a good think she just walked out the door well I v I believe you have but it's a I didn't see her out there she you need you need her somebody wants her the [Music] [Music] Harrison's got timer on so have we got a two minute handicap so far we have all right we will call this regular meeting of the city council to order today is Monday June 24th 2024 and it is 5:02 P.M if you will stand for the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance dear Lord we thank you for this day and we thank you for all your blessings on us Lord we thank you for a good weekend at lak Fest and hope everybody had a good time father thank you for keeping your hand upon each and every one of us pray dear Lord she'll be with us tonight help us make the best decisions and interest of the people and and accordance with your will father we ask these things in Jesus name amen amen amen to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right I know we have the uh presentation Proclamation for juneth on the agenda however per the city Charter that has to be read by the mayor so we are going to skip that for tonight and allow him to do that at the next meeting and we will move on to the consent agenda do we have any additions or changes to the consent agenda okay hearing none hearing none I'll entertain a motion to approve motion to approve second all right we have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I I all right motion carries now we will go to the regular agenda uh any additions or changes to the regular agenda motion to approve have a motion second a second all those in favor say I I I motion carries all right we will move on to 4 C1 city manager tson 4 C1 the volunteer fire assistance grant um this is a grant that um our Grant's coordinator and the fire chief have been working with with the assistance of internal Finance director so this would be the first time the city has pursued this grant um this would be a 50% match for four sets of turnout gear the City chief already typically tries to budget for for a number of turnout gear every year to replace what we have and so this would just be a bonus we would love to get it if not we're going to budget for it anyways so you don't have to worry about not getting it we'll budget the whole 12,840 and if we get 50% great we don't already to be in a good place make a motion to approve the grand applications second all right we have a motion in a second any discussion from the Das all right any public comment all right seeing none all those in favor say I I I I who who we starting who's I mean got that I haven't necessarily been roll calling do we want a roll call or do we just want to I think we should just stick to our normal proced okay all right that's fine all right all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carri all right we will go to 4c2 thank you 4c2 so our last auction that we had um the county allowed us to join them on everything sold except for two police vehicles um the individual they were bid but they were never paid for so James received those back um additionally as you just approved on consent agenda there was a 2002 Ford Explorer at the cemetery that's no longer needed it's really not very useful there and so we would like to approve this auction contract for the next one of that company has to place the two police vehicles and the sary vehicle to get to Surplus those items motion to approve all right we have a motion and second any discussion from the dice any public comment seeing none all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carri 4 C3 thank you so um Council should have received the file with all of the applicants for the finance director's position along with the Matrix U we did receive an additional applicant over the weekend which I pretty sure I hope everyone had seen forwarded to had time to review um and so it's up for this is up for discussion for the council um looking at it all 10 applicants possessed a bachelor's degree of of of some sort business County finance uh one I think was electrical engineering and then six of those possessed a master's degree whether that be in business accounting or Finance as well there may be an outlier there so we'll double check that but again this is up for y'all's decision yall's discussion on that I think there has been some some comments to me about the applicants are there um a number of them pretty much all of them lack the eight years of government experience which is an inl of bachelor's degree the one applicant today did have some substantial government experience more on the investment side for larger municipality and so um that's just for information for yall to discuss and give us Direction how You' like to move forward can I start yes ma'am okay we all know that our last audit unveiled a lot of weaknesses that we had and I've looked at all these candidates and I want to share something there is a significant difference between General accounting and government accounting and I I just want to share that for us here and in the public okay so there's some unique things to government accounting that being fund accounting is very unique and we're required to do it budget compliance is pretty unique in uh government accounting the financial statements um of what has to be prepared that entire booklet that the audit audits um we have to do we have to know when to use regular acrel modified acrel um there are different rules and regulations that are nothing like General accounting um and the reporting becomes a bit complex for example we have a component unit called the CRA that has to be rolled up into our Consolidated financial statements at the end of the day so with all that regrettably I looked at every single one of the applicant that applied and in my humble opinion none of those would meet the requirements that we need in order to be very successful we've had too much turnaround in my opinion um and we really I looked at it putting myself in the shoes of that Finance director it would take me two by two audit Cycles to clean everything up the majority of issues that we're faced with and what I don't want to see is um it just continued to snowball so in case for example if we took someone who just did not have government accounting experience and just general experience then they're not going to be as successful and I can foresee that eight months down the road after their learning curve has been calmed down a bit that they'll understand oh I might not have what it takes to get what we got to get done and accomplished for the city so I'm concerned and with that I'd like to propose something that I would hope that the council might agree with but I'd like to see us eliminate that ordinance and place this position back under the direct supervision of the city manager I think that the city man I think we need to uh revamp the job description so for example can I tell you a lot of things that are significant that's missing from the job description it everything we do is deadline driven there's not one thing in that job description that prioritizes or even discusses deadlines there's nothing in it about um uh knowledge or requirements for requests for proposals and so for example example I know we need to go out and look at potential new Banks to handle what we've got there's nothing in it about compliance issues that are required by the rules of the auditor general there's nothing in it about uh mdna and audit compliance there's nothing in the job description about the trim process which is how we do the truth and millage and um pass our budgets there's nothing in that job description uh referencing a significant anything significant about our resolution ordinance and statutes and how they play a part of the financial statement rollup process um I can go on and on there's nothing in there about gby 40 54 87 there's two mentions of two gby rules but there's so many that we've got to comply with um and I want somebody who knows these uh items uh there's nothing in it about compliance of our debt and Loan covenants which we have a significant amount in schedules that we need to to maintain and they need to be timely you know the one thing that the job description says is we will get a monthly detailed analysis of budget to actuals I've been here 14 months I've never seen anything like such a report I know that maybe three times since I've been sitting here in these 14 months um I've received a listing of uh what we paid the bills that we paid but I I really propose that we look at that hand it now so that we don't lose any more time in the process but I really would like to see this not report to the council I think the city manager needs to be the one who can guide this person direct this person uh prepare a job description more in line with what it is that for this manager to be successful there's going to need somebody strong in the area of finances Council would you bring rep some items for the C manager to uh distribute and and make available to everyone so Absol I would be happy to be great and I would just I I would just caution the council that the City Finance director's role was one of those items that was subject to much discussion by the grand jury and one of the comments that was made to my recollection was the need for the separation of the city manager and the finance director and that the finance director primarily should serve the role of a check and balance in the city manager spend Authority and that was one of the grand jury's comments was the ability of the city manager to direct the finance director could lead in result in some of those problems not saying you couldn't try to arrange some of those safeguards but that was one of the things that we were admonished to be very clear about was that the City Finance director should not be directly subservient to the manager or else they would not be able to fulfill that check and balance I do agree with councilwoman EV completely though regarding the general accounting experience and I do want to call out it is a mandatory requirement under our current ordinance that they have governmental accounting experience you cannot substitute general for government under the ordinance and and with the applicants that we received uh the one that had treasury management that's basically your accounts receivable person that that looks at what we've got in a daily oh I'm not disagreeing qualifi I'm just letting you know that we cannot hire somebody with General accounting experience they have no government the ordinance reads while a CPA is preferred the next line says must possess knowledge of State of Florida uniform accounting codes and any other areas concerning government accounting along with working knowledge of utility services so they must the government Accounting in my opinion has always been treated and must be treated as a must I will say to your point about the job description everything you said there is something that can be added to the job description by this Council every single thing you said there you can make that a requirement if that is what you desire you can always be more stringent and choose to back off that in the job description you just cannot be less stringent than what is in the ordinance okay so if the ordinance by what you're what what I'm hearing you say is the ordinance says we need government accounting and what I'm saying is all 11 applicants lack that experience so I propose that we Al we've got to go back out I don't is it still open did we close it or is it just an open until F open until fil okay um I would like to and and I'll submit it to Kobe and he can pass it out and I'll do it right away but um um the job description is more of a general accounting it really doesn't it's not I think it's not as strong as it needs to be if you look at the audit which is at the end of the day your fi our finance director produces that booklet that the Auditors are here to audit all those financial statements and to me this little three page that I just outlined that I just read some of the items from I'll send that to Kobe but that job description really needs to be started from scratch to Clay's point I believe I will also if it's okay with my fellow council members I'm going to give you a uh uh checks and balance that will work that it could be I'm going to propose it through a writing you can share it with them but we can overcome what that grand jury stated in my opinion and get it back to where it needs to be because I'm going to tell you I've been here 14 months and Danielle thank you for sitting in that chair not once as the finance director in my opinion other than the budget cycle and the audit cycle when the Auditors are here has have they really needed to partake so uh in the discussions um really I think it's you know we could get our information through the city manager um and if he needed to confer with the finance director he could and get the answers for us but well that would like you said that would require repeal of the ordinance and we would need Council direction to bring back the appropriate documents to repeal that ordinance you can't proceed until you do that well I would like to make that motion okay I have a motion do I have a second I'll second it for discussion getting into it thank you they're taking away so man' yes sir uh my concern is there we have a we had a specific problem that resulted in proceedings that then came back with recommendations and so my concern is um why why would we roll back something that was placed as a uh as a guard rail for our particular issues I I believe at with reading that that when you look at the role of the finance director and what what it says versus what we need I don't believe we ever had that skill set of what we need and I believe that if we strengthen the job description with the skill set that's needed to do the role like it was designed to be accomplished and not just somebody that's got a Bachelor's degree in general accounting experience um I believe those will be fixed I I believe you'll see a significant change in uh because a general accountant has a different skill set than a government accountant I mean it's very skilled uh I think what we're talking about is I mean yes the the job description I agree with uh the qualifications I agree with and the level of skill that's required to do that completely understand no no issue there my question is why why eliminate the guard rail of a direct accountability to each and every council member rather than uh solely working through the city manager I mean we trust our city managers but we also verify and that seems like we're eliminating a guard rail then I'm going to put myself in in that role okay I'm going to I'm going to say I've been a finance director for a very long time prior to uh moving to defunc Springs and in that role is very difficult to get five bosses plus the city manager six boss plus all the public and let me tell you everybody comes to you and your job you've got to accommodate all of them but it's very difficult when you want to please your council members and your bosses and okay how do I prior PR ize my time I got I'm deadline driven everything that finance division does is deadline driven payrolls got to be done by a certain time uh retirement's got to be done by a certain time oh I know councilman Valley's got it he's got the meeting coming up on Monday night and Mr Harrison you got a different issue on Monday night and it's like okay how do I please everybody and I start to get conflicts on what do I do who can I delegate it to these are all sensitive items is really hard and that's one of the one of the reasons why I would say eliminate that guard rail that person whoever it's going to end up being needs one boss not seven well they shouldn't have seven boss I want to be very clear no individual councilman should be doing anything described there to any of our finance directors and if any of you are you're out of bounds you go through the city manager but the council as a whole certainly as the ability to direct the finance director as a collective body from this dis with a motion second and three votes but no individual counsil person person should be coming to Danielle to Morgan before or Deborah before her and saying I need you to do this I need you to do that that's the exact point of the policy that if you have request for information for those employees of the city the councils a whole directs the individual council members do not and I understand that but if I'm I'm a professional and you know what he's my council member and you're my council member so if you come to a finance director I want to give you what it is you need I know it's not a mandatory thing but I'm going to have conflicting information what I'm saying is it was a guard rail I understand that it was based on a very particular situation that happened and there was no safeguards in place to let everybody know that money came in it was gone nobody knew where it was whatever was that created that entire scenario of that report um I think we can implement things and put it back to where the had that never happened you look at other cities most of these Finance directors do not report to the council they report to the city manager which is where I believe and I propose that it should be councilman scers I I agree with the checks and balances I really think that I don't find a issue with the way that um the finance director structures align at this time I say that because if if we had an issue where we had a city manager who was going road with with different things and at least you got someone to come back in who has the ability to report to the council and to um and to bring those things to our attention I don't again like uh Mr Atkinson was saying I don't think at any point that the finance director should look at it that they have to worry about the council individually unlike other Governor bodies around it's not us we we have to go through the city manager and we cannot interfere with the day-to-day duties of the city manager since I've been here I've always felt like that the finance director is directly under the city manager as as they are so I've kind of stayed away from that any questions that I've had I've always taken to the city manager and then he directly in turn goes to the finance director and finds things out one thing that I would like to see differently in the future moving forward though and and it's been the case that everybody's got something they're missing mine is a finance director who's sitting over there and who is um ass suit to what's going on they're paying attention they're capturing the the mood of the council where the questions are going and to have that information available should we ask it immediately and if not to have the means to sit there and answer to or collect the data to answer immediately um and and if not directly then working through the city manager to answer those questions but nevertheless to get us the answers that we need then not two weeks later or a month later and so on because I think it just creates contention um but as far as changing the structure it would be hard pressed for me to go against the wishes of grand jury because then at that point it should we wind up in trouble again then they'll saywell why did you go against legal advice to begin with and that's hard to combat when you're in court so that that's just my thoughts on it I mean so I I'd like to uh to say a couple things it's it's scary to think that technically I'm the most senior person on the council um but I I specifically remember when I first got elected that we we specifically endeavored to work on this the finance director's position and we actually moved it out from direct supervision which included annual reviews and such and we moved it under the supervision of the city manager um I also interacted with a city with a with a finance director that at the time when I would discuss things with her and the city manager a lot of times what I would hear is well in this state we did it this way well you're not in that state anymore you're in Florida um so I I completely agree councilman heavin councilwoman heavin with the the idea that we should not back down from this idea of of having that governmental experience I wholeheartedly agree I wholeheartedly agree with am amending the job description to include those various deadlines so that we can have some performance measurements for which we can then make a judgment on that the the city enable the city manager to make those kind of performance Jud judgments at that point um in the past I have actually pushed for uh more stringent uh definition in within the job description of a check and balance um unfortunately recently in the in the very past uh recent past we've had an issue with an unchecked city manager that spent unfortunately at the time I was vilified for calling out that unchecked