huh what that was the last oh my God thank God you had it I had this is the first thing I've had all day say your last prayer no you want to say I'm not good at it this is true but I stumble on my words go yeah this is supped to I believe you're going to be 7 many years old what you say oh God tell me about it oh I'm telling you I'm getting them Medicare calls left and right I mean for a full year now not yet in July but I'm not I'm I'm not I'm GNA work until I die I'm gonna die in my chair at work so I mean I'm not and I'll keep my insurance I have cringer Shield but um boy them Medicare people they drive you absolutely all right you ready all right all right y'all ready we're gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order here at 5:2 there he is um Mr Johnson's gonna that invocation and then we're going pledge father we thank you for the opportunity to come here tonight take that he's been taken care of in this city and on this board we ask for your guidance tonight that the citizens made would be best for [Music] all to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all all right thank you all for being here tonight um I'm gonna take a moment to honor one of our board members that's uh retiring we're going to miss him Mr Darius Paul we uh we appre appreciate all your service you've been uh joy to work with and it's been nice getting to know you and uh just wanted to thank you for your service and uh your dedication to this board so uh we got a little uh Josh created official certificate gonna present you this certificate and uh thank you thank you sir all go up there yeah take [Applause] with all right okay we've got a got a a good agenda tonight and um I know um Kathy needs to leave a bit early so we're g to try to try to move through some of these uh we've got the uh minutes for uh two board meetings the March 27th and the April 24th uh meeting um is there a motion to approve any uh changes I had a few changes and I gave them they were pretty minor changes I gave to Raphael and he will make those changes and resubmit them okay does uh anybody any other changes for the minutes if not I'll accept the motion motion to approve minutes for March and April second okay all in favor say I I I all oppos say n all right motion carries P okay financial report gosh good evening Commissioners new term for you all members of the public uh in front of you you should have the financial report since our last meeting uh nothing noteworthy as far as changes are concerned you will see the um the money that were removed for the closing of 27 Crescent Drive but other than that pretty much the same as it was last time we met okay any questions on the fin [Applause] aners do we need a motion to approve fin okay is there a motion motion to approve second okay all in favor say I I all oppos say a motion carries five all right so the next item I have is the growth and development assistance grant tracking sheet you'll note here that uh actually had quite a few new Grant Awards since our last meeting uh two of which were in direct response to code enforcement violations so I was completely thrilled with the fact that we were able to remove those off of Chris's list um and so they were happy as well but other than that uh we're certainly headed in in the right direction we've definitely spent or awarded more money this fiscal year um than we have all of last fiscal year a lot of interest in the program in your packet you should see some social media uh pieces that we we put out of those um improvements that we made and uh had one that's hopefully going to go out this afternoon if not in the morning as well so lot of interest in the program great so with the um first one here the junk removal is that just lending the trailer that's right yeah and there there's no action needed on that just information all right thank you all right moving along all right moving on to Old business item a so we did receive our metal polls yesterday they finally came in I actually uh have a meeting scheduled for next or excuse me for tomorrow uh at 9:00 am with all of the uh various departments that are going to be needed to put this thing together I'm hope hoping at that point to identify any issues that may exist and kind of determine a timeline for when we can get these uh these polls put up and then obviously the light soon to follow great so what are you thinking on timing for the light I really don't know um you know do you think you'll know hopefully after tomorrow I have a better idea as to you know what's going to be required because I think we're going to have to shut down some of the streets in order to safely put the polls in there's some vacation time in there with some of the city staff so it's just a function of determining you know what that that critical path is and at that point being able to identify timeline okay can you uh email the board and uh let us know you have a time you have time be glad to yeah be glad to okay um so then we've got uh update on 27 Crescent Drive yep so the next item I have here is under 6B update on 27 Crescent Drive so this is the SBE antique store uh the owner previous owner rather is still removing those items she's made pretty good progress I think she had someone coming today from uh an outfit in South Walton that specializes in that kind of work so uh hopefully here by the end of the month she's going to have all her contents removed considering the discussion that we've had regarding the use of that building for public office space I went ahead and reached out to duberry to see what it would cost for them to formalize um a site plan if you will and help us with bid support to the improvements to make it fully accessible as it is a public building or will be used as a public building that's something I think is very important for us to do so in your packet you should have a proposal uh for that Improvement again this is just design and bid support this doesn't include any of the construction but they've come up with a lump sum here of of $112,500 for the design and then $2,500 to help us through that bid support uh where we'll simply put that out there on the street and they'll assist us with those requests for additional information and pay apps and things of that nature explain to me what it's my understanding if you have a purchase a property that's already in existence you're asking them what are you asking them to do there not adequate parking so I'm I'm asking them to determine opportunities for us to have Ada accessible Park working and Ada accessible access to the building it's my understanding that if it's a public building that we're operating out of then we'll need to maintain full Ada accessibility to that office space and you gotta pay them $112,000 for their opinion well for them to do an actual design so that we can then go out for bid to make those improvements looks like 15,000 C right yeah I just a difficult time to you know just trying to understand house that continues to be charged for something to me seems pretty simple I mean there's uh in this design