e e e e and uh Jeremy or I mean Joshua would you would you do the pledge for [Music] us I pledge allegiance to the flag 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 thank you can we have uh Pastor Stanley uh come up and do the invocation please let us pray Our Father in heaven we thank you so much for this day for the opportunity to gather together with the the leaders of our community father we ask a special blessing for them to be strong and courageous and to be Fearless as they lead this community for prosperity and safety father thank you so much for the blessing of us being able to live in such a beautiful place with beautiful people help us to love each other more and to do the things that you want us to do in Jesus name amen amen [Music] amen city clerk roll call commissioner Jackson here commissioner Williams here commissioner wace here vice mayor hudon here mayor quey here all right can we get in approval of the agenda I'd like to PLL H2 for more discussion from consent all right than that I'm good make a motion to approve the agenda with H2 PLL I got a a motion uh for the agenda with H2 pulled for the consent second got a motion a second all in favor I I all opposed motion passes 550 um special presentations uh we've got the uh supervisor of elections Tim B anic thank you very much for being here and uh taking your time with us thank you very much members of the council mayor I really appreciate the opportunity to come out and talk today about elections here in Bard County and specifically in Coco Beach uh I wanted to start off by saying that my staff was out today at cooko beach Junior Senior High just King the seniors before they leave uh we kicked off a program called your vote is your voice where we're encouraging our 17 18 year olds to get registered to vote before they go off on summer break cuz I'm not going to catch them in time before they come back either they're going to go to college or even those Juniors coming in so we had great opportunity got a lot of kids registered to vote today and we're really talking about encouraging them to vote the vot your vote is your voice the concept behind it was that uh that 18 to 25y old age bracket is one of the lowest turnouts so while they register good they only turn out about 22% of the time so we're trying to get the old adage that to you if you don't vote you can't complain and but it's a little bit nicer to say your vote is your voice and so we've kind of pushed that so I wanted to thank my staff who went out today to that school over there so just a little bit about uh uh Coco Beach I had my staff pull some numbers here for me as of 2:00 today Coco Beach has 9,149 registered voters here in the city limits of Coco Beach um 2200 approximately are registered Dem 4,300 Republican and another 2300 or so nonpartisan or minor party candidates so um you know we've got three locations here in Coco Beach we did just recently move one of our precincts uh Precinct 2115 that was at the church of our savior had to move into Riverside Presbyterian church because the Church of our savior declined to be a polling place going forward so that is a change that some of the residents of Coco Beach will see unfortunately I can't control who wants us in and out of polling places um so but we're very appreciative of all the ones that do volunteer here and have them we do have Coco Beach Community Church and then we have St David's by the Sea Episcopal as well so we're very appreciative that they're out here and uh and helping us do those polling places so the other stat that I wanted to talk about was from the last general election so the city of Coco Beach uh had a 70% turnout in just the last the last general election compared to countywide 58% so Coco Beach has a very engaged electorate out here and and I I want to commend everybody in Coco Beach for getting out and voting because you were 20 you know 18 points ahead of the uh of the of the average and Statewide average was even lower than that so the voters at Coco Beach they do like to turn up they do like to vote so why am I here today it's to talk about be being election ready and that's been our motto going through this whole election year is we want voters to understand that we had one election in March it was only open to Republicans uh cuz the Democratic party chose their candidate we had pretty decent turnout for that but now we're really getting into the thick of it with the primary and the general election so some first off some important dates here is August 20th will be the primary election and we will have eight days of early voting August 10th through August 17th uh the closest early voting site for residents here in the city limits is going to be the kanana Island Park uh gymnasium which is always the busiest site that we have in all of the areas so uh a lot of people come over there from Coco Beach but if you have people going south and coming across the pinita causeway just down the road is also the David arctor Center actually I'm sorry Scotty cult Municipal complex which we just moved to uh but any voter can vote at any early voting site so while residents might live here in Coco Beach they could work anywhere throughout the county and so during that early voting period you can go to any early voting site and we can prepare that mail ballot sorry we can prepare that that print that ballot for you on demand now we also have mail ballot mail ballots will go out about 28 days or so before election day and as a reminder anybody can register to vote by mail now if you voted by mail previously one of the things that the legislature recently changed about a year or two ago was they wiped out all the mail ballot requests so in 2022 we sent out 150,000 mail ballots to voters here in Bard County and of January 1st of 23 that number went to zero everybody has to request a mail ballot we are back up to about 56,000 right now so if you want to vote by mail I encourage all the residents to go to my website vote.gov and you can click on the request and mail ballot button at the top of the page and it's a very simple easy process it's also very secure you know one of the things that they've changed in the legislature is enhanced security requirements for mail ballots uh you have to provide your driver's license or your state ID number number or the last four digits of your Social Security number in order to request a mail ballot in addition to that if you want that ballot sent to any address that isn't something that we have on file let's say you're going to be going away you have to actually print that mail ballot request and you have to submit it in writing with the wet signature that's an extra security precaution so that you know if we have snowbirds who come and spend a lot of time in Coco Beach but then go away that somebody that's there isn't taking their mail bout from them we're validating all of that information on the front end and on the back end every single male ballot signature is verified against the signature on their voter record uh so I have full confidence in our abilities here in my office to conduct safe and secure elections so back to our election schedule uh we are very very busy this year if you take the presidential preference primary the August primary and the general we have 155 days of active voting going on in Bard County and the reason we have that is for every one of those elections I have to send out overseas milit AR and civilian ballots 45 days before the election and then for the federal elections in March and November we can count those overseas mail ballots up to 10 days after the election as long as they're postmarked now the big difference between Florida and some of these other states like Michigan Pennsylvania Arizona where they're just counting and counting weeks and weeks after the election is here in Florida we can start counting the mail ballots up to 20 25 days before