 C6 talking about Motel densities we've changed it to transient densities and now we're talking about floor area ratio so that's a new flu policy 1 C6 page 531 that's five page 531 correct yeah and and just Sarah help me better understand I don't want to beat another dead horse on this but it just the stories thing what is the reason I mean we if if you've got 30 ft above base flood elevation what is the necess explain to me again why there's a necessity to have the verbiage of stories if someone wanted to build three stories with 10ft ceilings and they could meet all the codes and requirements throughout the state to do it why and they still meet with all you know all the other things that you have to as far as density and intensities why does it really matter if there's three stories inside there or two um I maintained the language that was already in there uh this came up at the LPA they talked about whether they wanted to remove the number of stories they decided they didn't I don't have a preference one way or the other or an opinion I would depend on how it's built and maybe that's it maybe we don't want stories to look short and squat maybe we want to ensure that they look like a the correct height I don't know um I mean it's really up to you if you want to remove the number of stories and just keep it to uh the 30t above base flood um we've removed some of the language in the Land Development code that would have allowed people to sneak additional stories in above the height of the building which was a problem that we were having just people kind of sneaking extra stories into at attic space um so I don't know that that's an issue it's it's really up to you guys does anybody else see see my point what yeah go ahead okay um it could be ar that ceilings you're actually putting more people in there or so that it residential you have then you can have a certain number of units but if you have three you've got 50% more or you'll have more floor space in other words and it would accommodate more people but aren't there other that's an intensity issue that would be accounted for in the floor area ratio but in a house it may not because the it's a building coverage as as opposed to floor area ratio for sense residen it was just something that I needed I'm not pushing one way or another I was just I would say that this is this is the common way to do it so that people understand what this is going to look like when they read through it they're like 30 feet how big is that and then you say two story three you know three stories and they're like oh I know how that big that is okay that's fine that's all I we can move on if there nothing further in a few sorry if there nothing further than future landard element I'd like to for us to move to the housing element anyone have any other questions with the the future land use map element move on right thank you I've I actually have a question about Marina do most towns is their definition Marina the same as as ours or is ours more more restrictive or what do you find in other other cities you're pretty consistent uh with what we have we did add a bit on um on preservation of working Waterfront because they statute require that you consider working waterfront that's part of your comprehensive plan but that's about the only most major thing that you know uh uh uh uh that would pretty much added to the marina other than that pretty pretty standard okay good to know thank you all right housing element um the the the the one of the first changes that we are recommending is to just kind of use the word attainable housing it's uh people think about housing element and they automatically the like think oh wait is Affordable and work forth no the housing element for any comprehensive plan it's about maintenance of your existing housing stock uh emergency housing option in case of uh uh emergencies but sometimes it's in a castal uh management element uh depend on how you you treat that with a Community but important here is to think about attainable housing not from the standpoint of who you're going to bring in uh but about your existing residents about the people who currently live here um and to that in that regard one of the uh bigger changes that we recommended was to add something in housing 1 A1 which is to consider development of Land Development code that support en a aging population to remain independent in their own home or in a non-healthcare envir for as long the health allows uh we had a lot of feedback from both the public and the LPA and and and and some of the former uh counselors as well on the importance of thinking about uh the fact that Fort Myers Beach has an aging population uh uh and it is uh uh something that we we we look to like okay so what can be used to empower our elderly residents who are still here to be able to maintain and stay in their existing housing as our our current residents um in that regard thinking about uh uh uh opening up the the considerations for you to put in your Cod later on things maybe accessor Ro units or in law Street as you may call them um and having processes for how you might approve those you actually at least have to have the language thing we're going to even consider it in the first place so this was open that up um uh this is something that's consistent in other communities on how to think about the elderly population because of uh they have to think about their sources of income to maintain their house for example and this provide them that option uh past that you'll see some uh deletions uh and other things that just really clean up of text um there is a policy that's actually needed here change that's needed uh where it that new housings will be built to comply with the applicable Florida building code and FEMA standards that wasn't there before it is going to be a require you're going to get comment if you don't adopt that um let's see um and of course uh there are still some TI in back from the workforce uh housing into into here um uh uh uh as well but that's required uh and also keep the consistent across multiple elements um some of these element that you see are newer toward the end those are things that uh your comprehensive plan hadn't updated in a while and since then the state had put in a number things that it wants you to consider um in this case is we have kind of blunted the language so that it you will consider them or review certain inan doesn't mean you have to adopt them it's just that you have to review them there is a key distinction there that they want to make sure you review them uh uh um and of course um there's something that if you're looking for attainable and Workforce housing particularly in uh uh think about the unit think about how you have uh expedition of processing so concering those uh those policies as well uh there are other things that may apply just that um like just good technique like oh if they have something that's pre-designed or free fabricated how you have those adoption policiy because it lowers the cost of housing construction so particularly important when you have an LLY person and they need to put an in unit in become the source of income like I've mentioning earlier um and other things like Partnerships we did also put in here some limitations for example you can't have more than a certain percentage of micro units in a building for example that's to preserve the housing quality stock uh and when I I know I'm using a ter micro unit that they want know what micro units are micro unit is where the unit size is between 250 square ft and 500 ft usually in other City when I deal with uh Studios For example studios are 550 sare ft they did take the even smaller uh um so we want to limit the amount of those in a single building or or or or or else uh just uh from a quality standpoint that there questions on the housing element anyone have any questions for Eddie John no B may no Karen no I was just looking at that one piece though that it says um Provisions for conversion of underutilized office space into Workforce housing yes is that something that's required as well or that's not really required but you do have these towers where I actually would think that not even just confirmed for Workforce housing but just for even regular housing at this point based on what you have might be a good policy to adopt just because you don't necessarily have that conversion ratio in there or those ideas in your code on how to repurpose it existing building CU what are you going to do then just either let it to vacant or tear it down doesn't seem like it be a good use yeah that's um housing E12 M okay just gives you the flexibility having the wordage in there since she what you're saying yeah you could actually just take that policy move the work work forth and then just take for conversion of underlied utilized office Bas into housing and it's perfectly fine but it is um it's not necessarily required but as a consultant I would recommend to you as a good policy to have because you can always say no later on the conversion but right now you have somebody building that are just not being well utilized makes sense on to the next one all right on to the on to the next element then uh Recreation an open space did we skip over one what about postal managemental management sorry uh I got it in uh an email order so let me move to the other email and uh go to there sorry uh Cotto management element uh pretty straightforward on on Cotto management element a lot of this required because your total management element has to achieve certain objectives first is it has to think about how you're nailing your beaches second is evacuation and uh those type of policies uh replacement of uh a bu uh non replacement of building really in your Cotto uh High Hazard areas really uh um there wasn't much we needed to change you're pretty um this element had been uh kept to a bit better than the than the other elements uh so from what we saw um the most major change was that you had to um you had to add an AP policy to remember to um review and update your emergency plan with every five years that's consistent with your roadway level of service you didn't have that before that is definitely definitely something you should be having um and another one with to keep consistency with what you saw in the prior element uh complying with st and FEMA requirements um here's one where um it's really important that you move forward as well buildings identifi repetitive loss by FEMA need to apology and uh uh it need to be demolished and be permitted and constructed under Town billback policy or current regulations you just can't just repair it you you have to bring it up to code um that's really really important for repetitive law in particular oh we know that yeah oh wait I know i' I've read the news uh so uh but now it's kind of enshrined in your comprehensive plan like it should be and it wasn't before um and any questions on on on on on on the update uh I I tried to point out the most alent ones looks like it's just basic small Tech I mean I didn't notice anything right anyone have any questions on this element no all right Mo on which is the next element I should pull up give Recreation next one's recreation in open space okay move back to the email did I one I'm at Transportation but I probably skipped over it did I skip over no Recreation open space paging down too fast slow down down right Recreation and open space uh you know every every Community had to have this uh uh uh element um oh and of course I I forgot to know earlier you'll see that throughout a lot of the changes on even on the Mind Chang it you see that particularly in Recreation open space we try to give title to just the policy so instead of just saying policy rs1 B9 we add the word like way finding so you actually know what the policy is about without having to dig into the actual text so it's giving that title sometimes it's just a small change but it's a nice one to have to make it more readable uh um uh um with that um I think the most major uh aspect of uh of this to begin with was to really just um think about your view corridors something we've heard a lot from the public about preserving The View corridors to the beach and the kind of the the language in here begin to think about this uh by uh saying the town are aim to preserve an enhan publicly owned View Corridor to the beat and water encourage additional preservation of St Vista on private property when possible Andy I wonder I wonder and and you may not have been part of this but the the council spent a lot of time uh after Andy and uh came in uh working with a number of not for-profits I I see Jason in the back there uh trying to work with 501c3 501 c3s to see if we could uh acquire some uh beachfront land or have it donated to create pocket Parks or additional parks on the island I wonder if there's a way to codify that Lang into it into our comprehensive plan and I'm also curious if we've had any progress on that Jason I know you've got a thousand things going on but that we had an entity that was really partnering with us and helping with us is that is that still are you still optimistic or on that front or is it is that calmed down quite a bit or it may be Andy or Frankie want to comment on that it's actually calmed down quite a bit they they have they lost interest realized that they they couldn't help us so we're going through the other avenues with the state um um R2 P2 yeah kind of with that that designation as well but with the um what is it called when you put in the trust and the state land trust we have to purchase it first and then they will reimburse for it so we're we're working through that at this point is that something we would want to codify in our comprehensive plan that that's a goal for the town because I it seems to parallel nicely with that category but I I think um at the if the council want to if not a bad thing to to to to uh to to codify and say this is one of the methods you are working on uh I would say it shouldn't be the only method you're working on no that's fine that's fine yeah I just I just think we ought to include that because it seemed to we had kind of universal support for that effort and I didn't realize that entity had faded out we've got a new entity working on it but as long as we're still focused on it because that's this is the time the time is never going to be better TR for us to try to acquire some right your your current policy as amended here um does speak to that and another element which we'll talk about in a little bit we found that there were some outdated entities so it's generally against my I usually don't avide that you put specific entities in into the comprehensive plan just because like mention yeah they to ex this uh um but what you want to do is kind of take the spirit of that right so what we have here the spirit is that you're going to aim to preserve and enhance the public view corridors and you're encouraging this through public private partnership or working with we want to add not just preserve okay and right so I mean so perhap that uh the language here need to change the J aim to add preserve and enhance that helps okay it's not going to change your world but it's it's it's it's Mission oriented yeah well we'll add that on the list of amendment before your UH before your motion at the end um important here um uh we added not only a policy on Wave finding uh just make uh uh just uh but uh at the if I can direct you to the very end y'all didn't have a monitoring section uh which is kind of important for this uh for this element so we uh put put in the monitoring uh objective and uh policy there um uh uh just directing for staff to review the Los standard uh to continue to Monitor and see how your acreages change over time to track the number of partnership agreements uh that those partner Partners may include those nonprofits as well um and to um track and Implement Ada accessibility in particular which was uh something that we did not see in the uh in in in the parked element um monitoring ele portion is probably the most major change here cuz you didn't have that before any questions Freddy on the recreation and open space I kind of have something I'm confused by and Jim brought it to my attention policy of R1 c1a1 Marine task force expand the prview of the town's Marine resource task force to include the sustainability of recreational use of Marine Resources I'm not exactly sure what that's telling me uh could you repeat that policy again sorry a oh is it1 A1 1 D1 A1 oh A1 is struck through oh okay sorry I didn't have my readers on again darn it just trying to get used to him just yeah I think we were like this really doesn't uh so that's actually an existing policy um we just struck through that that last part of it mhm right um over all the rest of it made sense uh canoe Trails water shuttle service to your to your natural resources uh if you want to do in the future having a comprehensive recreational system that you kind of plan out the entire Island on that that that do the we didn't uh see necessarily uh uh need to change that language because you you know you should be having that language okay thank you um and I did want to speak to the the monitoring section um the LPA did ask that we pair that back a little bit it was a little more specific than they wanted to see we we made it a little less specific so there are additional ways um so it's a little more open to how it can be monitored right very good any other questions no um one thing I think we made a change in this one previously we were only looking at um Park availability Los was based only on permanent residence um and we changed that to include um transient visitors also because transient visitors also use all of our Park uh amenities so it makes sense that whenever somebody's proposing a large development that's going to be bringing a lot of visitors to the island that they also consider how that will impact the parks and speeches very good and that's also important for when the the council wants to ask something of the developer it provide you the basis from um the essential and rational nectus and proportional nectus standpoint for what you're judging this so it's really important for future funds um as well um if IGN a question which is the next Transportation Transportation uh this is the one where we probably need to spend a little bit more time with you because there's been so back much back and forth that uh certain things that we had in earlier version that you see have all been completely stripped out and I'm not sure that's the way we would want to necessarily go right um we had previously recommended to you uh the creation of a transportation master plan uh with some subsections uh with um consideration of things like uh pedestrian Bridges were applicable uh uh where where they make sense uh uh creation of certain uh Pathway to the beaches uh as a part of a master plan so you to acquire later or to work with others to acquire later at view cordor all of those were uh kind of eliminated along the way and we want sure if there's a reason why or would you want to bring that back into the discussion well I'm so glad you mentioned that cuz I was going to chastise you for not including them but do you say they were taken out at some point they were taken out at some point yeah a lot of stuff was taken out at some point and just what the section did what the element what kind of impacted the most cuz when you and before the storm you and I and Sarah had a one-on-one we met for an hour and right I think I spent 55 minutes of the hour talking about pedestrian walkovers and I didn't see anything in the in the in the in the in the report what what what i' what I'd love to see and I'd love to my colleagues to reaction to it is I'd love to see some langu anguage in there for projects that have land on both sides of a stero Boulevard Andor for projects that want to partner with each other that may not have land on both sides but they decide to partner together I would like to see uh language in there that where the town would consider that a public benefit that they're putting a pedestrian walkover in and and and have that be a consideration as as it as it's reviewed uh by the town and the LPA and and the council um I I think this this Transportation uh section and I've got a number of other comments on is is could really be beefed up uh considering the transportation issues one of our number one quality of life issue challenges for this island in terms of congestion so The Pedestrian walkover piece I'd like to again have it formally considered I'm curious is your professional opinion in terms of how how it's referenc and comprehensive plans but