for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all righty we ready to start this meeting thank everybody for your patience Marne could you call the role please council member Mark Greg here council member Elizabeth Jolan here council member Henry Rosenthal yes vice mayor Sharon Mahoney here and mayor buddy Pender here we have a quorum I've asked uh Mr Peter frza to please lead us in the pledge i al to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay so see where we are here okay we're going to have a quick prayer and then we will move move on Lord thank you for this awesome day that you have made let us rejoice and be glad in it and Lord we just ask that you would lead and guide us in every step of the way up here this evening uh that and we just uh pray a blessing over all the council and their family members all the people that are here people that are watching on Zoom ask a blessing over them and just thank you for for all the beauty that surround us and for this beautiful day and we ask all this in your name amen all right Council any requests for deletions and additions Henry I'll come back to me please okay all right uh Elizabeth no Sharon okay I don't have any so Henry we're back to you Tab four I want just I'll t for just as to do with the minutes something left out I could make the comment now it's over with I think okay uh we voted on something don't what the hell it was now it was five to three Sharon and I opposed it and are you talking about the it's in Green Turtle hammock yes I am as a matter of fact thank you very much the vote has not been uh written in okay and it was three to2 with Sharon and I descending so it's just a comment I'm sure you can handle that and let me see what else here right Marney you got that I I I wrote down this well so if you need it I think that winds me up for now thank you okay all right so we're done with that so we're going to move on to reports presentations and announcements so Erin can you uh come forward please sure if I can have the presentation okay great okay um can you yeah tell us who you are and everything my name is Aaron Dy I'm an attorney and I'm a planner located in Delray Beach and I've been working on resiliency issues in minroe county for going on about 12 years now um we are in the process of completing a vulnerability assessment for the village of Isa marada and we are going to present to you tonight the past essentially year of work that we've been doing on that project I looked and I was last in front of you on this project almost a year ago in March 2023 and so after a lot of analysis a lot of data collection I'm going to go ahead and move into the presentation there we go um the team that has been performing the vulnerability assessment obviously is led by a project manager for the village and that's Peter uh my firm clear viw Geographic who's doing a lot of the modeling mapping and Analysis and wsp who is helping us with project concept development so those three firms have been working on your vulnerability assessment I'm going to talk a little bit about what we've learned learned over the last year some of the modeling output and some of the mapping in terms of the types of future flood risk that we're going to be looking at we have some example adaptation recommendations and some conclusions and we got some great feedback at a public meeting that we had last week so I've modified the presentation slightly to deal with some of those comments that we received in the the public meeting last week so the project objectives are really to help the village of Isa marada look at the data in terms of future flood risk can become a more resilient Community uh most of the time when we look at trending sea level rise uh projections we use the K tide gauge because it has one of the largest periods of record or one of the longest periods of record in Florida so it's a very stable source of data to look at where our sea level rise Trends and projections are going so we are evaluating risk measuring impact understanding what that risk is going to be and when and how it will affect The Village's assets you're going to hear me use that word a lot that's what this program in the State of Florida wants us to look at they want us to look at the things that the village owns and maintains in terms of infrastructure and assets and how we will deal with those going forward understanding what that future flood risk is so this is the type of flood risk that we're supposed to look at sea level rise and we have certain projections that we use across the state so we don't make that up the state prescribes to us what we have to evaluate high tide flooding storm surge rainfall induced flooding and what I call the the kind of the spaghetti sauce or the mash it up scenaria which is compound flooding where you may have a king tide event in the fall you may have more of those because of sea level rise and you may have an offseason Shore like surge event and you may have a rainfall event on top of it so we look at that compound flooding because we do know that those types of scenarios can and do happen and so the element we've collected a lot of data um the good news is that you have a lot of data about your assets to provide to us to evaluate it's really hard to come into a community and do one of these vulnerability assessments if you don't know where your stuff is and I can say that you guys have a lot of great data that we've been able to collect and use uh we then measure the exposure of the various assets and areas to these flooding scenarios and then we measure the sensitivity like how important is that particular asset if it's a tiki shed that's one thing but if it's your village building that's another thing and so that has less of a tolerance to accept or to have flooding impact upon that site so we need to be more cognizant of that we're developing final recommendations and the report right now and so the state requires us to look at Noah intermediate low and high sea level rise projections for the 2040 2070 scenarios but we also look at the 2100 scenario even though the state doesn't require it require us to look at it sometimes your infrastructure you're planning for a longer period than just 2040 2070 uh they want us to look at rainfall events tides for the 100y year and the 500y year event with increasing sea level rise and then we have to use the most recent elevation data so we have compiled all of that data into our model to be able to evaluate these impacts the state wants us to look at four different types of assets your transportation your critical infrastructure which is all of your utilities infrastructure even though you don't own and maintain that infrastructure your community relies on it we know that fke fkaa it's their infrastructure but we still evaluate it because you rely upon it critical community and emergency facilities which are your buildings your schools that type of thing and then your natural cultural and historic resources including your Shoreline so those are all all the different assets that we have to evaluate per state law and so the first scenario what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one particular site um to map every time we map Isa Mara it's about 12 or 15 Maps so each one of these scenarios times 39 scenarios it's a lot of maps so we try to drill down in one area and show you what that's going to look like over those time Horizons so this is just sea level rise and high tide flooding it's sea rise plus 2 ft of the highest high tide of the day that's what the state wants us to look at so this is what you see in 2040 those darker areas of blue are increased tidal flood depths by 2070 you start to see more of those darker blues and more expanse of that sea level rise onto the dry land and this is the 2100 condition and this sea level rise projection is from a 2000 Baseline it starts you know whatever the sea level was in 2000 and then we add um the various events on top of it this is the same scenario but we also look at rainfall induced flooding and so we have the coloration on the maps in two different colors so you can see what's being impacted by sea level rise and what separately is being impacted by a certain type of rainfall event and in this scenario it's a 100-year 24hour rainfall event and so again you see with the those later years that the sea level rise impacts are encroaching further upon the the dry land sea level rise plus 100-year storm surge now this is a tough one to look at but you know with a storm surge it comes and it goes we recognize that in the keys especially we've been planning our infrastructure and we know what hurricane events will do to that infrastructure but we don't necessarily design to that if we were going to design to avoid impacts to a road from storm surge all of our roads would be six feet higher so really it's that sea level rise condition that's going to exacerbate some of that storm surge and again the reds are the deeper um areas where you have a storm surge event and in this instance up to the 2100 condition you're talking about 180 in of of Rise of the waters during that type of storm surge event and then finally this is what I call that mashup scenario where you're looking at the different types of coloration like in the deeper areas that's mostly going to be storm surge induced in the Bluer areas that's going to be where you're going to have a rainfall event that's going to impact those areas as well you can kind of see how the the potential flooding scenarios are impacted by the elevation of the land these are the higher areas that remain in the Blues and the greens and the lighter colors because that's less impacted its higher elevation so that is how we kind of eval evaluate the exposure to flood risks the next step of what we do in this analysis is we try to determine flooding hotpots we look at where you have a lot of assets a lot of things that you own and maintain that potentially want to protect and then we look at where those areas are actually impacted by some level of flood risk so we've identified 12 flooding hotpots uh within Isa marada that are either impacted by rainfall or sea level rise or some combination thereof and so then what we do is we employ a mechanism to actually score the assets we've kind of figured out a scoring mechanism a higher score means a higher priority for that asset the other thing that we've tried to do is really drill down because when we collectively input all of the different asset data into our information and into our model it was well over 10,000 different asset points when you start looking at the different elements of the water infrastructure the Wastewater infrastructure the storm water infrastructure and what we really want to do is have this scoring mechanism so we can drill down on the most important stuff and after we employed this scoring mechanism we went from 10,000 assets to about 3,100 about 555 of those were the highest priority of 1 through three uh about half of those assets 1300 were were prioritized four or five but the good news is about 1,800 of those assets did not trigger in our scoring system so those are okay for the most part with our evaluation and so what we do then is we take these hotspot areas and we drill down into the assets within the hotspot areas and so with these Maps what we try to do is reflect the score of the highest priority assets and what this enables us to do is really focus on the things that are most important and most vulnerable within the village so instead of looking at everything and not knowing where to start what we want to do is create a game plan in each of these Focus areas about the types of projects and the types of things that you need to be doing and admittedly some of those assets that are vulnerable again are not even your assets we would be providing that information to Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority or fkec and saying look this is what our vulnerability assessment said the highest priority priorities were within our community and so hopefully they will take that data and in incorporate that into their Capital plans as well and so these are the types of example recommendations so this was hotspot two one thing that we suggested was a living Shoreline along the Breakwater that would provide enhanced resiliency for the shoreline area um what we've also found in some of these areas where you have really low elevations where properties may be affected by rainfall and deu flooding that is going to match up really well with your upcoming storm water master plan that you were about to launch and this enables us to allow those two projects to talk to one another but this is kind of giving us a preview of what those potential hotpots are within your storm water master plan another thing that we came up with is we also saw that some of the private Boat Owners parks within the various neighborhoods their ramps are old they're low and they may be the conduit for flooding increasingly so of the water coming up during tital events onto the roads and so the point here is not to necessarily start you know going out and making people retrofit those ramps but at some point the people in the neighborhood are going to realize that too and so they may come into you for a permit to modify the ramp to deal with that flooding so one thing that we would do is look at design criteria for your ramps to make sure that if they do retrofit something that it's done in a way that it's not going to impact the surrounding neighbor neighborhood um again one of those examples is a living Shoreline this was a request from one of your council members to to look at what that is there has been a lot of work on living shorelines within the last couple of years the State of Florida is really um promoting these types of strategies along the shoreline because it's a more natural way to let Mother Nature attenuate wave action and reduce impact to a shoreline rather than a seaw wall or a flat facing Jetty or a break break water now not for every single area it needs to be a very open area like you would not put this obviously in a canal because it would impede navigation so living shorelines I think this one is over in Cedar Key um they have been studied in the last couple of events that they've had over there and Ian and Adalia and they have held up pretty pretty well um they're fairly easy to get permitted too because the core has a nationwide permit on these things and because they are being encouraged it's a way that they can streamline the regulations to potentially uh promote that and so the elements are basically replanting mother nature in a more elevated way um widening that Shoreline to allow that wave action to be attenuated and potentially act as a title barrier for you so our timeline we've been working on this project for a little over a year we are uh pretty close to the end the biggest thing that we are doing right now is really take taking that deep dive into the individual Focus areas and coming up with project Concepts and recommendations for what we think you should be doing in