the election so as we get those ballots in we're tab ulating them we're counting them so then on Election night when I post that first set of results it's all the mail ballots that we've got tabulated it is all of the early voting results and then all we're waiting for is the election day ballots to come in and be transferred in and then we combine all of those totals in so on Election night with an exception of maybe some close races you pretty much know who's won in Bard County in Florida and different and start contrast to that those states that I just mentioned their election laws say that you can't start counting your mail ballots until after election day so if we had that law in Florida just in bouard County we tabulated 95,000 ballots in the 2022 General and it was a two-page ballot so it was really 180,000 sheets of paper if I couldn't start counting those until after election day then guess what we'd be counting for another week or two afterwards as well so you know we're blessed with having a great legislature who's kind of tweaked the laws here to make to where we can have safe and secure elections in timely elections I think that's the most important thing that we have here in Bard County um for the general election that will be November 5th that's our presidential election and we will have early voting October 21st through November 2nd we do an additional 5 days of early voting for a total of 13 days because we want to try to get we know that's going to be the big turnout election primaries T have anywhere from 25 to 35% turnout general elections we will have especially this election I think we'll have about an 85% turnout now I've been doing elections for 15 years I've ever seen 31 elections and every presidential year what I've been hearing about this election is this is the most important election of our lifetime well I've conducted four presidential elections and they've said that for every single presidential election so um I haven't seen anything where the Earth is shattered or or or spun out of orbit after a presidential election but they are very important we are at a critical time here in our country and I think politically we're about as divisive as we can come so I think we're going to see a very strong turnout here especially with some of the Amendments that we have on the ballot this year those amendments tend to drive turn out to the polls as well um but the other thing that drives turnout is is for candidates like you guys that have to run for those city council races I tell people all the time that those local races you guys sitting at this table right here have an effect on their daily lives far more than anybody in the White House anybody in Tallahassee or sometimes even in the County Commission the local city council races in the towns and cities of our of our great County here they touch their lives every single day you're making very specific local decisions on their way of life every day so we really try to press how important it is to not only vote for president vice president and so forth but go all the way down vote for those city council candidates unfortunately a lot of times they get left blank because people get down to a certain point and they just don't know who these candidates are so we see the most undervotes in races such as city council races and so forth um so we really try to impress the importance of making sure that you vote every race on that ballot educate yourselves on that one of the most important tools that we have is our sample ballot luckily uh after my battle with the County Commission last year over the mailing of sample ballots we were able to uh come back and and and defeat that and I'm happy to say that all voters in Bard County will be mailed a sample ballot I think that's the most important tool that we have thank you I think it's the most important tool that we have to educate voters because it not only has your Precinct specific ballot what it's going to look like but it also has information about where to vote the early voting locations it has your specific Precinct and polling place location on that sample ballot and it gives voters an opportunity to research especially the Amendments you know we're going to have I think six or seven amendments on the ballot already the county is going to throw one on and so for a voter to walk into a vote booth and to see the ballot for the very first time then that's what's going to cause lines of people waiting to get to a booth and so forth so we really wanted to make sure that that sample ballot gets to those voters and I will tell you that when I go to the kuana site over here almost everybody walks in with that sample ballot so they're educating themselves ahead of time which is one of the most important things that you need to do so to kind of wrap up we've got three methods of voting here in Bard County we've got the mail ballot we got early voting then we have election day election day is what I like to call your last chance to vote now there's always a segment of the population who they are very hard fast they want to wait on Election Day they want to vote and that's absolutely fine I admire them for wanting to do that but if you show up at 6:45 p.m. on Election night and there's a line don't blame me don't get mad at me because you waited till the last 15 minutes to vote you know we're trying to even out and typically we have about a third a third a third for the three different vote types um the 2022 election we had kind of a heavier they turn out but I think we're going to get balanced out a little bit again and we always look at that when we look at number of early voting sites number of polling places and so forth uh but that election day unlike early voting you have to vote in your assigned polling place so you know we will put up signs at the polling place that we no longer have here that declined saying hey you voters you need to come down over here to this other polling place we try to communicate that as much as possible to the voters the last thing I want to talk about is election integrity and this is one thing that I just I'm really proud of we do a great job here in bouard County uh unless you lived under a rock uh for the last four years 2020 was a very contentious election there was a lot of suspicions a lot of concerns about the accuracy the Integrity of the vote here and I can assure you that in Bard County we did an outstanding job we had no issues um but I could prove a negative you know we had people accusing saying that the roting machines are hacked or or all this other stuff and we I can't disprove a negative there was no evidence of anything all of our vote totals were accurate people ask me hey do you think Donald Trump won I say he did he won by a landslide here in bardan in Florida but I can't tell you what happened in another state I can't tell you what happened in even another County for that matter but I can assure you that how we do it in Bard county is the safest and most secure so in order to give myself a little bit of ammunition for this we implemented a system in 2021 called clear ballot it is what is known as an automated independent audit system and every single ballot every single race 100% of everything that is cast we audit those precincts so when a voter feeds a ballot through a voting machine at an early voting site or an election day or goes through our certified voting equipment at our office uh over on John roads for the mail ballots we feed it a second time through this automated independent system and this system does not use proprietary Hardware they use scanners that you can buy at Office Depot Staples CDW and we do a 100% audit of every race Precinct and ballot in every single election and you know everybody clamored for forensic audits after 2020 well I don't think you can do any better than a 100% audit of every race Precinct in ballot and just as a as a