I'd like to have it be considered a public benefit and then and then the bodies could weigh it appropriately I mean I'm not telling them how to weigh it but just that it would be considered a public benefit and I'd like to have the town also be a party to that as well so if it's townland or uh or to beach access or whatever wherever it works I want to really incentivize that pedestrian crossover walkover concept and we have areas right now where it's it's it's it's it's Germain we're talking about Time Square uh Remodel and uh rebuild and there's an opportunity for a a pedestrian walk over Bridge either the county land or Margaritaville or both um certainly Margaritaville is setting the tone we've got a lot of work to do at educating folks to utilize that uh we've got the lon Kai has has property on both sides of of a stero that's a real challenge for congestion and I've talked to them and they're they're open to the concept they're obviously got bigger priorities in terms of trying to get open um the Red Coconut folks the Seagate folks have a a great opportunity for pedestrian uh walk over they've been open to the concept to credit uh now that the town's acquiring land across from the Outrigger it creates opportunities for another pedestrian overpass at the Outrigger because if we can get people going over the traffic and allow the traffic to continue to flow huge piece of the pubes not every there's no one solution to our traffic wo but that's a piece of the puzzle and then i' I'd like to also have some language in here where the 10 I I I listened to the LPA discussion and I realize it's a challenging issue because the Estero is a County Road but I do think we need to have the Congress always oftentimes will pass what they call a sense of the Congress which sends their intent and I think we need to talk about pedestrian railings on a stero Boulevard wherever possible and if a business it's in their particular if it's on their private property where they can help on that front that would be considered a public benefit as well certainly we need to send a message to our County brothers and sisters to uh to make that a priority I think as well it's get part of the solution um and then there is water faery language in here as well but they call it Water Taxi I like to change that word to water fery and or taxi because the fery is different uh and the fer is eminent and I I want when we when we get into that there's some Lang you have you have language on the Water Taxi but I have some specific suggestions on that when we get to it uh and then and then two other things I want to I want to put some language in if my colleagues are comfortable with it that where we prioritize uh uh entities or or projects that that incentivize folks to not rent a car from the airport when they come to Fort Meers Beach and I also want to incentivize folks who who create some kind of a shuttle service uh should that should that be a better option for them and then uh uh well we'll get to this as well but you there is there is discussion of these alternative bike routes or paths on a stero Boulevard we talked about that a little bit later uh recently but I'd like to talk about how we fund those as well so just some thoughts as we get into that but I that pedestrian walkover piece was was I thought the most and the and and The Pedestrian guard railers was was the most was was was the thing that that got me most exercised in terms of its absence and so if we could work on that that would be that would be swell we do actually have uh policy T 17 I tried to find that s where is that T1 okay yeah policy T1 it's pedestrian overpasses um I think that it could be improved it was existing language yeah um but that was in there already um I do have concerns about railing um and the reason is if somebody goes over a rail if somebody is out in the right of way they don't have a way to get out of the right of way um so that would be my biggest concern is if somebody got into the right of way then they would they would be stuck in the right of way unable to get out right and so the yeah the the overpasses we had expanded Lang we had previously expanded language on them building on what you have because what you had was just at Time Square and based on our discussion vice mayor you had wanted to consider a little bit further south particularly now that we have considered the noes and and and and everything and that's my recollection from the uh from from I'd like to consider uh pedestrian overpasses wherever wherever practicable so we had we had gone through we had structor in language um on policy what is now T1 H1 just so that it didn't really just refer just to Time Square which is what you currently have um the concern that pushed back from uh the two US was about the views uh the The View shed and so forth but how how often can you have it will it be like oh everyone had the foot bridge and so you can't see the sky type of deal and so that's something that we weren't able to work through but I think uh I I've heard the the aesthetic issue uh and and and is someone sitting in traffic for an hour and a half I I think that becomes less of an issue uh when you're when you're sitting in traffic for an hour and a half and again there's a way to do them so they're aesthetically pleasing I don't think anybody could it would be hard to make an argument that the Margaritaville pedestrian overpass has caused you know aesthetic challenges for the Island right um and I think again if if if if the if the lon Kai uh that that's a that's a critical area for traffic congestion and a lot of pedestrians Crossing and that's where the pedestrian guard rail comes in illegally and then The Pedestrian overpass could really be helpful in that area and again the none of these are going to solve our problems but boy we got to keep trying to do things would it help vice mayor if we were to go through and strike certain language like at at Time Square and then uh for the uh the council consideration add just one policy that the town will develop a um a a uh roadway standard or kind of a multimotor roadway standards guide and that will Encompass everything that you're asking uh the council might ask for right uh what are the standards for crean need uh pedestrian overpasses what are do rules and guidelines uh uh for creating these pedestrian pass uh overpasses where might we want a a multi-use path meaning uh you combine a bike lane and the sidewalk and when you might not want to have those and have separate facilities to do that um it's important from a facility planning standpoint once you have those guidelines on how your community wants to look and function with all these element that you had just spoken about uh right down to the water tactic then that would be able to help engineer them yeah I just I just want to send a message to those who might be coming to Fort Meers Beach to work on a project or rebuild I want them to see that hey well boy if we do this this is something that's encouraged and it would be looked favorably upon as a public benefit so it has some I I I just don't want to be empty rhetoric I mean the what we did in and what I did in thean out Beach was essentially have a master plan I wrote their master plan and just like you to have one Corridor call d uh call D A1A uh uh and we actually set those distances for the crossing We Set uh these guidelines and certain aspects in place and so when the developer came in or public was to look at the document they all had all these expectations of what should come in what needs to come in and that kind of the impetus of where we were beginning with the policies that were later taken out but having those standards having that that document might be the my recommendation to have a standard document that will be used to communicate both to your resident and developers on what is expected and required especially the required part if you're coming in and you're asking for a a bridge over okay um if uh mayor no no I'm just yeah yeah just just yeah just if you if you just work with me on that I want I wanted to have a little bit of I again I just don't want it to be just rhetoric I want it to be I want a developer or Rebuilder to come in and say hey this well this is it this is interesting to the because often times we hear what what what's what's helpful to Fort Meers Beach what's interesting to you all what's what's what's a public benefit right and and I just want them to be able to get some guidance from our comprehensive plan that that is something that would be encouraged right and looked favorably upon and again obviously each individual case is going to be different the Aesthetics are going to be different and unique right but but but that's the that's the thrust of it it it's it's all right with the with the council what we would do then it we craft a we craft a policy designating a uh either a master plan or master design guidelines inclusive of all the elements that device mayor had indicated to be considered as part of that uh master design guidelines and we'll go through and we'll strike the detect that kind of restrict things to place that' be great in in with respect to the water t water Ferry language water faery taxi language I want to I want to also include the town in that we talk about the town using the gas tax for various different forms of transportation but if if there's a situation where we have a viable water Ferry and they need some help from the town either either access or some kind of a funding source that's reasonable and that has to go through the whole process of approval to help in a particular aspect of its operation again I my my understanding is the proposed water Ferry will be PRI completely private and and operational and successful in on itself they may need some help from the town in terms of access for example if they want to serve the mound house which is great I just think we need to some say somewhere that the town is going to be a partner uh with these water fairies however possible to help again reduce traffic congestion is is our broader goal I think I have language right now to uh on T T1 D6 for the uh the council's consideration uh so where it says encourage water taxes um yeah we're going to use the word water fery or taxi yep they are different y right I would actually recommend you uh to encourage water water transportation fine uh uh that would be more broad so that if it comes in at the ferry or other service you have that um on the second sentence um instead of to encourage the private sector to provide this service it should say to encourage the development of such Services the town shall said the town sh Eid regulations it inste they the town shall Eid regulation or uh provide assistance as deemed appropriate by the council so you know in the future you choose to allocate certain fund toward uh water transportation that's covered here um if I could and and this is completely unorthodox but if I could ask you unanimous consent to proceed out of order he's not even paying attention but I see somebody here with from the water fairy maybe is paying attention is there anything uh Jim that we're missing in terms of the comp plan oh I like Ed all right very good all right all right he didn't ask me to say this by the way I just saw him sitting out there but but but but but he is involved the water fairy yeah so um it that the town are e reg require water T to provide dedicated um and so forth uh and end with provide doet for water taxis after that comma uh and as appropriate uh uh and provide assistance at deemed appropriate by the council that's fine yeah y um I've got a question about parking are we Jim you are you done sir let's see can can you put some language in as well Eddie to again as another public benefit to incent various uh businesses on the island to uh or to encourage them to incent uh folks who come to Fort Myers Beach from the airport to not rent a car can we can we can we can you think about that one I know it's a little different and unique but I want I want I want some of our uh Redevelopment friends to to build that into their package right there are two ways that can be done for your hotels and motel you could provide for certain regulations and your enrollment regulations on uh what if they provide a dedicated uh Hotel transfer shuttle right uh what considerations the town might provide for that or in some cases some folk have tried to make it a requirement um just the shuttles that the the old school the the the new way of thinking is to provide them a a $50 credit when they if they take an Uber or a car service then they get it then they get it credit off their bill when they come that I want just want to build that concept so what we would do if we would just simply just add language here particularly just I take a new policy that would encourage uh what we call TDM Transportation demand management uh uh uh uh techniques uh in uh for transient residential and businesses uh um but there need to be kind of thought out on what you exactly want to provide for that um that's fine if you just as long as you don't use that acronym that would be I think that'd be good because you're going to lose people pretty quick but yeah but it definitely um if you were to look at other cities and look in their policy that's what will kind of fall under is the transportation demand management I think along those lines too I didn't see anything here maybe I missed it that encouraging you know continuing to look into the future there there's things out there that'll come up that aren't maybe here today you know we're talking about water taxes and there's things that potentially I guess to encourage to your point how do we encourage developers or people that are going to to incentivize people not to bring a car to the island leave it at the airport get here somehow some way and if you do you get credits or you get some kind of if there's a way to put language specifically in that may be a public benefit you know that could be something that could looked at as a public Tak that one step further it's not it's not just the guests I mean it's the employees Tolo that's very true we will find a way to revert the term TDM because that's all everything you're asking falls on the realm of what we call Transportation demand management dtin and other comprehensive plans but but but just not not that I'm any kind of rocket scientist but when I when I came up with this concept of a of a credit on your hotel bill for taking a uh uh an Uber or a car service that seems to be kind of A New Concept so I I I wanted somehow in writing so potential developer should they be skimming through this they'd say oh well this is something that would be pleasing to the town of Fort Myers Beach let's let's throw this into the mix so I think that that makes a lot of sense especially at that at the trading Point um when we get to the cpds if somebody wants to provide less parking showing this is our system for doing that so I I think that that makes a lot of sense because that's going to benefit them as well as us it's not just their keeping cars those are the things with the symbiotic wins are the best because everybody wins um there is a policy T1 three T3 yeah yeah um that the LPA sort of kicked to you guys they were not comfortable uh saying whether they were whether they thought that was still correct or not what page is that on Sarah oh gosh P two yeah it's on my page two you describe at the very top it's highlighted highlighted yellow oh one yeah we we weren't sure how to proceed giving comments from the LPA we need to defer to it's highlighted on there yep improvements to a stero Boulevard is that the one you're talking about uh yes ma'am seems like a good place to put in some pedestrian guard rails Sarah well the the issue is that a stero Boulevard is not our road it is Lee Cy so uh we don't we can can make recommendations we can well we did I mean we did already kind of take over the responsibility of the vegetation of a sterile Boulevard how do you incorporate the vegetation into not necessarily a guard rail but a a safety vegetation safety barrier I think You' discovered a very clever loophole there Mr Mayor in in terms of how we get some how we guide our pedestrians to the uh to the crosswalks yeah I've always been a fan of you know you they've got beautiful Hedges that don't take a lot of Maintenance instead of perennial peanut low impact design you know just one disadvantage there is that if you're if you're driving and you can't see the pedestrians so that would have to be low enough so that like you know we can definitely see you know kids on bikes and people pushing strollers and yeah I don't think we're talking about big palm trees or anything like that I think well no but I mean like some of the hedges they're dense enough and they're tall enough that you can't see a child so you know there there would just be a need to ensure that you know we're doing this correctly but yeah and do we need to keep that 1999 and everywhere else we've kind of struck that out but yeah get rid of that we originally had Struck it out yeah and then and then the LPA just wasn't real sure and they wanted to ask you guys to I have I have no issues with even though it is a County Road have no issues with again sort of a sense of of of of the council or the sense of the town of Fort Meers Beach that this would be an idea this would be an ideal goal uh you know the the coun our our commissioner sandelli is always asking you know give us tell us what you want tell us what you I mean tell you know give us some guidance yeah so just let's give them some guidance do do we want to negotiate with Lee County for the turnover of responsibility for maintenance to carry these out or do I mean because that's what this says but I maintenance of what the roadway yeah it just says maintenance if necessary to car out carry out these improvements so in other cities what happens is usually when there's an upper leval entity we County or fdot uh the local entity will enter into anou a memor of understanding to take over the maintenance cost of their Improvement for the life ban of those and we've done that with respect to land sking but that's the you're trying to say further it into storm water drainage sidewalks things like that if you're saying the roadway you're essentially saying own it without owning it entally that's what your policy has you're moving towards we weren't sure if you want keep that policy or not I don't think we're moving towards that I I I don't want that bill I don't we we don't want we don't want that we just right now we just do the Landscaping right and that would that that at least from my perspective that's fine that's that's the extent of it but I you know with the negotiation of of maybe reord the negotiation you know maybe it to uh instead of negotia monitor I we can monitor to allot you know be the monitoring service or so to speak advoc Cas for certain Street time standard or something at you in other communities as well where you have a certain standard that you want and you Advocate and negotiate for that you may not be putting it in but you're saying telling staff hey please make sure you talk to County we have to vision and we want you to communicate with them that that that's been policed everyone elsewhere as well so in that case you're not taking that you know that means responsibility but you're still ensuring that hey we heard the feedback from our residents we have our vision at the town on what this should look like we're going to advocate for that uh using our plans that might be the next best thing but we understand you want a certain vision for AA Boulevard just why did just back and forth right I've got a I've got a question about A2 parking I just not comfortable that first sentence it says even though existing parking lots are not used to capacity I totally disagree with that yeah I don't like that wording at all what page is that probably uh it's the page above where the we were just looking at I would I I would strike that first sentence personally um I just don't like it at all yeah let if it's all right with the council we can strike that first sentence you guys okay um MH and fine y uh to Fort Myers will drad parking St G met outlin in this plan uh which involved later on um looking at off Island parking I know that very early on we had discussed uh we're looking at all types of solutions I mean we're either I have provided I mean I I I've said this numerous times I mean I don't I don't want to be in the parking business but we we need to come we need to help find a solution for it because well let it's lucrative right but you telling people how many parking spots they should