purchase of yellow paint but um I I think we've seen both sides of the coin we we've seen an unchecked city manager do things that I think were out of bounds and a finance director that at the time did not uh hold hold them accountable and then we've also seen the issue where the the city the the finance treasure was reporting excuse me directly to the city council and was felt probably felt like they were spread sever different ways and didn't rightly account for money and it went missing and then we had a grand jury investigation that BAS basically told us we needed to clean up our act so I I'm not in favor of going against that grand jury investigation and changing the structure of the reporting for the finance director because I firmly believe and I've said it from the DI several times including one of the last times we were looking for a finance director that I believe that Finance director is a check and balance for the Council on the city manager and and as well as his subord his staff so I I'm not in favor of changing that or dealing or just um removing the ordinance and putting it directly solely under the the the finance or the city manager Mr Mayor P if I may direct quote from the grand jury report I think actually addresses their two separate issues we're talking about here and addresses them pretty clearly as two separate issues clearer job descriptions also need to be written to the city manager and the finance director comma and the chain of command needs to be more structured that's after talking about the issues noted with overlapping responsibilities between the finance director and the city manager and the completion of whom reports to whom not resulting in the council being doubly informed but creating the problem that's why the council took certain actions about the finance director position to clarify those reporting commands that it is to HR issues if Danielle is violating the Florida indoor Clean Air Act by smoking or vaping in office that doesn't have to come before the council Mr Council has the ability to discipline her U but it does not remove the council's authority to seek report direct from her without interfering in day-to-day activities I do think Council nein raises a very good point about the nature of this job description when we've looked at this previously we've gone through a lot of information before and it's taken a lot of effort trying to get there I would encourage the council that if you do update the job description I would ask you at the same time to very strongly consider her recommendations to consider including some of the minimum qualifications that you now may want not just in the job description but in the ordinance moving forward this would be an ample o you would have ample opportunity now to clean up what is in that ordinance and the qualifications that have been there for a great amount of time so if you're going to do it I mean that that ordinance started in 19 87 we've had radical changes in the size and scope of this city so I definitely think it would be to our advantage to update the actual qualifications under 259 to more mirror that now your job descript it doesn't need to be as detailed as your job description every you hear that all the time you have your qualifications but if you have firm minimum qualifications this person needs to have let's put those in there and then when we get through preference elements let's talk about it and I think that would be very a very prudent decision at this point in time um if that's what you would do um I would note that the city manager does have the authority to terminate the Director of Finance when deemed appropriate and consistent with the policies now the council gets to overturn that action if they want to but as it is right now um it is a dual reporting structure Finance director owes both the city council and the city manager the reporting and the information but now would be a very good time to clarify that the other thing is to councilwoman Heaven's point I did pull this up out of the duties councilwoman the job description imposes a greater burden than the ordinance and somebody who may have glanced over the job description but let's assume they had 15 20 years of local government accounting experience I know what local government accountant does I didn't read every single word of the job description I know the position gets here looks at the ordinance they would have been presented with the statement that says prepare a monthly list for the city council of bills paid or to be paid to be submitted at the first regularly scheduled meeting of the council each month and that is far less intensive than what's in the job description that you called out and that's what I exactly and that's my problem and so I think those type of things are great opportunities if you're going to do it update it in your ordinance so that when somebody gets here they say well I look at the ordinance and the ordinance doesn't say a word about that and we say well the job description did be honest I'm operating under the law which is the ordinance not the job description which is of no real significance in that word but it would be to the person who held that role who then would have clear guidance on oh this is what this is what is expected of me if it's in if it's not in the ordinance to make sure I guess that they do M kind of similarly match where the job descri description could be more and those duties have not been updated since 1989 and this is something well that's problematic because I know a couple of you remember I pointed out to the council when it went through a prior City Finance director evaluation process that we found ourselves in a position where we're rewriting a job description but we were not actually going through the effort of re writing the qualifications and what inconsistencies were there um I know two of one who still with us one who is no longer on the council um we're very adamant about trying to do a more comprehensive ordinance rewrite at the time and the remainder of the council felt it was sufficient as what as is so perhaps four new council members may want to reconsider that so councilwoman it sounds like there's support to update the the ordinance but doesn't sound like their support for repealing it would you be interested in modifying your motion to reflect that I just one more uh point that I'd like to make I want to see that division successful I would also like to propose one change also to that structure of that division by I think we need to add and I don't know if this is the appropriate time to ask but they need an assistant Finance director because everything that that Finance director needs to do it cannot be accomplished with one person so for example let's just say Danielle put her name in and and thought okay I'm GNA help do this she can't do the budget the audit train people the way they need to be trained because she's got some new people in there fill a staff accountant position because she's stepping up to the role and complete the audit all at the same time and unfortunately that's what this that's the challenge of that role has is to do that so yes I would amend my motion to change the ordinance but I'd also like to propose and perhaps this two separate motions separ motions okay so I'll amend my second if you hold on would you agree amend the ordinance and the job description and you'll get with Mr Townson and I and we will present those in both formats based on based on the conversation we've had tonight correct to amend dealing with qualifications for the hiring not my motion I amend my second based on that yeah I just want to say on the um the checks and balances I I agree with that um I could foresee somewhere down the road not with the people in place right now or not necessarily anybody in the future but it could happen to where a finance director if they were solely under our city manager they could be pressured or directed to do something they shouldn't do they need an out uh you know in a scenario like that um I wouldn't dream of that happening with you all that's not what I'm talking about but we don't know what the future holds 15 years from now um but that checks and balances I think has to be there I think Finance director has to have the peace of mind to know that if really in aant really in a bind that they can go to the council not feel threatened by one individual um as as a city manager I just I just think it's important and I think we all need to know our role in what we can and cannot do when it comes to um interaction with the finance director and directing her I think that is entirely the perf of the city manager um the other thing I want to ask you because you're familiar with these um is the qualifications that you the government account yes is our salary range in in line with being able to get that qualified of a person to do all those things you say we need I I don't know what the minimum and maximum is I don't but I can tell you that I believe not and I'll tell you why I say that uh in 2017 and again in whatever year I I applied for that position myself twice um I went around to the school board local school board all the Constitutional officers I went to every Finance director's position in the three County surrounding in each City's whether it was constitutional officer or any part of that and we're way low and there for example one of the Constitutional officers their budget was $4 million ours is $45 million and they were paying a very significant amount more than what our what Deborah Gibson was making at the time the pay ranges and don't it's either 72 or 79 up to 109 just Onre [Music] yes sir so um since we're since we're moving off the original motion but I do want to make a comment on the original one still and uh again we we're coming in cold without the benefit of of seeing a a you know documentation or or some you know the wording of what you might have in mind or what you might Invision for that um you know separation so to speak so I'm still open to it as long as as long as we have time to actually understand what the details of it because I think the reality is what we're talking about based on what you would actually bring forward could be completely different we it might make sense I don't know but again we're just coming in cold and so it's difficult to to get a handle on that uh and then also in terms of the way I see it now currently because the city council can provide cover and protection to that position in terms of overriding a city managers uh firing at that position that should give someone the cover and the protection to come forward and be more confident in speaking up and thereby emboldening and and allowing that professional to act independently to the extent of reporting something that they disagree with even if it may not be illegal they may just disagree with how it was done procedurally they may disagree with it uh for another reason but again I think that gives them a cover but if you see wording or if you see something that that makes sense and and it was come back I'm I'm certainly happy to look at that um and then in terms of the positions the one thing I was I mean they're all lacking government experience in general but we really should be looking at specifically Florida Municipal experience the cities are different than the counties and it really makes a a big difference it makes a significant difference I totally agree with what you just said because to me you know there's somebody that's at a different state and although their heart might be in it they will stumble and that means we're going to stumble and I'm already 14 months in to this role that I'm holding here and I've told Kobe I've gone to him and said I have some serious concerns I'm unable I believe to make financial decisions that are at the D because I've never once received adequate information about where we stand financially right now we're working on 2023 audit we can't rely on anything we don't even know where that stands at this point we know we're not going to get it till August well guess what we got one month left to to to know where we are to know whether we're going to have any excess monies have we met our have we collected everything have we met 24mon old data for 12-month-old data is not really good for me when I have to sit here and try to make a good decision for the community so it's just I I would agree with with those statements completely because it it also reflects what work is being done beyond what we see so you see the budget you see where the budgets depleting in certain uh accounts then you actually show that the work is being done or it's being transferred from one to the next um I do have a question though tonight's motion then what's the actual the official action because I would think we would need to see something come the motion is effectively directing that we update the ordinance and job description and bring back to the ordinance we have to go through the formal public advertising process so you'll have first reading second reading public hearing adoption so that'll at least take two more meetings to do but we'll be able to bring back to you at the next meeting a first Pass based on when council manev is able to get us this information obviously we have a little bit of a turn around with the holiday in between now and then um but we'll make sure you see it for the first time and then we'll work on the advertising Arrangement um I would expect since you're building a job description and a revised ordinance there may be some give and take on what you want the ordinance versus what you want in the job description what's preferenc versus required so I do not expect first reading will occur at the next meeting I expect it would occur at the second meeting in July followed by adoption at the first meeting and August advertising time frames allow I'm not looking at the calendar right now so could be off by one meeting there but that's basically the direction we're taking bring it back I'm good with it okay any other discussion that's the first motion then we'll get to our second motion yes it's a council yall indulge my professional opinion I don't want to step out of bounds is that okay yes sir to me um and reviewing other cities and counties and um it is typical for the board to hire this individual on a bigger scale right and go under a contracted a contract um smaller cities and I've had conversations with other city managers and other County managers I've done the research on it um typically your overall person myself city manager they hire that individual theye that individual I understand why it was done this way I do because the grand jury um it's kind of like some other things we have in the city we've been burned right council's been burned they don't want to get burned again and we're not in pos position now to assume that risk to say okay we believe in that person to make the right decisions um but I do believe that um it needs to be one way the other in my opinion on the way I handle staff and how I work with that individual because sometimes get put in a tricky situation when the body has hired someone to do a job that I didn't have that formal decision- making in right and so that's my part on it the reporting um I kind of go back to a city Charter meeting we had back in late 2022 I believe um you know we had some discussion about that staff if if the manager is not doing what they're supposed to do staff should have the ability to go to the council directly or to the mayor that's the reason for the co-exec give my opinion and so um I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't Express that with you the person who's here day today doing the job doing what you've asked ask me to do um again if City fails I fail and it's my responsibility to ensure that individual that position is successful it's not really y'all's responsibility in my opinion so yes sir I I'll go back to one other time where it would almost would it made more sense to have it a deputy city manager though or an assistant rather than a deputy's chief financial let's hold let's vote on the current motion and then let's get to her topic that because we're way outside of the agenda when we get into that discussion so I want us to keep that confined if we can please all right any public comment on the motion please state your name for the record sir Danny Coen defunc Springs over a year ago we had a discussion about our finances and let me give you a little history Amy was actively pursued by the walk by the um Monroe County Sheriff he said our finances are in a mess we haven't had a good audit in years will you help us she gave them their first clean audit passed with flying colors how long did it take you to do that a little bit okay she fixed it she knows what she's doing the Monroe County Clerk of the Court was upside down she was elected by the people she fixed it she's got a track record of fixing this she knows what she's doing the people of defc Springs know her track record and her resume and they elected her to fix this now each and every one of y'all have certain skills that are valuable to this city and she knows finances um um if we've got an opportunity to put our city to put our city finance department bring it into the 21st century um and you you're going to do redo the ordinance let's instead of Reinventing the wheel let's just take Walton County as an example Melissa Thompson she's got a CPA and it takes a 41 super majority to get rid of her she's got some security there and she's got the skill sets now a CPA does not necessarily have a higher IQ than an accountant they've got more training they've got more skill sets so if you want to really improve things let's do what the rest of the county government's doing and put a CPA in there that's got the best training and can get us a good clean audit every year [Music] so this this right here is is an important moment you can amend the motion to say let's put in the ordinance of CPA and get on track with everybody else that is in the ordinance Mr Co to be to have a preferred it's preferred a Certified Public Accounts preferred the way it's written so anyone who applies that CPA standards is given preference over anyone without should it be required that's up to this Council and I think that's what councilwoman Evelyn's bringing back but I think what she's bringing back if I understood correctly is going to be even more detailed than just a CPA it's going to provide a much more detailed analysis of what government accounting experience that person would need thank you it would be um okay because like a CPA doctors some specialize in OBGYN some specialize in Orthopedics this CPA that to me a preferred uh preferred is okay if they have the eight years of go Florida government experience in that role where they could demonstrate so I think we I think what I'm hearing is we're going to work on the language and and we'll and and our ordinance already does call for 41 vote by law the county does not have an ordinance on that effect Miss Thomason got a contract that says it but she's the first one that's ever had that and our ordinance is only required and I don't know if you know this or not Todd but do you know of the other County agencies uh that have predominantly CPAs in as the head of their finance department or do you what was the question the other County agencies that have uh CPAs as their Finance director I know most of the ones here do like I know the clerks is a CPA I know the counties as a CPA I know the uh um uh School boards okay I actually I don't know that the school boards is anymore used to be but she retired and the two prior used to be so so this is an opportunity to raise our bar and I'm enjoying this discussion and it looks like you're heading in that direction so um there's a lot of things that Amy brings to the table and if we don't listen to her it's shame on us thank you any other public comment you will set your name for the record my name is Melinda Henderson I'm a citizen I confess to some ignorance about the organizational chart and to make these kind of decisions I might need to know that or to even think about it logically who writes the evaluation for the city manager Council counil who the city council okay who writes the evaluation for the finance director over the past 10 years years it's been a variety of things but the city council has been given the opportunity to many times and I know a city manager in the past has also provided one at times I'm not sure how Mr Townson has chosen to do it in his limited tenure yet okay um is that that a fair recitation to there but the council usually does have the opportunity to provide that evaluation unfortunately not every council member chosen then on the organizational chart the city manager and the finance director would be the same line which like he says makes it difficult for him to have