measure in that 2022 General we had 549,000 ballots give or take that were cast and out of those ballots when we ran and compared that to the audit system and and when you look at auditing you have to look not only at the number of ballots but the number of ovals that were completed so how many ovals were filled out by voters across 540 something thousand ballots and the answer was 7.9 million we had 7.9 million votes across every single ballot in 2022 and when we compared the audit system with our certified tab system we were 99.99 2% accurate between the two systems you really can't beat that we call that the gold standard of election Integrity people sometimes ask me why is it in 100% the answer is simple some voters just don't know how to fill out a ballot they don't know how to follow instructions and fill in the oval they Circle names they check a box they do anything else and that's fine that's human eror but it shows that the system is accurate and we've run it now for four elections we've never had an election that's been less than 99.99 something per accuracy so I very much appreciate your time I'm trying to be respectful of my 15 minutes I'm right there on the dot that's Mark that that's the first time ever and I'm more than happy to answer any questions that anybody might have is that permissible for the public to I'm sorry um well we're just keep it here I'll follow you I'm sorry about that um how long have youve been uh the supervisor of elections so I have been I was appointed in 2022 by Governor DeSantis when our prior supervisor of elections Lorie Scott retired halfway through her last term um but I was her IT director for 11 years prior to that and then four years and the IT director for the Hillsboro County elections office office so I've been doing elections Administration and running elections for 15 years and I've overseen 31 elections awesome awesome thank you anybody else question you are running for reelection in the position correct I'm sorry you're running for reelection yes so I am running for re-election I've already filed my paperwork and as a matter of fact we uh got our our petition requirement of 4,644 petitions signed to get my name on the ballot so my name will be on the ballot this year um and I'm looking forward to contining to do the job that I do was it was it a a a a big learning curve like to say if somebody came in that wasn't used to doing this is this something that you think uh absolutely you really have to have experience especially when you're going into a presidential election you have to know what you're doing in this you know it took me a long time to get through all of those mmps and everything when I first started 15 years ago uh but I learned from all of the experience of the people who were in the office when I first started in the business so experience is an absolute Paramount uh quality to have in somebody who's the supervisor of elections for sure it seems like if if you're going to have somebody careful I'm doing it's it's good to have good experience so thank you I I would couldn't agree more so and also Tim Tim's mother his mom is Right Here let bring my mom to work day today so well I thank you all very much I really appreciate the opportunity uh to come out and speak and hope you have a wonderful evening tonight thank you thank you all right we have another presentation um this is the 2024 Community sustainability award and um we're going to have Caroline present this one all right so this is the award the for it but um so the city of Koko beach has chosen an indiv individual who embodies the true Spirit of community sustainability it's with great honor that we present the 2024 Community sustainability award to Kelly lii and the tiny turtle restaurant would you like to come up um and say anything or I have I have some more okay I have some more stuff oh we got more we got more stuff to say about her talking to the microphone can you all hear me better okay so Kelly's dedication to sustainability is not merely a trend but a profound commitment to our community through her efforts she has led the change on restaurant sustainability from educ from our education Outreach initiatives to her Partnerships with like-minded organizations but it doesn't end there Kelly has taken tangible steps within her own restaurant implementing Innovative sustainable practices that serve as an inspiration for others in the industry with her efforts at reducing plastic and waste she has shown us that small changes can make a big impact tonight as we recognize Kelly in the tiny Turnal restaurant let us not only applaud her achievements but also be inspired by her example let us all strive to be stewards of our environment and champions of sustainability in our communities congratulations Kelly on well-deserved recognition s awesome thank you you thank you guys thank you I'll take this one too share a little of our story [Music] um those were very kind words so um we started um so I guess kind of summing it up I took my husband's dream of a restaurant and in about 2017 I kind of uh led the way and added a little bit of my touch and my passion of the environment um it's been quite a journey and um we're super proud of just kind of keeping that conversation going so I have to admit I shamelessly um self-nominated myself for this award because we have had a big year uh we just celebrated 10 years of business starting out very very small very tiny um and uh grown to be a full service um restaurant and um had a a just a big Journey um in those 10 years um one of the things with the sustainability is um just again keeping that conversation going I have some awesome organizations um we're lucky to have a the Space Coast chapter of Surf Rider um here in town that has been a a huge um support of us um being one of the only ocean friendly restaurants um along the space coast and we're hoping to inspire and get more involved um I was um kind of honored that uh the local chapter had actually followed up my nomination and U nominated me as well so that was um pretty cool to um again get that recognition and hoping to change the industry a little bit in um the way that we do our Togos less uh styrofoam less Plastics we're friends of the Thousand Islands and an ocean friendly being surrounded by water so I think it's super important that we lessen um you know our footprint on and all the waste that we can produce in the restaurant world so um this is is a great honor and um I appreciate it so thank you thank you Kelly uh you know I've been watching your business since you beginning since you since the beginning and I can say without a doubt um You by far exceed uh the standards and your your efforts are by far um they're visionary and um it's amazing to see businesses like yours take it to the next level without being forced by government to do it and go exceeding and Beyond what's required so so thank you for taking those steps even though you don't have to appreciate it um public comment about items that are not on the agenda anybody yeah and just keep in mind uh 3 minutes time L okay state your name and address please good evening my name is Casey H I live on Cedar Avenue in Koko Beach um and I'll try to make this in a lot of time I will um vacation rentals an Airbnb um actually two um since the building is a Triplex have popped up next to our town H home um and soon will be three literally 20 ft from our house since since then I've learned some things first people are fed up but they don't know what their rights are and what to do about it or who to call um after a few emails phone calls and lots of research online I I discovered that residents do indeed have rights but what are they is it limited to eight people in the house two cars on the driveway can they have raging parties is the noise ordinance more restrictive in residential neighborhoods in my case I did I did call the non-emergency number