each of these individual Focus areas and to date one of the important things about a vulnerability assessment at least the way the law reads now before the governor signs the D bill that just went through the legislature is that these vulnerability assessments are required to access funding for the resilient Florida program and you have had some success in that program so far um securing some of those Grant dollars and you want to be able to continue that momentum because the way the law reads projects have to be identified in a vulnerability assessment so we want your vulnerability assessment to also be somewhat of a living document so you can every year every other year refresh that project list and continue to potentially access those Grant funds and so the next steps we are in right now I'm about to L down uh are looking at those recommended projects and strategies finalizing the report like I said annually reviewing that project list to make sure that those projects are identified in the vulnerability assessment so you can pursue Grant dollars and another thing that we've discussed is making sure that this project is dovetailing and talking to two other initiatives that you are launching right now which is your stormw water Master Plan update as well as the road elevation planning the municipalities have come together and are working on a road elevation planning process as the county did looking at what roads to elevate when and what storm water features would be necessary so the timing is right for all of these projects to kind of come together and talk with one another and be consistent across these different planning efforts and the last thing that we have started to several of us have started to talk about is for a multi-jurisdictional adaptation plan while you have the vulnerability assessment right now the further along that you can get your project into potentially design and cost estimates you have a cue then of projects so if a federal or a state Grant application comes up you have information about that project already and that's what an adaptation plan would do um these types of planning grants are 100% funded by the state there's no match required and I know that some of the other jurisdictions are interested in pursuing some type of adaptation planning grant for this summer cycle in resilient Florida which is July 1 to September one um so that I think is a kind of comment on some some near-term next steps and that is it this is who you can contact more uh about the project you can direct anything through Peter um we actually do have a very significant um lengthy map series that goes with this project to look at all of the areas throughout the village so if there's any areas that you want us to pull up and get with you individually we are are happy to do that as well that is my presentation Council anybody have any questions for Aaron Henry is everything up on the website because it wasn't like yesterday or the day before not not yet not yet we're we're getting there we're going through final QA QC on the maps we're working with Peter's team to make sure that all the mapping output looks good I think very soon hopefully by the end of the month okay okay so Erin you just mentioned this adaptation plan that you know for Grants when the state has money what when when is that is there stuff ready right this moment that they the state's granting cycle goes July 1 through September 1 each year and what they do is before that they kind of open up the window work with people to develop their Grant applications we've written these before it's pretty straightforward it's pretty easy to write um I've talked to Rhonda at the county about potentially being a partner in that I know Leighton and Key Colony Beach are interested because we're doing their vulnerability assessment right now and the state likes to fund um multi-jurisdictional grants where people are working together regionally they'd rather manage one Grant than five so that will make it a more competitive Grant by partnering that way cool thank you Council any other questions you're excellent you do a great job it's very very straightforward thank you Aon thank you so much for your presentation sure good evening thanks Mr Mayor while we're we're here here go ahead while we're on this topic I just wanted to um introduce our new uh sustainability and resiliency planner and coordinator is Alysa Panzer in the audience in the black and white in the back started about a month ago and we'll be working on this project and other sustainability project so I just wanted to introduce her would you like to come up and say say a few words buddy not really I'll have to but just let's put her on the spot wow no pressure hi Alyssa Panzer I live in lower mat I've been here about five years I love Al marada and I'm very excited to uh continue to work in this area I've already got some great connections I know have a lot of great things going on so I'm really excited to help out this team as well okay thank you very much yes nice to meet you guys all right all right so with that said I think we're going to open uh general public comment now he first up we have Don Horton followed by Van Cadenhead and Ed Davidson afternoon Council for the record I'm Don Horton 47 scooner Bay Road and please forgive me um for reading this but I need to read this speech or I'll never make it in three minutes so I'd like to point out that once again the malc tents have seemed to cast aspersion on our town as you recall there have been several incidents where comments have been made seemingly to put some blame on our officials that the sun Outdoors property isn't paying taxes on the modular homes that are installed on the old seab Brees property I'm not sure if they thought our Council had something to do with this or if the blame was pointed at the County Tax Collector of the Property Appraiser's office but either way I needed to get to the bottom of this issue so I made some calls to some professionals that I know at the higher levels of the state I spoke to spoke to a longtime code official with the dbpr who put me in touch with the chief modular home regulator in the dbpr and I also spoke to the mobile home professionals at the DMV and I found out the facts there's two very important state statutes that need to be studied Florida statute 553 uh 382 and 319 .20 319 basically deems any manufactured home including a modular home as a mobile home when they're placed in a mobile home park and 553 says that each housing unit that is a mobile home in a mobile home park shall be licensed as a mobile home and shall be taxed or licensed as a mobile home so since these owners don't own the land underneath the home and the units can't be taxed as real property so they're titled as mobile homes and they get a sticker just like your boat trailer would so the only one who's made an error in the blame game is those who didn't take the time or didn't know how to find out the facts and I'd like to give each of you a copy of the Florida statute 553 382 31920 and 320 so that you can read the facts for yourself now please understand that I don't agree with someone owning a three4 million home not having to pay property taxes I think everyone should pay their fair share in taxes and most do but not all and I simply state that uh the blame for this disparity is not our local level it's not the village it's not the county and the mistrust that was implicated is just unjust maybe our legislator could take a look at this error so that the taxes can be paid accordingly but as I've said to you so many times before just because someone stands up here and says things with authority it doesn't necessarily make it fact so I'll hand you these copies thank you Don next Marne next up is Van Cadenhead thank you Don good afternoon my name is Van Cadenhead I'm from Isa marada um as Bob Dillan once said The Times They are changing we've got a manager and I'm really happy to see that and uh I'd like to welcome him tonight and congratulate him on getting through the process and wish him all the best and uh I understand we're going to have some uh Personnel staff changes and swapping and whatnot in the future and i' you know like to make sure that we uh uh maintain a stable balance among the the citizenry and this and the council about when we do that because there's changes need to be made in certain areas uh to address what Mr Horton said he did acknowledge that uh these houses which are selling for $900,000 a copy double decker trailers on stilts um for whatever reason people are buying them and they don't get the land that's under them so it may be for us to look at uh uh rezoning this is not it used to be a trailer park but these are not trailers so that's a misnomer these people are getting away with bloody murder I don't know if they have friends in Tallahassee or they have good lobbyists or sun Industries has a cousin that owns the manufacturing plant for these homes or whatever it is there's there's a way that they're snaking around paying any $80 a year they're going to pay for a $900,000 a year double-decker trailer which are ugly as Sin they have they are are lined up in lines there's no artistic ability uh there's no curved Road there's no nothing it's just plain ugly and everybody in town calls it Legoland because that's what it looks like all the pastel colors and and uh I had to opportunity to talk to a guy who was a regular to Isam Mara for many years and his bring his family down every year in his uh multi uh hundreds of thousands of dollars uh RV he used to stay down at uh Greyhound key or uh Fiesta Key you might call it and this year he decided he was going to stay in uh Legoland so he goes in there he and his family is there for a month cost him $4,000 to hook up his RV to that to a lot there there's they've got slots for high-end RVs too so he says I ain't coming back he says this is gouging this is I've been gouged and it it's a shame that that we're letting people do that uh I mean we can't control what they're going to what they're going to charge and there going to be there's going to be a waiting list of reservations for people all over America that want to get into legol land and have a place to park their RV when they come to the keys well man let's wrap it up man okay please I'll be talking to you later thank you very much anybody else uh Marne yep next up is Captain Ed Davidson followed by Joe wishm on Zoom okay thank you Marney for the record I'm captain eded Davidson former four-year elect Ed School Board member chairman of the Florida Keys citizens Coalition longtime 501c3 and Alam property owner and taxpayer at the opening of the Monday 4 March workshop on the Founders Park School System Ballfield artificial turf Expansion Project not just updates our acting Village manager Kimberly Matthews made the surprising announcement that the meeting would not be televised or zoomed this deliberately denied the vast majority of alam Mara's more than 7,000 taxpayers the right to participate at all not to observe presentations ask questions register their input or make any live public comment which was supposed to have been the whole purpose of having the workshop long awaited Workshop three and a half months after I found out at a Schoolboard meeting that this $5 million project had been under planning for two years and we didn't know anything about it um a major engineering and major construction project not updates while many of the surprised public present who were not members of The Well organized proponents were grumbling that we knew many citizens who had fully intended to zoom in as is usually possible uh and would thus be prevented from participating uh Miss Kimberly further proclaimed essentially that they should have shown up if they cared about the issues uh not sure that's an appropriate attitude towards the taxpayers that pay the expenses and salaries of everybody in this room without specifying how she would have accommodated hundreds of in-person attendees after having not let them zoom in this room isn't that big the flaw and also previously dictating in writing in the advertising that public comment should be mailed in in advance to the Village prior to the school system's first Public Presentation to Isam moradin of what their real ball field intentions were thus inescapably preventing any such premature commentary from relating precisely to those long concealed major um construction intentions make public comment before you're even finally told after two years in the dark of what to expect staff have confirmed a ciary that they were directly ordered by Miss Matthews herself not to broadcast resume the meeting so this whole scenario was clearly and deliberately contrived to strongly favor the artificial turf proponents while grocery disrespecting the fundamental rights of the taxpayer owners of Founders family Park most of Who Remain just as much in the dark as they were before their hearing I I got five right I don't think I'm at five uh posting a meeting afterwards doesn't do any good because the the citizens are still uh silent observers Marney put it at to if you would please you're speaking on behalf of the Coalition citizens Coalition sure I always do I only got another minute is worth any of all right um and originally it was announced only that the the video would be shared with you five elected officials and folks present uh suggested strongly that it ought to be at least uh shared for everybody to read uh the uh proponents have clearly not changed their spots and the uh it's an inappropriate attitude towards taxpaying public um it's it's well pasted time as I've said before for the elected Village councilors to take immediate direct personal detail control over all further negotiations involving any former Schoolboard alterations um to to the Founders Park Ballfield which belongs to us not to the school board different than all their other properties and by the way the reason they're spending the millions that they're spending in keep West is cuz that Ballfield Tommy Roberts is 75 years old it needs a hell of a lot more than than we need here uh and it's a whole different ball game uh you also need to find out specifically what lawyer John quick has been agreeing to because there's been no public mention of that uh in their negotiations after they couldn't find the their copies of their contract and they apparently forgot to renew it and all the other problems uh you need to swear in the new guy so that Miss Matthews can go back to her full-time job because she's got to evaluate all of our evacuation problems in the Florida Keys I'll see you on that one too thank you Martin anybody else yes we have Joe brm on Zoom as soon as I get the CL back I will pull him up okay Mr wishme you're go you are all set you have three minutes thank you very much Joe wishme Plantation key Mr Mayor and Council in keeping with my effort to have a more positive attitude along with council members I would like to take this time to show my appreciation for Council setting up two workshops in the last month the first one was concerning