have and I just very very early on I had recommended to the the council that you really move towards policy to move away from surface parking and just really trying to concentrate the parking in uh centralized structures at specific location on the island that also to get people to park in one place and to walk instead of parking to the closest uh parking lot to where they need to go and then just uh kind of circulating with that parking lot to the next one and adding more traffic when one lot is full and the other one isn't uh um so you were to move towards a central light parking system it does not only take care of some of your traffic issues over time but those surface parking lots because you do have a very fine amount of developable land it will increase the value of that land and you can build something else on it so that's something that I recommended very early on you see that it's been taken out but I would suggest that if you're concerned about parking that is one thing to revisit and look at so how would on that one so we've got the town of Fort Meers Beach will address parking shortages through the methods outlined in this plan and then add and other appropriate initiatives desired and that way it leaves it open to looking at what options are available you know that might be a parking study to see actually how much parking is being used and where we need it the most um and maybe public private Partnerships down the road if it's appropriate yeah that's a good approach yeah I like that all right if we're if we're okay with that we we'll use that that method and uh it it'll have you have that reevaluate that at time progresses and at the island continue to rebuild you might you know you might encounter things that you had not anticipated right so they help you with that anticipation of how to react when the time comes as well okay anything else for Eddie do did you get it all all right next one not in your I heard you typing over there you you just hand her your notes that would historic preservation ah okay this one was all right you'll see that um some of it really hasn't changed because inor preservation your policies um were pretty standard when we saw in the state and then some of it um given current condition we had to uh look at the Tex again and also look at the Tex of what the dat that you require when you do have a historic preservation element you do not necessarily have to have a historic preservation element uh the they does require some aspect of those policy but other places have put it in the future langage element you all just have put it in a separate element uh so know begin with that caveat um so um these are pretty um are pretty straightforward on some the initi want actually just more clean up tech for example I'll bring you to the third one on that sheet that you have AP1 uh A1 you know that used to reference all those other policies so what we did instead of referencing another policy we just put and writing what it's supposed to actually say instead of referencing everything else uh um that's really all that really kind of does uh uh um and that making sure you Adar to standard policies standard provision for the Department of State Division of historical resources or the National Historic preservation act uh and so forth um uh uh um we took out a lot of the the the the the the dated language like referencing things like 1986 and 1992 and so forth um let's see um a lot of these are just uh pretty standard as well because we found some of the language for example um historic register items it was in multiple places so you see some deletions there and now it's in one place instead of six or seven um um and so forth uh um there is some polici here just really geared toward identifying resources um that's what we felt with uh uh and and review of your element probably the most uh Missing portion when it comes to Historic preservation you have to uh there you know the sequence of Step you have to first identify then you register and then you um have policies if you choose to protect those resources um but in that order and you didn't really have to first step in the uh jurisdiction element so a lot of that language is there to create that first step of identification and putting the resour to identify um habitate questions [Music] um realistically I mean outside of mountainous and the school and maybe a couple of other buildings I mean how many historic designations do we still have not that many so we didn't actually think that there was much there was needed here we did think there's an opportunity to tap into your historic preservation resources from a a local cultur or economic standpoint so that's where you see some things that were kind of like you don't needed but they're nice like uh if you in cooperate with this St Island Historic Society town are consider development of self-guided walking or biking tours so that's kind of like uh encouraging people to explore those uh resources you do have uh in a meaningful way even if it's someone who just moved here I think it's important to to keep this all in there I mean now more than ever we've lost a lot of it right so little left yeah but the identification there is actually uh important in the aftermath of any theor you look and you assess right and you identify what uh what need to be reserved any questions on this element for Eddie no moving on what's the next one next Capital Improvement Capital Improvement okay um I'm going to start off with a uh very strong Consulting caveat here I don't normally uh submit a capital Improvement element to the state without an an uh adopted Capital uh Improvement program from a 5year basis with your Last 5 Years uh my understanding is that your CIP is a little bit dated if the state responds back with it um what we will do is we'll provide try to provide an answer together to your town attorney on uh see if there's justifications there that we could tap into uh but uh SAR what was the last adoption uh I feel like it was 2017 it was it was an older plan we don't have a newer one at this point we did we we spoke with Joe about this and we're working on it the town is working on it but not in a position to have one just yet so potentially could have one if there was a rebuttal from the right the state right have one ready and that's part of the strategic planning session we've been doing is to update all this Capital Improvement and everything so that process is [Music] started when looking at the uh Capital Improvement element uh there was some some of the largest strikeout that you see was just clean up because they got moved from one section to another or they were um really um not necessary because um of what the language entails um um some of it was to uh bring it up to um the code uh I mean not to code but to to to to standards of at the state with Public Schools uh looking at the per the the Florida INF School how did and and and how that applied in uh any interlocal agreements um the most major change that uh to consider here um if I could direct you it to policy see it's the second page policy c-1 D a-4 there's something that uh other cities have and which we've we've gone ahead and help other cities with uh but every city in their Capital Improvement element should have some aspect of guidance for how they would evaluate what to put in their program um and so this is the feedback that we got through a lot of discussion particularly with the LPA on what uh uh um those cities are we did not put them in ranked order I have put them in ranked order from for other cities but in this case we were kind of suggested to not to uh uh um and just to have that add kind of evaluatory criteria for you to look back at at guide poost um the one that um that that that that are added here are Capital Improvements required by state of federal mandate project advantage Town improved plan Capital Improvement that provide economic benefit by reducing operation or maintenance cost or project that will address deide flooding Energy Efficiency water quality water efficiency or other sustaining measures you didn't have that before okay um we also adjusted to include the word associate level of service standard you had that in the rest of your your element but you needed to bring that back up there as well for consistency purposes as all your evaluation criteria for when you adopt a CIP um we uh noted as well it that just to remove a capacity deficiency uh but we also just broaden The Language by adding words to about overall any existing deficiencies as well and I wanted to uh correct earlier when when we were looking at the uh Recreation open space section I said that we'd updated the losos I actually it was in this section uh if you look at policy cie 1v3 that's where we've we've updated it to say uh visitors that the um Parks Los is also based on Vis staying in hotels yeah yep right um when I said it I couldn't find it but there it is I don't know how much it matters but the the permanent resident number is probably not correct anymore either no I don't know if that matters or not um it it matters in the future when you go back and you're if you're trying to calculate impact fees and and what was vested got it uh uh um but in that that's more important than if you you know than the actual res account at this point in time it's when you adopt those standards to calculate any concurrency or P fees and what's vested moving forward y uh any questions on uh Capital Improvements no sir all right uh going on to the next element conservation okay sorry give me a second to pull it up my computer's not agreeing with me [Music] uh which I apologize which one again conservation conservation thank you okay that's not this email that's this email conservation okay conservation um I've got a question on conservation the one you have highlighted there yes per the 1 B2 let me go who's where are we going to get the money for 16,000 acres and from whom are we going to buy it from and exactly where is it so so was existing policy and that's why we highlighted it because we didn't know if you wanted to keep the policy it seems a little bit Yeah the the LPA uh had a brief discussion about this and they feel like some of this may have happened but they're they're they were a bit unsure and they wanted the Town Council to wait in on whether this should still be a policy we're always encouraged you know when we become financially stable to you know get as much green space and we we had spoken about that with with some of the the beach Frontage but yeah to to say 16,000 Acres honest I mean the size and magnitude of this feels almost more like you should be seeking Regional coronation bu for the purchase not doing yourself at the town I mean quite frankly um that's just my recommendation I mean I would that will give us I I mean intive itself it's not a bad goal it's a worthy goal that it's an aspirational goal yeah not one that maybe you should be undertaking on your own right well it says actively encourage um so it's you know if there's if there's a larger group that's looking at doing some sort of a conservation measure you know the town would be involved in that um it doesn't sound like it's anything that the town would need to actually uh start the process of maybe re yeah if you want to keep it let us know if you want to strike it let us know we will happily do either I I just don't know how were you going to accumulate 16,000 Acres yeah exactly yeah that was our that was our thought too just by way of reference the uh the old golf course is 55 Acres 55 the ocean yeah I I would suggest to the council to strike it personally I would suggest recommendation accepted all right we we will stri it thank you um you'll see that it looked like there's a lot of cross out on here um but what it really is is we realigned this um this element in a way that kind of is supposed to be aligned logically um there are things that you had on one page and you had to take like five pages further to find the next bit of what it was supposed to do so what we did was we actually went back and we kind of Jigsaw it in a way that policies that were supposed to next to each other are now next to each other and that's why they look like there's a huge amount of cross out on here a lot of it isn't actually deletion it is actually do reorganization for flow purposes um and now conservation um there are some language here that uh really just would uh it's needed to in order to commit you to just the protection of marine and esting habitat um tying it back into your um uh um your future land use element uh the state does require that you uh consider uh in their conservation element any protected species uh uh uh um and uh the we have went through Ure that languaging does do that um did it then carries over to your development approvals on any lighting if you know related to sea turtles and so forth that we know um so all this remains in your uh in your revised uh revised element uh uh past that um uh yeah it's uh I'm happy to take questions here uh uh um I'm trying to see that they like to highlight the there was one question that came up at the LPA um and I'm sure you're wondering it also it's policy 1 C4 dredging title canal and it says the ding the dredging of additional title canals is prohibited so you can dredge the existing ones this is just saying we don't create more canals okay right thank you mhm good point yeah cuz that came up too and they said we can't dredge our can no that's that wasn't the intent yeah no that was not the intent get to maintain that's not a problem and that is changing from your original language to say because your current language actually does prevent you from drudging your own existing canals right now technically speaking so that open it back up to what your actual intent was we don't know what you just said move on all right um if there's no um other question um oh uh uh I would note that your conation element is where you have certain uh policies on solid waste and and that sort of management as well um um not always where you find those act item but then you already had them there before we didn't feel any need to change them now it's much easier to read now than than it was before pardon it's much easier to read now than it was before or at least follow yeah it we we were we were trying to make sense of it early on mayor and we're like why is this four pages pass the last policy relating to it and we're just at some point we just gave up and we're like you know what we're just going to copy and paste on the different documents uh based on it and then just reconstitute it all right any questions for Eddie well move on all right the next one is intergovernmental intergovernmental coordination corination okay give me a second to pull it up okay there we go wor I don't think we actually have to change much on here just because you there was really wasn't much other than updating of date um yeah I think and and and reing um yeah this was there weren't any necessarily too many new agreements to go with and we know you have a uh updated um updated agreement with the school board regarding the school but the languaging we felt already covered that uh um so I don't think there was kind of a need to add extraneous detail that are pretty much more administrative in nature um P that we we deleted them adult older date because some of these plans keep getting updated uh so you don't want to have to necessarily update your plans over over time um pretty straightforward intergovernmental uh any questions FR Edie utilities awesome is that all on got utilities El now utilities is that all uh wishful thinking there was uh the property right element um not sure if I'm skipping over any but uh yeah we're utilities utilities okay utilities okay uh yes utilities uh the the biggest change to utilities is to make sure that your numbers on Flow and those standards are actually up to dat and uh to that uh s we had reached out to the county um so we I reached out to the county regarding numbers and uh we also so currently the town is undergoing a uh modeling to figure out what pressure and how much water and all of that um the information in here is the most up toate that could change after the modeling but at this point that is what we want to be striving for um then regarding the sanitary sewer that is Lee counties so rather than reference Lee County's current number we want to just just reference Lee County standards that way if they update theirs we don't have to update ours we just refer to them because it's theirs right important from thinking about Supply treatment the city for potable water uh as well as the water pressure uh you know pound per square inch um what we currently have in the comp plan is actually very dated uh um so you'll find that uh the new standard isn't the minimum pressure or 20 lb per square in of uh at 40 so uh that would be a nice Improvement um and uh the modeling the prior modeling showed that we have 275 gallon per day per equiv residential connection which is actually on par for some of the other Island community I work with so uh yeah you're right right ran ball there um your other element that already uh included this uh to some degree but for right here uh water conservation is part of mandated policy from the state so but we looked at it we don't feel that there's any need to change it now the um in about two or three years actually no about let's say 2024 and about a year and a half year year and a half or so the the region will update its water supply plan at that point you will have to go back in here but it's current for right now you just have to update it in about two years or so let have a couple things uh first of all we've got a we've got a couple members of the LPA who have extensive utility background and I thought their input was was excellent and and if they're comfortable with this I I'm I I feel good about it I just was going to potentially suggest one additional policy objective for the town I've been talking to some folks at the federal and state level about the potential for Fort Meers Beach to have a program to have our own micro grid basically have our own source of power in in an emergency situation uh to get us through a week two weeks Etc not only just emergency facilities but potentially depending on what the generation source is uh even broader than that because after a storm not only do you have to get Emergency Operations going but if there's key buildings that we can get air conditioned quickly then the mold mdeo issues are eliminated and just allows our recovery to be much quicker I just wondered if we could build into there as a goal to seek uh federal and state funds to to to establish a micro grid like micro Grid in this Essence basically has it's our own it's our own power system if you will we we would Harden the existing transmission lines uh even further and that we would also have our own power source and that that power source could be a Litany of different things but there's emerging technologies that could be really tremendous so we don't have to determine the technology but but right now even storage technology is progressing quickly so we could store have have have power stored uh to get us through two or 3 days or maybe even a week depending on the storage technology and then we could really have our own power source and not depend on the grid in times of emergency so I to me that's maybe that's somewhere else in the comprehensive plan in terms of hurricane response or whatever but to have to but but to have a goal is to develop our own micro grid and our own independent source of power in times of emergency seems like a you know you can even have an electromag magnetic pulse event I mean but but given our location being in burio island and that seems like an interesting path to pursue I I think that um I I agree with you uh vice mayor that it is certainly a worthy goal it's one that's going to be expensive uh um I would say that maybe the most appropriate first step is under the first objective to do a policy U A7 and that new policy should just be the town shall uh stud the potential feasibility of a micro grid system uh townwide that's fine um and that way you do the study first and then as a council with all the information in front of you you can make an informed decision on how you like to proceed and that's exactly what we're hoping to do yeah we have an initial study and then present the study to the council and see if it's viable and obviously if the funding's viable so I just think it's helpful again from a goal standpoint given what we went through after hurric in if we had our own at least a modest power source After the Storm it could have alleviated a