um the right kind of input to that position in terms of supervision or suggestions or anything else so I guess I'm leaning towards I would say this Miss Henderson he has HR responsibility over that position but in terms of the overall financial reporting responsibility that is what shares to the council kind of confused thank you any other public comment will say your name for the record good afternoon uh I'm Matt Carpenter c r p n t r um I'm speaking today as a resident of the city of defunc Springs um and as a former councilman uh during the uh grand jury investigation that we were discussing I don't know that anybody else was here during that time other than Mr ainson um but I remember it very clearly uh and also remember the response we gave to the state in um um related to that uh those recommendations and we essentially said we're going to adopt those recommendations because they are the the right thing to do uh I also learned the difference uh during that between Mal feasance and misfeasance uh and the difference for a public official is if it's misfeasance you did something wrong and you didn't know it when you did it but Malou feance is you did something wrong and you knew you were doing something wrong when you did it intent intent now this city has told the state uh that we intend to separate uh the supervision of the finance director and the city manager uh to maintain a certain amount of internal control uh a separation of those responsibilities uh and I'm here to speak in support of that that's what we told the state after the grand jury investigation it was the right thing to do and I set through all of those proceedings um but this is the right thing to do and it has nothing to do with who's sitting in the seat today it's one of those things that helps keep people honest this Council needs uh independent information from the finance director about the finances uh that doesn't disparage the city manager at all the city manager is responsible for managing this business with the assistance of the finance director uh who's making producing the records uh that the city manager needs to make the right decisions and the records that this Council needs to make the policy decisions that come before it um but I am 100% in support of having the finance director report directly to the city council uh just like the city manager has nothing to do with who's sitting in these chairs it has everything to do with internal control uh is consistent with uh that grand jury investigation report and what we told the state in response to that uh so that's my position thank you thank you any other public comment yes ma'am I just want to add something you know what's so difficult about for me in that role because I'm going to cringe when if I if Kobe cannot if if I should not be daytoday and I need that Finance director to recognize look you're not fulfilling your responsibilities because I need some financial data and I have none for the last 14 months and if I can't hold that role responsible guess who I'm going to hold responsible I'm gonna whoever sitting in that chair of the city manager I'm gonna have to hold them responsible because I need data on a monthly basis I need to know that the reconciliations are done and that I can rely on the information that's being provided through the financial system for 14 months I've not been able to do that and I know right now they're still with Danielle's help working to clean up what we need so that we can get the information to make these decisions so it just it's a conflict for me for how does the city how do we the five up here not being involved in the day-to-day operation hold that person accountable that we're hiring and expecting hey provide me with all of these items my recommendation to the council will be right here at a public meeting and I think that's one which to me that's what I'm saying I don't want to discipline somebody in front of the entire world when it comes to look you supposed to give us some uh upto-date check register I asked 14 months ago to have it include wire transfers I've never rece you know it's just it's an embarrassment that is the hard part that's a professional C but I will say this that's also part of the problem that was addressed when the city council was reprimanded quite harshly by the grand jury about their inaction on certain issues one of the defenses that apparently was raised when individuals were spended before that grand jury was well we didn't hear about it and they said well the finance director sitting right there within the meeting why didn't you ask why I didn't think to well you knew the audit was due why didn't you ask about the audit didn't think to and that was one of those issues because they said well we we talked to the manager and he said he had it under control the manager didn't have it under control well your Finance director is your Finance director why didn't you ask them I didn't think to we got no pass there and so I would say that's one of the reasons that's been looked at it is I will say this councilwoman I appreciate and I'm I'm sure Mr Townson and Danielle and who's sat in these positions certainly appreciate the fact that you you don't want to call someone out but unfortunately that anybody who's taking one of these positions knows that's what comes to the job when you sit in these seats with you and we saw what happens to the finance director who doesn't like that being chastised in public they leave and take a job on this in a different area counc Val um again I understand if someone can't take it they're not going to last as any Finance director but mean when we ask for things we expect to get it um and it sometimes it's big things sometimes just little things but there's plenty of just silly little day-to-day stuff if I'm not getting an answer if I'm not seeing movement you're going to see it on an agenda usually it's enough to get what I need done um and then when it's not you know it stays on the agenda and we talk about it I'm okay with whatever we decide as a council but I'm telling you right now for 14 months so that means Kobe and Danielle then for the from this day forward I'm going to expect exactly what I'm supposed to have and I'm sorry about the deadlines that you might have elsewhere or whatever and and to me I just think that sounds harsh you know what I mean because I know what you're faced with I know what it's taken the challenges that they're faced with with doing all these other things that are also important but to me everything surrounds that under our form of government as approved in the revised Charter what you just just described is exactly the role that city council is expected to play that's and what that's what the public voted in when and one of the grand jury a whole section of that grand jury report was organization of the government and very seriously put a new Charter into place updated adopted that's what the public did was the public created that situation where the council would have that Authority on these meetings into to overse the city from policy and in a different capacity than just sitting back and leg yes ma'am no okay I'm ready to V okay yes sir just for clarification if if the city manager asks the finance director for a report of some sort that you you have to have to make your decisions every week and he doesn't get those reports he city manager down the road in the future years Som now whatever when they don't get him he's handcuffed to do his job what is his recourse to get a finance director to give him those reports in a timely manner so I I would say what you described and and I'm reluctant to say it is in subordination only because there could be a scenario where it is not right but I would venture to say 80% of the time what you described I need this report in this amount of time to do my job and the finance director just blows him off that's in subordination we have Personnel policies that deal with insubordination in the chain of command if a finance director fails to do their job fails to provide the the city manager what is required fails to provide the council the our ordinance as it was amended in 2018 as part of that grand jury model says that city manager has the authority under our Personnel policies and adopted policies to discipline go all the way up to suspension and include uding termination of the City Finance director for failing to comply but it has to be with policy it can't be you know I just don't like the way you do your job well what have I done wrong you haven't done it the way I want you to do it well that's not good enough it's got to be what have you done it's got to be sustainable but let's say it comes down to I ask for a report and I want that report by the end of the day every single day and the finance director says no human being alive is going to produce that report in eight hours I'm sorry Mr CM manager I don't I don't know why you keep asking for it every single day but it takes a week to generate too bad that's in subordination I'm firing you that's where the finance director does have the recourse that's been to come back to the city council and say I did what I was I mean is that not good enough and let the council decide do they want to rehire the person tell the manager manager if that's how you're running the city we're not happy with you but it allows the council to Arbiter between that the role of each party there is going to be very different you want to protect both from one another I want to be very clear you want to protect the finance director from a city manager that comes in says I need you to do this or I expect you to do this or I want this contract to go to this person I need you to stamp your name under it's a soul Source contract whether you like it or not Finance director says well I better do it or I'm getting fired that's a problem the way our policies would work but there's another side of that and I do want to put that on for Mr the finance director comes in here and says look see manager violated the policy they split this contract in two amounts to get under their purchasing policy they violated the aggregate Rule and I called him aha well I can tell you I've probably not dealt with a local government administrator that is not inquired on multiple occasion how we Define the aggregate Rule and their spending Authority every single one I've ever worked with has had that question the good ones have that question quite a bit to make sure they're not screwing it up the bad ones ask after they've already done it say that wasn't a problem was it and I had one actually think they could get right on their spending Authority by spending $200,000 in 20 blocks not how it works that that was a horrible misstep they' already done it by that point um 20 literally that many personage isue not here in this city thankfully not here in this city that would have been in the grand jur but my point would be a finance director could bring that forward on the city manager and try to throw that on his lap to you as the counil or to the mayor and if it's a direct report scenario they're going to have to do that because the only person above the manager is the council as it is right now director's job is to stop and say Mr Townson you can't do that well I want to too bad I can't but if you don't do that the only recourse the finance director has is to show up at that Podium and say Council I've been trying to address this but everybody's going to jail if y'all don't start paying attention to me and I've sat in a city council meeting where I was not the attorney but I was there for something else and I watch the finance director come up and say you and you are doing things wrong but here's what you're doing wrong and lay it out made for a terrible evening for me who was only there to ask for a five minute item but but my point I tell all of you that is job description job description job description and this next item we're going to take up as part of the grand jury report too adequate Staffing figure out what your Staffing is they specifically said that make the job description what you want Define the roles and responsibilities and we can address everything you're talking about in our policies and and that's that's why I brought that up it brings us full circle to what council woman heav is saying about the qualifications tighten this stuff up because when he ask for something from the finance director she's still in the middle trying to C 18 months behind you know so whatever staff we have to have to make the finance department operate whatever funding we have to have to pay somebody that's qualified to do the job we'd write that description the way it needs to be to run efficiently that way Finance director can do their job city manager can do their job city council people can do their job and and we're all working together and I mean that's I think we're we're we're headed in the right direction here it's it's it's difficult but um if we do it right we'll be successful I'm telling you I will guarantee I'm concern about the CPA requirement and the money that might cost because I don't think our salary R is going to cover that excuse me time oh go ahead um I'll say this and then we'll vote Yes um I don't necessarily ascribe to the um the the logic of you know having a professional in that position having difficulty serving multiple bosses um and I say that for a couple of different reasons number one just purely if they're a professional they'll understand how to how to perform time management and job management and delegation of resources and whether that's Personnel Resources or or otherwise to get the job done number two it's been my experience we we heard from someone that referenced experience but it's been my experience that this this style of management of reporting structure is not out of the ordinary I've seen it I've seen it done many many different ways as someone that's in it for my 25 plus years A lot of times where I end up reporting to tends to be towards the top so I get to see that or chart from Bel you know from the middle and below and above um this this style in this Arrangement where you you have someone that is maybe governing you from a day-to-day but then you've got a do dotted line to someone else or to other another group when it comes to a certain function within your job that's not out the ordinary so again I I fall back to if if they're truly a consument professional they'll be able to manage that again we go to the Charter and we look at the charter and the charter clearly defines our role as a council and how do we interact with them and deal with them on a daily basis and the councilman Valley's point if the finance director or the city manager manager is not doing their job you'll more than likely start to see agenda items pop up about hey what's the status on this why am I not getting my information which can then turn around and lead into hey you didn't perform correctly and and ultimately it then results in either a less than Stellar review or could could result in something further from that so can I just say one last thing to follow up with that yes ma'am I was the finance director for the county of Walton and I had Larry Jones telling me to do something standy telling me doing something different and Dei to do something different and then all of a sudden I got the mayor Mr Bill Chapman come into my office and want something completely different than where those guys were headed I'm a strong individual I'm a professional I handled it okay but I'm telling you it is it it's very you're torn because you got you I know who had the highest Authority but it's like okay but I got to work with this one and this one and anyway it didn't turn out as great as I would have liked it so with that being said it's difficult it's a it's it's an invisible difficulty that that person whoever's going to sit there is gonna have to face it is a challenge for them so all right all those in favor say I I right I I I all right motion carries to your second issue if you do want to take it get up and talk about Staffing if we're going to do it at this time because we'll at least treat it we can't advertise the position but if you want to instruct us to bring back a job description for a new position and look at how it would be funded now be we could at least do that much tonight I I'd like to propose that we Implement an assistant Finance director's position for the role because I I believe that we need to invest in that division back in January when we changed allowed the new finan the previous former now Finance director to revamp I said I I said then I don't think it's going to work it's not going to lead to success I all I want is success for these people because that's going to make the city successful which makes us successful I I I I hope that you will consider uh the proposal to add that that position uh it will also strengthen uh the role of what the director does right now your director I don't know if anybody's aware of this but that Finance director is doing some tasks like reconciliation things that they shouldn't be doing that that people below that level should be doing because this person to me needs to be doing the management the analysis the the financial prep the giving us the report doing analyticals um and they can't do it all they can't do the actual skill set itself plus do all this analysis that we need as a whole to be successful I make the proposal you want to make it as a motion yes okay have a motion that as a motion okay I have a motion do I have a second I'll second for discussion okay have a second go ahead for the the current the current Finance structure from top to bottom um how many how many supervisors do we have in between the finance man or the the finance director at the current moment you get a finance director and utility supervisor and then that's it you don't have any other director or supervisory roles wasn't there a accounts payable supervisor no so you have um So within Utility Billing of Finance the utility billing supervisor you have that person's assistant you have two front desk ladies it's four till supervisor report correct to the finance director you got the grants coordinator the finance assistant and accountant and it accounts payable and payroll that report directly to the finance director is that correct so you got five direct reports to your Finance director and technically I mean the utility billing employees do as well but they do have that supervisor for that day-to-day interaction and that day-to-day is constant Interruption so your Finance director who's also doing that it's got all that supervisory got to do all the evals got to do and there's no time to really do what they need to do for us I I guess what I was looking at was maybe and I I understand the assistant Finance director but why not a finance manager underneath the director same kind of deal whatever you want all I'm suggesting it has to be one level below the finance director and they've got to have be able to supervise that she should have one direct report and she should be doing everything for us the finance director position the next thing for me would be the timing so we're still in the uh right now we're in the advertisement role for the Finance director and we're also at budget time as well and we going be at your end and very soon I agree with you that that the needs there to have that middle that middle manager in between Finance director so that there are a buffer between everything that's going on my question is just this this something that should be a budget something to come up for Budget at this point and to go ahead and put it in there to allow the finance director come in get settled to and then let that person have direct input on the hire or need how they want to structure it at that point I like that but we did that once when I first came on board and I just want to just and I'll throw it out there I'll give it to Kobe and then y'all and then he can distribute it amongst all of us but I know there's a successful way to implement this so that that new Finance director when they come they could just come and start b day one running they don't have to stop and say oh I got to understand how the structure works oh I got to understand this or that I would be more than happy to give a couple different plans that will be successful for that person but I think it needs to be established before they even get here to be honest with you and that's just been my personal experience in that role for 20 some years if that's what she's going to do there's no motion needed tonight she can give back to Kobe let him distribute that and we can bring it back up at the next council meeting when I've all had a chance to look at it so let me let me just say that I Council I I I hear what you're saying and I I I believe that there is Merit to what you're what you're saying