the noise ordinance many citizens and a couple of council members shared a lot of ideas to be presented to council for review it was very refreshing to have constructive back and forth discussions in an open Forum the second one was about the Baseball Field improvements there was Spirit there was Spirited conversations and questions that may have dispelled some of the rumors and misinformation that has circulated my hope is that all council members review the video and make sure that all of the promises and proposals that were made are adhere to it is a shame that this important meeting was not televised live so more people could have participated many questions were submitted via email but never read or answered by our acting Village manager she said that they would be submitted to council members at this meeting for review I don't know how Council was going to answer the questions it was a very friendly and informative to have interaction with people and representatives on very important issues I hope that you will set up more workshops in the future so more information will be available to Residents and council members maybe Council should hold an informal workshop on controversial items to obtain information and feedback from your constituents before meeting and voting on them some controversial issues are only heard one time before Council actually votes on them or public has any idea what's going on for example the Crooked Palm Distillery that was propos that was postponed many many times then heard by Council one time with two brand new council members then voted on after six hours of testimony workshops are a great way to alleviate misinformation and rumors and to show transparency continue this great confidence Builder and have more workshops regarding Mr Horton's comments I don't know how anybody can think that people paying almost a million dollars for a home and only $80 for a sticker in taxes but still want the police the fire and want everything that the village supplies via our tax dollars including your salaries there is one that says that if a mobile home is attached to a solid fixture then it is no longer a mobile home I will try to find that information and supplyed at the next meeting thank you very much thank you Marty anybody else no sir that's it okay um come on Chief public comments now closed though but go ahead come on give me a chance um I know I know it's almost a month out but if I wait till the next council meeting the event will already be over so I'm going to shamelessly plug the fire department's give back barbecue it's that time of year again so April 6th at Founders Park on the Beach come on out um if if you have like a really good coffee maker you want to meet me out there at 4:00 a.m. come on cuz that's when I'm going to throw everything on and start cooking but uh we're going to serve from about 11: until 3: or till we run out of food um but music drinks and barbecue on the PK on the uh Beach if you're a local it's free if not it's 15 bucks but come on out we'd love to see our community and uh we're giving back to you guys thank you for your support all right thank you CH April 6th from uh 11: to 3: unless you want to come have coffee with him at 4 in the morning um Kimberly did you have something you wanted to say um as far as public comments comments as did you want to speak to anything no okay all right okay all right so I guess next in line uh is Citizens advisory Emma thank you good evening Mr Mayor and Council um Emma ha uh your Vice chair of the Nearshore water regulation citizens advisory committee here to provide our quarterly report the committee met on January 30th 2024 uh where we first heard an update from the sheriff's department regarding ongoing uh capacity issues um with vessels and with Staffing their down one marine officer and training existing officers to fill in the gaps um committee continues to support ongoing efforts to provide resources vessels and staff capacity for marine op operations by the department we also received an update on the white Marlin vessel exclusion Zone and the recently passed ordinance we would of course and love to extend our thanks to the council for your recent adoption and action on this issue we're going to continue to monitor that and we'll report back to council and staff with any concerns that we hear we have no substantive updates on the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary final rule or management plan and we look forward to their anticipated release in summer 202 four we also discussed the Whale Harbor Channel idle speed zone where there have been changes in Boer Behavior since Whale Harbor instaled installed signage on their private property um the committee has previously discussed the need for additional buoys or signage on the water but we're going to reserve any further recommendations until we have feedback on how um that's going over there and finally we heard an update from staff on the proposed extension and expansion of the Tav Creek slow speed minimum w Zone we're thrilled to hear that this has gained traction both here with the council and at the county um we are aware that this is going to also take some time so we will continue to support that extension and expansion moving forward and that concludes my report okay Council anybody have any questions for Emma all right Emma thank you very much thank you all right all right so I think we're moving on then to uh mayor council Communications I think the first one is uh discussion regarding purchase of church vice mayor Sharon mahom um I had brought up in the past and I don't know how everybody feels but we have an opportunity to uh hopefully upgrade our library and have a community center behind it with the purchase of the um Island Christian movie theater I guess it's called and um CA yeah cin Mara anyhow I don't know if there are any appetite to go forward with maybe the purchase of it I know I had talked to Kimberly about maybe getting with Monroe County and uh sort of looking at it together I have talked to um someone who was pretty involved with the last go around and they're still interested we could make this library state-of-the-art and we could also have a facility where children can do after school reading we can have all kinds of things go on in the community center so I didn't know how everybody else felt if you want to pursue to see um if it's something the village is interested in if not then it's going to be a 7-Eleven so how does everybody feel I will start if that's okay I think it's a great idea I don't know the details I would like to know how the county feels about it I'd like to know some budget information um the library that we have now is um small and old but uh I I don't know a lot about how it functions but I guess it could stand an upgrade for in many levels so I'm interested in looking into this and getting more information so we can make a more informed decision well the way I was told is that before we can do anything I have to have the approval of at least three people on the council before we can look at a budget look at the county and things like that so I guess I'm trying to take the First Step okay so I don't know how does everybody feel I mean I feel it's worth looking into I mean we just need to have the support that we turn it over to Kimberly and Mr Cole that's coming in tonight that we look at look at it and also there is another plus because if uh you know instead of the fire department's right there and and they need they could have some more room as well so this could be I mean obviously we'd have to work with the county to see if they would you know joint venture this with us well I I think it might be helpful to get some feedback from the county just you know we certainly I'm sure Kimberly knows who to talk to uh but if we could we could just get something back you know is this a good idea are they interested are they not interested and then we get push a little harder we've had the conversations Kimberly and I but I thought it was supposed to be uh protocol for everybody to at least three of us if not all of us be on board to dive deeper into this I think it's a great location I'm on board let's let's look at it yes I'm on board can we put this on our after action report I think that would be great okay and so that can we also just get clear on what it is we're looking for I know we've H sometimes our direction is a little bit unclear so just so that staff is clear and the new manager is clear what do we want we're looking into the ability and the thought of maybe purchasing it with the um I would like to see the community be really involved in this for us to design something really alamara likee and not like a standard normal Library I don't know I haven't talked to you about that but uh I just would think that it would be something worthwhile a great location um something much needed in this area and we need a community center so right by behind it could be a community center as well so um I think the first step is to get the consensus of the council and then since Kimberly this is in her area and she's going back to the county she can we can continue to work on this with Mr Cole and um put in an offer there's an offer right now on it I will tell you that and it's contingent on I don't even know I'm supposed to be saying that so maybe I shouldn't say that so anyhow um I just think think we need to know if we want to move forward and get our foot in the door is that I'm interested in knowing more about the feasibility of it that is from the perspective of the library district which I believe a portion of our taxes that we pay not to the Village but to the county uh addresses that so obviously Financial underpinnings of this are important and then there may be some limitations with the size of the property and the amount of development that you can squeeze in there it's got quite a lot on it parking in particular I think would be of concern and if it's going to be a shared facility with library and Community Center I'd like to see how that could possibly fit together that may be something that a designer or planner could just Jennifer's chomping at the bit go ahead oh okay I just wanted to point out just the point of information that the current owner of the church has an application before us for a flammen zoning change that will come before this Council on at your next meeting for first reading um that new zoning change if passed would not allow for a library um so you need to consider that um I talked to him about that already I sort of okay I just want to make sure that everybody's aware of the repercussion and if we're interested and we meet the price that he's asking he'll not do that so I mean we sort of have to figure out sort of quickly I guess this is exploring atory we need to explore 100% you know and so between Kimberly Jennifer and Mr Cole um you know I mean this is Kimberly specialty libraries you know that's why that's why I went to Kimberly about it and um again uh they would love to see it be a library by the way the people at the church love to see us enhance our ability as a county and I know there's money and you want to see all this stuff but first we have to agree it's something we're all interested in well we got to hear from somebody else over here had said anything he's lying in weight give us your opinion please no my com my comments are several years old so I'll just leave it at that okay what does that mean all right what do you mean what do you mean what do I mean yeah sorry I lived that property for quite some time you lived at the church I don't I don't I don't care to get into it right now got it got it got it got it a part of that property um you know and I would just point out this is um well I I think yes I I'm in agreement let's look forward and and this I I think this is also coinciding with um the number of conversations we've had about asking for a strategic plan to be initiated because this feeds right into it depending on how we might reconfigure the various assets that we have in our town for our community and and I see that's on our after action report and Kimberly is going to be doing some of that work while she remains here so so weed I I'd say so I okay so can that go on our after action report all right so it appears at this point we have consensus from the majority uh that you would like for uh Council woman and Mahoney to move forward with the discussion and so we'll do that we'll put it on the ash after action review mhm I don't want to interrupt but I believe it's already on the after Action Report um vm- 24-1 we will add that you affirmed your support okay so we can move on from that so the next thing is um Mark a backyard chicken right I want to talk about chickens okay I knew I was going to get some laughs out of the the the audience here probably people at home are wondering why do we spend valuable meeting time that we have lots of problems to solve and lots of issues to deal with why does this guy want to talk about chickens the reason why is because chickens are important chickens cause happiness and I can tell you that from a lifetime of owning chickens loving chickens keeping chickens burying chickens when they pass away saving chickens when they're sick uh my family has chickens and this matter came before me before me because uh a member of my family and a neighbor on the other Street were recently cited for keeping chickens in violation of the Monroe County code which may or may not apply here I had some conversations with the staff and with our attorneys about uh our chickens allowed will tell you that I've had an interest in this for some time and in 2016 I sent an email to the code enforcement director who was uh in office at that time to ask if chickens if were regulated in the v in the village and he said he didn't know of any regulations I took that as a yes it's okay to have chickens so we got chickens and uh some places like them some places don't um I think it's important to to answer the question to have chickens because they represent freedom and Independence and self-reliance and they bring Comfort uh they provide food security and educational opportunities for young ones to learn about lessons in life and that's what I learned when I had chickens as a boy I had rabbits and quail and all kinds of things so I'm kind of making a tongue-and-cheek statement but I'm not it's serious uh the code that that was in place when we incorporated was the Monroe County code and we inherited that and that the parts that we have not repealed are still in place and so there seems to be an anomaly in that the county code still applies but the question is who enforces that uh we do pay taxes to the county for animal enforcement Animal Control uh but this is our village and we determine how we enforce our laws so there seems to be room for um Improvement here and I I wanted to ask the council to have a discussion about this there you may not give a hoot about chickens uh but I think if you've ever owned them or know people that own them uh they're they're like family pets uh I