lot of challenges is that I'm just curious we when we met with our delegation this last legisl we were we were told I don't know the name of this specific Federal entity but I'm wondering if it's something that you're also working on about they're looking at making Fort Myers Beach a a pilot program for elevating the power structure which is off the island that supports us and we were specifically mentioned I don't know if it's tying into what you're I think they're somewhat related but the goal I think the ultimate goal would be to have the power source here at Fort Myers Beach that's I guess what I'm getting at is I don't if we're both working on the same thing I just asse one I think the person I'm talking to are talking to some of the same people you're talking to and I think Frankie is going to be if Frankie still here he's in he's in your people call my people [Music] yeah all right but yes reference to same and I think this there's state dollar but there's also significant federal dollars available and I they really love Fort Myers Beach as a location cuz it's a great because it's our own Island we have a we're great pilot program for such a project and and there's all kinds of money I I support having some sort of verbiage in there to address looking at alternative right a feasibil study will do that including consideration of any pilot uh program so you want to C the wide net with this one proceed with uh we're looking at feasibility as a whole and you might find that when you C the water net you'll find out there will be a series of programs related to it and some of them uh during that review process might be eligible for uh pilot studies including those funded by federal or other dollars very good okay property rights element all right unless you wanted to continue to talk about utilities uh no I'm I'm good if you uh um uh uh uh with which was the next element again sorry property rights property rights element all right uh property rights element you'll see that there's four policies there with one objective they did model after there the state uh text the state legislature text um other communi have used the same text uh what it does it just actually reinforce the things that uh folks already have the right to do which is come before the council and speak and and and so forth uh it uh adopt those adopted at a matter of U requirement the state legislature but a lot of these rights are inin in other places in the state constitution already uh and just repeat it here and it all change font compared to the rest of the document yeah we will make sure that consistent a format the formatting yeah yeah we we we had received a prior document in converted PDF form and so we were trying to get the essence of the important stuff and we will make sure it's formatted with that that was disgusting yeah um and then we go into maps with that with that it is it that's all the that's all the text uh Community element oh did we cover Community design element one more no we didn't yep last one did we miss one we missed one then commun element I think it was right after uh use right we might have it's in here but it's right after it's way back well the the the the most important thing about the community D element is that it um it it kind of seg with from the uh future land Ed element and a way that looked at the design of the neighborhood to provide guide pull for your LD uh Land Development regulation update in the future uh we had discussed this um in the past uh as looking at uh how we want the look at the quarter to feel particularly along a stero uh that's where a lot of focus in this element goes into place for example uh restricting parking at the primary use uh looking at uh incentive to uh reuse uh certain building like the office building that we had mentioned earlier um try trying to um restrict the amount of parking Frontage length in front of the building so you don't want the parking lot so that people back out onto a stero in front from in front of the building you want the parking behind the building and what that will do over time as well it's increase The Pedestrian safety uh as well cuz now you have less uh what we call conflict points between pedestrian vehicles and bicycles um the entire element is really uh a based on standard some of the other uh uh uh important standards here are building compatibility with flood regulation that's a new policy that in light of everything we felt was important um Community character thinking about uh gateways to the island as well just uh you know signage design how you kind of welcome people uh even if you leave the island come back home creting that welcoming uh uh entryway on both end of the island whether it's near big harlo pass or at the matanda Pass Bridge uh um so forth um lot of some of the poliy deal with the streetcap being uh particularly uh calling for with the objective of enhancing existing path and sidewalk and streetcape to foster a more appealing environment for biking and walking that's making sure we landscape and reinforcing what you actually don't what you already do with on the Landscaping actually but it's not that policy to reinforce for you already do right so um happy to take questions on this element if there are any any questions for Edie it's pretty that pretty straightforward good did we get them all yep I think we got them all let's see yes we have we have gotten them all okay and record time I'm G to take your word on that Miss record time but okay well Eddie have a quick seat and we'll pull public comment one have one okay uh James Inc James Inc good morning I mean afternoon uh James Inc for the record I have some comments that I made at LPA I'm working off of what's on the website so what may be before you may be different I don't know but what you have done in the in the comp plan is you've taken the F of Maximum 2.5 and pedestrian commercial 1.5 and other districts that's listed in policy 4C and you moved them into the individual future land uses which which is appropriate but what I see is in the marina policy that f is listed at 1.0 um and it should be at 1.5 if it's considered another district and in the uh mixed use District the new District uh I just notic that pedestrian Cruise used to be 2.5 and what's being proposed is now there's three levels which is similar to what's in the zoning document of the Land Development code that's been changed has that been changed good I mean it just it was a potential property rights issue and my last one is in the mixed residential which is going to medium residential which they've taken out the language of commercial there's one instance that I know of which is Island Bay Marina since I pay attention to marinas which becomes potentially a non-conforming use because Marina being commercial wouldn't be allowed in medium residential Marina that's at the end of pearl delmare okay up at the end up there it's small 25 slips but it is a use and it's not listed as a marina hasn't ever been listed as a marina but it's now would be inconsistent in medium residential and and that is part of what we're actually changing back based on comments I mean some of it's included now but we're going to be adding more yeah cuz there could be other properties that are now in this medium residential that are commercial because what was allowed was limited motels limited churches small what they considered uh small and tents that cohabitated in the mixed residential so which I always consider that mixed residential like the leftover bucket you came at it from two ways and that's just what was left on an island that was very confusing so uh what it says we we only struck through portion of it says commercial activities must be sensitive to nearby residential uses complimen any complement any adjoining commercial uses contribute to the public realm blah blah blah we're also going to add in a component about it being um allowed you know at certain uh intensities adjacent to a sterile bull Ward perfect and that's all I have thank you thank you yes ma'am come on up I I didn't give my name earlier I'm sorry just pull your mic pull your microphone down force a little bit so we can hear you uh Kathy Schultz 394 AO Boulevard um my comment is on the um proposed updates to the recreation and open space element um at their April 9th meeting the LPA recommended unanimously to reject the proposed changes on bage point and keep this section of the 1999 plan as is um LPA member Bowen said he wasn't comfortable with encouraging more parking at bage because more parking would require giving up additional park space and the other LPA members emphatically agreed um the 17 Acres that comprise bage Point Park were purchased by Lee County in 1987 with the objective of saving the property from commercial development and in the interest of preserving as much of the natural flavor as possible seven acres are developed for Passive recreational use while the remaining 10 acres are a restoration preserve area the park provides a habitat for migratory and nesting Shorebirds and is the only place remaining on a stero Island for burrowing gopher tortoises they're actually two and male and female um it's one of the only 14 uh Lee County sites on the great Florida birding Trail and it's the second highlight of the great Kalisa blueway paddling Trail through Estero Bay initially bage contained no parking for the general public only 12 handicapped spaces and five spaces for Park employees an additional 75 spaces were added in 2002 after several years of careful consideration of environmental and traffic impacts and even the Town Council weighed in with a resolution -34 urging moderation and adding parking to bage and noting neighborhood traffic constraints and the value of the park as the a preserve and a passive park because of its unique habitat our comprehensive plan recognizes the importance of having a variety of recreational resources quiet beaches at bich and Lively beaches near Lin Hall the 2020 bow Point Land Management plan States public use of this preserve will always need to be monitored and controlled to ensure that it does not interfere with the health of the ecosystem or the wildlife that use this beach and the mangrove habitat and furthermore because of Li mited Geographic space it's unlikely that there will be future improvements to the parking area or the amenities in place today other than updating so in light of this I ask that you carefully consider the appropriateness of the proposed amendments to the recreation and open space element changing the language as proposed is actually a material change um in in the direction of the town and thank you guys I know that the plant that you especially well and Eddie that this is a Herculean task and I really commend you for your thought effort and the time that you are dedicating to ensure a document that provides meaningful vision for Fort Meers Beach sorry I can't make it stop that she is correct there was a discussion about that and I need to actually I I could go back and listen to that meeting because I think I did miss something um so what so that's policy 10 B4 um um Recreation open space see I have them as individual cuz my thank you my computer was having a hard time with the giant documents so I have the individual ones um so it says so what it said previously was encourage Lee County to provide on-site parking for the general public at bage point then it kind of goes on a little bit further um the update had said encourage underline and support to provide additional on site parking um so the question is do you want to remove and support and additional or do you want to remove the entire thing um regarding parking and access I think that the suggestions that she read that were from the LPA make a lot of sense I do too you said it very eloquently so I want to try to restate what you said what you said I I said that you have to could you come could you come to come back up and the LPA had recommended keeping the 1999 language as it was okay thank you thank you you m it's nice to have many eyes on this it catch there's a lot of things that can easily get there's so much text so I apologize for any anything that we did not catch thank you okay is there anyone else that would like to speak in public comment seeing none we'll close public comment bring it back to the council for discussion or a motion to move it to the second reading mayor are we going to take into consideration Mr Ink's suggestions well I think you addressed them all did you except for the very beginning the um yes all all of those have been corrected he's looking for some reason the text that's still on the town's website if you don't look in the agenda um the text that's on the town's website is not the upto-date that is the last version uh what's on the agenda is the current version that you're looking at so he was he wasn't using the agenda document he was using the document that's uploaded on the website and I wasn't even aware that was so the issues that he brought address in what we what we have in front of us that's correct okay and plus plus the conversation that we had regarding the medium residential okay so we need to take that other version down so it's not confusing at that point okay yeah Eddie you got something else you'd like to add uh just really just want to not really quickly the procedures uh H for the mayor and Council uh if you uh move forward with the comprehensive plan the next step is that staff will have to transmit for the state coring review after the first reading that review process by the state has to be complete before it comes back uh for a uh second reading usually the state takes anywhere from well officially they supposed to take 30 days but what they've done is taken uh 30 days to acknowledge receipt and then 30 days to actually do the review sometimes it take up to two month for them to bring it back um if they come back with an or report also known as objections uh and comments uh uh uh then that will have to address that uh and I'll stff addressing any of those uh we know the put potential for some that during this process and then that revise will come back before you for second reading but on our agenda it says the second reading is June 3r that that that would be very optim know that it it needs to I apologize um just don't want some you know yeah no um it it's this is the transmittal hearing we don't we're not going to schedule that second hearing until we've received back that report okay so the Nancy then with the motion B to a Time uncertain versus it the specific it would be to postpone it until its return from the state for the second reading oh your second reading yes would be proponed uh your first reading the motion should be to approve a transmitt and then your uh your second reading would have to be scheduled within 180 days of the receipt of commment from the state okay and we don't know what that it's up to the state to get it back to us sometimes they get it back really quickly when it's minor but since we're revising the whole shebang um it will probably take them about two months okay is there any other questions or discussion and I'll make a motion to approve the first reading at a transmitt uh as amended through the discuss as amended through the discussion today yeah that is that all we need I don't I mean try to make it as short as possible yeah that sounds good okay I'll second all right but Motion in a second any other discussion still want to roll call vote on this or yeah okay uh I'm a yes councelor Safford yes counc Woodson yes Vice mayol yes councelor King all motion carries unanimously thank you mayor and counil thank Edie thank you we'll we'll see you in whenever we will do our best thank you great time okay you going to take a comfort break okay you want to take a half hour well you guys I'm sure you're the employees we're we're just just up here okay we're just dead weight we'll can eat it well whatever you want it half hour what what you how much time do people need just do 10 minutes and eat up here okay we'll do 15 minutes that way everybody's got so we'll come back at 1:15 we do need e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e next uh public hearing is item e ordinance 24-8 downtown Building height this is the second reading and final public hearing of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending chapter 34 article 3 division 5 sections 34- 675 building size to one change Building height from two stories to three stories for properties at front on Time Square and Bayfront pedestrian plazas the north side of First Street the south side of Aero Boulevard between Old St Carlos Boulevard and the main pedestrian Crossing and two change Building height from two stories to three stories for properties that front on Lagoon Street Crescent Street 1st 2 third and fifth streets east of the skybridge only providing for severability codification scrier erors conflicts of Law and an effective date good morning Sarah afternoon Sarah propes with Community Development uh the ordinance language before you corrects a code issue that has been noted in the code before uh prior to Hurricane Ian however there were no vacant Lots in the this area where the code applied so this wasn't you know a big rush to update um this change will resolve uh an issue to allow the same height as other buildings throughout the town um for some reason this one portion of downtown was limited to one story over flood uh but 30 ft in height so we have not changed the 30 ft in height just that they can have two stories over flood which is like I said the same as it is in every other zoning District um I'm available for any questions you may have this is the second reading y any questions for Sarah just the the same thing we kind of talked about before so the three stories the first is because we count the first floor as a story mhm that's correct right and we don't count the we don't start counting the the actual height of the building the 30 ft until flood elevation right any questions no questions public comment anyone like to speak on building downtown Building height seeing none we bring back to council for discussion or a motion any discussion or aemotion I'll move ordinance 24-8 downtown Building height okay got a motion by councelor King I will second it any further discussion counc King how do you vote I I'm an I blal I uh ccor Woodson hi ccor Safford I motion carries unanimously next is ordinance uh item F ordinance 24- 06 expedited variance extension and condition review this is a second reading and final public hearing of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida amending section 34- 232 required hearings of division 5 public hearings and review of Article 2 zoning procedures of chapter 34 zoning districts design standards and non-conformities to require only the public hearing before the local planning a agency LPA for variations extensions and satisfac satisfaction of conditions of previously approved land use approvals if the decision by the lp is unanimous and the town clerk does not re receive a request from anyone addition from anyone additional hearing before the Town Council within 10 business days after the LPA decision a public hearing is before the Town Council a public hearing before the Town Council is required perv variances extensions or satisfaction of conditions if the decision by the lp is not unanimous or if anyone requests such hearing within 10 business days after the LPA decision providing for codification severability and scrier errors conflicts of Law and an effective date Becky okay um you will notice that the typ we had switched back it um it was advertised um saying uh city clerk does not receive a request by anyone for an additional hearing so that is the title that we're considering today um there is not much of a substantive difference between member of the public and anyone um so we can use that title and still make the changes from any want to member the public in the text um this is just the second reading of this ordinance that um should streamline the ability to either get re um get variances or any required reviews to extend or provide evidence of satisfaction of conditions in any prior land use approvals um this should just shorten the time frame for getting original variances and going back and getting additional approvals later so because of the way that it was advertised and with the word anyone do we have to change then again the text like on packet page 645 it say anyone is crossed out and it says member of the public we can leave it as member of the public because honestly there's not much difference okay any questions for Nancy sorry so it can be anyone anywhere or the is anyone anywhere