and what you're asking uh as someone that works for an entity that has 14,000 employees globally I also understand bureaucracy and managers of managers of managers and experience on a daily basis you know one manager interpreting another manager's uh Direction on something completely different then when I go talk to that the boss's boss all of a sudden they're like why why are you doing it that way that's that's not what I said so I have my concerns about fostering some of that right if if we get too many middle managers you know do we have enough people my concern is do we have enough people actually doing the work that needs to be done whether it's addressing audits whether it's meeting certain reporting deadlines that's what I'm mainly concerned about I I I tend to want to take a lighter touch to this and authorize additional position within the finance department whether it's addition like I've had a conversation with with Kobe recently about you know do we need additional accountants versus do we need a manager or middle manager now I don't disagree that having five and six direct reports to the finance director pulls them away from being able to provide the reporting to us that we desperately need I don't disagree with that but I'm I'm just wondering what what's the best way to navigate this in terms of not creating management positions just for the sake of creating a management position but are we enabling them to have the ability and the manpower to get the things done that they need to get done yes ma'am our constant failure speaks for itself so for example if I'm telling you and I know that you all haven't gotten it because our for 14 months we've never had a financial report that we can rely on our audit speaks for itself we were missing cash the the Auditors came right to the podium when they said look I disagree with that I disag $300,000 we just couldn't figure out where it went I disagree with that because I specifically asked them about cash and they said that there was no cash missing speak up Dan please so a couple of things I mean I've only been here six months but I've made a lot of progress and cleaning up a lot of your problems with your books I think you could speak to the Auditors and and and get a little bit of that I was the one balancing the bank statements and I didn't I was not aware she was not providing you Financial reports I am a former finance officer I am providing that knowledge it just didn't get the last one to want to pick up on on the things I know I am a very capable employee I've got 28 years of experience doing government work at State City and County government levels so I I I have a vast knowledge I'm I'm taking a little offense that that you you feel like we're failing in finance when that's not Cas take that don't please don't interpret it that way you weren't here 14 months ago so what I'm saying is I've been here for 14 months the the one of the whether it's the job description or the ordinance say I will be provided every single month the first month of the uh the first meeting of every month I will receive I've never received you get it in July okay so I'm not saying what I'm trying to do is help whoever takes that role strengthen that team because that team with its success will then impact the city manager success which ultimately impacts the city council's success which that means the Public's successful you know they've got a government they can r on and so please don't take what we're sharing with because you weren't here that many months ago but I'm here now and don't discount the knowledge that I brought to your Finance listen I and and if I have not commended y all thank you because I tell Kobe this every time I come up there I've gotten more in the last few months than I've ever gotten uh prior so thank you for and and I would encourage you when the time comes to please consider applying for the finance director's role Council MERS I'd like for her to finish the rest of her statement I would like to hear about the failures Miss money anything there was no missing money I would like to hear it was mis posted you hired you hired firms to come in that are auditing firms and they were pretty much just they thought they were reconciling bank statements they were actually making general ledger entries because those were not your cash was not being received as it comes in I'm still working on fixing that process um some of your dispersements were not being placed on the general ledger as they were made those were all being done while they were reconciling bank statements and I've been trying to to to stop that from happening we have an employee that can pick up some of those duties and at least receipt the cash um they just pluged stuff wherever they didn't follow the fund accounting guidelines say that you're talking about I'm talking about Thomas Howell Ferguson and even cargs um which I think the world cargs I've not worked with Thomas H Ferguson in the past um but that's not what they do day to day they're typically an auditor they're not the government bookkeeper and so a lot of that happened from those firms that you chose and because former Finance director didn't know how to do that I have stepped in there I do know how to account for your money it's it takes time to make changes to the organizational processes and you know Kobe and I have had discussions about things we need to do to make things better I I just want you to know that you're not just floating in the sea I mean you you do have competent staff that can that facilitate your finance office I I would just like to add to that that I I agree we we're not just floating in the sea and and our books just aren't you know in the wind at this point do do I I agree Council councilwoman heavin because one of the first things that I started asking I I I found that same thing in the in the ordinance talking about a monthly Finance report that should be presented to us and I specifically remember going to uh city manager mail at the time and saying I want this presented and if it doesn't get presented it's going to come up on an agenda item until it gets presented and at that time they started getting presented and then unfortunately through turnover at the finance director level as well as the city manager uh that unfortunately was not continued but I I do believe that our books are where they are I don't I'm I'm not questioning our books I don't think we have as I remember the person coming up to that Podium right there and I specifically asked them was any money missing and I was specifically told what I'm they they specifically answered no no money was missing now what I've heard for at least four out of the five years that I've been a council member is that during the process throughout the year some money would come in for the airport and one person would say Well it needs to be booked here and then another person would say no it needs to be booked here and then the auditing firm would come in at the end of the year and say Noe needs to be booked over there I've heard that year after year after year I don't necessarily believe believe that that is an indication that there's 300,000 or more missing at anybody's account that is that is simply someone saying it should go here no it should go here I mean I if I remember from the last auditing report the uh the auditing firm was insisting that we classify some of the property out there at the airport as real property well that wasn't the case we hadn't purchased any real property through that particular Florida grant program that they were referring to we were building a terminal but we weren't receiving it under that particular line item so to me those are minor disagreements of of opinion that occur every single year um again I go back to are we doing the right thing by saying hey you will have a finance manager a finance supervisor versus here's an X number of positions and we expect these deadlines to be met do you if you should have adequate manpower to accomplish this to me that's the thing and and let me be clear about that for at least three out of the five years that I've been here I have sat at this diets and said do we have adequate adequate Manpower within the finance department and I we had professionals stand at that Podium and say no you don't but I also remember this Council saying okay we're authorized additional positions and then it was a failure of the finance director the former Finance directors plural and the former city managers to not fill those positions it wasn't until the previous city manager came in here that we got fully staffed even though there were authorized positions they were not filled so I I take a little bit a little bit of umbrage with the implication that this Council has been sitting on its Laurels and not really taking care of of the issue issues I think oh go ahead because it's not our duty to do that is it is that City manager's position to fill those roles and to take the direction of the council and it that's I think that's the one big misperception that I hear a lot throughout the community is a lot of people think that it's council's business to run the daytoday throughout the city and it's not it's it's our position to brief the city manager on what we're hearing the tell him what we'd like to see done and then to come together as a collective and say this is what we want done and um and back in what councilwoman Hein said I don't want to come up here at a council meeting and directly bash the finance department or any other department but what I do throughout the week is if I've got a concern with something I call Kobe and I say hey Kobe can you tell me what I'm missing here because this is one thing that I'm not seeing and you won't hear me bring those things up here if that needs been addressed during that time and the same thing with public concern if if it's something that he can take care of whether it's Kobe today or if it was Mr Barker a few months ago it was hey we need to get these things fixed because people are talking about it and can you do it under your current Authority or does this something needs to be brought back before us on the council and then let's do it and limit the liabilities and the negativity that can come out in these open meetings because we want the city to shine in a positive light for the public let them know that we're confident to do the job that we've been sent here to do and that it's being done and if they look around and see all these things being taken care of then we're fulfilling our duties and um I think that there there are ways to do it meet exactly what you were saying but it's just done in private not out here yes ma'am and and that's what I'm saying it's torture I don't ever want to have to like like I don't want a finance director sitting there and thinking I was talking smack just now because like she wasn't even here but all I'm saying is I'm sharing I'm attempting to provide everybody here with my 20 years plus experience as a finance director so I'm sharing I want to share a road mapap for success for us to consider that's all I'm saying there are certainly some very significant red flags by the timeliness or untimeliness of our audits untimeliness of our reporting um we we still don't have current information um we're not we're not going to meet our current deadline which is June 30th we've already recognized we're our financials aren't going to be prepared till or ready for to turn into the state till sometime mid August according to uh our last council meeting we certainly have weaknesses and significant deficiencies that have been noted in the financial statements that we they have to be cleaned up they're going to be carried forward so that's all I'm saying I just want to share that I believe and my professional opinion that a second person under underneath the finance director regardless of what we call them whether it's a Financial Coordinator something so that that Finance director can concentrate on reporting what the council needs I would like to see as a council person the financial statements every single month so I've got a general idea of where we are at any given time uh budget to actual not just I know we have 45 million but how much of that have we collected do we have a cash Cas flow problem do we have the money to spend on this emergency that we are faced with now so it is what it is I'm gonna allow it to I just got one last comment and I'll hush is I think that they've done an excellent job cleaning things up but the deadlines on the audit I think that they've come Leaps and Bounds from the year previous I think that it's just a compounded effect of that last audit getting turned in so that they could clean the book there to meet the the where we start this year and then and getting all that cleaned up and finished so I think that they're I think they're doing a better a good job this year compared to last year and they'll do better next year can I get a set of reliable Financial numbers as to where we stand at the end of May 31st yes I'll give it to you by the a budget to comparison actuals that would be wonderful thank you yeah I I I do recall receiving those U but again once once uh the finance instor left Deborah left uh th those ceased and I periodically would ask the the whoever was the city manager at that time because we've had a couple since then about them and I would periodically get one and then it would stop and that you know they were focusing on the audit and all of that so my impression whenever I asked for them was they were produced and and it would I would see the year-to-date figures for all of it anytime I ask so I think it's a matter of of asking for them we have can you put them on the can we get them every month like we're supposed to yes sir so two quick things one um the reports when I took over that was something that need to be done as an ordinance um we can do that basic to date that's not what I mean by finish report I mean the detailed report you can see grassing charts and you can see the numbers but we can do that basic information I had not tasked miss m McDaniels with that because I've been in that role I've been where you take over two or three jobs one time Time Stretch then so that's why I had pursued that with her meet with her regularly we go over this stuff I'm aware of what she's doing she's aware of what I'm doing so that's why I haven't pushed that with her at this moment because her time is th um but in terms of being actual spoke with her today we it we're gonna create it to where the council has the ability to see see the accounts eventually we'll move into where the public can do that a lot of governments have got to that point and I think should be at and so you're all going to get that access here relatively soon you have that read only so you'll be able to see that real time information so those are two things yeah assuming we were caught up with everything for the time that you've been here do what what need do you see in the department as far as Personnel I don't I I don't know what levels of who does what or or whatever and what kind of expertise is needed in finance department but do you see an additional person needed not you had your Finance director back no sir I do not see the need for to where we are you think that that person can yes can based on what I bring to the table which is almost a junior Finance direct and if you if you left tomorrow Danielle for whatever reason would the finance divisions be in need of it take yourself out of the role of St staff accountant for a second if we didn't have a strong staff accountant and we only had the finance director and we didn't add this position my question would be would they be able to stay afloat and continue to go above and beyond for what the council needed that's a good question and I can't speak the problem that don't even make sense we we we fire someone don't have I mean yes no it doesn't work I mean we have to have qualified people like Danielle in place so I mean no if we we lost her yest we what we're saying is we're very lucky so if Danielle got promoted right now let's say I would pray that Danielle would want to be promoted to finance director she gonna have to have a strong accountant to support what she's got well we're gonna have to go fishing for that person you know looking for that person and look how long it took us for uh the finance director to hire uh her role you know that was advertised and approved for how many months before we actually found Danielle to fulfill that role that's all I'm saying I think I think you lack one one person and the whole thing goes the foundation's not there I want the foundation that's the downside of a small organization like ourselves we're not we're not Jacksonville we're not Pensacola we don't have a staff on accountants I've worked in firms that had more accountants taking care of my projects and we have in the entire city it's a it's a beautiful luxury um but that's not the reality of the financial my professional opinion I just don't want to see us fall backwards to where we are now because right now we're struggling since 17 we have been struggling to ever get back to a per you know a clean audit and and to stay there and to report and and that's the statements speak for themselves I'm not gonna I I would I would disagree with the fact that it's been since 2017 in my in my tenure we have had several several years of audits that came back with no major findings were they perfectly clean no that's why we pay an auditing firm they're going to find something they always find something but in terms of money missing or major major findings I believe the first time that we had a major finding in my tenure was the year after Deborah left and it was a major finding because she was failing to make a timely record of the I believe it was the FRS entries but again we're not talking about missing money we're talking about the timely entry of a money of of an entry that came from the state of Florida and the auditor's decision as to when that entry should be made we're not talking again about nefarious activity or the misappropriation of funds and you know illegal use of funds I've never used those words so I don't want you to put those in my mouth but no no 12 of Prior period adjustments if you look for the past 10 years note 12 alone speaks for itself so I don't want to go back down that I request that we not speak over each other let's return order of the chair please all right we have a motion and second on the table for we actually don't unless she made I made a motion she made a motion and he seconded or Josh seconded for discussion sake so we have a motion and a second for uh directing staff to have an assistant Finance director does the motion and second still sand do we want to vote on it no we were we also discussed that we could just Kobe could just bring that forward right I think she said she get Kobe the information she needed for the position so because it wasn't clear whether they were calling an assistant Finance director of finance manager I believe C said she just get it to Kobe and let him bring it back so has the motion been withdrawn I I withdraw a second so the second has been withdrawn the C's just going to bring it forward but you know again that could also be looked at in terms of Need for position or recommendation for needs to the position of any type in finance correct okay there's a motion is there a second motion fa there noqu it's been removed so all right we will move on to I don't want reply something clay since you want Council decide to look at the ordinance and change it do we need to close the job application until that time they approve the ordinance that's to the council I would recommend you do it because if you're a change of the ordinance you don't want applicants coming in the old qualifications if council's identified that its current application and it job description is inadequate that would be my recommendation but it does not hurt you if you're seriously willing to consider applicants under your existing job description and ordinance if that's the case then keep it open my my personal opinion is that we leave it open we might find someone that finally applies that has that governmental experience in the time that we're revising the job description and what I've been advised before has been that we we at any point in time can revise the job description and that doesn't necessarily affect anybody that's in the hopper has an application in they'll be they'll be they'll be advised that we have revised it but yes sir so my only question if if I may ask Council yes sir um or counselor sorry uh clay if if we reject someone that meets all the current qualifications are we exposing ourselves to litigation as long as you have a legitimate race neutral non-discriminatory reason and you don't violate any other federal law or hiring