defy anyone to go into a chicken cop and stand still for 10 minutes or for f for one minute without smiling because they're they're wonderful creatures and they're a part of America so every Community has the right to determine how they want to live their lives and I just think this is a small part of every everyday life that may not mean a lot to some of you but it means a whole lot to a whole bunch of us so if there is interest in the council my request would be to give direction to the staff to come back to us with a suggestion for an ordinance not an ordinance a draft that we can then work on and refine and comment on and and just see I can tell you that since the word of the warning that my family member and a neighbor received received uh from the Animal Control Office since that word got out I have heard from a lot of people who are very upset that they may have their they may not be able to keep chickens in their backyard and I'm not talking about feral chickens like you see in Key West I'm talking about chickens in a chicken Co and I think it's I don't know if it's ironic or or what but we have chickens here at in Founders Park and uh you know should we let them run wild should we make coups for them I don't know this this is something that I think we should talk about so that's the end of my chicken speech mark I think it's a great idea to to give direction to create a chicken policy for this town thank you for the suggestion thank you well they Roost in that wild tamaron over there I'd see him at six o'clock in the morning when I walk would anyone else like to chime in on this I'll chime in on this because uh I know the chickens that you're talking about cuz they lived across the street from me and like this is sort of my area animals and uh any pet or any responsible owner the animals should stay on your property not have free roam of the neighborhood which those chickens did because my yard was abused by those chickens and so and it was have you ever seen a chicken scratch yes and it's pretty bad and then when I approached the people who own the chickens I was told that in Moro County chickens are allowed to go anywhere they want that's not true you keep your pets on your property just like a dog on a leash or whatever but this chicken situation is if it's your property you should be able to have a chicken so I agree with you on that but I just like any animal you should not expose your neighbors to your chickens your dogs your lizards your rabbits anything so that's how you're 100% correct about that I agree with every word of what you said I will tell you that when my family member contacted the Animal control officer to inquire about feral chickens uh the response was they do not regulate feral chickens and the offending chickens that invaded your yard have now been properly incarcerated and there's a life sentence and to stay uh pinned up so that was improper well you know again on Christmas Eve a couple years ago I watched one of their chickens get K hit by a car in our neighborhood so it's it's again we should have a thing about it and we are actually trapping some of the chickens up at Publix in kilargo and taking them up to the petting zoo in uh Homestead because feral is one thing it's like feral cats feral rabbits feral anything we're having a problem with now but to own an animal to own any pet you need to be a responsible pet owner keep them on your property that's my feeling well I that's how I'll vote for the chickens well if we could codify that into something that everyone can live with so that chickens don't become a problem offsite or off of a problem I think that would give a lot of comfort to those of us who want to keep them and enjoy them and would protect Neighbors from uh unruly chickens so I think it's just as a point of Interest I I looked in the code and chickens are referred to as livestock or Barnyard animals uh and by paradoxically uh you can keep Quail partridges uh pheasants swans Guinea fou peacock ostrich emu parrots Maca Hawks and Eagles but you can't have chickens so I think that requires some kind of that you know stupid laws create stupid results and this is pretty stupid so let's get smart do it okay so thank you so is that going on our yeah after Action Report it's all clear what we're looking for get her a shirt that says after I'm here for you we going to get you says I'm an action item special yes so thank you councilwoman so if you we feel we have a consensus and as such if you would like to we will go back Jennifer will craft in uh relationship with our lawyers new chicken law so does that sound good thank you to the and then and then we will of course bring it back to you say something but I just want to say when you said about eagles cuz I know that I'm pretty sure Eagles are federally protected you can't even take the Eagles feathers well Federal there's Federal Protection of those animals and there's Department of a has uh control over a lot of that but I'm saying under our particular code those things are not regulated cuz I think when we were on some Indian Reservations the we you're not unless you're a Native American you can't even on the roadkill you can't even take their feathers you're not supposed to yeah la la la la la uh we we're not going to talk about eagles so but no we will definitely craft something we'll bring it back to you and uh you all can vote on it want to say go I'm sorry all right I just want to say Mark I'm disappointed in the fact that you didn't bring us a 20 minute video on chickens well I did include a several Page Long article but if you want a video are you Henry you know what he's relating to Mar flags flag chickens and flags will be my legacy I'm serious does this pertain to roosters as well well see this is an excellent question because some people don't like roosters I woke up with them on the day I was born I think they're beautiful but not everybody feels that way so I think that's something we need to build into the program I think our staff's got their Direction so we're going to move on off of chickens to Village attorney Village manager Communications and Jennifer I guess uh you're going to report on the noise ordinance Workshop tab three I am thank you so yes on uh February 22nd 2024 uh we held uh in this room we held a noise ordinance Workshop from 5: to 7:30 uh it was attended by approximately 27 people from the community including business uh owners residents uh committee members two of your fellow council members were in attendance uh so it was I think pretty well attended meeting uh was recorded and is currently posted to our uh YouTube page if anybody would like to watch it um at the workshop I gave a brief presentation on what is a noise ordinance and what does ours consist of and what does ours regulate um there was a PowerPoint presentation which is attached to your package um then we allowed for some general public comment we got some good feedback there um and then we did something different we did some Round Table discussions we had six tables um set up in the room and when people came in we gave them a number assigned to each table we didn't let people choose their seat we chose it for them and that way it mix up the tables it let people you know interact with people they wouldn't normally interact with it gave different viewpoints at the different tables which was the idea right we wanted people to see from a different perspective so we had some roundt discussions um with a variety of people at each table um and then we took a break we had some refreshments for people and then we compiled everybody's comments and we came back and we reported out you know the top three or four from each group and had some really good conversation about that some final thoughts and next steps um and I'll just give you some highlights some of the the big ones that actually were shouldn't have been I guess surprising to me but were a little bit surprising to me was the biggest thing was vacation rentals and the noise associated with with vacation rentals we had a lot of conversation about that uh we had a lot of conversation about enforcement and how it's enforced and who does the enforcement um we had a conversation about measurable standards and having standards that are measurable and how do you measure them and then finally there was some conversation about work on noise on Sundays and holidays and whether or not we wanted to restrict that so those are some of the things that we took away from that um we also received several and I didn't get the exact number but emails before and after the workshop from people that weren't able to attend and people that were there as well with additional concerns so we've we're going to take all of that information we're going to review that data and then we may or may not come back to you with some recommendations for changes we may or may not have another Workshop depending on what additional information we need um but overall um the planning department who was participated and was there felt that it was a very successful workshop and we're you know very proud of the work that we did there um I personally do want to thank my entire team who spent that time you know up to that time organizing it and being there that evening um as well as Vince from it who was there that evening for us running the cameras and the mic so um I think it was successful and we also one other thing that we did when everybody walked in the room we gave them an index card and we asked them to um provide us with additional planning topics that they may want additional workshops on so in the future that we can do other workshops that people are interested in so the hope is that going forward we'll do more of these to get the community engaged in the stuff that they want to hear about and the stuff that we need to know about so I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any I I don't have a question but I have a comment that I was very impressed with the way that that I attended that I think Elizabeth was there were you there well Henry was okay I misunderstood you were watching my video on flags so at any rate it was a very well conducted well planned well executed um the only thing negative I can say about it is it's a terrific tool and I'm sorry we haven't used something like that before Jennifer did a an awesome job of putting that together everybody got to participate everybody got their point across and their ideas expressed it was very very meaningful and it provided a lot of useful information to get to a result so I sure hope we do a lot more of those I I want maybe we can do one in accessory dwelling units when the time comes or whatever else but that's a huge tool and we're nuts not to use it and Jennifer really is an underutilized asset of someone who with experience she obviously had done a lot of those before so thank you Henry go ahead I did not attend but I heard a lot of good things about the procedure and thanks to Jennifer I congratulate you for kind of stepping out of the box um I did it once with a call meeting and I didn't time anybody and put a microphone in the audience I kind of thought that worked well too so so when people do things a little bit different you get a surprise every now and then so I congratul you I just have one suggestion and I'm going to ask that you can look into it is that the Sunshine Law and the attorney general says that putting members of council at Separate Tables does not comply with the sunshine law requirements as all members of the public can't hear what they say so if you will just kind of make a note of that I don't know how correct my information is and I'm not going to Bel the subject but I think it deserves a little bit of attention that's all so and and just to be clear the meeting was publicly posted at as a meeting so that we would not violate any Sunshine laws if if the council did attend the question was that the public couldn't hear what was said at each table that's correct so that's the violation if there is a violation I'm going believe me I'm not going to belor it it's just some information that I was s sent to coming my way they were at different tables I don't know if that matters but well anyway we'll have a response for you Henry when the next meeting occurs okay thank you Allison all right just just wanted to make a quick comment too um yeah thank you so much Jennifer and the the the it was that tool um was very effective and and I so appreciate the planning Department's effort on that um the other pretty interesting thing about it was that there were people from all segments of the community and it was a super civilized people were really there to to come up with suggestions and and find compromise and and I liked I I mean I I left that meeting feeling like oh look at our town I'm so proud of us you know and I you know I'm not always in that space about our conversations but um yeah I would love for us and staff to think about this as a tool that we bring um that that we pull out um more often because I I thought it was great yeah thanks thanks very much Jennifer thank you very much thank you all right all right so we're going to move on here uh Village manager report and updates Kimberly we're on B yes thank you I added this along with the next item which is um staff updates because there's very often times where you all ask us for updates at this meeting of things that you've already given us Direction on and so we want to respect that we want to give you those updates but it doesn't necessarily have to be its own agenda item and so with that end um many of them also to be noted are on the after action report and so anything I don't address now that you'd like to have addressed um please when we get to the after Action Report when we get to the discussion portion of that please just bring those up so on my list one of the things that you all requested was an update on the ride share RFP so we are going to as a result of the fact that our efforts at doing an RFP were not particularly successful and by that I mean that our process was not something that I would want to put up for legal review I don't think that it met that muster um and so as a result we pulled back took a breath in that time period when we took a breath I was also in conversation with Richard Clark the executive director of the transportation for Monroe County and they are actually putting out an RFP at the same time that I was talking to him I think it's actually on the street now if it's not it's about to be within hours I would think and so what we'd like to do instead my guidance as your acting Village manager for the next Mr Cole for the next um couple of hours my guidance is that I believe that we should piggy back off of what the county does um we've already acknowledged that the county is taking a huge stride forward in transportation this includes microtransit buses mini buses um all the grants that are coming out from the state they've got the expertise they've got the clout to really pull as much as they can related to resources so I really think that we should just picky about