um the time that they had a raging party and received two different reasons why there was nothing the officers could do in defense of them there are so many ordinances it would be hard to keep up so one thing I'm asking could we make it easier on maybe on the city web page to find out um we have information I looked at there information about Beach rules and golfing golf can we have a button about the vacation rules and regulations so people know instead of having to click through tons of mun codes and who do we call that's another thing too many people on the property noise issues do we call the police the city clerk you know who do we call um I have been talking to Randy Stevenson but even he was a little confused the second thing make it easier to report anonymously or not um vacation rental that are operating and possibly not paying the fees required by the city and registering I believe there is a third party that that the city pays to regulate but we as residents would know much much faster since we live right next to them maybe again a button on the on the page or something like that the third thing and this is the worst one for for us um although I'm happy to help residents and give them a voice through this research I found out that all of the regulations do not apply to the place of my residence because I live in the town city Redevelopment zone so nothing applies as far as I know loud music tons of people they don't have to pay fees or any other than registering as a business in November of 22 November of 2022 the council voted on the regulations for the sr1 zones but nothing for the tc1 um tc1 District so I'm asking to put the same regulations for the vacation rentals to apply to the to the residents that live in the tc1 district um the city stands make more money if we can regulate um the V the vacation rentals in this District also I made some phone calls to other cities to see the how they handle it um one of the things canabal does is that their vacation rentals are not allowed to operate as a hotel there is a seven night minimum if the guests you you can continue go ahead if the guests leave before then the owner cannot turn around and rent it out again within those seven days the building next to us has a a turnout quite often and just really quick so what are the ordinances for the TC tz1 Zone I've asked any employees and they are even confused is a noise ordinance the same as one of the downtown bars we're within 20 ft so what is the noise ordinance loud music till 11:00 p.m. on weekends if I'm not mistaken the noise ordinance for the sr1 zone is more restrictive I just feel like the Council of the city can do more to protect them the many residents who live in the tc1 zone regarding airbnbs and there are many our whole block for instance is owner occupied except for that one building we didn't choose to live to purchase we didn't choose to purchase a home next to a hotel and most of these properties are investment properties with the owner leaving elsewhere managed by a proper managing management company who also lives elsewhere so more restrictive higher fees something so anyway that's appreciate it thank you um okay that's Rand Randy can I ask you a question sure go Randy if you wouldn't mind one clarification is you know you said something about if we registered them we'd make more money uh our current regulations are we're not allowed to make any money all we're allowed to do is recoup enough money to cover the expenses of registering and monitoring the vacation rentals so I just want to make that clear vacation rentals don't don't make any money for the city um Randy my question to you is if you're running a business in Coco Beach any business out of your home or your property are you required to have a a BTR business license that that's correct commissioner as we expl as explained to miss Han I've spoken to her a couple of times right now if it's outside of the rs1 we do still require them to get a business tax receipt right but all of the as you'll recall we put in place all of the regulations for the rs1 because of the overwhelming number and the immediacy of the impact on their neighborhoods we address that first right so we have that in place but it only applies at current time to the rs1 okay so but they still regardless of where you're at because they are a business they're bringing in money they're actually in business they require business tax so they'd be in violation of our current code for doing what she says they're doing without a business tax receipt that's correct okay so can we can we uh kind of knock on their door and we are in the process like I said it it most of it obviously at this point has been aimed towards rs1 uh but we are aware of the situation and we're getting code enforcement involved we've been uh We've redoubled our efforts relative to business tax receipt we've seen a dramatic increase in collections people you know I forgot I didn't didn't know or whatever I didn't know I had to do it every year any excuse you want to find but you're right knocking on the door calling and giving them the penalties for operating without a BTR usually gets a reaction so we'll be we will be doing that uh for these businesses we find them out and between you and uh Becky I you know I know we have to do an economic impact study now if we're going to change any of our rules or ordinances but could you and Becky in the city manager maybe look into extending the vacation rental ordinances to the town center I will I will get with him yes sir okay thank you so yeah I guess in essence um some there's a strip of town houses in a certain location it's a business location which it's kind of weird that it is in a business location because that is a residential strip so the only way to make it work would be to extend that Airbnb ordinance so that's that's kind of what this whole conversation is about well it sounds like there's a second approach too with the BTR that was the angle I was working with Casey but btrs will not fix the problem agree what will fix the problem is is extending that ordinance so we just want people to be respectful of their neighbors that's all we care about um any other comments uh about items that are not on the agenda state your name and address and 3 minutes please Sal rusio 4100 Ocean Beach Boulevard I just want to know if there's been any movement on a new ordinance for those SE vans that are Distributing U umbrellas and beach chairs at the end of Maran Lane uh this was discussed about three meetings ago we haven't as far as I know we haven't changed any ordinances or added any vendors so there is those SE Vans are still sitting there just looking like are you saying SE Vans seans people call them boxes oh oh oh um they're supposed to be updated I believe is that correct nothing has been moved about the be the beal um boxes where they're where they're storing the chairs and all that yeah yeah we're in the process of um redoing their agreements and enforcing uh standard a standard on everything so that's in the you know we can expect anything to take place um this is something really that you can you can get with the city later on for not for public comment back and forth thank you appreciate it any other public comment all right we'll move on um staff reports all right um so we have been uh every meeting honoring one of our great staff and uh as I um said before it's it's a def definitely a difficult decision every uh every commission meeting because we have such a great staff so um to cut to the chase here this week we decided to honor someone from our finance department and that someone is Joanne Clark Jo let me let me read a little bit about Joanne and further embarrass her um Joanne has been a valued member of the finance department for 12 years her level of professionalism and knowledge is demonstrated on daily basis in FY 2023 she took over the primary point