well anyone in the in the town or anyone anywhere anyone anywhere any even member of the public I mean it's a person Becky I had a I had a thoughtful question from a constituent the other day gave me a call and they they asked does the way this language currently read require the town staff to have uh uh given their approval or their support for the provision before it came to before before it came to the LPA no it does not excellent that that was their concern and so that that allays their concern so that that that's that's excellent and with that question if there's not any more questions I would oh we got to do public comment if you're going to thank you was not Mr actually I was good catch uh any other discussion before we take public comment or questions I should say all right public comment is there anyone like to speak on ordinance 24-3 oh 24-6 not a lot of people left seeing then we'll close public comment bring it back for a discussion and or a motion Mr I would move the approval of ordinance 24-6 I'll second that motion by vice mayor aderholt a second by councelor King any further discussion vice mayor adal hi councelor King I councelor Woodson I councelor Safford I and I'm I as well motion carries unanimously next is item G ordinance 24-4 emergency temporary uses this is the second reading and final public hearing of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Myers Beach Florida amending and restarting ordinance 23-5 to permit temporary uses in certain zoning districts in response to and as part and as a part of the town's recovery efforts following a natural disaster or other emergency situation by a governmental ente for the benefit of the public for the residential manufactured homes mobile homes motor homes recreational vehicles or other temporary dwellings for residential purposes and for movable commercial structures for the delivery and sale of goods and services to the public providing for conflict of law scriveners SS severability and providing for an effective date okay this is the second reading of this ordinance um at the first reading there was um a question raised as to when would this start after um after some kind of a disaster and we would be adopting a resolution of the town which would um announce the availability of temporary emergency placement permits so this this is going to stay in our code and it will essentially be activated by a resolution um and the original purpose of this was to um really correct what was the original intention of the um Town Council when this was passed the first time um and it uh addresses issues having to do with um commercial uses which for some reason have been left out of the original draft of this couple questions Becky one there's a there's it's some places it's referred to as etpp and other places it's TPP I don't know if that's just a text thing that got missed going through I I think we're going to need to go I it's an emergency oh now I see it's temporary emergency placement permits yeah or emergency temporary placement permits um I think we mainly did etpp so we'll go back and we can change that and the other thing just correct the sceners there okay and the other thing the other things in here is U we've got in here is 18 months that was just an initial thing thrown out because that was kind of we weren't really sure but it doesn't make more sense to say or word it to follow State Statute because shortly after that is when they came out with Senate Bill 250 that required us to allow them to do it for 36 months so instead of putting the time frame on it to maybe say it correlates with the state statute so we don't have to keep Ren doing this if it changes in the future um what we can do is put 18 months or is provided by State Statute okay because we we won't necessarily know that they will pass some mhm does that work we're already past the 18 months so we are right but but for the next it right it should if it should ever happen heaven forbid yes hopefully never need it again but just in case and then the other thing we discussed about a sunset period of when this is going to end I didn't see any of that in there um no this it's this does not address the sunsetting of of this particular one we need to go back and I don't know that we know when that Sunset period is do we well I thought we had discussed that to go correlate with Senate Bill 2 50 36 months so 3 years after the date of the storm to have something in place or at least something in to the town to say you're doing something to move forward if if you're not doing anything then it's it you have to be done is if that's my recollection of the conversation I thought we had okay so it would be what would need to be done in order to qualify for because you don't want people waiting to the end of the 36 months and then come in with an application that might be pretty lame no I think they have to have an application in before the 36 months they have to be in process in process that's what we had discussed but they have to have application or permit in process at that time in order to extend if they want to extend anything okay because the discussion was we didn't want that 36 month to come by we don't want the 22nd to come by and then now you to 23rd you got to be gone right if they're working on something if they have an application submitted to the town that they're trying to that they're looking to B build back whether it's a house brick and Mort or whatever that that buys them more time if you will it doesn't mean that they have to leave on the the day after okay so the language in process would be sufficient well does this does this cover it when in the application it says the TPP shall be issued in increments of 6 months by review of the town and should not be issued for a period exceeding 18 months from the date of this ordinance adoption and that's going to change to or state statute yes but is that will that help sunet it and give the uh steps you need to do to reach the final well I guess that raises a whole another question if they change Senate Bill 250 to increase that and you haven't said and does that make sense to to correlate with I'm not the attorney I you tell me what's the best way to word it I think you understand what we're trying to do we're trying to put a a a I don't want to use the word deadline but a time frame as to when you have to be doing something an ending date you have to have an ending date to it this gives enough time to let people understand that you've you've got to start doing something because this isn't going to go on forever okay one thing that we might do because there may be a change in the statute and I've I've heard that in other places that that there may be a desire to do that um we could do it by resolution um once we know more when we get closer to that I guess that's fine I as long as it's out there and people know we've discussed it but we haven't really codified what we've discussed and whether it's in this or resolution at some point very soon I think that has to be known okay that I think I think you're right Mr I think it needs to be in this I mean because then you because then it's certain then people can plan accordingly yeah but if it's in six-month increments do we put a deadline as to how many increments you can ex extend either way yeah either way well have we been doing the six-month increments that people actually been been coming in and reuping no no yeah so that's well again that was I think when that was put in it was just kind of something that was we didn't have anything in place so it was just kind of we didn't know how long it was going to take to do things so the the six Monon incremental thing to me is redundant if you can go till you're not going to tell someone you know if you've got till 36 months to do it what's the need to have the six-month review well it does avoid coming in at the last minute and seeking something from at that point forward that's true like Becky was talking about earlier yeah I'm okay with leaving it all in there just adding whatever needs to be added legally to get that ending date known okay um in process is that is that a very is that too vague of a word what we what we could we could reference um a resolution in here because that is easy to pass I mean that's only something that needs to be read once um and we can adopt that as you know as quickly as we want to and then that can be changed easily if there is a change in the state statute so you're suggesting we don't put it in the ordinance pass the ordinance bring back a resolution I do want to reference the resolution in here okay um I think that's that's a good idea um I'm just looking to see where it would be since this is the second reading un unless we want to punt it down you know to the next meeting and bring it back well I if that's what we need to do it's it's a very important piece of this whole entire it is I just soon make sure because we won't know what the resolution number is if you haven't even drafted it so you couldn't put the resolution no you can put um as long as an ordin references that you're going to be um deciding something by resolution then you can do that you can't have a resolution that amends an ordinance but if you for instance it's very frequent to say in a statute or in an ordinance that um fees will be set by resolution you know rather than putting the fees in the ordinance okay so similarly we can say that the um you know the end time for this permission um will be set by resolution I'm okay with that as long as you get that in and then you'll bring the resolution back to us yes for discussion is everyone okay with that that's good all right okay any other questions or comments for Becky public comment anyone would like to speak a public comment on this seeing none we'll bring it back to council for a motion or or discussion any further discussion I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 24-4 emergency temporary uses I'll second motion by with amendments I'm sorry with amendments yeah I'll amend my motion to include with the Amendments and I'll second the amend the Amendments got a motion by May Aller seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion I think there's a group in there Dan allers in the amendments roll call I'm in uh I counc Woodson I counc saff I Vice adhal I councelor King I motion carries unanimously next is item H ordinance 24-13 unsafe structures is an ordinance first reading and public hearing on proposed ordinance 24-13 entitled ordinance of the town of Fort Myers Beach Florida amending division 3 unsafe building abatement code of article one property maintenance codes of chapter 6 maintenance codes building codes and Coastal regulations of the code of ordinances of Fort Meers Beach Florida to clarify existing Provisions related to notice and exceptions to authorize notification by constructive service to include attorney's fees and costs and not and notice expenses to the demolition lean against the property on which the unsafe building was located and to authorize use of the uniform method of collection for collection of leans providing for codification severability scriveners erors conflicts of Law and effective date we now open the first public hearing Frankie good afternoon um basically this was just giving us some teeth to something that we needed to proceed who are you my name is Frankie kachik I'm the director of operations and compliance for the town of Fort Myers Beach still sir still questions for Frankie well good do you want me to explain a little bit about it y you should all right okay well the um we already have in our code an unsafe building abatement code which we have several paths we could go down um this looks like the best path for um once we have demolitions for us to be able to um you know process all those and it's this is the quickest way to do it um but the existing unsafe building abatement code had some pretty glaring um problems with it um probably the most important one was there W was not a provision for notice through constructive service you had to actually get um you know personal service on someone um and what we were afraid of is people who are up north or in Europe or wherever we wouldn't be able to get service on them um constructive service is when you advertise and that is done in foreclosures it's done in lawsuits it's done in you know all different things it's perfectly legal to do that um so we added that provision normally when you put a lean on property you also include attorney's fees um on the um lean process and uh we put a provision for the uniform method of collection which is really the most realistic way to collect on um these um these abatement Lans all right anybody any questions for Becky's explanation no what did I do um the uniform method of collection collection of leans what does that mean exactly okay all right well it takes um about a year and a half to get it um going with the tax collector but um it the abatement lean will be eventually put on the tax tax bill for the property so if they don't pay that it will make their because the tax collector will not accept a partial payment of taxes therefore if they don't pay that lean then they don't pay their taxes and as a result after three years um the property is sold for non-payment of taxes so what happens if the property gets sold before this year and a half process takes place and it's they don't pay it through taxes then it's just a plain lean it is a it is a lean which would um go still against that property okay so the new owners would end up having to pay it okay but it's just it basically Frankie said it right it puts teeth in what we're doing because otherwise we'd have Lanes just floating out there and in the regular foreclosure process you're really dragging it out farther and farther oh yes so this this is light years ahead of that so try to recoup your your your cost as quick as possible this was the the closest point between A and B okay happy we're getting to this point we there anyway any other questions Frankie public comment anyone like to speak in public comment seeing them close that bring it back to the council is there a motion to approve or deny ordinance 24-13 or any discussion I'll move ordinance 24-13 ons safe structures a motion by councelor King I'll second counc seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor King hi councelor Woodson hi councelor Safford hi Vice May edol I and I'm an i as well motion carries unanimously next is item I ordinance 24-11 purchasing policy amendments this the second reading and final public hearing of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the town of Fort Myers Beach Florida amending div division one purchasing of goods and services policies and procedures of Article 5 Finance of the town of Fort Myers Beach to transfer purchasing to the town manager or design from the finance department to increase the authority of the Town manager for purchases of goods services to clarify existing regulations and to implement recommen recommendations provided to the Town based on the disaster Readiness assessment and abatement plan prepared by the Florida Division Emergency Management for fighing for conflict of law scriveners errors and SE severability and providing for an effective date Andy thank you mayor um mayor council this is just uh help us be able to expedite things a little little quicker also It lines up with the fdm the Florida Division of emergency Management's new frck requirements the Florida Recovery obligation calculation program which we receive more points with this policy in place uh it is a second reading um I don't know that there's a lot of changes the biggest one is is the manager's authority to be able to expend funds up to $75,000 it's currently 25,000 uh we don't have a lot of things in that range but that's just will allow that typically these things will be discussed in open meetings as well that it's happened if it's something we had to do and and and move forward with okay any questions for Andy public comment is there anyone that like to speak in public comment seeing none we'll close it bring it back to the council further discussion or motion Mr Mayor yes sir is this is just mirroring best practices for other municipalities in Florida I would move approval of ordinance 24-11 got a motion by VI mayor adhal I will second any further discussion Vice may adhal I I'm I councelor Woodson I councelor Safford I councelor King I motion carries unanimously last public hearing is item J ordinance 24-12 elections this is the second reading and final public hearing of an ordinance entitled an ordinance at the town of Fort Myers Beach Florida reaffirming its prior Amendment to the qualifying period for the Town Council candidates for the November 2024 election to noon on the 71st day June 10th 2024 to noon of the 67th day June 14th 2024 prior to the August primaries to be held on August 20th 2024 providing for scriveners errors conflicts of Law severability and providing for an effective date anyone have any pretty straightforward any any questions public comment is there anyone that would like to speak in public comment seeing none we'll close public comment bring it back to the council is there a motion or further discussion mayor I'll move ordinance 24-12 elections I'll second got a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Safford any further discussion councelor King hi councelor Safford hi councelor Woodson hi vice mayor hi and mayor Al is an i motion carries unanimously next is the administrative agenda lean reduction requests for at 80 Avenue E uh Mr Mayor um before we proceed I I need to recuse myself from from this uh from the administrative agenda a okay and you'll fill the form section what is it eight or form 8 is that what it is she got I will do so right now all right good afternoon good afternoon Mr Mayor Town Council Members Steve run on behalf white sand properties of Fort Meers Beach um we had previously filed a motion to either ask for forgiveness of the current leans that are in question the property is known as 0 Avenue E Fort Meers Beach or any alternative to um reduce the current fines to $115,000 the the motion was verified kind speaks for itself but essentially just to recap back in December of 2019 uh my client the negotiations with the then uh Town manager Mr harad I believe had entered into an agreement with regards to White Sands part of it uh for anticipated purchases uh specifically there was 1560 I and then subsequently 80 Avenue E with regards to the leans that were in place as to 80 Avenue E um I think it's important to note that wh sand was not the Violator of these leans it was simply trying to uh purchase the properties free and clear from the leans um pursuant to the agreement with Mr harat um my client um was was told that it could settle for the sum of $50,000 and in fact he did pay the $50,000 the very next day and that uh check was was cashed by the city in December of 2019 the violator Mr orlandini was apparently given uh a $155,000 payment with regards to the full release of the leans unfortunately he didn't fulfill his part of the agreement so we're before you asking for uh that to be taken into consideration in the request for forgiveness or in the alternative my client I know I probably shouldn't say like this but we're just trying to get these these items resolved my clients willing to pay that $15,000 that Mr orlandini did not pay pursuant to his part of the agreement with with the town manager that's that's pretty simply what it is uh there there three leans in question to to to Whoppers and one smaller one uh but in good faith my client uh unfortunately I was not part of the process I I did not represent him at the time otherwise I would have you know probably uh done a little bit better uh with regards to the to the paper trail but unfortunately it is what it is so he essentially paid for Meers Beach $50,000 in December of 2019 and that copy of that check uh is attached as I believe exhibit B to to my motion so we're here before you asking for forgiveness or in the alternative with a way to get this resolved there's currently foreclosure that was initiated apparently by the predecessor Town attorney um we've had tried in the past to to resolve weren't able to resolve it uh more recently had come up before the magistrate to reaffirm the debt and to get authority to file the Foreclosure but my discussions with Council for for the town with regards to the Foreclosure was why don't we just see if we can get this thing settled with the city and avoid undue delay expense and more fees for for both ends for a foreclosure case that that we hopefully can get resolved today thank you Steve are there any