back off of what they're doing so that would be my recommendation to that as far as going out to bid for the ride share I would say let's let them go out they're doing the exact same thing we were doing they're ahead of our game let's let them go out and then we pick a back off what they've done and then it's on them yes I'd like to add that uh I've talked to Richard Clark cuz I sort of started this ride share thing and in two three years the county is going to control the ride share and we should go along with the county because they want to connect everything in the keys and so to me this would take the burden of us trying to get funding to set up uh grants whatever the county would take it over I I think it's a win situation for us and I think we need to go along even though we're our own little village we still need to go along along with what Monroe county is doing because we need to all be connected so I agreed with Kimberly I spent time talking to Mr Clark about everything and he thinks it's probably the best thing we could do so that's why this has happened there's there's definitely strength and numbers when you're aligned yeah yep so my question here is is is this nature of this update so you're you're basically saying what you've get and thank you for the update um this isn't an agenda item so we're not making a decision on anything tonight and so um I guess we're just hearing this and if someone wants to put it on the agenda for discussion next month then that's where this would go is that fair and I appreciate your input for sure can we let her finish Elizabeth talking she was finished I'm sorry no no no and to be technical this item is on your after action report so I'm really not saying anything that's not already on the agenda in detail it's just that I've heard from several of you that you would like a verbal update during this meeting and so to be respectful of that I wanted to do that for you so we would refer you back to the after action report um to be fair so that was the report you asked for it details all of this and it's in the written form so that both the um community and you all and there's no questions asked but to be respectful of those who would like a verbal report we're trying to do that okay so what's Oh Henry go ahead eventually we'll team up with the county I'm sure if it's 3 years from now that's when it's going to happen but while we wait the money that's coming from the state is depleted the longer we wait so why don't we do something now and solve the problem now and when the time comes for the county then that's when we'll give consideration to that but we're spending money right now because we're just taking time and we are I don't know if you know it or not but but it Maria can speak to it we have to do something now Maria so my apologies if I was not clear um we are so our choices were when our RFP process did not was not successful were to go back out to RFP ourselves or to piggyback onto a process that was already several weeks or a month ahead of ours with the county and then move forward so as I said in the meeting I was quoted repeatedly in the paper as saying we would do this as quickly as humanly and legally possible and that is to piggyback off of the process with a county that is already several weeks ahead of us Henry I think you're not understanding that with whoever they pick it would just start the process earlier if we who is they please the county county the county but then we're going to wait for them to pick well it's out now it's we're they're going to have somebody in 30 45 days okay I I'll come back to Maria can you bail me out possibly well I certainly don't want to contradict um information provided by Kimberly um my when we first started talking about going out to bid um one of my explanations or perhaps a recommendation was that we stay with freebie we enter into the new contract with extended hours that in total contract price would have been more money but the scope of that contract coincided with the transit grant funding that we received from do so had we entered into the agreement with freebie um we were shooting for October 1 of 2023 then we would have started getting the transit grant that would have paid for 50% % of the extended um cost for the extended hours right now per fdot we're in the year one of that Grant it's a three-year Grant we're in year one we would have to elect to take year one they said the last time I spoke with them by May 1st if we do that then potentially uh they would execute the grant agreement on their side so potentially we would receive funding July August September October November December on year one we've already been awarded year two so year two would be January of 2025 through December by May of this year we would have to apply for year three so basically this was a more expensive contract but we we were getting three vehicles from 7:00 a.m. to 12: P 12:00 a.m. the point was to see we would have used data to see what are the optimum hours that we need service we would have been getting more hours of service for Less cost than what we're paying right now so the only thing um if we go ahead and wait and go out to RFP with with the county and then see what they put in place I think the valid question from staff is right now we're basically status quo with freebie we're on the the schedule and the contract where there's one van starting at s or one vehicle from 7 to 12 you know they're kind of on a staggered schedule um and we're not taking advantage of the grant so I think an option would be that council could say let's go ahead and you know you could kind of see from the proposals uh Free's rate compared to the others I don't know if we're really allowed to use that information but um certainly I think their rate was competitive um but you could stay with freebie do the extended hours and then take advantage of the grant that would just be the other option that would be the only way though right now to take advantage of the grant well I'm going to jump right in here because first of all I've done a lot of work on this and you know that and I'm not going to say anything about why RFP didn't work out because this is not the place to do it um no one has ever provided the data from freebie we do and when Richard Clark who is hired for the head of Monroe County Transit tells me you we do not need three vehicles till midnight the grant you have to have those hours to qualify for the grant but we're trying to increase our uh capacity when there's no proof we need it and so we're we're way ahead you're jump sort of jumping ahead justifying this leap in money which is a half a million dollars without a any data B ignoring the fact that this is ahead of the transit for Al Monroe County and plus freebie did not come in first or second in what I was told when the RFP which was tainted was thrown out but yet there was was a paragraph put in there that freebie had another option which made it even more biased so I think what we should do is take a step back from this because this is not a very good topic for me because it really sort of uh was unfair and I'm sure you see and understand what I'm talking about and I think we ought to let Monroe County do what this man is hired to do and he has the data he has the facts and he can come and talk to any of us any time and back what I'm saying I've spent a lot of time with this man and we just this grant which is a a good Grant but we have no proof we need three vehicles till midnight and according to Richard Clark we don't from his data so that is why I wanted to take a step back let him do his job which is what he's hired for and I think the decision he makes is what we should follow I'm just speaking of the time element mainly if you recall I redid the schedule that they were living by now I revised that schedule for example in order for us to comply we had to do something different that was the basis of the US applying we passed that little B pump in the road all I'm suggesting is I'm I'm not prepared to wait for Mr Allen is it Clark Clark I'm sorry Allen Clark I hope Richard Clark Richard Clark close I'm close anyway I'm not prepared I mean great fact I'm meeting with him tomorrow as a matter of fact I just remembered that but I just think that we should be more aggressive and go on our own and get the job done that's just me so can I interrupt as a point of order this is this is not an agenda item and and perhaps our legal council can weigh in we are not having we're not making decisions about this because it's not on the agenda it wasn't noticed this was an update and and I don't know how I'd like to respect that this is that's all it is well no actually What's Happening Here is we're having a full-on discussion with reports and facts and that's not you know respectfully um I think we should be careful about um where this conversation is going and perhaps Allison you could speak up and help us understand the point of the update if could you help us with that yeah so it appears as though what the manager was explaining was that she's had a lot of contact from several of you asking for verbal updates so she did it in writing but she's also explaining what the update is um there's no issue legally with discussing the item because she's spoken about it and you can certainly it's all in the public eye you can talk about your thoughts and your feelings but in terms of action to be taken it's not an actual agenda item at this point so it's more if she's giving you an update you can you can certainly give uh you can have consensus to have an action be done and then that would be brought back to the council for further discussion and a vote at that point can I just interrupt again it is it is my impression that without something being noticed one we are not prepared to have any kind of intellectual conversation about it nor is the community aware of of what we're discussing so for us to take action on something that is not on noticed on the agenda troubles me I just want to put that out there we don't have to I mean we can make up this activity but it it it makes us look like we're out of control and and I am really sick of being put into that position feel very strongly about this that we need to be careful about moving forward in this way Elizabeth you were the one that pushed this action item to where and wanted wanted this that keep asking for these things I asked Kimberly today and you're the one you were asking for this so we said we're going to do it at least it was in my briefing today I was told this was going to happen and you know what we are allowed aliceon just said we are allowed to discuss this so we need to make up our minds whether we're going to read our report or do we want to take it from there and make it an agenda item that's all we got to do we got to make a decision here and I appreciate the the fact that this is a new tool for us right and we're getting used to how we're how we're using this action item report I I and I I appreciate that we're all in this position right I think it's a tool that's helpful and useful but but if we're making I mean you're you you have we are now at a point where you're asking us to reopen the free we just reopened the freebie issue I don't think that's what was intended well maybe it was no we haven't did anything yet we didn't vote on doing anything so and that is not an agenda item Kimberly can you let's let Kimberly continue yeah so again this was a repeated request for um information because obviously everyone who was concerned there was a process um it's been much publicized that the acting Village manager uh pulled the pulled the item and that we weren't going to vote on putting forward the process from the committee and so what I wanted to explain to everyone is that the guidance that I've given to staff is that we do still are we are still working under the guidance of we need to move forward and respectfully to those who have spoken to the Grant and the time frame of the grant that is absolutely my biggest concern is that we take advantage of the grant to the best of our ability and so for me that is getting onto a valid RFP as quickly as we can and the quickest one that we can jump on to so that we can take advantage of the grant is the county RFP and so that is what the guidance that I've given is to piggy back on to what the county is doing so that in between now and ultimately if we make the decision to go along with the county or we bundle ourselves or whatever um that in the meantime we have a valid RFP that's a legal process we can move forward with whatever the vendor is and we can take advantage of the grant monies that are available okay all right so can we Kimberly can we move on do you have another item no you are free to move on absolutely all right all right so uh okay so what about any of the staff updates that you is that basically what what it was yeah so the only staff update that I'd like to do is I would like for Frank um as you all know we've had a little bit of a change in our social media situation and we went ahead we listened to council's guidance we listened to staff advice we listened to the public and as a result of that um we did change up everything and we have given augmented responsibilities to one of our IT staff Mr Frank um Frank smile yay okay Mr Frank and so not only do I want him to speak to what his augmented responsibilities are and how he'll be helping us with our social media presence but also he's got a very very like two-minute video that he wants to show good evening Council um I'm Frank milenberg for those who don't know me born and raised here um I'm the audiovisual technician for the village as well as it help desk and now social media specialist so um recently made a video here with Island disposal and we're just going to fire that up and show that real quick if you guys have the time okay thank you so much and I'm with Island Disposal Company Island disposal is your new Solid Waste provider for the village of alamara we are a locally owned family company here to bring back the name Island disposal I'm proud to say that I get to service my community after my family's been here for over 70 years back when my grandparents first moved here in the 1950s the contract was locally held also by Island disposal next I'd like to talk about the Residential Waste dos and don'ts with all of our new trucks having the automated arm on there we ask all residents to separate your cans just a little bit when you pull them out by the road this allows the automated claw to get in between each trash can without tipping another one over also keep in mind that we do start at 6:00 in the morning so it's great to have your trash cans out the night before keep them a good distance away from your mailbox or objects that you don't want damaged please keep all hazardous materials out of your trash cans as we do have quarterly pickup for all those materials moving on to our commercial accounts here in alamada we hope you're enjoying your new beautiful blue bins keep in mind with these bins if you keep the lids closed it helps with litter