of contact for the audit and has implemented numerous improvements and processes she manages the daily operations of the finance department and continually Works to improve and update Financial policies Joanne can be dependent on to step in and help in any situation that arises she is a valuable asset to the department and the city and those guys just came through the audit and um it was TX TA in at times and it was very demanding and Joanne Patricia the whole department did a great job so I wanted to to call Joanne out and we have a nice little um [Applause] thank you Joan and that's all I got thank you uh City attorney nothing tonight thank you all right any uh City commission nothing tonight don't be safe if you don't get cbnn there's going to be traffic obstructions in the downtown tomorrow night due to the boat parade and uh Friday Fest so it's going to be the biggest block party of the year so just just be aware lots of race boats out there music and a lot of people so enjoy yourselves or get your earplugs out there I have something there one thing before you go so I did I followed commissioner W's queue and and did a ride along with the police and I mean it's it's hats off to those guys they're professional they're so courteous um they deal with so much crap that I had no idea and it's it was eye opening so hats off professional cardus I rode with uh WBA Jacob WBA he a young guy go get her but we're in good hands in the city so I heard you actually had to do a retreat at one point or you got got hairy at one point or something no yeah I I mean for me it was as not in law enforcement you see cars that I would not approach so I was choosing to stay in the car cuz it's real life it's no joke so yeah but I couldn't last much FAS night well I'm I'm sorry you didn't get a opportunity to ride along like I did on at that at 1 to 2:00 on New Year's Eve because a a lot more [Laughter] fun and I I'll be uh I'll be joining that uh sometime soon as well when I get some time any anybody else we all good all right thank you awesome um consent agenda okay this is the consent agenda item one approved meeting minutes from April 18 2024 staff representative city clerk recommendation approve item two has been pulled item three approve changes to the city's investment policy staff representative Patricia drott CFO assistant city manager recommendation approval um geoc synch task order 7 for CB golf mck raking project staff representative Wayne kajino city manager recommendation approval item five approve member appointment to the police and fire pension board appoint Dan aosa aoso as a regular member for a term to expire April 1 2026 commissioner skip Williams seat 4 appoint AJ Anderson is a regular member for a term to expire April 1 2026 six commissioner Carolyn wace seat three representative City commission recommendation approve appointment item six confirm the following meeting July 2nd 2024 6: p.m fiscal year 25 budget Workshop staff representative Patricia drott CFO assistant city manager recommendation confirm I I'm I moov to approve with one clarification from Karen so commissioner Willis is SE three um expires before that term expires would that person need to be potentially reappointed by the next person in seat three yes but we can go ahead and go ahead now we to have the appointment so they appoint them all the way through 2026 yes I'm good with that I'm good okay I moved to approve the consent agenda is read second motion and a second all in favor I I all opposed motion passes f um items removed from the consent agenda okay it is item two approve $955,000 arpa funds for storm water and fire department staff representative Patricia drott CFO recommendation approval move to approve as second we got a motion and a second discussion the reason I I pulled this one I just wanted to highlight I mean this is a we had a similar situation a few months ago about unbudgeted using unbudgeted items so I just wanted to get the commission's input on that I mean it looks like it's a total about 600k understand arpa funds are restricted but we're basically taking items that were not ever budgeted and making them Priority One using ARA funds which could be applied to City Hall so in terms of priority I just want to make sure the commission's aware the items that we're funding that are unfunded our priority over debt for City Hall I think that's a good point Patricia drott CFO so to answer your question there's there's a couple of components there one we have to make a decision about our remaining unobligated unspent arpa funds we we have until the calendar year end to obligate we've reached out to the US Treasury for their definition of obligation what they said is not only do you the Commissioners have to commit those funds to a specific project but we also have to have it either under contract or an invoice in place for those um projects so simply having it come to you and have your um approval to use those am of time to obligate those funds if they are not obligated we will have to return them so we are looking at our projects that are in our CIP that we can potentially use these funds for we've chosen to bring the storm water project to you um in the term of the valuation study for a couple of reasons one your storm water fund hasn't had a rate increase for several years and we will be bringing the uh rate study to you hopefully on the July 18th commission meeting but there is not a lot of cash available for the projects right now in the storm water fund by using the arpa funds for the valuation study it helps the storm water project to continue to move forward with meeting the projects while not tapping further into their cash resources it also the valuation study is something that we have to complete to be eligible for a lot of the grants that we could potentially apply for so that is why we identified specifically that valuation study even though it is not in the 2024 budget um the concern was if we waited to get it into the 25 budget and then brought it to you we might not have time to go out for bid and get this actually contracted in time before the end of the year thank chair are you done with your com would your comment yeah that's my comment so Patricia very well stated um I was actually on the beneficiary end of um government obligations you know had to be uh you know basically shovel ready and obligated before the end of we calar year we do a physical year in the government where I work and um fortunately I had a whole bunch of things that i' had been funded for design which were completed which were shov ready but I didn't they hadn't budgeted me the money to actually uh do the builds and we had a idiq contracts which is indefinite quantity and definite delivery contracts with a bunch of suppliers and in the local area and um when when the I just say the Obama administration because I can't say the previous to the previous to the previous everybody be like who is he talking about when they cancelled the constellation program and they saved the Ryan the spacecraft but they killed the rocket ship all of a sudden the rocket ship couldn't spend their money and NASA had this money and they wanted to spend it and they kept coming to me can how much more can you spend how much more can you spent I spent $16 million on things I designed that we needed that they weren't going to fund they wanted me to do servicing of spacecraft off of scaffolding and I built really nice stands from Coastal steel but it was only because we had those shov ready projects that were designed and I could put out on idq contracts and have those obligated before the end of the fiscal year and they every time I got another one out they they said we got more money can you spend it you know so this is a good way to use money that's expiring basically expiring funds to get those locked in and for the audience this is all taxpayer dollars this is your dollars all