practice in the process you're perfectly fine if if the only reason is that we're raising the standard and we haven't raised it yet are we protected assuming you do assuming you do not raise the standards to include something unlawful if your reason for that is I want more qualified candidate you can reject every single candidate that comes for you as many times as you want just because they meet minimum qualifications does not entitled someone to be hired okay thank you that's and they still have to get four votes the council so understand the majority vote does not hire this person so no I'm not concerned about the liability in that scenario i' keep it open all right everyone clear before we move on I I just want to say we've spent right at an hour discussing this particular topic uh these kind of conversations would play out day in the day out in a boardroom somewhere in America thousands of times as elected officials we have to do it in a public meeting in front of everybody and a YouTube stream and everything else so while these conversations aren't always easy and pleasant it's it's what is necessary for the business of the city and I appreciate everybody's input and you know I think I think we had some very productive conversations even though it hasn't been the most uh compelling conversation at times to to the people watching it's necessary so thank y'all for everything all right so we'll move on to 4d1 City Marshall Hurley for computer equipment lease good evening hopefully this be a little shorter and less entertaining but um so what we're looking at just kind of give you a background um when I came into office what five years ago close to that um our officers were not able to really do anything inside their vehicle as far as paperwork um they had to come back to the office to do reports and um still writing kind of paper tickets and doing stuff like that so um throughout the years we have received generous donations from other entities law enforcement entities on computers um some of their older equipment that could help us get to where we are today um unfortunately um computers that we're operating that are 10 to 12 years old are now kind of basically coming into life um we've tried to take every step to kind of milk them along as as we are but uh recently we went to a new records management system that was funded through a grant 100% which was a godsend to us and we are able to do all the reporting and everything we need to do from the field um what that means is more officers in our neighborhoods and not piled up at the office I'm doing paperwork and talking and and you know doing that kind of stuff so it's actually able to keep our officers on the road um on the administrative side we're able to see where our officers are um every time they're in their vehicle moving around anywhere in the United States not that they're going to be outside the city a whole lot but if they're going home if you know um the officers can actually see where each other is it allows us to dispat c um an officer who maybe not be next on the call rotation but they might be the block a block over um to do better response times and stuff so um we've looked at a couple options I I personally am not a fan of doing leases um I would rather buy the stuff outright um but we've looked at it I've talked to others that are in the uh in the field there uh the least option for us at the moment is probably the best option um we're looking at purchasing 19 um tough books and if you're not familiar where the tough book is it's basically a computer on steroids that apparently you can run over I had tried to run over any of ours but apparently they will with withstand it um so that will actually equip each officer um not necessarily Command Staff uh but each actual out in the field working doing the job um that ability to have a new laptop it will integrate well with our new computer records management system and CAD system um provide that safety and provide the data that we need um it'll allow us to really move forward with his agency so um like I said we've looked at buying outright versus lease um with this lease it's a four-year lease it does cost $1 1,564 a year for four years but at the end of that lease the computers come ours so we are basically getting them at the end of the lease um we've looked at some other companies other than Panasonic they didn't have the basically um Once the lease was over you turn them back in and you're starting to square one so I believe these computers will at least get us the ones we're currently using like I said are probably 12 years old maybe a little older they've lasted that long it's a good product um and I anticipate these to last just as long so um hopefully we'll get a good decade out of good use um I've had uh Lieutenant Richard black look at them and put the specs on them to ensure that they're not going to be obsolete next year that we are making sure we we get the uh proper components in them to last us um a good while I know um councilman scers has looked at it as long as Mr Beer bomb and uh as far as I know they concur with with the specs that they will will last um so that's what we're looking at so how are we going to fund it what we were looking at um you know when we last budget cycle um it was we'll buy you two vehicles auction off your other spare vehicles that you are and then we'll put that money towards Third vehicle um we did auction our vehicles off um two of them did not sell at this well they sold but the guy didn't pay for them so we're currently auctioning those off um so we should have around this year's amount based on those um the sale of those Vehicles if not we do have a little bit of money in our our current budget that we can offset it with if we need to um but even if we wanted to take that money and go after the vehicles now there's no vehicles available um our vehicle rep says that they're planning on building three uh late August so if they're building them starting in late August we want won't get them probably till next fiscal year anyway so it's kind of a wash so I I figured the best um use of this money is probably going to be laptops that will help our our field guys out tremendously too so um it is a four-year contract and with that you know it's going to take budgeting throughout the next four years so um it is over 10,000 a year so need council's approval on that yes sir so so cheap this is a lease with option to buy basically because in the four years you get the equipment and then um this is something you're going to put build into your budget request for next year's budget as well yes sir and then is there an out in the event that a new completely new Council comes on and says Chief we just won want to do it anymore or is that something how would you deal with it at that point I I don't know I would prer back to Clay on this one there's always an out if you ask an attorney yeah there are out Clauses built into this we can get if it's non-budgeted there's always standard non budgetary govern lease like said we we've reduced other things in our budgets like axon this year um it had been running 50,000 a year I told them to pack sand and they've reduced it down to 23,000 so far so we saved that money plus more already so I I'd like to offer to the the price on these tough books was cheaper than others that I've seen with better spes buil into them well and that that being said so in in each vehicle is what we call a docking station and if you're I don't want say illiterate but if you don't know what I'm speaking of it's it's actually part of the laptop stand where the computer sets down into it it Powers it up it hooks to your wireless internet it hooks everything and integrates it all together um we've already have those we either obtain those free from um other agencies that have given it to us or um found some for for very coste effective um if we were to go to a different computer brand we would have to buy all new docking stations which would be $600 to $1,000 per vehicle per computer on top of that so by staying with Panasonic we already have that infrastructure if you will in the vehicles it's already wired everything's ready to go um including at the office they can dock it right there the the desk in the office too if they need to take it inside to work further on something so um a lot of the ground workor is already there for Panasonic I make a motion to approve second all right we have a motion in a second any other conversation from the dice just a Qui question um service of maintenance is that part of the lease yes so that that was another benefit to it um maintenance if something happens it's it's covered under them and they'll um ship us a laner one in the meantime if they're fixing that one or just replace the unit so but like I said they're tough books apparently you can run them over but hopefully we won't have those issues all right any public comment yes sir state your name for the record Danny C defc Springs is this going to come out of the new budget that's coming up is this a budget item existing the existing the existing budget so the proceed the proceeds from the auction sale are to intended to cover this current year and then we will budget next fiscal year for the falling in every year after that any other public comment I'm Mark Hy F act Springs I think anything which helps our Police Department do their job well is very worth worthwhile and it sounds like great opportunity I'm glad we have we can do it thank you thank you any other public comment all right seeing none all those in favor say I I I I I I car thank you much thank you thank all right now we will go to E planning director Chris Wallace good evening thank you sir good evening several items here so be patient all right my first item is a request to initiate a proposed text Amendment as it relates to creating the new downtown business district and a request to initiate the resoning and map amendments for the properties located within the proposed District boundary this has been discussed at length with the code review Lane use committee um a couple months ago the city council initiated a comprehensive plan text Amendment to add this downtown business district to our comprehensive plan that was ultimately approved by the council and the state so now we're coming back to amend the Land Development code to actually create that District which includes the specifics of um what the requirements be for that District there's also a map included as part of your packet which shows the proposed boundary if that is approved tonight we will notify all the property owners have a public meeting to hear comments and then bring that back to the council uh for adoption at a later date so the new District uh in a nutshell is to maintain the traditional character of our downtown by removing some of the obstacles that currently exist which would prevent the development of property in our downtown uh um to develop in the same manner that it's developed over the last 100 years um which would remove the parking requirements uh storm water detention requirements so the city's making some concessions there but uh on the flip side in doing that we've added some design guidelines so that any new construction uh would imitate what is currently within the district to maintain a consistent look with our downtown so tonight I just need a motion to initiate the text Amendment initiate the map Amendment and then we'll go through the process of planning board and bringing it back to council I make a motion to move that forward second have a motion in a second I I do want to comment as this this has came out of the committee that councilman Valley and I are working on uh council members um I know that tonight would be technically the first night your SE this I mean councilman Valley and I have seen this over several meetings now um so if this is a I know you made a motion to move it forward but um looking at the particular document um I personally had a little bit of a different expectation for the document in in its uh final form to be presented tonight versus what I what I see so I completely understand if we want to look at this and maybe have some some revisions there's a couple of things in in the current document uh that reference a yard I mean technically there's no yards downtown in the downtown business district uh that's just one example so maybe I it's it's up to the council whether you're you're good with it as is or if we want to go back and and polish it up into a little more of a final form that's totally up to you I know like I said cman valy and I have seen this document we've we've probably read it more times than we care to count but I know tonight for three of you this is the first time you've seen it so yes ma'am I want to make some observations and ask some questions because I did when reading this so I looked at well first of all I guess right now there actually is no uh downtown business district this is going to create it uh and I see the four corners of the green that it's going to be but the language did raise some concern with me so um what I saw was a developer can avoid parking if they if this gets passed then what Mr Wallace just shared there's going to be a couple things that we're going to give up but to me these are critical for me so a de a developer will be able to avoid parking and that's already a challenge downtown for the existing businesses because here we are looking for parking lots you know I thought the CRA was going to they're getting ready to do a some kind of study to say where we can get more parking for downtown and I hear other businesses downtown that are saying this is a dilemma for us because we don't have enough parking um so that concerns me and the storm water retention uh also concerns me because we already have an issue uh with that um the new language is proposing no required setbacks for the side or rear of a property and only five foot in the front of a property then when it gets to the off street parking the language says is providing developers with additional parking on the public right of way when adequate space exists my question is within that green area um how many rways currently exist that the city has that they can give the developers this adequate space and what is adequate defined as well I would suggest that as SLO Avenue and chaen Avenue are developed there is plenty of room within that existing r way to add angled parking which would mirror what we have on Baldwin Avenue so there is adequate space within these areas and even on the side streets between 5ifth and 11th there is you give us the exact right ways that do exist would you send that to us uh in terms of the the widths well this says that the city's going to give the give up their RightWay of adquate space to a developer if they request it well we would not be giving up the rideway we would be allowing the developer to work with the city council to develop additional parking on our rideway but that could only be done with Council approval oh hold on it says the developer May obtain permission from the city to provide additional parking on the public RightWay when adequate space exists correct so my question is in that green out area what public rightaway currently exist where the city has space that that that that we could accommodate a request like that I want to know how many all of it East cha SL how many rways are in that all of it East chaad first second I'm sorry not seventh eth ninth uh 10th and 11th all of those have the same RightWay that the South End which is the Baldwin Avenue portion has at the moment and it would replicate if you executed it in the same fashion that was done um you would replicate the amount of parking that exists now uh in the Baldwin Area satisfying those businesses which was sufficient in historically when we were servicing to downtown and actually we have sufficient parking now the real concern is actually as we grow forward uh and continue to have more uh development if we go to multi stories in particular the reestablishment of parking sites uh in several locations will be necessary in other words this won't work until the CRA actually finishes their plan and that we actually implement the parking in other areas so there is a you know a little bit of a choke point there until we have those other areas established however um there is not currently a parking problem downtown we actually just had Lake Fest with thousands of people uh and the businesses were still functioning as they were intended to so um you may not park in front of the door to the business that you want to walk into but it's functioning as a historic downtown does and if you like your downtown and you like what it was and you like that history the important thing to understand is that it is currently illegal to build that in the city we cannot build our downtown and we cannot extend our downtown and I'll remind everyone that we used to be uh in a location where downtown did extend north of 90 everything that is over there actually was commercial structures they were wood structures because they hadn't burned down enough times to switch over to Brick and it was more expensive which is really the only reason that the brick uh the old Brickyard new Brickyard actually happen but uh it is the natural progression and the only thing that interrupted it historically was the widening of us990 and elimination of parking that actually used to happen all the way along 90 within that area we had uh trees on both sides of the road you look at old picture of city hall you'll see how beautiful sort of Oaks out front with people parallel and angle in parking on both sides of that so that is the traditional pattern that was there all this looks to do is to make it legal to do the things that we say we love that the community says they love um to do that you have to have on street parking and if you allow on-site parking uh you will not permit that character to develop you will end up with 331 so if we want to look like 331 uh and 90 West um and continue that into our downtown and have that be our new historic character uh we can continue as we are uh but otherwise change is needed and that change is to go to a traditional downtown streetcape which is what it was supposed to be and extend that northward uh again the storm water is done because you actually are going to manage your storm water in terms of uh Street side infrastructure and we do have swes horrible swes uh up in that area that need to be corrected I'm actually pursuing grants and opportunities through different organizations including USDA and some federal grants that actually might be possible in addition to working with the CRA uh to one first deal with the parking problem which is why they are proposing to do a parking study I will hope that they will pursue that and go forward with it um but that is a critical piece of making it work none of these things can happen without effort they all require uh some give and take but we really should be managing to storm water in these areas because they are not the kind of thing that you handle on site given that you're doing a full coverage uh you will require you know some curbing areas and my hope is that we like Crest View has now completed or is in the process of completing and actually will very soon complete uh redoing the Curbing and streetcape and parking all through the downtown again that's going to require grants and other uh and other you know budgeting mechanisms hopefully the CRA will be part of that reconnecting communities will be part of that the uh Lane elimination study that's being done on 90 will be part of that uh so again there's a lot of bits and pieces that are going to play into it but um this is a planning effort to push forward and to go forward sometimes you have to look backwards and draw on your history and this is uh simply an attempt to do that but it will take a lot of coordination and a lot of a lot of pieces uh in tand I I had another concern in question too which was it said any proposed parking shall only have access from the rear Alleyway and be located entirely on private property so if I buy one of these vacant lots that are for sale and I want to do something what does that really mean because how are my handicapped customers going to get around to at the front of my building if if I'm forcing them back here in the rear my property because to me it appears it's adding a problem not creating a solution actually that is exactly what we have on baldman at the moment we have handicap spots that are located along the street we usually have uh two at Each corner one on each side street is how that works out and those have ramps and curb cuts and uh those will need to be improved and and we should be improving those those provide access uh being at the corners you don't have to travel any further than half a block at any time the on-site