and Critter Control these Lids can keep trash from blowing out of the bins and also keeps birds and other animals from getting in there and pulling trash out themselves also with these commercial dumpsters please try to keep all CND or hazardous waste out of them as we do have rolloff containers for those materials as we do try to keep everyone on the same schedule sometimes traffic or other situations may slow us down so please try not to block or park in front of any of these dumpsters as a resident or commercial business if you need more dumpsters or to change the size of your dumpsters please give us a call at 305 393 33000 being born and raised here in the beautiful Florida Keys recycling is very important to us which is why we offer free recycling bins to all residents while recycling can seem like a daunting task with all the regulations around it they are simple easy to follow rules on our website please do your best to follow these simple guidelines and keep the keys [Music] clean all right so that's just so that you know kind of how we're moving forward and I think it's a great path so thank you so much and that's the end of The Village manager and staff reports thank you Kimberly and thank you Frank uh okay so we're going to move on to the consent agenda okay we are now into the consent portion of the agenda these items are of a routine nature and council members have reviewed these items in advance and sought the advice of Staff as they felt necessary there will be one vote on the consent items which today are items a through L tabs 4 through 12 and then four 14- 16 13 was the village manager contract it was moved to the regular resolution portion of the agenda uh so if anyone would like to pull any of those items again a through L 4- 12 14- 16 he or she should state that now okay do anybody want to pull anything all right and uh yes I would okay why Henry while you're coming up with that Council van has asked that he'd like to discuss 11 14 and 16 so it's um all right um that would be H um I and J so I think I think we put these in here uh in an effort to expedite the meeting and you know I appreciate Van's interest in commenting on them he can certainly submit that but I'd just like to move forward with the meeting all right Elizabeth you're okay okay all right Sharon all right Henry Tab four Tab four okay do you want to pull tab four out yes okay uh we've already we talked about that I know but I guess I didn't finish okay are minute so you're talking about the regular Village Council meetings held February 13th and 15th executive session held on the 15th what's bothering me with four is the money we're spending and it does up here that is out out forbid am I right or wrong do this stop you've got to stop this yeah I know that so what are talk about all right point of order four is is Council people if we would like to pull an item we can absolutely do that but you have to pull it and then we'll discuss it at length yeah we'll we'll come back after after we passed the yes so councilman Rosenthal are you wanting to pull the minutes of the last meeting cuz that's because that is tap four no I already spoke to that with okay so which item is it that you'd like to pull I guess you have to bear with me yeah can we let's just come back to that then council is that all right so we can move on everybody in agreement with that to the consent agenda yeah for the consent we'll we'll pull it up if if we need a we need a motion on the balance whatever is not being pulled then there need to be a motion on the balance and you vote on it and then we go back to the one that was pulled all right so we're going to pull we all in agreement we can go ahead and pull four and come back to it he said he he addressed it already so I think he's looking for for something else I move we approve the consent agenda as is okay all right uh what about uh wait a minute Mark let's see yeah IED that public comment okay so there's no public comment for that no okay all right just need Marne to call the role if we're not going to pull if nobody so we have a motion and we have a second Marne call the role please council member Mark Greg yes council member Elizabeth Jolan yes council member Henry Rosenthal yes vice mayor sherid Mahoney yes and mayor buddy Pender yes the motion pass 5 to zero okay so now we are going on to tab 133 uh no 13 we're yeah yes yes yeah we're on Tab 13 then yes okay top 13 is a resolution of the Village Council of alam marada Village of islands Florida approving the appointment of Robert CO as Village manager approving an authorizing execution of an employment agreement with Mr Cole for service as the village manager and providing for an effective date Mr Cole is here um you all had a lengthy process uh and through a lot of uh machinations we're we're finally here with him uh you have had an opportunity to look at the employment agreement the highlights of the agreement are he would be paid $200,000 annually uh be given $4,000 a month uh as his housing allowance he's not getting any relocation expenses I believe he's already here um maybe not within the village limits but here in the keys um and he has asked for a 3 week vacation time period so that's what's in his contract um and outside of that uh he will be uh evaluated every 60 days uh just so that the council is aware the HR Director will be sending you calendar invites via email with the due dates for the evaluations uh for the 60-day time frame so that you have advanced notice of when his evaluation period will be coming up and attached to that will be a form that you can utilize to do the actual evaluation itself with the various criteria that we will be looking at and that criteria has been spelled out as well in his Employment contract other than that it's it has the standard language that we've utilized before it is an evergreen contract which means it does get renewed annually unless we choose or he chooses to terminate it before that time period so other than that it's it's uh fairly standard fairly straight forward um I don't know if you have questions or you wanted to hear from Mr Cole again I know you spoke to him at length all of you I think uh before but if you had any questions or wanted to discuss it now is the time Council anybody have any questions no okay so let's have public comment then public comment now open Marne we have any public comment let me check Zoom but we don't have anyone written down for public comment no we do not no okay so public comment is now closed so uh we just uh need a motion move for approval do I hear a second second all right so Marne we have a motion in a second call the roll please council member Mark Greg yes council member Elizabeth Jolan council member Henry Rose enthal yes vice mayor Sharon Mahoney yes and mayor buddy Pender yes that motion passes 5 to Zer okay so Mr Cole would you like to come up to the mic and say a few words if you like sure thank you you're welcome mayor Pender Pender rather uh members of The Village Council thank you very much for your faith in having Ed me as The Village's next Village manager I feel blessed to work in the gem of the Florida Keys and I'm looking forward with great anticipation to uh seeing each of you and helping to advance the important uh goals and objectives that we have to benefit the ISA Mara community and I also would like to uh thank staff for their efforts to uh help this organization run as efficiently and effectively as possible and I look forward to working with each of you as well um so really that's about it for now mayor and I again look forward to working with everyone thank you welcome to our team thank you okay so we are on the tab 17 if I'm uh right I believe right uh Kimberly or Allison yes we need to take it out of order but yes we are correct you're correct 17 yep 17 is an ordinance of is marada Village of islands Florida amending chapter 2 Administration article article 2-4 finance division 2-4-2 purchasing amending section 2- 236 authority of Village manager to update the signing authority of checks amending section 2-3 237 guidelines to provide for increased amounts in purchasing Authority providing for severability providing for inclusion in the code and providing for an effective date and this is basically as the title says just giving uh the authority to increase the amount that um can be uh authorized so I will tell you it's going from 25,000 purchases less than 25,000 to purchases up to 50,000 may be made or entered into uh by The Village manager without uh Council approval so we're just increasing the limits all right so let's uh do we have any public comment on this Marne no sir no sorry Pary do okay van Cen head all right come on Van I'm commenting I'm commenting on Tab 17 and I think she just ran down tab 18 uh she read no she read tab 17 okay all right you didn't you're right you know what this is wrong on my paper here no it's tab thank you very much what's tab 18 is it i' like to be right once in a while you're right it was it was tab we'll have to go back to 17 go back okay okay okay so my comment is on Tab uh 17 and as I've often said uh you can have all the regulations you want but unless you have enforcement what's the sense of having the regulations um you've got uh your for your code enforcement officials the biggest problem that we've got and we have a very high priced uh software in place to to help them is vacation rentals and once vacation rentals get Ed no one has to my knowledge paid a substantial amount of a fine for uh going against the law and and we've taken the people off of the internet and given them to the the with the software that we are renting or buying or the service that we're paying for uh goes into the code enforcement people and they need to be uh allowed to to put teeth into this ordinance to make sure that uh the people who are currently flaunting the law collecting the money and and ruining neighborhoods because a lot of the the vacation rentals that are now in the RM neighborhoods and people don't like having uh a party house on the block of a of a residential neighborhood and there's a whole lot of them um we should have every year 300 uh vacation rentals in Isam marada that are paying Isam marada uh I I think it was a thousand I think it's 1250 or maybe 1,500 now for a medallion to establish on the street that this is a vacation rental home and and uh I don't think we've got 300 we've had you know it's last her last number I heard was 200 something so apparently the the uh dalion situation is in place there is a yearly fee for being a vacation rental uh and most of the vacation rentals are under the table and not being uh uh chastised by the the code enforcement people and I just want to know if if we can uh do something with with this ordinance here to solidify the fact that we have a vacation rental ordinance and the Code Compliance off officers are are uh authorized to issue tickets and the tickets must be paid and if if pre and if subsequent violations occur then the people should have leans placed on their property and and unless you put teeth into an ordinance you might as well not have an ordinance okay that was that's my comment on 17 I'll comment on 18 I mean she's already talked about that but but we'll come back to that V yes sir yes actually um buddy I'm going to read our mayor I'm going to read uh that one I'm not sure what happened here but I think because mine said I was I'm with you but it was something different yes I apologize about that because it's it's reflecting differently on mine but that's all right I'll read it into the record tab 17 tab 17 is an ordinance of Isa marada Village of islands Florida amending the village code by amending chapter 2 Administration article 3 code compliance division 2 Administration and enforcement section 2-1 21 appeals of order providing for severability providing for inclusion in the code and providing for an effective date and this was just a ministerial change to uh indicate in the code what the law requires in terms of when the record of appeal has to be submitted if somebody in a code enforcement action filed an appeal in circuit court so it wasn't a significant or substantive change it's just a ministerial change and we had a comment on that thank you Allison uh is there any other public comment Marney on 17 no sir okay public comment is now closed uh do we have any disc discussion or do I hear I'd like to say something surprise I had this discussion today with Kimberly about vacation rentals and the complaints that I get over and over and over again we need to revamp and you told me to be careful because it's governed by the state but our vacation rental is probably one of the worst things we do in this Village it just is I mean there's people doing illegal rentals we need to adjust a fee where the one-bedroom doesn't pay as much as the 10 bedroom to the The Village I I don't I've never thought that was fair we also need to figure out how we can strengthen uh the punishment this is a huge problem and I know people who and we just keep seeming to give vacation rentals where we uh in residential neighborhoods and like Ken philipson called me and we had a long conversation and I know the house next to him I've done at least 50 weddings on that property so I know they have wedding after wedding after wedding there I'm wondering if we can't without stepping on the toes of the state revamp and I want to put a moratorium on vacation Reynolds today and she said Karen don't do that so I do want to revamp our system I agree with Van it is one of the weakest areas because I know of so many people who are renting stuff illegally so I don't know where we can go though if we're governed by the state so I I would I would want to stick to the script here but I I agree with everything you said and I'd like to put it on another agenda to talk about that and to to see you and raise you uh the fee that we charge for vacation rentals is obviously not enough because we don't collect enough to have enforcement and it's supposed to have a surplus that pours over and funds affordable housing because there's a correlation between the two so that's not been noticed for discussion tonight so we can put it on for a topic but yeah well I and and I I know I know well same here but uh I think it's a great idea and if we can put it on the agenda for a discussion item and see where it goes next time we'll get into the weeds deeply on that one I'll join you all right so council do I hear a motion or a second or anything I'll move to approve this tab second all right so Marty we have a motion in a second please call the rooll council member Mark Greg yes council member Elizabeth Jolan yes council member Henry Rosenthal yes vice mayor Sher Mahoney yes and mayor buddy Pender yes that motion passes 5 to zero all right so now Alison I just want to address one the comment about vacation rentals from a planing Department's perspective and the code enforcement's perspective we have to be very careful about making any changes to our vacation rental ordinance we are not allowed to make any changes or we lose the