these arpa funds this isn't free money from the government this is all money that we owe the government basically so I just wanted to add that thank you did I go over my 3 minutes yeah yes I just wanted to say um that you know we we're building City Hall but we we have to keep up with all the other issues in the city um some of the slip lining and the storm water stuff I know when um we we went up to uh Tallahassee back in November and we were trying to get money to do these projects and we didn't get it and that's what we were lobbying for with our lobbyist so um I'm glad we can find another way to help it's not going to do at all what we're trying to do because I think we're asking for like eight and a half million or a lot more than this but at least this will be a good start um the 325 IS slip lining that's already been identified by the storm water if if they had already identified more um lines that could be done we would have brought that and included that but those are the only ones that we have identified right now cuz that helps contribute to the issue we're having down on um um where is it's um Woodland and um this this is um Morgan I know it's not there but the effects of it like the backup the backup of it yeah I know it's not that but which were the lines that were already down so the line that say who you are Morgan zi staff engineer um the first line that was done was on St Lucy and then the two that are planned are on South um Fourth Street and sunflower so when um I was talking to Walker Dawson about it those four Street ones kind of contribute as a as a conglomerate to the issue we're having all around that area was northp Street there I believe did she say North or South she said South she said South but still we have like an overall issue with that and our storm water lines are really old and we haven't done anything to them and they're neglected and we have storm water issues everywhere and we got to start working on that and we can't neglect that and and the fire station coing we need to get that um can you explain that a little bit Yeah so it's the type of material that the thank you Morgan the type of material that that building is constructed um the recommendation is every 5 years this cocking get done um and that building has been in place now I believe 7 years and so what's happening is as those seams start to deteriorate they're they're finding that they're getting leaks so we just need to get the cocking done and then we're going to repaint the the building so it's really just a maintenance that should be done every 5 years we're just a little behind schedule but it wasn't it wasn't budgeted again it to to your comment commissioner huton not budgeted because we weren't anticipating it but when we we're finding that we're getting leaks and the cause of the leaks is the need to do this recocking and now it'll be on that maintenance schedule so that it gets done timely going forward good so they're all essential projects that we should be doing so um I I see this as we um good that we have this money to do it Mo forward with it yeah and part of my the point I'm making is is a as a commission we got to be a little more diligent planning for these things because this money is not going to be there it's it's free money it's government whatever you want to call it it's it's covering unpl expenses we need to have better we owe it to the residents to make sure we're planning this stuff out and I think we got a good plan with the maintenance side of it to address some of these but that was part of my comment not the necessarily questioning we should be doing them I just think we need to some of it is they know they know like the valuation study they've known about it um it's I believe it's it was in the last year's CIP but it's a lot of money yeah and things get pulled we can't do all of the projects that are identified in a year it's just a cost thing and so we have to prioritize but as it comes to now applying for some of the grants for some of the upcoming projects it keeps coming back that without this valuation study we're not going to be eligible so what wasn't didn't seem to be much of a priority now is becoming more so and sometimes as hard as we try we just miss these things any other comment on that all right uh forgive me I'm not since this was a consent item are we are we taking public comment on this since it was pulled or no is there any any public comment on that no I know it's consent but we got pulled so Tim tumble C Beach um I just want to go back on you know like 20 years ago when we were were talking about building a new fire station City Hall a police station and the can just kept being kicked down the road finally we we got the fire station now we got the police station and but we we kept kicking it down the road we kept pushing back and pushing back and the further you push it the more it costs and the more chance to miss these opportunities to use funds Like These arpa funds if we would have been forward think and and move forward with City Hall quicker we would have been able to use those arpa funds so thank you thank you Tim all right so I had a we had a motion in second for um for this uh approving this uh item two all in favor I I I all opposed motion passes 5o all right getting into some exciting things now I see um unfinished business okay this is item one approve the request by Wayne Carino to continue in his current position of city manager I'm move to approve the request by wayer Jr to continue in his position of city manager and in the absence of any contractual obligation I'd like to add that he would be given the same uh percentage Payway as any other City employee when those determinations are made on a yearly basis second we got a motion in a second any public comment any comment from the staff for the uh from the commission so help me understand from the prior city manager how a cont contract would this now apply or is it how does that work okay the contract now is just going to say he's the city manager and if the if the staff gets a 1% 2% 3% whatever it is raised next year he can got it get that raise also but all of the pay and benefits from the prior contract he already has the pay from prior okay so it's contract okay all right um I just want to say it's been a pleasure working with you Wayne um this guy is not afraid to to do what it takes to get stuff done um we we uh we are at a point right now where um our our departments are are starting to move very efficiently um you know Tim had talked about kicking the can down the road from years to years and a lot of times we've had uh city managers that that we're unable to make some of the hard decisions that need to be made and I think Wayne has shown in these last few months that um he's up to the task and and I'm really proud of him for for doing what he's been doing um he's he's keeping the city employees accountable for the residents um money basically uh he's making sure that they're working for you and um you know I don't know if you've noticed but a lot of people have the maintenance around uh the city the golf course the tennis courts uh down minute man is all starting to come up to par and uh for me uh I I'm I'm really excited to to keep you on and I think you're doing an excellent job and um thank you um yeah I wanted to say you you you uh took over and really owned it um despite the conditions you took it over in and I think you didn't an awesome job and you really stepped stepped up and took care of everything and and uh really uh really got in there and did what you needed to do and I'm really proud of you too and thank you for doing what you do so I'm glad you want to keep doing it so thank you thank you thank you so great job I I'll say a few things I love the team approach of recognizing employees Wayne is um the first to admit he's not going to be the Jack of all trade so he engages folks he got