is there any you say there's agreement yes was there any paper trail for this agreement that was done between Roger and Joe and the applicant the only paper trail is the copy of the check itself which we attached for $50,000 it's paid from Schmid's machinery company but that is Mr Schmidt who is who is present he also is the owner of white sand properties of for Meers Beach unfortunately that's the best paper trail that I can profer to you at this point in time um he did his part unfortunately the other side didn't do their part but we essentially are at your mercy with regards to trying to get this thing resolved so we can move on and then a check it it's referring a address that is not the address that's here why is that there there were there were two properties that um Mr orlandini owned or through his entities owned that being 1560 I Street and the other one is the subject property 80 Avenue E so the intent was from our part can't speak to the initial violator but the intent was from our part to clear those leans because the way the code Works attracts through and like you just heard the lean on the property tracks on on the property and not necessarily to the individual himself or or that entity so um really been going on a long time yes yes like I said we we've we've tried to resolve it previously um through through the predecessor Law Firm but we hit the wall I was not the attorney primarily involved in that case so I really couldn't speak to but I'm but I was aware from from the code counil that it really couldn't get anywhere with with trying to get a settlement with the city so yeah it's been dragging on for some time what brings it to a head now is that the magistrate I think in February this was brought before the magist to approve the leans and approve the Foreclosure which kind of open the door so to speak because the the first foreclosure was not I'll I'll say my opinion I want to speak for opposing Council my opinion was not brought properly because how I read the ordinance it has to be approved by the magistrate ratif the lean has to be ratified before foreclosure can start but that was another firm another day that did that so when in February the magistrate reheard these leans so to speak that's when I got involved and like why can't we just get this thing settled in the hopes of getting this foreclosure case done completely as well so yeah but the special magistrate rejected it because of the partial release and the different address the special magistrate did not accept the proposition so to speak that that was for settlement no more no less um there there is pending foreclosure that's an affirmative defense and foreclosure we're not looking to go down that road we just simply want to either get the leans forgiven as my client was not the violating party or get it mitigated to to the point where something can get resolved and we could just get this paid and be done Becky okay um I'll give you a little of the backstory there there was a problem with the lawsuit that was filed by the previous Council um for whatever reason he had not taken it to the magistrate to have the magistrate approve the Foreclosure which under State Statute you required to do so when we took over the litigation we did take it back and I guess that's when um uh opposing Council got involved but the history of this was that um the there was I'll lean against one piece of property but they basically cross-pollinate over um all properties that are owned by the The Violator or by the same people who own the property that's in violation um so they wanted to sell this other property they brought it to the Town Council and the town Council said well for $50,000 we'll release this other property over here um it brought it before the town manager I don't think it ever came before the council um it did it did I believe um because I think we found okay it says on um December 9th 2019 um during public comment Orland stated to the Town Council that Jessie Schmidt of Whit sand property intended to buy one of arland's other homes which was 1560 I Street that was encumbered Under the Umbrella of the leans on the subject property which is 80 Avenue East and Jesse Smith also this is from minutes um also indicated that he was buying this property and pledged to pay $50,000 towards the lean on the subject property so he was buying 1560 I Street and he agreed to pay $50,000 towards the lean on the other property for a release of the property that he was buying so and that was um approved at that meeting so that was before you or I were oh I was going to say cuz I don't remember in 2019 so that was before you or I but that's why remember remember yeah so that was for 1560 I get it but there were still violations on on 80 Avenue East and that was also bought by the same just and then it was and then and then he did buy that later apparently so um so from what we can tell going back and looking at Old minutes and everything the $50,000 was paid but it was paid to release a different piece of property from this um but the amount at issue now that we're in foreclosure um is close to well it is exceeding $1 million at this point um so we've got a pending foreclosure soon when did when did the when did the till stop ringing uh the the storm the storm yeah yeah it wiped out the violations then Madame attorney in a in an unrelated case I don't want to put words in your mouth you've had some concerns about how fines have been for lack of a better term adjudicated have you had a chance to analyze the $1 million of acred fines in this particular instance um yes um these were there were two separate violations and they were um and I don't remember if it was $250 a day or $150 a day 250 it was $ 250 okay which is perfectly legal under Florida law um and you can have two separate violations um and it's just it's a matter of time $250 a day adds up over a substantial period of time are are the are the concerns that you had in related but unrelated cases are they in terms of how the fines acred similar or is it no it's um well similar to the point that there were two different violations that were running concurrently um I I know which one you're talking about and in that one I believe there were seven different aspects of one violation that that all had concurrent fines and my reading of the statute you can't do that um my reading of the statute these were two different violations separate and apart so no I I think I think we're talking apples and oranges here so go ahead no I was just going I have a question so these are two different violations that basically were ignored until we got to 1,1 189,900 well if it hadn't been for Ian it would be a lot higher because it was ignored until the storm and the storm just wiped out the whole um the violations but wouldn't you say yeah how did that it it wiped out the property or wiped out I guess it wiped out prop no it didn't wipe out the property no proper I actually brought it up to code whenever I bought it there were some he put some stair treads on to the micone say your name j Jesse Schmid owner of weand properties when I bought 1560 I Street Joe had leans on that encumbered all of his properties so he couldn't sell any properties and until we made a deal with Roger Hearn stead so Joe and I sit down with Roger and negotiated $65,000 and I said I would pay 50,000 of the 65,000 that 50,000 was towards 80 Avenue E because 1560 didn't have any violations but he had to pay money on his violations to be able to sell other pieces of his property so I bought 1560 first then I bought 1710 1740 I bought several properties from Joe that he had either financial troubles foreclosures violations tax leans it was a a big mess we get down to his last proper he had two properties left that time he had 80 Avenue E and 2890 C view he wanted me to buy 80 Avenue E because it was in foreclosure so I said okay did you pay the 15,000 because I've already paid 50 of the 65,000 that we made a deal with Roger on and Joe said no I didn't so it was down to like there's two or three days left go to talk to Roger Roger was gone I quick claimed D the property into my name went and talked to Roger Roger's like well you owe 65,000 I said well I actually owe 15,000 because 50 of the 65 has already been paid Roger's like no them were violations for 1560 I well I don't believe they was cuz 1560 didn't have any violations everything was encumbered under ad Avenue E and I said actually Joe has sold 2890 C view he should have paid the fines whenever you guys released 2890 C View and he didn't so I tried to pay the 15,000 back then 3 or four years ago and now here we are today again but I brought it to compliance and he put some stair treads on on the back building which was going to get tore down anyway but I couldn't do anything until I can get the leans released so that's what brings us here today Mr Schmid could you just tell the story of how the violation occurred just for for background purposes from what I gather I'm sure everyone here knows Joe orlandini so it's going to be complex him and Leo diasi bought this together back in 2016 I think 15 16 17 somewhere in there Joe had put some stair on some stair treads on a back building and put a few pavers in between the two buildings he got caught got two different violations well Leo got caught well then Joe wanted it in his name so it goes in Joe's name and Leo's name well Joe supposedly bought Leo out I don't know how that happened and I don't mean to interrupt you but it was work without a permit is that was that the yes exactly I work without permit he put some stair treads on and some papers and uh whenever I bought it I took the stairs off removed the pavers went in and talked to Roger and tried to get it resolved that's when Roger told me I owed 65,000 I said well you're correct it was 65,000 and I tried to get a copy of the agreement that Joe Roger and I made that day at Town Hall but Roger's like they're not your fines they're Joe's fines I said well I agree but I just paid $50,000 of the $65,000 he said well it's not in your name I said okay I agree so that's when I bought 1560 but I never got a copy but Joe and Roger I mean sit there and signed it and Joe agreed to pay the other 15,000 he never paid it I've tried to pay it several times and that's what brings us here today so J I guess my question is you know these fines have been acre since you bought the property why the big why now why why I've tried I tried to do this years ago I've sent emails my question is I don't you never that I can recall ever come before Council during public comments saying hey this I'm having this issue with the town manager I'm having an issue with staff they're not taking care of these fines what can you do to help I don't ever remember getting any any formal request to to do what we're doing today so that we didn't get to this point is kind of where I'm why did it continue to go on for four years so there was another attorney representing Whit sand with regards to the forcl ures I was not involved in that process I do the corporate work for for white sand when the more recent hearing came up in front of the magistrate in February to affirm the leans and authorize the filing of a foreclosure is when I got involved and I started looking at what I G on I had a lot of the same questions unfortunately trying to track back several years has been difficult and we spoke with Council uh um we were referred to the litigation Council and then the agreement was at least from my perspective hey let me at least see if we can get these mitigated or forgiven whatever don't bother you know I'm going to tell you what to do but don't bother redoing the complaint because we just simply like to get these things settled with the city no more no less so unfortunately the going in was bad the middle part was bad I'm just trying to pull this out at the end and get this thing fully resolved somehow with with with this town I saw in the packet there was something someone from your firm my battery died but there was someone from your firm that sent a letter I believe it was to you asking to try to resolve this but I didn't see a response from anyone was there a response to that it's in the packet the letter was as part of the packet that was sent from your office to Steve asking to and then there was no response and I I I believe it was no no response from whom from whoever the letter was the email was sent to I've had several conversations with Mr with Mr Waters who's the the litigant from The Firm they just came from your office Becky yeah Paul Waters yeah yeah yeah okay yeah I might have just picked up the phone and called him because I know I've had several conversations with them so okay I'm not seeing it in the packet oh it's it's in there otherwise I I didn't I didn't make it up no I know I'm sure yeah it's from it's at the bottom at the bottom of the from Steve from Paul Waters to Steve ramuni yeah what date uh April 16th of this year yes yeah yeah because what happened was we were in front of the magistrate in February she adjudicated the Lans and then I had subsequent conversations with him so I didn't respond by email I just picked up the phone and called them to say hey how can we get these things settled you know and that's and that's when P 741 oh okay okay yeah it says um yeah Steve attached to the affidavits from the town which have the dates of compliance and total fine amount because he had requested that please let me know if you're willing to propose a reasonable settlement amount for the town to consider otherwise we must continue with the Foreclosure litigation and honestly we weren't asking for 15,000 it to me it doesn't strike me as a reasonable settlement but um yeah I I think that he did come here and he got on the agenda and I think that was the response I mean I'm not faulting them at all nothing in there that I didn't yeah I didn't I I didn't ignore Mr okay that wasn't my that was to me I'm you know I'm not the best typer so I rather just pick up the phone and talk to somebody and that's what I did in fact he gave me a cell phone and I spoke to him on the cell phone and then he said well because the discussion was well we can make an offer but then we still have to go in front of the Town Council and then we started talking about the procedure and the code and I just jumped on that to to get it in front of you as soon as possible so is there any go ahead it looks like you're going to say something oh I was just going to say that um from the information we were able to um glean from looking at the minutes there really wasn't anything before the Town Council with regard to 65 ,000 it was just 50,000 to release this one piece of property which wasn't even the the property in violation so I'm I'm pretty confused about where the 65,000 came from and if in fact that was the deal there was a written obviously they knew back then how to properly release um Lans because there is a proper appropriately signed and recorded release um for the 50,000 so if there was another 15,000 That was supposed to be paid or was paid or whatever um there would have been you know a release and there and it would have come back to the Town Council because it's under Florida case law it is the Town Council that makes the decision as to whether alen is released or not yeah I sympathize for you I know this is some mess I'm just is there however this goes or however this this ends up is there any legal actions that Mr Schmid can take against Jor andini I mean that's what I was asking is there any written contract that you guys have between who was paying what and who wasn't I mean I'm just trying to understand it another problem three days com up another problem with ad Avenue E three days after I bought it Joe had signed a second mortgage with a gentleman for $350,000 and not told me about it I actually have about a million5 judgment against Jo orlandini right now and I've never seen one dime of it so is there any recourse going back after Jo orlandini absolutely not cuz he just does not pay his bills if he would have paid the 15,000 3 years ago we wouldn't be standing here but obviously he doesn't want to pay anybody anything so and do we know did did whether it's 1560 or whether it's 80 did those properties well evidently not we said we're saying that they didn't come into compliance before the storm took them away is that that's the information that you know I've never even seen the property but that's the information we have from made a comment that you had brought them into compliance saying that they aren't they weren't I filled up personally myself Mark Sean and I filled up five 20 yard dumpsters out of the back of that property well but he would have needed to get permits to do that so the it the permit record is not there the problem was that's what I was getting is there a permit record to show that I'm sorry I didn't know I needed to permit to order a dumpster and clean up and clean up somebody else's garbage it I mean it wasn't a garbage issue it was doing work without a permit but he simply removed the unpermitted work I don't know if you need a permit to remove the unpermitted work maybe you do well I don't I don't think so but the you do need to notify the town that you have come into compliance okay there's been a lot of lot of bad moves I would agree but we're here before you in equity trying to mitigate this issue so we can move on and not keep the treadmill going that's why I wrote the motion in the alternative because if you were not inclined to forgive give us a number so we can hopefully get this thing resolved because we want to get it resolved right now and my client will write you a check to get this matter resolved but we would ask you to take into consideration that he's not the Violator it didn't sound like the violations themselves were major violations although I I don't want to distinguish but I but I know um Mr Mr vice mayor you you had seemed to question you know what degree were the violations he took it upon himself to remove them unfortunately yes again went into the black hole and he didn't perhaps cross every t. every I type of thing but this Council sits in equity and that's all we're seeking to do is give us a number we like to get this thing resolved we weren't the Violator like any other person who comes before the council in this for simply let's get this thing resolved put put an end to the litigation we don't want to have to incur fees on our end I don't know the town's agreement is with your attorneys but I'm sure you're going to ur additional fees on your end and a bad situation is just getting worse and worse and worse obviously as as the get days go by so that's we're simply you know we're essentially saying we're throwing ourselves on your mercy give us a number if you're not inclined to forgive and and you know we're we're done what what was what was the purpose and I honestly I don't know as I'm so I'm asking yes sir what what was the use of these properties from 2016 when you said you brought them into compliance although we have no record until the storm took it away what were they being used for there nothing they Joe had let him just basically fall into themselves but that was was that Mojo's too or no no Mojo is up 17 C 1740s the front 80 Avenue so they weren't rented they weren't they just sat their vacant correct I I could actually tested that because when I was trying to Vision all these properties there's there was no activity within 8 Avenue E it was an absolute eyesore and mess and I wanted to rebuild the property but I could never get it resolved with Roger and then the hurricane hit and it's just it's been I bought five properties from Joe orlandini and it's been absolute hell just to let you know well I I said at the beginning I certainly sympathize I've heard this story a few too many times unfortunately exactly um I'll listen to comments from my colleagues vice mayor Jesse uh and I'm just searching my memory here but it seems like you and I and a local realtor had a meeting two and a half years ago about this issue if I remember correctly yes that's correct and and uh and I approached the town manager at the time and he said that there were some other properties in violation Etc and you and I I think talked further about it via the phone and I I believe I asked you just to because it's a complex issue and there were other properties involved I said gosh Jesse could you put together a chronology for me to sort of because every time we talked it we' kind of get off on tangents and I said could you give me a chronology of what happened so I could present that to the town manager and I don't remember ever receiving it anything and the issue just sort of went away and