ordinance completely so I just want I'm happy to talk with you further at a later meeting about ideas or thoughts about other enforcement and things like that but we need to walk a very fine line regarding the vacation rental ordinance there's only a handful of things we can tweak the rest are off limits correct let me ask one question because there there is something going on right now with the vacation reals because I've had attorneys from other counties in the state call and say I mean I think are we grandfathered we are grandfathered and that does not apply to us yeah yeah Henry go ahead how many people does designated to enforce the rentals so the Code Compliance department has is a three person department but currently we're down one person so right now we only have two people in the department we are actively looking for a third person in the department so I think I may have mentioned to some of you in some of my meetings or briefings that you know we would ask for some patience while we are down one person in all of our code enforcement opportunities at this time because you know with only two people in the village doing code enforcement it's it's hard to enforce everything you want us to enforce so we're trying to do the best we can are those people coming from an outside agency no they're Village employees okay thank you yeah because Jennifer it's like when I was walking Saturday night I get a phone call from a resident about a illegal rental I mean and I just put him in I said you here's our number you know call Code Compliance and you know so they can they could get on it so anyways all right so is there any further conversation on this one all right did you already make a motion voted we did okay all right so we vote okay sorry man get with the numbers are changed on here I'm getting confused okay so we're moving on to tab 19 then 18 we have to go back to 18 because I read it P 17 so I need to reread it and then you ask so we're on 18 okay mine said 17 I know I I just changed mine as well all right so tab 18 is an ordinance of Isam marada Village of islands Florida amending chapter 2 Administration article 2-4 finance division 2-4-2 purchasing amending section 2236 authority of Village manager to update the signing authority of checks amending section 2- 237 guidelines to provide for increased amounts in purchasing Authority providing for severability providing for inclusion in the code and providing for an effective date and a pre read this as 17 and I explained that this was increasing the um purchasing Authority um so thank you Alison uh Mar we have any public comment on this one yes vanan Caden head okay anybody else after van yes Mr wishm on Zoom okay go ahead van good evening again van Cadenhead um we're talking about jumping the allowed amount that the village manager can uh work on a project with from $25,000 which it always has been to $50,000 now I mean $50,000 might not be much to some of you but a lot of people that work for a living think that $25,000 is a pretty good amount and I think it's supposed to the $25,000 was supposed to be for like small items that the village manager like needs to take care of and and uh like petty cash you know he can do sign up to $25,000 for you know this and that in the daily working of the village which to me always made good sense $50,000 is a lot of cake and and I'm not casting any aspersions on on uh our new manager because he hasn't even had a chance to do anything with the 25 much less the 50 but I'm just thinking that uh it's awful easy to give away somebody else's money um and you are are just excellent at spending other people's money and in in defense of the people of vam Mara that give you that money I think $25,000 is a reasonable limit it's worked for 25 years I don't think we need to expand it to $50,000 and uh I would like to hear your comments on why you think $50,000 should be uh at his fingertips for anything he desires now him or the next guy or the next guy or the next woman or whoever it is because uh $225,000 is a lot of petty cash thank you very much thanks van Marney next okay Mr wishm go ahead you've got three minutes yes Joe wishm Plantation key you know it as far as the 25,000 or 50,000 there are so many projects that don't go out for the RFP that are over that now it really doesn't seem to matter what the amount is because there are so many that go unchecked so I would suggest it before we raise it to 50,000 we at least make sure that we adhere to the 25,000 and ones that go above that definitely need to be approved and maybe go out for the rfps last I would like to just comment I know you're on Tab 19 now and I don't know if you skipped over 16 or if you're still going to do it thank you okay thank you all right Marty any other public comment no sir okay all right so just for Mr wme's uh information tab 16 was in the consent agenda right that's what I have right here with the paper here okay so uh Council uh any further conversation or do I hear a motion I agree with Van again twice in one night I think uh $25,000 is a lot of money and I think this Village is in the habit of spending a lot of money and I'd like to start trying to put the breakes on and I do think 25,000 to me van I agree with you it's a lot of money and I don't think we should go up to 50 that's just my feeling so this is not going to have not not um it is not designed to affect how much we spend it is designed to affect how we spend it and to because of inflation it hasn't been changed for 25 years and so to keep from having to come before us each time for minor items and yes $50,000 is a minor item you know the old saying you know a million here a million there pretty soon we're talking about some real money um things have gone she's looking at me like where'd you get that Mark that's from Congress but um I think they use billion but it's basically an inflation adjustment okay I mean Sharon I was going to say the same thing because for 25 years I mean I know towns that are you know their manager can has but he's been there a long time but up to 250,000 let me quote you only one to I know I know I know all right so uh do I hear a motion in a second or do we want further discussion well Henry has waited in I'll make a motion to keep it at 25 okay Elizabeth how do you feel well that's a motion oh that was a motion Henry made a motion so do I hear he made a motion to keep it at 25 not no that's not how it works I don't think have to move oh yes you asked for a motion I gave it to you you're the motion the motion would be to approve right the motion would be to approve okay so that's not right so move back to how do you feel so the implication here is that that our manager is going well I don't mean to be sarcastic but this isn't mean that the manager has you know a drawer of money that he can just spend at whim I mean and I think there is no question that that we are fiscally as we are fiscally responsible and that we're not misspending in this Village what it means is that every time AJ needs to buy some new you know screws he doesn't have to ask us for it so I I'm fine I'm fine with this and I I know we've been talking about it for quite some time um I'm completely fine with it okay so do I hear a motion I'll move for approval I hear a second I'll second all right Marney call the rooll please council member Mark Craig yes council member Elizabeth Jolan yes council member Henry rosenal no vice mayor Sharon Mahoney nope and mayor buddy Pinder yes okay that motion passes three to two tab 19 all right we're on to tab 19 and I think these were turned around as well so hopefully I'm reading the correct one uh an ordinance of alam marada a village of islands Florida calling for a referend vote to be held with the regular Village election on November 5th 2024 providing for submission to the electors of proposed amendments to the Village Charter pertaining to term limits providing for placement on the ballot providing for requisite ballot language providing for notice of election providing for authorization of Village Clerk and for Village conversing board providing for severability providing for inclusion in the charter Conformity of amendment repealing ordinance number 24-2 and providing for an effective date this is on second reading and this one was uh where our Charter says that Council persons cannot serve for more than eight consecutive years so the ordinance was removing the word consecutive okay Council any discussion all right so let's open public comment Marne any public comment yes sir van kenad surprise surprise um my goodness I think uh the this one and the subsequent uh tab uh exemplify the reason that we should not have extended four-year terms and we should have a limit of eight years on the what's uh been going on on here so I I would just say that I it's a bad idea I believe I think we should stick with with what we've got on the books now which is eight years of service thank you very much and if we if we move on into this then uh you know uh Chris Santi can come back and and Deb Gillis can come back and Marcus definitely can come back and you know I think years at the trough is enough uh and I really appreciate uh public service and and uh I would no more get up into one of your seats than the Man in the Moon because it's it's a hard place to be and it's a hard job and I appreciate it and I'm sure that the the people that see you working for the people of alam marada appreciate your efforts too but uh I don't think that that this uh uh ordinance serves the people V marada I think it serves uh people that have an ulterior agenda and uh a commercial agenda and a and a Personal Agenda and I just don't see it fits into uh changing the charter of this Village I've been to I've been to both of the charter uh review boards uh because it's the chart this Charter has been reviewed twice and we have a charter Review Board of citizens and they go over the Charter Point by Point we've done it twice and Don Horton suggested that we do it again and I don't think that's a really bad idea but I don't think we should we should go into changing the charter for something as as uh uh ephemeral as this so would we you know U consider that when you when you vote I think we should let this status quo remain and uh pull this and not revise the term limits let them stay as they are status quo thank you very much thank you van Marty any other public comment no sir okay public comment is now closed Council any discussion all right do I hear a motion I move to approve second all right Mary call the rooll please council member Elizabeth Jolan yes council member Mark Greg yes council member Henry rosenal yes vice mayor Mahoney yes and mayor buddy Pender yes that motion passed 5 to zero tab 20 okay tab 20 is an ordinance of is marada Village of islands Florida calling for a referendum vote to be held with a general election on Tuesday November 5th 2024 providing for submission to the electors of a proposed amendment to The Village Charter pertaining to terms of office length of terms and staggering of terms providing for placement on the ballot providing for requisite ballot language providing for notice and notice of election providing for authorization of Village Clerk and for village canvasing board providing for severability providing for inclusion in the charter SLC Conformity of amendment and providing for an effective date and this uh would basically provide a staggered four-year term for Council persons so that there are three who serve for four years and then two for two years um I will tell you I've been practicing law for 20 years and it is incredibly uncommon to have 2-year term terms normally it is four years for elected officials so it's the pleasure of the council what you want to do with this this is on first reading all right thank you Allison Marney we have any public comment for this yes we do van kenad okay ladies and gentlemen the House of Representatives of the United States of America serves twoyear terms if it's good enough for them I think it's good enough for Alam marada it makes him uh stand up every two years and let the voters evaluate what they've done for them uh we watched as the four-year terms and and make no mistake what this does is establish four-year terms for the council and and four-year terms for the council has been voted down in a referendum twice and you just can't leave it it alone because you just can't stand having to run for reelection every two years and have people judge you every two years well too bad because I think in in this case you should definitely uh be open to to uh the people's vote and I don't think the people are going to vote for this you want it to be in a referendum you're going to vote for it to be in a referendum for the third time and you don't want to uh acknowledge the fact the people of alam Marat have slapped this down twice so so you go ahead with your little agendas and I hope the people of aam marada are smart enough to see through this because it's BS thank you thanks van anybody else Marne no sir okay public comment is now closed Council any discussion all right do I hear a motion you're going to go ahead and approve it huh um I agree with again with Van I don't know what's wrong with me but um this has been voted down repeatedly and I think we have uh skirted around the real reason this has been voted down and it's because of people who have sat on Council who had their own agendas and we all know this is true I'm not saying everybody but there has been people and four years is a long time I I don't agree with this I'm I agree with Van again I think four years is too long so and I know now I'm going to be voted down again having been the only one in this room that has served for well that's not true St here that this one of two that has served for four years I can tell you that there are distinct advantages to having a four-year term that have nothing to do with the personalities of the people uh that are running it provides stability in the government that attracts people to work here who are comfortable that they'll have the same bosses uh for a lengthy period of time time uh you heard Alison uh excuse me our attorney uh Allison Smith tell us that um uh it's uncommon uh I think she used the word extremely uncommon um I've been a lawyer for 38 years this is the only place I know of that does this and when I go to lawyer conventions and political conventions and I share my story about our two-year terms that raises eyebrows um this is designed to provide a stable government for people that are going to stick around a while and uh I I adamant disagree with the uh comparison to Congress we are not congressmen this is not Congress and this is not Washington DC and God help us it never will be uh this is our little town and uh we run it the way we want to and contrary to well I should say the real picture is that when the The Village was formed we started with four years and staggered terms and that's how got what how we got started and that kept us going and that got us off to a great start and I think this is an effort to return to that