some young talent that I think we can cultivate so for sure it's it's bringing in this team approach and more in the conservative vein that I wanted to see in terms of financially so Kudos this was not a question I just wanted to make sure the contracts were tied off it was not a question of performance at all so great job anybody else want to say anything or we we get ready to vote I'd like to Wayne um just a pile on um these past 6 months have been REM mark one um if you weren't working for coco beach and stealing you for space force would not impact our city I would um in terms of leadership in terms of Effectiveness it's rare to find somebody and not to knock government because I'm in it right to find somebody who um who is effective who is also uh a balanced uh personality and intelligence who can lead people and take care of them and you've got it and I I really admire that so thank you thank you thank you so much did we give you enough validation keep doing a great job you guys going to make you start crying all right I'm done stroking your ego um all in favor of keeping Weighing on I I all opposed motion passes 50 Wayne thank you very much Yi and the crowd went wild all right um business okay um item one permission to proceed with a request for qualifications RFQ for the 19th whole restaurant Auditorium operations and management at the C Beach Country cob staff representative Devin tally recommendation approve move to approve second got a motion and a second any public comment all right any any comment guys let's just move through this all right oh I think Tim oh go ahead Tim Tim tumult Coco Beach um I'm not either for or against of sending out an RFQ um but You' really need to look at the numbers and and see what we've got here um the RFQ states that whoever comes in is going to offer breakfast lunch and dinner well we don't offer breakfast or dinner at this point um and I take that back my my wife told me that oh they do offer breakfast but at 9:30 they open at 9:00 but then they don't really serve until about 9:30 um so you're missing a lot of opportunities one of the things that um I've been told them on the Leisure board been on Leisure board since I guess for about seven or eight years now um that they're trying to hire folks the reason they're not open from 7: in the morning cuz the golf course is open at 7:00 in the morning uh folks come and they can't get coffee for example they can't get you know a breakfast sandwich or bacon and eggs or anything for breakfast at 7:00 in the morning because the restaurant doesn't open till 9:00 well the reason they don't they're not open is because they don't have employees well if you were to look on the website there's no h hiring now signs anywhere no hiring now signs in this building um but they're short staffed seems odd um so when I said you initially I said look at the numbers um I asked uh patri you know about numbers on p&l and we can't do p&l because it's a city but you can go against uh revenue and expenditures and and see the difference and see how much money um in the red or black the restaurant is and if I I do know this from from looking at the uh the budget few years back that uh the restaurant did make somewhere close to $100,000 being run like a non-restaurant so it actually was run like a restaurant it could make a lot of money so what you're going to expect if you put this RFQ out is for somebody some business to come here and pay the city a hundred roughly $10,000 a month at a minimum just to break even from what you would make in a normal on a in what we're doing now and I just don't see that happening like I said before I'm not for against that maybe that'll happen maybe somebody's going to come around and say hey I'll give you 20,000 a month to run a business here I don't know mayor um uh yeah so thank you for your comment I I'll say for for my piece on this um government government will never run a business as well as a private sector especially one that is used to doing this and does it on a regular basis um private sector has a lot more U incentive to to do better uh so I am for this uh from what I also understand is any anybody that would be interested at this point is also interested in keeping all the staff that we currently have on um but if if somebody were start a business anywhere they go if they were going to if they were going to buy a a $2 million uh building or they were going to rent a a you know a something of this caliber they're going to spend more than $20,000 a month on on uh rent so or or mortgage and and taxes and insurance and all that so I I don't think it's out of the realm to ask for but absolutely to your point um there's no sense in doing it if we're not going to make at least more than what we're making now so it's RFQ it's just something to to see if people are interested and what is going to what it is possibly going to be able to bring in I see someone I I just want to Echo that it's an RFQ if we get no response then that's our medicine if we get good responses we'll consider them uh I'm Marilyn griggsby and I'm a 61e resident of Coco Beach and I'm here here on behalf of the Coco Beach Women's Club and my question to you is that we have an agreement between you the or the city and the Coco Beach Women's Club for the use of this facility which we helped finance in the beginning and we just wonder how this agreement that we have for the use of this facility would be affected our contract current one runs through September of uh 27 I just wanted to bring that to your attention thank you very much Becky can you look into that before the yes I will I haven't seen that yet but thank you we we'll look into that thank you any other public comment all right so we had a motion in a second all in favor all opposed motion passes 5 um okay didney item two discuss the property at 3570 Ocean Beach Boulevard in the potential future usage of the property is Ada Beach Park commissioner representative skip Williams commissioner recommendation discuss I move to discuss motion Boulevard you dying for a lack of a second can't you can you do it or do we move to discuss or do we move to vote on it and then discuss the motion no you can move to discuss okay I'll second Okay who wants to kick this one off I I'll kick it off all right so and let's go ahead and flip to the next slide so there's a piece of property on Ocean Beach Boulevard it's just north of Westgate and it used to be an Air Force Radar Site starting back in the 50s and uh they tracked it was a tracking site for for rocket launches functional through Apollo at the beginning of shuttle and you know I've been watching it for a long time but uh a little over a decade ago it was decommissioned and and the government and I work for him and some of us else work for him they moved kind of slow so it took them until you know quite a few years I think it was like 200 14 before they actually demolished the building you know it had power it had sewer it had bathrooms um all those those utilities were fed to that site and then they left it as mode property for the past 10 years well back in Bob Micah's day followed by Jim MC Knight's day followed by Robin's day followed by Wayne's day I've been keeping The Feelers out through the air force as to you know what going to do with that property what they're going to do with that property because I know from working for the government that just like the city you know um if we own property but anyway the government owns the property they go they have a pecking order they say to uh anybody else in the Air Force do you want this property do you have a use to this property do you have money to spend to develop this property and that call has already gone out and I think it's about expired that was it might be expiring right about now for the Air Force to to say we we want to keep it then it goes to the government's uh Services Administration and they