I'm just curious did you think it was just going to go away or no I believe I sent you an email I believe I sent all the Town Council an email at that time okay and I I believe I sent more than one email but In fairness to you what you told me two and a half years ago is exactly what you're saying today so to that's correct yeah I'm not disputing yeah I I'm not this is the honest of God's truth this is what happened he was supposed to take care of it when he sold 2890 cvu he was supposed to pay us 15,000 he never did was talking more about the the communication with you and Roger exactly Our Town manager at the time it's consistent with what you're saying today correct and it was difficult I think I forget the person who was in charge of zoning at the time uh Dean Deany I think there were some awkward uh conversations with her as well if I remember correctly yes that is correct yeah yeah so my part was and unfortunately I I wish I would have maybe at the time been been more involved I but I was not the attorney that was primarily handling I'll say the original foreclosure action because now we're going to have an amended foreclosure action but that's when I stepped in and said let's just get in front of the council let's get this thing settled that's been my posture all along is just to get the thing settled have you had a chance to talk to our town attorney to discuss settlement negotiations and did that did that not result in anything we we talked about it he's like you got to give us a number I'm like well you have to take into consideration we've already paid $50,000 so we didn't necessarily have a meaning of the minds as to whether or not the 50,000 was going to be honored and forgive me but I mean are you talking about our new Town Council Mr yeah Mr Waters and Mr Waters is what he's one of our partners oh I'm sorry okay very good okay yeah yeah yeah so so I so the approach to me what's the quickest way to get in front of you all all the motion that I filed and then get it out there and get on the agenda ASAP as opposed to giving him an offer which then has to you know and then we're and that's fine you have every right to come before us but my I guess the answer to my question is you were not able to reach a settlement with Mr Waterson we didn't talk any tangible numbers because he's like well it's got to be a number but I'm like well do you acknowledge the 50,000 I don't want to like get into the specific conversation but I was like we we in good faith paid 50,000 on something albeit he bought the property but it wasn't his lean so he's not the Violator so but instead of going back and forth in the tennis match it was easier just to come before yall for for today's form so but yes I did as as soon as in fact I think I spoke with you in February if you were here if you cover the magistrate whoever covered from your firm in February that was Nancy okay Nancy I was like well my first thing when I showed up we were over at the rec center was what can we do to get this resolved like well I'm only for city council we have another partner that does that so you'll have to talk to them so but we've tried you know and and I know from the predecessor attorney from talking with the other attorney he tried multiple times to to get some inroads to settlement that would get stonewalled every time yeah to the mayor's point I I don't know why we're now just handling this but to Mr Schmidt's point he did try to resolve this two and a half years ago because I was I I was trying to act as a leaz on to that and that was that was challenging so why why we're why why we're still here today I don't know but but I he did try to resolve it two and a half years ago I could attest to that um I don't know who was right or who was wrong but I I do know he certainly presented his case and and why he didn't come before the full Council I don't know um uh and r respect I wish I would have just stepped in at the time and just come before you all bring it to a head but I deferred to the other attorney that was handling it and I you know turns out to be a mistake as well by doing it like that but well and the and the relationship between Mr Schmidt and the town manager and and uh the the uh D Daphne at the time was was strained to be kind yeah on both sides yes councelor Woodson counc King got any input everybody just sitting back Concor King's leaning in we'll see what he is well is this a form we want to negotiate in I guess is my question um you could refer I'm willing to do that but I don't know if how everybody else is comfortable with it but we have um active litigation going on um we could set a shade meeting at the next town council meeting and um the five of you and I and Andy could talk about it and that might be a more comfortable situation I mean there's such a huge space between 15,000 and 1 million2 basically I to come up with some kind of thought process of how to settle that I think that's a good recommendation Madam Council but I would also encourage in the interim for the two attorneys to talk sure to see if you can come to some kind of an agreement one way or another I mean possibly I'll bring back a settlement offer but um because under Florida law I have to request at an open meeting um a shade meeting I'm going to request it now and request it in this lawsuit and uh we will set it for um during the next town council meeting if that's okay okay can we and we will talk before then can we come to that because we just want to get it resolved I mean now those are shade meetings you can come you can be there after the meeting I've dealt with this for years I am tired of dealing with it all right I'm tired I mean I've got two young boys in wheelchairs at home I don't have time for this anymore I'm done with it I'm serious well I mean you know I had it with the last Administration I've done with this ad we're trying to find a conclusion for you to get this to in so I don't know if this makes any difference but our next council meeting and the shade meeting would be May 20th I actually have an excused absence for May 20th and we've got a person who's recus or council member who's refused himself so I'm not sure that May 20th is the best date if if we want to resolve it today that's fine yeah I'm I understand your frustration I really I am I'm sorry I don't mean to be frustrated guys I've dealt with it and dealt with it and dealt with it I've got 30 employees in Elway I've got 300 trucks I live in the keys I don't have time for this childish stuff I don't I I've got three boys I need to take care of I mean we be fine if somebody would just make a motion for a number see if yall can agree and we it could be as simple as that and we can be out of here in five minutes so right I agree well I don't know may I don't just just take into consideration we're not the Violator the intent of code enforcement is to get compliance there's apparently no dispute that my client once he got a hold of the properties did perhaps didn't do what he needed to do to notify whoever he needed to notify but he did comply and we're just asking this this this Council in equity to to take these into consideration you know if he was the Violator would be a totally different scenario it's it's a lot of mistakes were made along the way we just simply want to put a finality to it today if we could and and I certainly understand and I I've talked with Jesse before about you know after the storm the issues that he was facing so I completely understand but you have to also understand although we understand or at least I understand that it never did get brought into compliance until the storm took it away it's been well over two years that this could have been resolved I understand the previous but it still could have been resolved and it didn't so I mean as much as there's it's not your fault some of it is your fault and I think you've admitted that so personally I don't think 15,000 is the right number and I don't necessarily agree with the top number either but it it it there's a lot of things in there that could have been handled differently to get us to a different point um what that magic number is I Becky I don't know if you can make recommendations or not I know you've seen these cases what is something like this that's because the the 50,000 was paid but it was paid for what we claim and has been if I'm understanding this correctly has gone before the magistrate and she feels that this was for a different violation for a different property no no no no we're not getting credit not at all correct no we're not getting credit for the $50,000 to begin with you you will be getting credit for it that's part of the amended complaint that we've already we've already drafted the amended complaint oh so the 50,000 has been credited against the okay I or whatever compliance affidavit but but the whole intent was pay it on that lean let's be done if it's possible to lean on your you're the expert here you're the you're you've seen these cases we have not seen cases like this understanding what you heard it can you make a recommendation or is it not something that you're comfortable with doing to I could i' I'd rather do it in a shade meeting and um if and I certainly understand because if two of you are gone that's that's not going to work um so um how about we have the shade meeting in um did we do it Wednesday before the MMP [Music] um I win for stumping the attorney no no I'm trying to figure because Nancy's covering that and I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to be some place else sure let's I think I'm comfortable just let's get to a number whatever that number is and if somebody's got a number to put out there put out there I go ahead I'll just throw out $250,000 no you know that's that's incredible because that's what was banging around the back of my head yeah because that's a quarter of what will get it's in court roughly mhm vice mayor Earl how do you feel about that number I would like to better understand the litigation risk to the town you think that's the appropriate number given the litigation risk should this thing well I mean the I don't think that there really is any risk involved in the litigation um it is a lot of work for my firm but you know hey we take it on so um you know I'm not worried about the work we would do on it but I don't see I I there's there's no um there's no counter claim there's no basis for a counter claim um I don't see a risk I mean I was actually thinking quite honestly I was thinking along the line of 250 um we have charged that with an additional 500,000 escrow to stay C to stay in compliance which this is not an issue with that um but the fine that was paid for just about the same amount total was 250,000 and what was that violation for those are all kinds of unpermitted work yeah unpermitted work basically was done by the gentleman that owned the property or gentleman that bought the property that took the leans over own the property he own property owned the property sure um but that also those Lanes had piled up so fast because there was really one violation with some subsections to it right but we took those out of that because it was much much higher it was like in the $3 million range but then we took those out so that they weren't stacked on top of each other and then it ended up to be about a million two okay and then he paid the how about this for how about this for a compromise uh because Mr Schmidt did make a serious effort to address this a while back with about $250,000 crediting the crediting him for the 50,000 that he's already paid so it' be 200,000 well that would make sense because he has paid 50 but you just said that he that had already been added into what potentially was so it hasn't been credited into the amount that's in our packet or it has um it's it's in the amended complaint as we started out here we're no it's not it's not it's not in here it's not in know I I think John's first that that is quite the compromise if you ask me I mean and that's more than fair you know we're dealing with unpermitted work that was a potential safety hazard and it said I I completely understand you didn't do the you didn't create the issue but you didn't fix the issue either I've tried to fix the issue several times I've got emails I've got everything you guys need I mean i' I've talked to Mr oule I believe I actually talked to you Dan about this too at one time yeah it was after the storm it was after the storm when you and I met it was it was before the storm I think it was after the storm that wah Willies and they didn't open until after so yeah whatever mean yeah so a couple thoughts come to my mind if the compliance date that you're looking at currently with with the big number is a date that's probably two years post the actual compliance you know according to Mr Schmidt testifying what he brought in what he brought brought the property into compliance so um the number itself I think is not a true number factually I think that could get taken into consideration by the court the court also does Equity as well and I think there's several Avenues to that um and there's favorable case law with regards to taking property especially when you're not the Violator of the property but that being said we're not that's not the mode we're we're what we're trying to achieve today um I think a a fair number quite honestly and I think what Mr smidth would be willing to do is $100,000 with credit for the $50,000 so we would pay the city another $50,000 this week and we're and we're done well go to you John you're the one that made the initial number is that that something you can live with you know I I guess I I heard what you said but then I could also argue about some of the things you said too I mean um it's been brought into compliance does anybody really know that to be true and we've got nothing to go off anymore I mean that's your word saying that you brought it into compliance I don't know uh this is all new to me anyway um the storm brought it into compl well no but it was if on its face if he's test ifying that he brought it into compliance prior substantially prior to the storm and you have his evidence of good faith where he paid $50,000 towards the you know it's not like somebody showing up at the last minute oh hey yeah I was in compliant so you know for forgive my debt this guy's been working all along trying to do that and he paid a substantial sum to the city so you know with all due respect I think those things should be taken into consideration I'm not very good at math but what I've figured out is from 1.89 950 uh a quarter of that is 297 a little north of 297 I'm giving you 50 I'll give you 50,000 off that and we'll go 247 how's that no what about what the the how did you put it Vice m h compromise the compromise number the great compromiser the with the credit for the $50,000 that was already paid so it' be roughly 200ish yeah but I I'm going off the the total and a quarter of that is I got you not quite 300,000 right minus the 50 oh and then M then took off the 50 oh I get it got the 50 off already you already took the 50 I see well I guess you put it in motion I guess he goes if that's what you would like to do well I'm willing to listen to what everybody else has to say yeah I I well I I I don't I think trying to move forward I I appreciate where you're coming from I respect that and I and I understand your frustration because um unfortunately we know you're not the only one that's dealing with the frustration I understand the problem is I've tried this over and over and over and over okay but you've asked us to move forward and we're trying to help you do that and that's exactly to to get it resolved that way we're all done it could have been resolved four years ago well supposed to been resolved four years ago Karen anything well I mean I think I already said that I agree with you um I mean the place stood there it was a dump and it nothing was done with it um it's been a dump since I first started coming down here and moved here so and nothing changed except the storm that was pretty much the Ace in the whole so I agree with John would either of you care to make a motion I'll move that we accept uh a a move for a settlement in the amount of I'll just say $247,000 I'll second second okay motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion does this have to be roll call or no roll call roll call roll call okay hi King I Vice may edol I mayy 's I motion carries unanimously next we have um hold on one one more thing yes sir just one question for all you guys here Margarita Ville the cigar Hut got destroyed after the hurricane you let them build a building with no D no LPA board meeting or anything else explain that to us we have a certain amount of time to respond to the so the the offer is 20 247 247 a lot of explain do we have uh time to respond I mean you can just get back with me okay thank you all right thank you next is Item B award it- 24- 03- to atna Marine and construction as the lowest responsible responsive and responsible bidder to conduct construct the Estero Island beach nourishment and hurricane recovery project that Frankie it's Chad actually as soon as he finishes we basically had a um R RFQ out RFP out and we um selected the the lowest responsive bidder and that's where we are at this point Chad hey everybody uh Chad sh environmental staff for the uh town of Fort Meers Beach so uh this is a really exciting moment for me it's been about 5 years uh working on this um 2019 after the first sea turtle season got a uh couple of uh handwritten sheets of uh uh notes from a count County meeting uh Beach renourishment project here you go so we're here to uh award that project um placing uh 946 th000 cubic yards of sand out on our on our beach um uh atna was the the lowest responsible and uh responsive bidder um so that is the the ask today for yall to award that bid to to atna um there needs to be two provisos there was a bid protest on this a a notice of intent to protest um we have not received the bond on this I believe that y'all have received um The Memo from uh Andy with regard to his or staff's recommendation about um going forward with the award M because the only way if there is a protest the only way to go forward with the uh award is if it is necessary for the health safety and Welfare of the town and and the import of the I I think yall have have read the um the memo is that hurricane season is almost on top of us right now and we need to get this done um so that is sufficient it's legally sufficient to um allow you to proceed uh in the you know in light of the protest now um your approval needs to be subject to both um the approval of the intergovernmental agreement with um the county and I think that's going on their agenda tomorrow tomorrow yes ma'am okay and also the resolution of the uh bid protest so if if you could make your motion subject to those two things and can you restate that again just so okay yeah so whoever makes a motion knows yes um subject to approval by the county okay um of the interlocal agreement mhm and the resolution of the bid protest all right well Chad a lot of hard work I know you you worked really really hard on this so thank you for all your hard work and and Mike as well and anyone else that's helped you get to this point and uh to your needs to happen quickly we understand that so yes sir thank you any questions for Chad no but thank you you're welcome yes thank you very much uh anybody like to make a motion Mr Mayor in the interest of the health and safety and Welfare of Fort Meers Beach I move approval of award ITB 24-33 subject to the approval of the county and resolution of the bid process protest protest I'm sorry protest okay got a motion by vice mayor ader halt I'll second got second by councelor Woodson any further discussion would you like a roll call vote on this as well yes please okay vice mayor edal I councilor Woodson I counc Safford I counc King I and I'm an i as well the motion carries unanimously thanks Chad thank you all item C is resolution 24-8 authorizing bridge loan to fund the year 23 lost Revenue Joe good afternoon everyone Joe anzuk Finance director if you recall when we received the bridge loan it was almost a year ago in June of last year it was $1.9 million and we had promised that we wouldn't use any of it without your permission and so that is why this resolution is being brought before you um one of the in Ed uses of the loan was to cover lost revenue and so now that we are in the midst of our audit for the fiscal year 2023 and all the preparation we did for that I was able to calculate to the best of my ability and I did include that attachment to the resolution what I would estimate as being