so we've tried the two-year thing it hasn't worked very well it's time to try something new so that's my public comment thank you Henry you got anything you want us to add to that not not now okay Elizabeth anything all right Sharon's told us how she feels hey the Count's four years mosquito controls four years so many people that I go to these League of Mayors meetings with are four years um it does provide some stability of people that have learn and can give good advice and and they they're experienced so uh with that being said do I hear a motion I'll move for approval I hear a second a second Mary call the rooll please council member Mark Greg yes council member Elizabeth Doolan yes council member Henry Rosenthal no vice mayor Sharon Mahoney no and mayor buddy Pender yes the motion passes three to two all right okay so we're moving on to the uh that's it do do we want to do we want to discuss any the action item Elizabeth I do you do okay do well I'll let you begin well hey thanks so um so this is a new tool for us and um I'm I can say personally that I have not used this tool to its fullest extent so for example we go through our meetings we give direction and I just assume that that the report is updated um I just updated and I I actually H don't spend the time to to go back in and see if our Direction has been translated well so what what I um identified um with one of the items um is is a is a is some miscommunication that that we had and I'd like to discuss that tonight so to get back on track with what with some direction that I think we gave before I do that I want to um just say that I moving forward will spend the time to review this report after our meetings to make sure that not only am I understanding how our Direction was translated but if there's an error then I'll bring it up I don't even know and we should have a discussion about how to bring up um errors that we think have been made um on this report okay so on page nine of this what I think looks like page nine to me is our Founders Park plan so my my understanding um from a number of conversations that we've had regarding how we're going to move forward with planning a a bigger looking at a bigger picture for the park was that we had requested an RFP for a master plan for Founders Park um it would be a request for a park specific planner to bring forward um a plan that would uh that would prioritize Community engagement through multiple public meetings um ensuring the project reflects the desires and concerns of the residents not not just Council um those meetings would gather Community input the planner would return with options fostering further dialogue and collaboration to finalize the park development now that's I I'm um fairly certain that that's what we had given direction to do and so what I'm seeing on this um on the explanation for what's actually happening is that um and and this is not an accusation in any way way it's just I just would like to clarify how we're moving forward this is suggesting that a cost proposal from k2n k2m for the expanded Services of I guess a plan are going to are at a c they've proposed something that cost 63,000 $66,000 and it has been received the proposal would be held pending the start of a permanent Village manager Village staff may subsequently seek guidance from the council on whether the village should amend the work authorization which number two which had to do with the pickle ball courts and whether the council would like staff to issue a new RFQ for these services at a future meeting now you know um again you know what we're trying to do here is it I think we all have made a commitment to try to be um better at communicating in a clear and concise way I think we've done a good job of that but but that is not what I understand the direction that we gave my my understanding was that we're going to put out an RFP or Q for um to to attract uh companies that are that work in parks that do Park specific planning and that consultant would come have Community meetings engage with our public to figure out what are our concerns our desires our needs our wants go make a plan with that information bring it back we'll tweak it and then and then deliver it so what I'd like to ask is if we could uh if we could give that expl um redirect our manager Kimberly or you know it's going to be Cole tomorrow to say go ahead issue an RFP for what I just said okay as opposed to this which is saying the guy the group which is love it's a they're a great firm they do a lot of work for us they did the pickle report courts they said here here's another for an extra $66,000 we'll figure out something to do with the with the park it doesn't include it doesn't um include the the um public engagement so the qu so this is yes or no question can can this description of what I just said are we in agreement that what we're asking for is and can would you like me to read it again can we agree that the direction we had given was to request the staff to initiate an RFP for a master plan for Founders Park that would would be a request for Park specific Park specific planners to bring forward a process that would prioritize Community engagement through multiple public sessions ensuring the project reflects the desires and concerns of the residents um after Gathering Community input that planner would return with multiple option options fostering further dialogue and collaboration to finalize the bigger Park development I'm not sure what a park specific plan is well it means that for example there are indiv indivi there are companies that that do Parks this is this is their specialty and presumably that's who we would want to look at how to how to address the many needs that that we've that we have identified and and you know just to because I think I spend like every day of my life in this park and we've heard lots of community input about for example there's this great need for pickle ball courts but we're also hearing Maria tell us that we're redesigning the pool and and then we've got Public Works issues and so we've had this conversation a couple times and what I think this com this community deserves is a plan is is a um is to attract a a planner who has expert in in creating amazing Recreation spaces and then then we would bring them to engage with our community so we can hear that the pickle Ballers want pickle ball the swimmers want whatever you know and um and and what does this look like when we do a plan now again we've had this conversation multiple times and I think what's been I think what we're improving on is getting giving very clear Direction and then asking if that's understood and having that reiterated back so that we don't have to drag a lot of this stuff out well it it's going to in order what you're talking about some of this it it's going to involve if if if we need more of the park where Public Works is then we need to go buy we're going to have to find acquire another piece of property but we're to to move Public Works to so so what happens is that when we when this RFP brings that facilitator to identify these problems and they will um they will C through the issues and the desires and the needs and the problems and then that expert comes back and says here this is what it looks like but but what is h what is not happening right now is that there's nothing happening actually on this even though we've talked about it for so many months but what what it's saying is that next month we're going to look at a plan from K to M they they there are they need they're not Park specific they're just architect I mean not just they do great work but that's not an RFP that's not saying come amazing you know it's not a it's not a request for all the amazing people who can do great parks to to bring forth their proposals that's what we want so Elizabeth what if we do this with Mr Cole coming Thursday night why don't we bring can we bring this up and that could be one of his tasks that he's gonna tackle right off the bat well so I I appreciate the question and and what what I think this is an this is an opportunity for us to us all to understand we have had this conversation we've had it last month we had it the month we've had it multiple times so really I mean if Mr Cole wants to direct an RFP process the point that we're the issue we're solving here is we as a group are not giving clear direction to staff there's a disconnect so we say let's do this and then there's a void and and so we need to be better at communicating all I'm doing is asking you tonight to say can we agree that what I read was what we have agreed on I'll put it in an email I'll send it to Mr Cole and the manager and then they can move forward so we don't have to talk we so then the RFP can go out in this in this manner that I've described we're not going to look at the k2m thing alone because so let's see if we got a consensus here are we Mark are you in agreement well in in general I mean I I I think we need to move forward I think what you read was pretty clear um I this is uh it's not a surprise to me because we've talked about it some but I wasn't expecting to discuss it tonight so I'm not prepared for it um but I I I just want I think we should open the RFP to anybody who wants to bid on it I don't know what a I'm sure there's Park Specialists out there but there may be some that are pretty good that don't do Parks or have only done a few I I don't know um at any rate it needs to go forward it need we need to have an RFP and we need to have a big plan for the park so I guess I'm agreeing great okay I I just I'm a little hesitant because I'm not prepared to discuss this and I don't want to leave anything out but here's the thing we and this is where I think we can do better we have discussed this I mean we've discussed it twice now the thing is for me it's a priority and I know we all have our own little issues this I I know we've discussed this in depth because it's a really big issue for me because I talk to a lot of people who like live in the park and we're delaying I mean I think the pickle Ballers are going to go crazy if we spend one more second saying M hang on a second we're not we're not really ready I mean it's unfair we're not doing our job I mean there's no question we have needs and what this says again because of we're at fault here we haven't communicated well with our staff is that we're just going to wait until Cole comes in now I guarantee Mr Cole's number one priority when he gets in tomorrow is not the park he's going to take as much time as he needs to deal with all of other issues let me give us one minute let Kimberly can you chime in because she's had her she's oh she's had her hand up sorry I'm not looking at you no no respectfully so um you are absolutely right there may have been some confusion uh I I do not want to in any way say that I was not one of the people is confused but maybe I just took it at face value the direction that was given and uh as you councilwoman Jalen have said oh we didn't know you were actually going to do that I just you gave me a direction and I just ran with it um so I've already actually given direction to the staff to go out to RFP for a master plan for Founders Park so we did have a quote from k2m which was lovely and absolutely a great start however there are multiple agencies and consulting firms locally and within our region who are Park experts and so I think it's beholden upon us as staff to give you as councel all the best options and so as a result of that based on what I heard from all you and based on what I knew the staff was working on I gave guidance about two weeks ago to go out to bid with an RFP requesting anyone who was interested any firm that was interested to propose to us what they would do a community based driven with your input master plan for the Founders Park so so what we're you're suggesting is that this is wrong the after action report is wrong that RFP is going out in the way you've just described the guidance I gave with proximately 2 weeks ago so I apologize if that particular portion was not updated I will own that but I am telling you now that that is that was the guidance that I gave and that is so are we all comfortable with that are we was it done do you know um I think that they we were contacted legal was contacted to assist so I think they're in the process of putting together the RFP so council person jool in it is being done so that probably was not up dated on your phone so so can we talk to to can Kimberly can you talk to her Allison and John and we bring this back up Thursday night and let's finalize it AB absolutely we'll let you know where it's at it's on the way it's on the way it's on the way and and I think the reason we're using this tool is so that we don't we don't have to keep revisiting stuff like I mean we've done it we already I mean in fact anyway we we have already asked for this it should be under under way the update should be yeah it's underway we're it you know and maybe there's even a time maybe we could request a timeline like when is it going to be published I mean I don't know what else people are working on in the staff but um at the staff level but um I we shouldn't need to redis to discuss it Elizabeth I understand what you're saying and you have full right as a councilwoman to email the manager and and ask for you know I don't care if it's daily weekly or what where what is the progress on it so anyone of us to sort of draw a line on it it's it's underway so that may have been not updated properly see I didn't even know that Alison yes it is yes okay all right so Henry do you have anything you want to say no I don't okay what do you want to do just go home yes I prefer to go home we'll talk about this at the next go around okay the culture of this community changes every five minutes the culture of this community the culture of this community changes many times I've lived through it you've lived through it and it's going to change again and I think the that the force is with the community and not with us right now it's pickall courts pickle ball pickle ball pickle ball uh a year or 18 months from now it's going to be something else and I just prefer to just see what the community wants and when they want it and we'll they do the best job we can to give it to them I mean Henry that's a great explanation because we remember when this was a skate park then it got turned into pickle ball court yes you know and I remember the facility used to be a bar down by the highway yeah oh yeah right yep yep so all right so Sharon do you want to say anything okay so can we Elizabeth to to to further this along I mean let's see what they come back with on Thursday what what Al where Allison and John are with this and we can give them you know the directions there obviously according to Allison it is in the works yes we were contacted by procurement for assistance in preparing that yes okay we we can give an update sure absolutely yes okay is everybody in agreement we're okay to adjourn yes I move that we adjourn okay oh yeah yeah all right thank it's not even 8 o' yet e for