put it out to the rest of the federal government agencies and see if there's any reason that they want to keep it and then we get the opportunity to get it back because I think we basically gave it to him back in the Heyday uh so so what I'm proposing is to let me move forward with a letter to those folks to say well you know just give them a little incentive that we want to actually do something with the property besides hold on to it or split it between the condo and Westgate and give it away which is the only thing we can do with city property um so I'm I'm asking for approval to move forward with the you know this proposal to the the federal government to say hey by the way we really interested in this property we're so interested we already put together this conceptual plan for an ADA beach park it has 10 ada8 Beach spots and has five regular ones and that's for if you had an ADA relative and you were going to meet them at the beach you know you'd have a place to park too make it where if you have a a City Sticker you actually have priority that way you don't have to pay to park there uh for people that are from out of town and to keep keep overflow parking from nearby hotels from taking up all the handicap spots you'd make it where you had to actually pay I'll have it open you know we can talk about hours later but you know 6 to 10 have a 88 compliant bathroom um just two two bathrooms I don't know if I'm going to get away with having 1B men's and 1B women's or how to make that happen but have two at least you have redundancy in case one of them gets plugged up um you have a ADA water fountain where you can hit your knees with it if you're in a wheelchair to get the water to flow or maybe a water filter thing there put your water bottle up there so you don't have to use a bunch of plastic water bottles anyway and then have the Moby mat that goes down to the beach with the T on the end so if you roll your wheelchair down there or whatever your Mo you know even your Walker or if you got a and you go down there and then you can move off to either side and then anybody that's coming up or down you know will still have a clear path you won't be blocking the blocking the the way there and um you know the first step is to try to acquire the property the second step is to go pass the conceptual plan and develop a truly you know Ada beach park and I believe that uh once if we acquire the property and we come up with a good design is it's is uh John Dylan still back there and I got an expert on Ada here I'm I'm willing to volunteer as the project manager and I'll hold I'll get John Dylan to hold me accountable that this will be a Ada compli PL to every Federal rule including worldwide for that for that part and um I believe that there's grant opportunities um there the Ada there's Avenues within the federal government and Ada um obviously there you know we could ask the state legislature to kick in some money um you know it could be a you know a plus for tourism you know being the only Ada Beach Park probably on the East Coast that's dedicated uh we might be able to get some TDC money I'm not going to hold too much hope out for that but but that would come later the first thing is is to convince the government to let us acquire the property and I just wanted to float this idea because after I've been following this for over a decade it's becoming time is of the essence you know it's it's going it's starting to go out there for higher interest and uh I just want them to know that we're bidly interested in acquiring this property for such a thing as this ada8 beach park and I'll stop at that SK anyone else want to say something did I go for three minutes no no you're man commissioner Willams I think I think this is a a really great idea a number of thoughts to add if we get the property and and but just going for it it's a good idea is there is there any like as a city because we prior owned it we get like first right after the rest of government agencies Jeremy let me read the agenda so if the rest of the government agencies nobody wants it the way that it was written it says the US space for sub Staffing pass it will go through GSA and it go through GS is that open to anyone bid on or is that went in the government so it is open anybody get mad you and I no no GSA can only give to some other government entity but I I think that you know I don't think the state's going to want to take it from us that's where I'm going the county could want to take it from us that's the other place I was going but if they do this with it and they pay for the maintenance fine with me yeah I'm all for think it's a great idea I like I like the idea of it um I do have some concerns with it obviously um we we do have projects that we also need to that are very important that we need to kind of look at as well uh definitely we should I think we should try to acquire it for something in the future I don't know exactly how soon we could jump on it considering I think we have other kind of more important things I'm I'm I'll work the grant writing okay and then uh my only concern is and and I don't mind the Ada but I would kind of want if if after 2 years or so this park wasn't being completely utilized by Ada and it was constantly only two spots were were being used uh maybe opening more spots to um just regular spots but still obviously you have your Ada stuff and honestly I I wouldn't be opposed to making it a permit only Park where only Cocoa Beach residents could park there with a permit not not by actually um tourists not being able to use it well that would that would limit the opportunity for grant funding but um it's you know I've I've talked to people over my years that you know they've always asked for more of the Crossovers to be turned into you know ramps which we've done in certain instances and then they've asked well you put the ramp you got rid of the crossover so now I can get down there but you don't have a handicap spot on that street so I you know I have a place Park so we added some handicap spots on some of those stub end streets but now you know and the other issue is well you know might not be mo as regular as most people and I may need to use a bathroom and there's no bathroom so this way if you were an ADA person or you even had an attendant and you had you know you got those vans and all that stuff where you got to get in and out and all that stuff and you need to use a bathroom you'd have one if you need to go down to Moby mat you you could do that um you know I'm okay with trying to acquire it I just I think we just need to be prudent on when we actually executed provided the the funds that we have are you know it's the best time to use the funds at the time so it's fine with me I don't know if you guys I mean it sounds like we'll have some indication in May that'll be just in time because we acquired doesn't mean we have to jump on at a certain time to to do but I mean it'll be inut data for our March I don't they're going to shoot us for not doing something overnight when it's been sitting there on their cers vacant for 10 years exactly agre okay I'm for it sounds sounds good I love it okay do I have I'm looking for head nods I I'm all for you trying to acquire this for the city here something to go ahead and move forward with this as long as we're not um 100% stuck on on this idea this is an obligating any money and it'll discussion free right so I mean or or I guess guess what commissions change should it be past my term that this actually gets signed over to us then whoever the future commission is can decide what they want to do with the property but at least let's do it we got the property sounds good yeah I think pursuing it's a good idea okay good idea thanks man all right um City attorney try to discuss we did that all right um move to adjourn that was never voted for it was disc it wasn't it was discussion [Music]