parking component is what we have along Baldwin as well um for instance uh you know behind pea behind physical behind all those locations there are spots that parallel off the alley back to the individual um building uh so they have their own private parking so to speak that can be for residential use that could be for the business use but that is not required or intended as handicap although it perfectly is capable of handling it and that would be the responsibility of the building under but if I buy one of those orange residential lots they all have what does this mean for me they all have alleys and you have expanded your property rights to allow you to have greater coverage so but I have to put but this am I to understand this that my new business that's going on that vacant lot on the corner of sloon 8 is going to have to my my parking has to be in the rear of my building then have to be if you want private parking it will be accessed from the rear if you want to use the street parking maybe it's the way it's written maybe that's why it's unclear so maybe that could be more clear and concise I'm not sure but the other concern I had it says a developer can build residential uses above the first floor 23 du an acre doesn't say a gross acre like the rest of some of the other things that I'd seen but so when I compare the language most of this the pinks for for the public the pink and the dark pink I understand are C1 and C2 the oranges are the residential the blues the governments and then there's one mixed juice in that whole thing that little brown spot there uh partial um so basically when I looked at what could be in c1c2 compared to what's going to be allowed now in the downtown unit there's no difference the only difference is somebody can build on the second floor now the residential but the problem is there's no additional parking and most families that have most families when you look at articles have two car households even if it's just husband and wife they both usually work so that's just another observation that concerned me and then um the new residential units that could potentially be built upstairs of any of these new downtown business is the capacity limit how's that going to impact our capacity limit that's already a challenge and a concern for the city because to me again it appears it's going to add a problem to a different issue that we already are faced with um the other observation that I made was um in the language if you look at C1 C2 multi-us there's a list of what is prohibited in these areas but I noticed in the language of the new downtown Town we're not prohibiting anything we're not specifically saying hey this is prohibited like like is what's in the other things so for example a C1 C2 it is prohibited in those areas I know laundry was one of them because I kind of laughed at that uh so prohibited uses plant nurseries business uses used car lots fortune tellers cemeteries laundries those types of things but there's no prohibition under the new language so I think we should add that while it's discussed the nature of overlay District that's being done as opposed to develop code well to address the the the no listing of prohibited uses in a zoning ordinance it's uncommon to have a list of prohibited uses you have a table that lists these are your allowed uses if it's not listed under allowed it's technically prohibited we couldn't possibly list every single use that's not allowed in that District I'm just thinking we should be consistent I appreciate that's actually a huge problem with our current code councilwoman that we've talked about revising for many years the prohibited uses is a very Antiquated model that causes far more issues for the city year in and year out that it helps because people say well this is prohibited and I want to come one step over and it's not prohibited and we have to agree because we don't have the blanket ability it's either allowed or it isn't it's helpful to have it I mean we're always you're always going to be faced with those types of challenges just like we learn tonight in our other discussion but if somebody came in and asked to do a use that is not listed under the allowed uses I would say it's not allowed yes versus if you have list of prohibited uses they're going to say what's not listed is prohibited therefore I'm allowed to do just my observations and comments that's all I have any other discussion from the Das because we have a motion a second on the table to move this forward and uh when would the workshops be scheduled we we be coordinating on that yeah I would like to hold one we have a planning board meeting on August the 1st um we could either do it before that meeting and then have additional discussion in a more formal setting at the planning board meeting but maybe have an informal discussion prior to that meeting where people can pop in and out and then if they want to participate in the planning board's um actual meeting and be on the record they would be welcome to do that um I think it would be helpful for us to answer some of these questions ahead of time um rather than doing it in that formal setting um because we can probably alleviate a lot of their their fear Fe or concerns just by having a quick one-on-one and explaining exactly what it means and actually U having looked at something at U at the Matrix recently and at the building across the street this actually would help bring a lot of buildings into compliance based on what I'm seeing out there because we were building to this traditional Town model that we had and it was disrupted by economics and by physical changes to the landscape so um again this actually will help bring in some uh relief in terms of non conformities that are now non-conformities that would then become compliant and we actually we'd be taking some sites that actually don't have any parking because they are a traditional form and because of the on street parking we now be making them fully legal and we'd actually be enhancing access for accessibility uh one building in particular provides uh services to disabled clients but they have gravel just out in the median actually the parking legally not right away is what they're really doing or utilizing edge of our right away to Park which is not legal we accept it we allow it but again this helps solve the uh long time non-conformities and inaccessibility that we're dealing with again and also longterm what we'd like to see is improvements of storm water management which by bringing it all under the umbrella of the city's control would really help do that what right now we have some very what I consider dangerous uh storm management structures in place that we really need to we really need to change and if it's part of this development it actually would give us an opportunity to finance that through some federal grants and some other programs so again uh it's a it's a big opportunity it's a big move um but uh again the workshops will allow a a flushing out of comments and and questions yes ma'am the only other observation I'm not sure that I had mentioned it that kind of gave me pause was there's no setback except for five feet on one side the other sides have zero setback that scared me because what that made me think think of is okay it's potentially possible I can foresee where buildings are going to be you know there's going to be everybody's going to be buted up beside each other and that really uh concerned me so zero set back that's the intent yeah that the the downtown that we have for example if you look at my my building at 804 Baldwin you can go to the corner of my building and about six inches from the corner of my building there's a blue survey Dot that is the intent is to continue to preserve and allow that type of buildout to occur in our downtown that's what everybody in general loves about our downtown is all of those buildings the way that they're constructed close together without massive parking lots I agree with councilman Valley's statement earlier if you want a parking lot and you you need that dedicated parking Highway 331 and Highway 90 go to town on it that's that's where you can do that but within our down toown business district that this is outlining you're going to conform to what is already there this is this ordinance or this this modification to the code protects that it encourages more of that buildout um it it doesn't allow a developer to come in and necessarily abuse parking because to me we should get rid of parking regulations parking is the ultimate self-regulator if there's not enough parking spaces people will not go to that business or if that parking is in if that business is in demand people will find a way to park I always go to the example my wife loves wild Flyers uh shop in Fair Hope and I will literally drive her over there to Fair Hope Alabama and drop her off in front of the store and then go park three blocks down in a public parking lot and wait on her to finish her shopping because when you drive through far Hope Alabama it's it is a really really need experience that downtown is constructed very similar to ours they just are fortunate enough to have several more blocks of it in all directions that are developed a lot like Balwin Avenue is so this this amendment seeks to Foster that to to eventually get us to that sort of thing uh where we do have buildings that have apartments up top and retail on the bottom that that's that's what we want to see because that is a thriving healthy downtown when we opened our business business down there a little over 5 years ago downtown every day was a Monday and for those of you that know what I'm talking about on a Monday like today you can go downtown and it's practically a ghost town now it's better it's better now than it was five years ago five years ago almost every day it was empty and it is fantastic to see people downtown in the spots filled I generally disagree with the with the statement that we have a parking problem anybody that typically makes that statement is saying that because they want to attend a particular business and they want to be able to park directly in front of it and get out and walk into it if I go to Silver Sands if I go to Dustin Commons nine times out of 10 if not 10 times out of 10 I'm I'm parking at least a block away from wherever I'm going and then walking that distance so why not continue that type of model here in our our own downtown if you're trying to go to PL and that block is full go park down there in front of the the the theater or go park down there in front of fishers and you might want to stop in and check one of those places out while you're there that's that's the model that we're going for with this with this text Amendment this this adjustment so I'll I'll stand off my sobx now and gu sir yeah I I would uh Echo that and for example you as you were saying if I'm going to Walmart and I'm going to go buy milk which is all the way in the back and I park in a normal spot that I can get to I might as well just walk to my go to my office park at my office and walk to pear and get milk because it's about the same distance um so again parking uh problem is a is obviously it's a perception and and is it is a perception we have to address it and we're going to address it and we are addressing it we're actively addressing it in terms of current spots that we're looking in terms of expanding what's available because we've already got stuff that was parking because when we were popular we were parking everywhere we died it choked it went away we want it we love it we want it back so what are we doing basically archaeological digs to resuscitate the parking that we've given away so again we want to recoup what we had and part of that is on the north side of 90 and um if you love your history if you love your downtown this is the healthy progression of where it was and where it would have been had it not begun to atrophy um so again just trying to expand opportunities for our people folks want the right to develop more or to build more on the partiel or have more uses within a small area um you know I support that I I like the idea of having more property rights uh if you still want to have a house and you've already got a house on one of them you can just stay in what you got and just park from the back over time it will it just changes over time it just might take longer and there are natural transitions that happen from residential to these core areas uh these areas are great business incubators they're great for uh the community in terms of Business Development because it's very hard to develop uh it's very hard to just have enough money to go buy the kind of franchise that you got to go into in front of you know the wind Dixie or or or you know if we ever get a Publix or an Aldi or whatever if they build one of those you're not going to just find the regular mom and pop opening up you know any old store next door it's it's going to be probably a chain of one to 15 that I can probably name y'all can probably name off top of your heads you know what goes from you get the gingin 26 you get the the McDonald's out front or the Wendy's maybe and then you got the Publix and uh and then you got one site that's a bank it's the same model over and over again so those are all franchises what we're talking about is an area that builds on what the community can do what the community wants to see and again um expands opportunities uh but there will be things that we need to fix which we have to fix anyway this just gives it Direction and purpose there's lot plenty of things that we have to fix and this is part of that fix because now we can actually bring another grant money to help deal with it all right any other comments from the dice any public comment yes sir if you will state your name for the record thank you um mayor protim and Commissioners or Council persons Matt Carpenter for the planning department at Walton County uh C pen t uh tonight I'm here representing Walton County government uh we have a number of properties that are within this proposed downtown business district um and uh I am authorized to uh give my full support to this um one of the things that um some of us may remember the night I met you on Circle Drive uh we were going to watch uh a lecture from uh the strong Town's um uh author Chuck at the sh talk with theater um and one of the things that he um tried to impress Upon Us was the value per acre of your downtown uh and if you certainly if you've looked at any of the graphs produced by the County's planning consultant um with regard to value per acre uh we got some tremendous spikes uh and that kind of graph in South Walton you know where the next big spike is it's right down here right down Bowen Avenue from a tax revenue standpoint the most valuable land in the city of the PAC Springs is right right downtown and as commissioner Valley said earlier we can't recreate that if we wanted to under the present code but that absolutely is more valuable per acre than Walmart makes some people's head explod um I mean who would have thought that that stuff is more valuable per acre from a tax revenue standpoint in Walmart that's the most valuable part of our city why aren't we recreating that and expanding that I think the market would support it the market is certainly supporting what's going on downtown right now uh there's a perception that I can't park where I would like to park um and we're calling that a parking problem but that is actually a revenue driver for the city of defunc Springs and for all of those businesses is down there here's my experience from a planning uh standpoint a restaurant that has as much parking as you think it needs will have a vacant parking lot and you won't go to that restaurant as you're driving by on an Impulse because well there's only a few people there that food must not be very good and that restaurant that doesn't have a single space in front of it um the anotation is that food is great there's scarcity of product there and there I should want that because there's not very much of it and everybody else wants that uh that's exactly what we have downtown um did the county look at these proposed rules and say oh wow we're getting rid of uh parking on street um we're not going to be able to park we're not going to be able to have storm water that's not what this says what this says is we're going to do it in a manner consistent with what was already built downtown and if we want that to be bigger and if we want that kind of development uh that used to exist um a hundred years ago on the other side of Highway 90 then we need to change the rules so so that the market can produce that right now the market can't produce that so we're self-limiting ourselves by not providing that opportunity on side of I90 with regard to tax revenue you can increase tax revenue without increasing the tax rate and that's absolutely what this Council should be doing increasing tax revenue without increasing the tax rate by allowing the market to build value in our community um and I think these things do that and with every code is there something you might need to tweak to f- tune it absolutely there is uh with regard to The Yards comment about no we don't have front yards there that's typically associated with a residential property from a planning terminology uh standpoint your setbacks are always in yards your front yard your side yard your rear yard doesn't mean that's an actual residential yard it's just a planning description of that area with regard to the orientation of the development I don't think the yard language is inappropriate in here um it might need a little bit of explanation as to so folks can understand it better U but I think this is absolutely a great start uh to trying to recreate the downtown business district um that has been so successful in the last few years uh so again I'm representing the county county has a number of properties that will be directly affected by these changes uh and we are 100% in support thank you thank you any other public comment if you will just set your name for the record Danny Coen defunc Springs I like it I like to seeing progress come to defc Springs I like to see our business uh area expanded more opportunities more jobs I do have some concerns that you can pull up and have front parking on ball may not be enough parking uh that you can pull up and that's going to be a learning curve that not available on the north side of 90 I've recently learned that 90s is going to be changed from four lane to two lane um do we want that flow of traffic to is it going to Log Jam I don't know I'm just learning this and I'm asking questions trying to educate myself and the public as I stand here um the storm water situation that uh apparently is not going to be an effect or the developers going to be exempt from if that's true or false uh when I went out and Rod this area everything that is north of of um SL the grade is going downhill and there's already some flooding problems in here over in this direction and I'm wondering are we going to be able to put the infrastructure in that we need and every time I see a new new development I'm reminded that our water treatment plant is pretty much at capacity and I don't hear anybody talking about that it's actually not so there's there's a balance here infrastructure there's a learning curve we're not going to be able to park in front of the businesses like we do like we're accustomed to um for our aging Community uh you don't necessarily want to walk you know a half a mile if you can avoid it so it's going to be a learning curve there um there was a a one foot a five foot setback red uh changed from a 10-ft setback in the front of the building I'd like some clarification on that when I was eating today at um Southern Comfort after reading this I actually stepped off the footage from the building to the city curb and it was like 22 ft plus or minus and I thought okay well this is a good pedestrian thway this is this is good and I don't know if that's going to be on this new business development and I I'd like some clarification on changing from a 10-ft setback to a 5- foot setback um I don't want you to think I'm up here to rain on this parade I'm concerned about infrastructure I'm concerned about the parking I guess I guess you're planning on parking garages is that what you're planning on parking garages or parking lots um just just more information you know I'm not I'm not up here to uh re on this parade it's I'm just looking for answers so if y'all could give me some answers and help educate me in the public right now I'd appreciate it can if you can address the items I've discussed thank you well I'll start start with the last item and let's go ahead and if we have any other public comment let Mr Wallace address all of it once so we can get you know otherwise it's going be back and forth if we can do that