the Lost revenue of $3,852 n and this is doing a comparison of the revenue that we actually collected in 2023 compared to the revenue that we collected in 2022 and through that comparison that's how I arrived at what I believe is a very fair estimate of that Revenue so taking that into consideration you may Wonder well how did we get through the year um having lost that much revenue and the reason is we have really depleted our general fund balance and it was actually down to the point where our cash balance is was sitting at $22,000 in the general fund when as of September 30th so by doing this transfer retro retroactively it's merely an accounting transaction to September 30th we' be able to um boost our fund balance back up to where it would normally be so it would be um the proper use of the bridge loan and the intended purpose or one of the intended purposes of the loan and so that's why I'm asking you to do that and also I had um good news confirmed to me just today actually I received um an email from the Department of Economic Opportunity the Deo um where they confirmed in writing that our loan is not due on June 30th of this year as it was originally um was supposed to have been but they explained to me that existing legislation that's already been been signed has extended it like for a three-year term but there's legislation now waiting to be signed that would extend it another 10 years so or a total of 10 years so it it is not due yet and we we do have time um and there's a possibility it would be um forgiven um in the future yeah so but the need is now and that's and for 2023 and that's why this resolution is here any questions for Joe Joe just briefly uh what when when and if the governor signs uh the Appropriations spill the budget uh and by before July 1st and and the revenue replacement funds come to Fort Meers Beach how will that affect your calculations well that would be new you know new funding for for at whatever point it would be coming to us that would help us going forward it it absolutely would yep excellent thank you very much you're welcome any other questions for Joe no all right thanks Joe is there a motion for resolution 24-8 I'll move that I will second got a motion by councelor King second by mayor allers any further discussion councelor King hi I Vice I councelor Woodson hi councelor king or Safford I motion carries unanimously item D is the Seventh Amendment to the Ila with Lee County for a utility relocation project who's taking this one Jo Joe again okay this resolution um goes hand inand with um the tier one project and what we learned by working um closely with Lee County Utilities is that there is this interlocal agreement that needs to be approved that would allow the town of Fort Meers Beach to invoice the county for their portion of the expenses that may be incurred in the tier one project and this would be anything um any type of repair replacement or relocation of the sore lines that may be involved um with the um the storm water and the water project um the estimated cost would be as not to exceed about $900,000 so that's the amount that we'd be at risk at if we weren't able to invoice the county for their share and so this is simply um to update the interlocal agreement that we already have with them to incorporate this tier one project invoicing okay any questions for Joe thanks Joe wait for uh vice mayor to get back take your time what's another couple minutes we're going to have dinner delivered yeah right is there a mo is there a motion for item D I'll move I'm sorry no go ahead I'll move seventh amendment to Ila with Lee counting for utility relocation project I'll second got a motion by councelor King seconded by councelor Woodson any further discussion councelor King hi councelor Woodson hi Council Stafford IAL I and I'm an i as well motion carries unanimously final public comment come on up didn't see you hiding back there good afternoon good afternoon can you hear me okay yep hi okay so uh my name is Leah Greg I'm a full-time resident here on Fort Meers Beach and I'm here today to share with you a concern that I have that I think you and all should be concerned about and in that concern frankly is that Andy Frankie and Joe spec are putting our town at risk for losing our FEMA Insurance discount one example is they allowed a house to be built on grade that was completed before plans were even submitted to the town they are also aware that this same home has habitable space including air conditioning a full kitchen a bathroom living room dining room with Furniture which as you all know or you you should know this is completely against FEMA and our own town flood plane regulations including our codes for homes built on grade or below flood plane regulations a stop work order was issued only for it to be rescinded and the code enforcement officer who issued the stop work order was fired so I ask you you should ask who rescinded this stop work order and why and why wasn't nothing done about it documents also appear to be falsified um all of these documents are on the town's portal these falsified documents are being sent to FEMA as FEMA has inquired about this home not adhering to the flood plan regulations and this is more than concerning quite frankly I've met with Andy Frankie and Joe months ago and I shared very specific details and town documents about this home because due to no plans that were in place specifically proper drainage my home now gets flooded every time it rains but the more research I did from the town's own portal the more information I uncovered Rec regarding this home not adhering to FEMA flood plane regulations when I shared my findings with Andy Frankie and Joe they ignored me even more so Joe was very rude to me and even more so they prevented staff to even communicate with me I've tried exhaustively and I mean exhaustively as you all may know to try to get Andy Frankie and Joe to do the right thing and even include the mayor and the vice mayor on a few of my communications so I just continued to be ignored so really frankly they've given me no choice but to make this public um as this entire situation really needs to be investigated at the highest level Authority and I ask you to do so and this is just one example there are more and it's simply not right we can prevent our town and I know you're trying to prevent our town from losing our FEMA discount by correcting this type of situ situation and behavior and not covering it up and not ignoring it is the only way we can accomplish that or we will get nailed by FEMA I feel obligated as I shared earlier as a full-time Fort Meers Beach resident homeowner and really a citizen to bring this to your attention so the homeowners on this island don't have to pay the price for this type of behavior this is behavior I shared with all of you and it's not in the best interest of the town and just one last comment the contractor who supervised this bill he's of the non-compliant FEMA structure he's unlicensed and he's representing himself to the town as a licensed contractor which based on Florida law is illegal I've also shared this with the town so I thank you very much and uh please remember as I'm sure you know there's no retaliation that's allowed in a situation like this I people want to speak up but people are afraid so I hope you take this into consideration thank you there thank you there anyone else I'd like to speak in public comment seeing none we'll close public comment Tom manager your items thank you mayor um a couple things we're working on um the comprehensive emergency management plan we we will be having a drill uh probably sometime in July and August uh we we meet weekly at this point um started out meeting with my senior staff we're starting to Branch it out a little further with u u midle midlevel management and we'll go further out as we go but I'll keep more uh information before you as we go the street light project should be getting underway probably sometime toward the end of June 1 of July um we've got a confirmed vendor shipment of the first delivery of poles for 8924 having said that the process will start with putting undergrounding with conduit and and and um electrical lines excuse me to make sure that um you know they they do section by section so when the polls come in they'll start going up the second delivery is 9113 um both of these 147 poles and then the last delivery of October 11th 111 polls so it is working it is moving forward probably not as fast as everybody wanted but it will be moving forward um the other thing is we continue to work on the Strategic plan as you know um I'll be giving you more information but I I want to you know follow up with our our instructor from the other day um there's a lot of things that I tie to our strategic plan I I really call them the golden thread and what it is is after you set the the the goals the 30,000 ft View 10,000 foot view then now we go down to tier one and tier two and tier three and tie those goals to every individual in the organization so everybody's pulling and working toward the same goal pun intended um the other thing is U speaking of the flood plane program with FEMA we continue to to uh reply and respond to them they'll be meeting with us again tomorrow uh to go over some things that that they brought to our attention We are following up with even more of the and originally list of 106 but I believe at the end of the day it's like 97 based off of what we found out that a few weren't even in our they didn't exist or some weren't even on the island so uh we continue to do that um Staffing levels are um um being filled we have um a a um um Harbor Master Harbor Master thank you Harbor Master that should be starting next week we will this week be sending out a press release a media release with all his information we're excited about that I think he starts the 17th 15th um so that's coming really close so that is that is good stuff we are negotiating should be hearing today about a planner um so a lot of positive things going on we feel like um in the town uh we continue to move forward and of course um we're always here to to to serve at your pleasure and I I appreciate the fact that you're still bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 3:00 in the afternoon you better put your readers back on I'm not anything for for Andy Town attorney items uh nothing thank you nothing okay Council items members and reports we'll do individual first then go back is everybody okay with that to do the John um I'm ready to move on so I don't have anything vice mayor nothing additional thank you Woodson I had one thing but I think it's more appropriate for the um agenda management at M&P okay Safford uh I do not have anything at this time okay and for the sake of time I don't have anything pertinent either uh year the review of the Town manager okay I don't know that that was ever said as long as I can really well lucky you to get to be the first well the the good news is the bad news is um everybody should be reviewed right um and we're here for that and the bad news is it's almost 3:00 we'd kind of hoped you'd have been a little more alert when uh we got to this but it is what it is um because I hope you put only because only because your mind's tired and you won't put your full energy into it I fully expect uh um um to be evaluated just like I will other every other employee that's that's important to me and on April 1st 2024 TSA sent you oh by the way TSA is not here due to you know a personal matter uh we all can imagine um she's expecting a baby any day so we um we've given her excuse uh not to be here but she was to be here to kind of talk about um the process that we went through um it's it's contractually we're contractually obligated based off of my contract um to to do a review I think it's important to do that um it's always uncomfortable to to speak about the in the manager in public but it's always even more uncomfortable for him to receive good or bad bad or good um it's just it's just not my thing my thing is to just do my job and to keep going and keep coming in I think I'm a day-to-day employee I say that everywhere I go contracts are important but they're only as good as the paper they're written on at the end of the day you do control a lot of things so I I appreciate the year that we've had I think we've grown a lot I think we've seen a lot I think we've this group right here has done a lot we've had some changes we've had some um some improvements people people have come and people have left but the people who've left we've had a good reason for the reason why they left um we take this very I take is very serious um it's very important to me I I've been doing this for 20 years and um I think I think if you look back to where we were um in April of last year and then where we are today you didn't know what you were getting I didn't know what I was getting um but I think we've see that we've we've kind of jelled as a pretty good pretty good cohesive team I've got a good crew that works with me don't ask them anything about me but uh no I I would I would feel uh very comfortable if you were if I left the room and you had a chance to talk to them that that whatever they said would be heartfelt and and well thought out of but we try to work together uh nothing's perfect but we try to make it as perfect as we can and we do strive for excellence and as I say the staff we try to get a win every day um sometimes it doesn't seem like we did but if you look back over the last 365 plus days we had a lot of wins um you know we got we have a lot more in our future you know these trailers that was a win with the new town hall is going to be a win the park and some of just you little things add up over time um but I appreciate our relationship and and uh looking forward to uh the next year and I think all we need to do is recognize that we completed your assigned task and I don't know Becky can opine on that I don't know if you need to approve or accept the the evaluation um they've already done the evaluation so completed yeah there you go well maybe somebody would like to say some comments you don't have to yeah I do I have to um I know this is weird but in the short time since I got elected I've had five Town managers and um now one some lasted longer than others but it's always been an improvement from each one to the to the last one and I'm very happy and proud of where we are today and I thank you for that that's right that's right I forgot about I forgot about the the one week Town manager right who was a huge improvement over the previous one Jim yeah Jim was Jim steel Jim Ste Jim steel he was in for a week before Keith came in Jim May Keith and Chris uh I would see this uh I I I the the culture shift uh under your leadership has been tremendous the concept of of of you and your team working for the residents uh and the business folks of our Island as opposed to the other way around I think has been uh transformational I would say the way that you delegate your authority to people like Frankie and your your division heads demonstrates a uh uh a uh a comfort in your own skin It Dem it demonstrates a humility it demonstrates leadership and uh and it demonstrates what I think is most important which is servant leadership so I think you've established your footprint for this town and it's been well established and you and your team have and I I encourage you as you go forward now because you you you clearly have established the trust of this counselor and I think my colleagues as well I encourage you to use all of your years of experience to begin to more aggressively lead and when I say aggressively lead it's not as if you haven't been leading but to work under the assumpt assumption that we're all on the same vision and path together and you can make start making these smaller decisions without worrying about the council and obviously the broader policy decisions we would like love to make those in concert with you but I encourage you now to lead and and and and not worry about some of this you've been so gracious and communicating a lot of the small stuff and but I think now we you you've got the trust where the small stuff you just you move on and then the big picture stuff we we work together on that that would be my only suggestion and it's based upon the wonderful record that you've already established so I I'm so thankful that you are here I'm thankful for the team that you've established and it's just a joy to be part of this operation and an honor and a privilege so thank you Andy for your service counc Woodson excuse me I'll piggyback on what vice mayor aderhold said um I think now is the time to take those additional next steps I mean the team that you have brought in the people that you have hired um all looking at camaraderie culture um personality fit along with expertise but I think the culture being the most important part as we've shifted and going forward so um I think your team that you've established is phenomenal I think the internal hiring that you've been able to promote and latch on to and then bringing other people in from the outside when needed but you always look internally first and I think that's really important for the organization um you know as I've said we have I think we have a great relationship I think this whole team has a great relationship and you're kind of spearheading that from the internal perspective and so I say great job and move forward well I've got a unique experience that uh you you're my only Town manager but given given that I I kind of looked I I mean I did the review based on my my couple months but but can also tell you as a citizen prior to to being on the council I was really impressed and I I think a a prime example I is the Bayside part concert series you you had a vision and you you worked well with the community to come up with a plan you execut it you executed it and that thing was just supposed to last a couple months and people plan their weekends hey I'll meet you down down at 5:00 or 4:00 on Sunday it's it's it's almost a natural thing now and I I think you you you see what you've done there you ener you and and and not only doing it but gosh first couple couple weeks you you and Frankie were were picking up garbage you helping F chair I mean you guys were involved and that's that's what this town wants as a leader they want somebody engaged somebody with a with a vision and and somebody that you know I I love that you you every every day let's get a win that's a great attitude to have um as since I've been on Council you you you and Frankie have been had made it real easy for me and I've learned a lot and I you know I think we're as we said we're all headed in the right direction keep going thanks you ready for this no no I I I I think everyone said it said it very well I won't reiterate a lot of what they said um you know when you first came in you were dring it through a fire hose to say it lightly you know and I I think you quickly realized that you had to assemble a team that you could delegate to what you did and continued to do um you know you and I were attached to the hip quite for the first six months every hour of every day and and it wasn't because I was I had to be there it was just to be answering questions you had questions about where's Bayside Park you details yeah details like just trying to find out where's the water plant you know things like that so um and very quickly you picked it up and I think now you've gotten to that stage where you know you know what what how we think you know how you know our expectations and you know that the the vision and and the this the road we're trying to go down and and to to vice mayor ad hold's point I think going forward into the next year I think taking that next step of of just picking up the ball if you will and running with it and uh making the decisions knowing that you have you have the support um and anything that you feel that's one of the best qualities about you is if you feel it could be something qu you know controversial or something that is very important you make sure that it gets out to the public you make sure that they know that uh we're going to make the decision it's not just you you're recommending it we're finally making the policy decision so um taking that to the next step is the only real I wouldn't call it criticism but advice I would say for you to go knowing that you have five people that have your back and uh big deal looking forward to the next year absolutely all right John move to a Jour all right got a motion from councelor second councelor king seconded by vice mayor adhal all those in favor signify by saying I I we are adjourned at 39z is that you