any other public com Mark H to fak Springs I'm strongly in favor of this this uh this idea let's not forget trees we need to make sure we plant trees the tree City USA it started here in in Shaka 1925 but we take down more trees than are planted and certainly they come down they fall down we had discussion last week about the uh about the problem with some of the Oaks but let's not forget trees you go to Townsville Fair Hope it's Tree Line streets which will make it beautiful and particularly in the heat through climate change nothing better than trees so please keep that in mind thank you any other public comment all right M go ahead Miss Mindy if you will St your name for the record Melinda Henderson citizen defunc Springs parking garages don't necessarily go with a historic district but I've heard Mr Valley say that it's possible to build them with the Frontage that looks like a store or house so in that case I go for that thank you any other public comment all right Mr Wallace take us away anxious to get back up [Music] um with regard to the front yard setback really this is different than what a traditional setback would be normally when you have a setback it says you have to be 20 feet from the property line you can go 30 feet you can go 40 feet what this says it's really a maximum setback so you cannot be more than 5 feet you can be right on the property line which wouldn't mirror what is located along Balwin Avenue right now but you can't go back any further than that 5 feet so that allows you space to have um you know private amenities on your property it would increase the uh amount of pedestrian space in front of your building but you can't go more than five if you want to go on the property line you're allowed to do that but we're going to require you to maintain that traditional streetcape by being in line with all the other buildings in that block will it have the large best way that we got right now on B buses between the bu and the street curve we would expect that there would be a wide sidewalk there yes as that develops as we develop parking um the rideway of some of these streets is is up to 70 feet which is pretty significantly larger than what you will normally normally see in any residential district um typical rideways 50 ft so the 70 ft allows you to not only have two lanes of traffic diagonal Park on each side but also a very wide sidewalk yeah Council M Valley so so there is a unique feature on Baldwin in the center block that block actually sits back about it might be 20 feet it's at least 15 feet from uh from the RightWay line the reason it happened there is because the old loading dock was there the old loading Depot so when that building went away uh you ended up with just an open space actually it's it's actually an interesting anomaly it's really it's one of the things that you know it's really cool about the downtown but it's not something that was planned it's something that happened as a consequence of the other structures that were there which means that the tires on the cars that are parked right there in front of PL that's actually the property line so that's a different situation than we have anywhere else in the downtown but what we would have is sidewalks using uh the RightWay because it is a sidewalk gets a public way the overhangs would now be allowed and encouraged to go across that up to the curving I believe is how it was written so again whereas some parts have lost that uh this would this would encourage it and require it so you will have that pedestrian uh walking area uh ARP funds the type of downtown streetscape improvements because walkability for people as we age in place we have trouble driving we don't want to drive but we need to get exra we need to get out these provide a good safe environment where you're not out on a trail or you're alone you're not out just walking on a street or the side of the road uh where Vehicles own the property and we don't have a right to be there it's just the vehicles have the right to be there it seems like but it provides treescapes tree Scapes are part of that it provides the parking it provides the covered uh as part of the buildings and also U the street lighting which is something that Destin used to reduce their fatalities if you look at the fatality numbers on Long 98 Dustin they had been at 8 N7 8 n for years suddenly they dropped down to zero for two years in a row we were on a safety conversation about what happened it's like well you know we have all the all the people are drinking on the bars along 98 on the North side but then they cross a six Lane Highway uh drunk to go back to their condos uh and they were getting killed so what changed was they introduced a lot of lighting and they got rid of a few of them that were on the North side but it was mostly the lighting improvements so you could actually see the people who weren't really capable or shouldn't be crossing the road so Street lighting important trash cans important that's how we keep the city clean um benches that's part of that streetcape that makes it safe for hooks to walk and as you get tired you get a break and then we have successful businesses they go in and enjoy the air conditioning for a little while and visit the friend so uh those are addressed um the other one was us990 us9 is going to have a lane elimination study is what it is uh we don't know if that's going to be something that's able to go forward or not but the intention is to make it safe for pedestrians to cross um we used to have kids that would get out of school they'd come downtown they'd want to go across and they did uh but I was always terrified to see them going across 90 um but this the intention of the lane Elimination Diet is to look at wider sidewalks so when you walk out a nola and you have a semi going by even if they're going 45 it feels like 100 because they're three feet away from you and no one wants to be there no one wants to be in that environment and so we're limiting our downtown so the lendon Elimination Diet would look at options it could be that we go from five Lanes to three it could be that we go to four and we just eliminate a turn lane all those are on the table but at the end of the day the goal is to have wider sidewalks narrower pedestrian Crossings March Crossings and safer Crossings um ideally I'd like to see a three lanes with a median uh and turn lanes and maybe restrict the turn Lanes to every other Street um so that we don't have short turn lanes and we get some tree vegetation in the middle that is the intention dot is a big part of that and the study will be a big part of that but the numbers wise we've got I can't remember we're like 7500 daily trips maybe 8,500 daily trips in that area um that is not a FIV Lane Highway uh number that is a two-lane you know Quiet Road I mean live o can handle that uh the truth is that Pensacola city hall has a three lane a turn lane uh and two two go lanes and parking on the sides and huge sidewalks I think there are like 45,000 daily trips uh it's going to be a long time before we're anywhere in that neighborhood and I'd rather enjoy our downtown than than uh than plate to semis and and garbage trucks and everyone else driving through town all righty this new bus District bicycle friendly it it's being bicycle friendly in terms of the streetcape as you as you get the parking it's going to slow down traffic we ideally 90 would have a bike lane because 90 is a national bike route however right now we're working on using Baldwin and lioke as a bike route alternative to 90 because it's not safe to Beyond 90 um as 90 changes if the road diet works it might be possible that we end up with two two healthy routes but um we have to be cautious in terms of you know pedestrians walking on a sidewalk and bikes don't mix real well so the bikes are probably going to have to share the road but the fle the speeds will make sense because the road is you know a healthy proportion instead of just a wide open you Road where you can just go you know 50 and not even notice it so it's it it's going to be uh bike friendly in the same way that the downtown now that there's traffic where people slowed down going bright friendly in that way when Baldwin was empty people could fly through there I mean there was no traffic so you could just go but people were using it as a cut off now because we have traffic I feel safe right through there on a scooter um I don't I don't generally go on SLO and and chaen because it's kind of wide open there's not a lot of cars but when they are there they tend to go a little bit faster than they do both now compared to before all right we have a motion in a second on the floor we call for a vote all those in favor say I um the way it's currently written my vote is no I I I I eyes carrye all right we the motion was to bring both forward the map and to move all of it forward to initiate the process correct we moving the process forward and moving on it's on the agenda is two requests will treated as one motion all right we have been going at it for two and a half hours so I'm going to call a 10-minute recess and we will resume at 7:42 I know sorry well I'm sitting here nudging yeah I was like looking like yeah no worries okay I gotta find one of these chairs that I can oh this one's taller tra it [Music] tra some of them are some of them don't maybe you can help meckenzie but this one is taller it's like okay I'm taking this one now you can see I know I feel like a little kid try try and see it has one but I don't think it's working thank you Mackenzie I can feel myself it's like okay I need it's my better judgment [Music] [Music] to oh yeah oh yeah [Music] [Music] yeah yeah absolutely you gotta say I speaking not sure I want to know please tell I don't know I couldn't tell you I I don't even think that's on the agenda so no we just have the public hearings which are four [Laughter] yes it's not big enough just so we don't have to through that thing yeah they got a C I us expectations so time yes I was [Music] [Music] my it's not working it was 90 inside oh that's terminal upate I Haven even seen a terminal update on here trying toed a grand opening or something are we in danger it's actually moving quick I'm not yes sir all right we will call this meeting back to order and Mr Wallace if you will we are on 4 E2 yep so this is the final detailed plan for the Tractor Supply located on the Highway 331 South so they will be relocating to a newly constructed Building located just to the west of the Chick-fil-A uh as part of the Bay Springs commercial development so this would approve the final detail plan which is attached and authorize myself to issue a development order so then gets started moove all right we have a motion do we and we have a second any questions or comments from the D I was just about to call for public comment come on come on [Laughter] [Music] up thank you sir thank you sir thank you I just wonder who's going in when they leave down there yeah I don't know I think they're their leases up next July and I think they're excited about having a little more room I think they've had problems with the current uh situation so they're they're pretty excited about cool opening a new chapter and uh much larger store much more outdoor storage space um so I think it'll be good for them good for all of us all right well all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carrie we go to number three okay this is the review of the final plan for the heatherlane town homes this is located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Walton Road and Highway 83 North it's a 124 lot Town Home Development what I'm looking for tonight is approval [Music] to issue a development order for the infrastructure only so this would be all roads new water lines new sewer lines a new lift station and the storm water um if approved approved they will have to provide a bond in the amount of 120% of the cost of the infrastructure uh once that is done and the city accepts the infrastructure I will come back uh for permission to issue another development order for the construction of the actual Town Homes itself can I ask a question yes ma'am is that one lift station for all 12 you say 124 units right correct and so one lift station for all of that yes do we have a motion for the final plan motion approved have a motion do I have a second second we have a motion a second any discussion or questions from the Das yes sir U I was goingon to ask Mr Kobe if he could touch on uh one of the comments from rly about the the sewer plant's capacity and what he's learned here recently with some of the updates so we're still getting some new information from Kyle Jacobs with the new influent meters being put in and the replacing of pumps and stuff and so um we haven't gotten those how was here um reports back yet um hopefully that is going to come in under what we've been reporting in the past and we want to give that influ meter some time to actually give us some true readings and so hopefully that'll be the case but the capacity for this project already been considered correct Chris correct yeah like which is how much how much capacity is that going to project well it's 124 units so typically we calculate um how much capacity it will take is 280 gallons per day per unit usually those rates uh fall around the 200 range so about 200 gallons per day per unit any other questions or comments from the DI public comment do we have any public comment on the approval of this going once going twice okay all right all those in favor say I nay i i i Carrie all right we will move on to number five uh clay if I'm understanding correctly these are Quasi judicial in nature anyone wishing to speak on items five a one two three and four two and four your small scale small scale amendments and the res zonings are attached there too and are dependent there on therefore these will all be conducted as quasi judicial hearings therefore anyone wishing to speak needs to be scorn at this time that includes staff the applicant and members of the audience whether you ask questions make comments or otherwise please stand raise your right hand repeat after me if you wish to speak on any of these items I do hereby swear or affirm I do hearby swear or affirm that testimony I present that the testimony I present will be the truth will be the truth the whole truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and nothing but the truth thank you staff in the audience Mr chair thank you sir we will go to 5 A1 Mr Wallace okay this is 2024 rz- Z5 Mr McCormack on behalf of parallel 10 is requesting a rezoning changing the designation from R2 multif family residential to mix use for 1 3 Acre parcel of land on Ki Burgess motion to approve second all right we have a motion in a second any questions or comments from the dice any public comment you're it Mr Dan good all right all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carrie all right 582 we got to uh do the reading oh thank you and what's the ordinance number Rafael yes sir with the an for the previous meeting taking 969 and 970 Mr Aon I believe the next ordinance would be 971 there you go proceed Mr Ross he gets to read him tonight okay it's ordinance number 971 an ordinance adoped a zoning map Amendment of the city of Def FC Springs Land Development code changing the zoning designation repealing all ordinances and conflict herewith providing for severability and conflicts providing for codification and providing for an effective date all right now we will move to 582 which is the companion small scale Amendment correct this is 2024 Das SSA d06 again Mr McCormack on behalf of parallel 10 small scale map Amendment to the Future land use map changing the designation from medium density residential to mixed use for the 1.3 acre parcel land motion to approve second all right we have a motion second any questions or comments from the Das any public a comment all right seeing none all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carrie okay this is ordinance number 972 it's an ordinance adopting a small scale land use map Amendment of the city of defunc Springs Conference of plan changing the land use classifications repealing all ordinances and conflict herewith providing for severability and conflicts providing for codification and providing for an effective date thank you sir 583 okay 2024 D rz- 06 again Mr McCormack on behalf of penopoly properties is requesting the rezoning change in the designation from R2 multifam residential to C2 commercial for [Music] all right seeing none all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carrie go ahead M Wallace okay ordinance number 973 an ordinance adoped a zoning map Amendment of the city of defunc Springs Land Development code changing the zoning designation repealing all ordinances and conflict here with providing for severability and conflicts providing for codification and providing for an effective date thank you sir 584 okay this is the corresponding small scale map of M M for Mr McCormack uh changing the designation from medium density residential to commercial for the 1279 acre parcel of land on kyber Loop motion to approve second all right we have a motion and second any questions or comments from the dice seeing none any public comment seeing none all those in favor say I I I I I I I Carrie go ahead M Wallace all right ordinance number 974 an ordinance adoped a small land use map Amendment of the city of the FC Springs Conference of plan changing the land use classifications repealing all ordinances in Conflict here with providing for severability and conflicts providing for codification and providing for an effective date thank you sir thank you all right we will move to Citizen comment if you will approach the podium state your name you'll have three minutes Mark Hamley Tac Springs I'd like to commend those responsible for putting in the the new Jungle Gym on the park on 11 Street it's very well used already it's it's a wonderful addition to that Park which is looks like a park Frank Frankly now um I noticed that down on on West Street across from the Methodist Church they for their U one of the um a similar little jungle gym has a nice canopy a canvas canopy to keep Sun from burning little kids they play I I hope um going forward we can try perhaps to get one for that Park as well for all these these facilities we build in our city I think last week Todd might have mentioned about this being something which you might be thinking of I think it's a very good idea certainly making these hot days a much easier use for them also the um the skateboard park um is very heavy my neighbors went off to it um the problem is location location really is a very good location um but at least it's being used and I think it's very popular I think we think of having another one elsewhere in the city might be better place would be be better uh but I think the more we can do to have entertainments for our kids our from teens to small kids in our area is is the betterment of all of us so thank much what you've done I hope we in the future improve upon it thank you thank you Mr ham any other public comment Mr Cliff you will state your name good evening Council uh apologize for my dress today I got soaked on a job site and these are the only dry clothes that were in my back back seat of my truck um just wanted to give you guys a quick overview on the uh airport and the terminal project um the uh the high level view is uh they actually started putting a drywall today believe it or not and so very excited to see that moving forward they completed the final lift on the rear apron last Friday Friday so all your FAA funds have been used all the paving is 100% completed they are now just finishing out the interior of the building and so with your new new city council member I I just printed out a copy from January till last Friday of all the inspection reports so if you wanted to go through them uh you guys are welcome to it um if anybody wants to go on a tour at any time you guys can get a hold of me I'll be happy to take you on a little tour but we are uh according to our contractor we are uh 70 days away from substantial completion and so we are about to come to the end and so I'm I'm more excited about it than you are um we uh we have had quite a few challenges of course uh we meet every two weeks uh with a DOT with uh a compliance contract specialist with uh City representatives and excited that you now have a new airport director uh on board he'll be attending those meetings with us till we're till we're done unfortunately he missed most of it but uh anyways it's coming on great and so um August 31st is going to be our substantial completion date um we do have another change order that uh will be presented to you guys but it's uh at this point Z and0 cents but we haven't accounted for is their rain days since they started in June of 2022 and so right now their rain days would put them past August 31st by a couple of weeks and so it looks like everything's going to work out okay um they have had excuse me numerous claim claims uh for additional time to to delays and materials issues with the architect issues with the engineers which was not me um and back and forth and we've been able to manage our way through all of it and uh it looks like uh they're going to uh complete it without having to use any of their claim time as part of the contract so um if you guys have any questions I'll be happy to answer them but uh the place is looking fantastic uh they did a bunch of final grading last week in the front of the building they're started with siding um so hopefully by the end of this week they'll be done with siding um so be happy to answer any kind of questions you guys got yes my question is not for y'all it's actually for Kobe are we planning like an open house for the um Community correct after this August the contractor is part of the contractor's contract that they will handle the grand opening and they'll set that up and when that time comes we'll we'll relate that to everyone how how far beyond the August 31st date that you mentioned would that take place yes so so uh just so you guys know substantial completion means that the building can be used for its intended purpose okay and so the only thing that they should be addressing after that is punch list items yes uh and so they do have uh they do have 30 days in there to address punch list items and so it's a matter of whether you want to have your uh public grand opening before punch list items are done or after punch list items are done I would suggest maybe after my better be better so probably maybe if you guys shot towards the end of September would be a great time I just I just want to clarify for for the public and for for everybody um I think there was an original date that was given out when we first started of actually this time this particular time frame but for clarification purposes every time that we did a change order it actually extended that date out contractually yes so Contra uh sorry contractually you guys have actually only extended the uh completion date I think by 60 days total uh but we haven't accounted for any of the rain days and when we started this project kind of the discussion was hey you know we don't want you guys to come before the council every time there's some some small change of some sort you guys gather your stuff up together present them all together and so we did that in December of 2023 December 5th of 2023 was the uh first change order that was requested by the contractor the other change orders were actually requested by the city and so there's been stuff added to the project that came at the request of the city not at the request of the contractor and so we would basically do a closeout change order and close out change order right now appears to be zero dollars it would just be accounting for their reain dayss that they have not been given any of so and one more point on that is from from a financial standpoint we haven't actually tapped it we haven't gone over budget we haven't tapped into any any major we had some contingency funds but we also had I feel like at one point we had contingency contingency funds for the contingency fund but we're we're nowhere near blowing past any of that correct yeah so so there were no contingencies funds put in the contract itself at one point there was 400,000 I think that was contemplated on going into the contract for contingency funds that was not put into the contract the only funds that you guys had that was used as a contingency was your arpa funds and um some of those have been used but but the majority of all your arpa funds will still be remaining yes has the 5.5 million that the county gave towards the airport is that part of your project that you've been or is that still set aside in our books and records for use in a future date yeah no ma'am no County funds that I'm aware of are in this this is all the runway not terminal yes so do we I I know I may have asked this before and I apologize but did are those sitting is that 5.5 in our checkbook or in the Count's Che in the coun based on the interlocal um the city will invoice that when it comes time to commence construction on the project and provide them the invoice when that starts we hope we're about to be in the design B so we can do will it be like a reimbursement or will we ask for it and they'll provide it to us in advance we're working on that right now I've been working with Mr Townson on that it appears that based on where we are with Federal money and where this Project's going to have to go and based of the RP expenditure deadlines that we're likely going to be sending an invoice asking for the whole amount to be turned over so that the county has lawfully expended the money within the period of time they had to by funding it to us and then we will be able to use and fund the project as we move forward out of it that is our intent right now we'll see how quick our time f is it a gift or a loone not alone it is a they are providing that to the city as a donation effective okay same way always on the same side as uh just because I think sometimes we're pulled in different directions but thank you for everything you've done for the community to to move this forward and to get us to where we are yes ma'am just about to be yes ma'am I'm uh very excited and thank you you know when you have multiple funding agencies involved in one project it gets confusing sometimes but we've been able to work our way through it and we're about to the finish line so a little bit longer we'll be there thank you Mr CL thank you [Applause] guys any other public comment so ever since uh Kobe became the interim city manager this has been a lot less toxic environment so the short time that you've been here there's been a lot of improvements um so a lot of times there's conflict and bad feelings because lack of communication people hear things and they think it's the truth so I'm just going to come to the horse's mouth and ask a few questions and you can explain to me and after I ask my question if you please stop my time while I get my answered um is the city oper is the city finance department operating on two-year-old information my books are balanced as of May I think I have two more bank statements to get done so I would say no okay all right um when y'all voted earlier about the qualifications for a City Finance director um one of the things that's plagued the city was non-qualified people being put in high level positions have y'all closed the door forever tonight uh with that earlier vote not delay adop an ordinance there they still got to come back and adopt ordinances to adopt everything councilman EV discussed okay my question is will the door be closed forever on someone with a high school education being the finance director over a 45 million budget they can't answer that question until they adopt the ordinance is that on the table well she hasn't I haven't seen what her recommended suggestions are based on what she describing it would appear that somebody would need something more than a high school diploma so that's going to be part of it so so as I understand what we pass or what we recommended tonight is they're giving me an opportunity to give Kobe some language and and Kobe and Clay are going to design something that we can all look at within the next 45 days but again as with any ordinance it can be done and it can be undone so it's as good as long as it's maintained so yeah City coun can always ordinances amend them and otherwise change them so there's no way to say forever okay um let's see give me a second there's a lady that lives on sloth that I've met recently who has to take um money out of her own pocket to have her septic tank emptied because for some reason even though she lives right here in the middle of the city she can't be hooked up to City sewage and because it's a costly expense to empty or septic tank she's she only takes a bath once every 3 days and she's 90 years old and still lives by herself um what would be the best Avenue to get this citizen some assistance M Mr Co I will we will gladly receive your comments but as far as uh it being a Q&A session we will gladly receive your comments and if if there's any followup that needs to be had then we will direct the city manager to follow up with you on these on these questions and I do want Kobe to follow up with you his your particular questions about this particular case as well but we will gladly receive your comments but they won't we're not going to do a back and forth Q&A okay um would it help if it was put on the agenda and had her present with her family to verify what I'm saying would that help I'm not sure why how the city would have any authority to step in and deal with someone's private septic system if they were on sewage not they are right that's what I'm saying I'm not sure they can't they she says that the city's unable to provide her sewage well then I would say this the question would be to get with Mr Townson and let him and our Public Works determine if and why Sloss appears to be within our service area so I'm not sure why there would not be sewer lines available in that area okay but that they would need to know the council wouldn't be able to address that in any scenario that's a day-to-day function of the city and the public works department and my last question is um I understand over the past year our um city finance department's official rating has gone from an F which you can't get any lower to a D minus so that's moving in the right direction is that accurate information again we're not GNA go back and forth with a Q&A aware of where official ratings for City departments Council doesn't do that so is he talking about like our credit rating can I get any assistance there cred if I'm not using the right vocabulary maybe uh hang on I've never heard Department time out time out we will we will take that comment and we will have the city manager get back up with you as far as your concerns on that okay and my last question will be um I could get hit run over on my bicycle tomorrow who knows what the what's in the cards I understand you travel back and forth between here and Jackson County is that true Mr K if you will address the chair okay um what I'm getting at is uh maybe I'm getting her mixed up with another employee but the point is that anybody can meet tragedy at any time no announcement so I'm kind of putting a plug in for the assistant Finance director position in case something tragic happened and it's not just the finance department that should have an assistant that could be an immediate backup so that the city doesn't skip a beat it you know every Department should have somebody that could be able should be able to step up the plate one of the things that I that sets into my mind I remember when uh lton Childs was the governor and dropped dead in the governor's mansion on an exercise machine the lieutenant governor stepped up in the State of Florida didn't skip a beat things kept running and that's how our city should be designed so when you consider the position for an assistant Finance director I just wanted to put in a plug um that I support that thank you thank you for your comments any other public comment all right seeing none we'll close the floor to public comments we'll go to the City attorney nothing tonight sir all right we have nothing on the legislative requests so I will turn over to Mr Townson well my wife's already upset so I can just she's already gonna be talk to so because we're late yeah later then timer on that she she she is with child so we will we will hurry along um so first off Lake Fest went very well I think it was a great turnout um I think we have very minor incidents what I spoke to the chief about and so I think we've seen some um some areas we can improve for next year particularly with the heat um possibly getting some way of of cooling cooling areas or misting fans to bring some some air through there um and and shade as well so I think it was a great event and we'll continue to improve on that I was reached I was um SP Commander reached out to me about the Fourth of July prey an event coming up if you would if you intend to be in the prey please reach out to her at dvpa and let them know that I've been asked multiple times now U the budget Workshop the next one we won't do that tonight but um we're looking for the end of July so between so between July 29th and August 2nd that'll get that's when we also need to do the proposed millage to turn in for trim um so just be thinking about that and I'll send out an email we'll get that date coordinated for everyone when do you have to send the trim in when's the dead 4th is the deadline August 4th is for the proposed and so we'll work on getting that date together for the next budget Workshop number four Florence Park um staff is identified in the current budget especially within the paving line item or Transportation the ability to go ahead and take care of the small parking lot near the Boy Scout Hut that needs to be resurfaced and then to go ahead and do two additional Ada parking spots closer to the existing playground equipment in the shade so we're working on those over the next couple weeks along with the um platform for the solar bench that staff will be working on to get poured and uh put together as well so those are three things we can move forward at this current time coun quick mention yes sir that parking very busy uh since it opened but I've noticed cars on play they typically will park just off the pavement but I've noticed a couple cars driving out on a grass parking right up next to the playground extremely dangerous for kids running around that they don't see when they get get ready to back out of there pull out so we need something to to stop people from driving out there next to the playground for their convenience okay we might could uh we'll look at it maybe signs periodically do not something I don't know some way deter yeah that hopefully with a designated parking spot there maybe they don't they realize you don't pull into the yeah part of it yeah we we look into that um rate study dates I've gotten with the consultant I will be reaching out to H also through email about that to try and set up times for you to meet with that consultant about the rate St that was performed City have done um and to go over that individually discuss to have any questions you may have about that before we bring that to the to the whole Council to consider um fdot is doing obviously work on 83 they will be again soon starting to do work on 3:31 so staff is getting with them about our manholes um and I'm going to be getting the plans from FP to see exactly what is being done when we can expect those things also be completed as well so I'll be getting that we met today myself and uh maintenance superintendent met with FPL um to go over some programs they they may have for lighting here in the city and how that we may be able to address some of that um sooner rather than later additionally um police officer I believe his name is Diaz he had recently taken photos and sent to myself and the chief about power poles in the city so power comp comeing in transfering lines taking the pulse so we spoke with our account rep today and what we're going to start doing um we're going to create a common file for staff of all departments please go around they see a poll that is just sitting there without use write the number down we get that list we'll send FPL they can determine and tell us who the poll belongs to and then we can go from there addressing getting those things removed depending on the utility company or um telecommunications company and then my last thing here um is does any of the council know what decision City's values are no do you mean so the city has a mission statement and a vision and set of values how to go back and look on the in the website like 2:30 one morning I was sleep I was thinking about it and this Tai I don't know tie don't know it stands for but um I leaded into that say that um so you not call off guard when I bring these back to you we're going to start working on reestablishing the city's values so employees need a set of values to work by and that's accountability tool for what we do here and why we do what we do and so we'll start doing that we're going to start working through that at the um supervisor level and we'll pass that down to everyone else they'll have their say and input on that and we'll bring it back I just don't want you be C I bring it back say where do this even come from well that's because I can't even find our current website what the city's values are and I think that's something we need desperately here and so um just for you to be aware of what I'm doing hopefully you'll agree that's all right thank you sir I just to you I found them I all right we will go to the council counc councilwoman he I want to say Cindy thank you Lake Fest was a very big hit and everybody who worked on it with you staff volunteers the community and although it was extremely hot it was really a great event I think everybody really enjoyed it um I was really a little bit shocked that in the parade normally I've never seen the circle so vacant before but um I think it might just be whether it was the change of dates or I'm sure there's a few things that may have contributed to that vacations and that type of thing but thank you for everything you did it was a really great time and everybody I've just heard nothing but compliments and Danielle thank you if if if finances that far along I applaud you because I know what kind of work that you and your staff had to do thank you for get help and coob because I know what struggle and challenges you have with the audit going on with year end going on and with budget cycle coming up for us so thank you that's all I have Council none ditto ditto same just thanks thanks to all the employees that were out there uh I mean it was a long week for everybody but uh it was great to see everyone out there it was a it was a good team effort actually a lot of people did come out it's just that we had more of a cycle through because it was so hot that they would come for a while and they would go the upside is no one had to worry about parking or or walking too far so it was it was a good thing but um but yeah thanks everyone and then I just want to get back watch into the Panthers game see if they're gonna redeem themselves or not uh two things real quick just based off of current meeting I that I have um I'm gonna pull out my Dr mcnight hat for a second if we're going to go back and look at our values our mission statement and and those type of things I want to strongly encourage not only you but the council I heard someone talk one time about what is a mission statement and so many times people don't truly have a mission statement they have like a goals and a wish list statement so I really want us to dig deep and and put some thought and effort not that you're not but you know I really want us to to put our thinking caps on with what what are our values and what what's a mission statement because so many times it's this glowy you flowers and unicorns type of statement and it's not truly a mission statement or or a value statement so uh the other thing is uh I recognize the tremendous amount of effort that the staff undertook from you all the way down to uh to put on lak Fest um and we have a couple other uh events that I hope return like Marvel flight um Marvel flight marvelous chanet um good so I I just want to again thank the staff because that basically requires them to work extra hours work on the weekend when they could be on vacation with their their family uh to to make it successful Amanda and I walked through the through Lake Fest um about I think it was about 12:30 1 o'clock and there was people swimming in the lake there was food vendors I could smell the the funnel cakes you know it took me back to you know when I was a kid coming through um the shito festival uh so it was it was a good time and I know that's a Herculean effort leading up to it and even even the day or two after right getting out there and making sure that the lakeyard is once again presentable you know taking care of all the trash and all that so just want to thank all of the employees efforts for for a successful Lake [Applause] Fest counc scers I got nothing that you guys haven't already said I EO to com of comments everybody did a great job everybody's continued do a great job Lake bestest was awesome you did great thank you when I hired Mr Louis Kent he had two jobs one to be in the black at the airport and two bring that Marvel all right you're doing such a great job [Applause] than3 all right we will call this meeting a Jour week