exactly exactly what they're designing I mean do you know what they're are they going to are you ask design a holding fund are you ask just designed a parking space or I mean to a parking space with a handicap accessibility a little walkway to the front door is that's what you're asking for Yeah so basically it's taking the existing site analyzing that site to determine where we can get an appropriate size parking stall that is fully accessible and then the pathway to connect to that the elevation that's there now is somewhat favorable in that regard but considering that it hasn't been used for that there's some preliminary design work that has to be done to determine if that's even feasible so in my in the conversations I had with them they indicated to me that they feel like there's adequate room to be able to accomplish that but without a task order they're not going to expend any of their resources to determine that you don't think this is something that we could reach out to go ahead and get BS on like Bar B and Chad Gillis and get them to give the design and and bid on what it would take I mean you I mean $12,500 to draw a parking space with a wheelchair ramp to me just it's just ridiculous I mean you know it's kind of like and Lord knows I know I'm the eyeball sits on this thing but it it's kind of like there's just engineer firm that sits here and every time we want a decision you got to take and pay them to come up with a plan and to me it's just a simple little plan I mean to me it's just absolutely ludicrous well kind of money there's quite a bit to it you know the tolerances on Ada accessible parking spaces very tight it ain't very difficult to look at what is specified in the Ada I mean you know we did it on the buildings and our facility and I mean they got specifications that at the end of the day people that per Bell T Gillis and and the gentleman up on 83 they do it every day sure I mean to me you better off just get them to go subit a bid draw out where you want it tell them to build it did we do an RFB for this no so this is a proposal done to the city's continuing Services agreement with blueberry I'm with Joe it seems really really high um I'd personally like to table this and uh just kind of figure out if there's any other bids we can solicit in the meantime um sure we want to try to try to get bids we need to Clay do we need to do an RFP do we need to specifically I mean or is that something I mean it'd be nice too to know you know we're going to we're kind of talking to people and know you you were going to put it out on the street to try to find you know solicitations for people for the use of the space' be nice to know what the space is going to be before we start spending this kind of money in my opinion um for you know we we got to do it but we may need more we may may just need the minimum a rule you need to you need to do comp for profession Services Services Construction Services things there too in terms what the use of the space is going to be things like that we have a little so it's going to depend on what you're really asking us to do c piggy back the city's without having because project got that again about the $4 million so no continuing contract in the State of Florida for an engineering firm can apply to any project with the estimated construction cost seeds which this doesn't so this the thing is my understanding that that the the amount of parking handicap parking is in the code it's my understanding if you build a structure an office building if you have a TH or 5,000 square feet the parking is in the code tells you how many parking spaces you are to have for, 2,000 square ft and once you've determined how many parking spaces I you can call it whatever you want to call it I think you need to take a reach out to the professionals that is going to do the work and ask them to Smo a bed what it take to build the parking I don't think we need to spend that kind of money well for an opinion well in in my experience it's more than a opinion it's an actual design for that contractor to be able to make a bid off of to know exactly what elevation they need to set that parking space to make sure that they maintain that ADA accessibility requirement because at the end of the day that that site that's out there now is not fully flat and is not fully accessible so that's what they're going to look at they're going to determine what those elevations are they're going to put it in their CAD program and and provide a detailed plan that could be handed off to a contractor to submit a bid on that's that's what they're doing they're formally designing this in accordance with those ADA requirements based on the existing again I totally disagree with your analysis of this I think there's a cheaper way to do it by the time we get through spending the money for studies time we get through spending the money for engineering time we get through spending the money for opinions we have no money left to do anything well and I will just make this this statement I serve you at the pledge of this board and that if that's the desire of this board is to go a different direction that's certainly fine um I'm just giving my opinion based on my professional experience that this is how we need to go and do this kind of stuff but if you guys want to make another recommendation I'm I'm here to do whatever you want me to do question uh these people that actually build it uh these people that actually can do the construction that has done this before wouldn't they know absolutely well I think one thing we have to consider is if we don't have a formal design and we hire whomever to go and do the work we have no way to validate exactly what it is they've done in order to make sure that we have established the requirements for the accessibility and unfortunately there are a lot of cases with public buildings where people go around they put rulers out they put levels out and they try to find you out of compliance and then they sue you so in the end we can go and hire who whomever to do the work but I think it's prudent for us to spend the money and the time to make sure that we get it exactly right so we satisfy all those requ question but since they've had since they've put in Ada things before shouldn't they know what I mean can they they can't do a design themselves can they do a design build is that what you're asking are the groups out there that do design build you know I'm sure that we could probably reach out and say hey we need an ADA accessible parking space and conc to a building um you know whether they're going to reach out and hire an engineering firm to sign and seal that plan set you know I guess we'll be on them so the bottom line is we're going to pay for that cost either way whether we pay through it directly or indirectly through the hiring of duberry as our Consulting engineer I respectfully disagree well I think my opinion is I'd like to see more more quotes it just seems this quote seems really high there may be other groups out there that you a lot of times they design build they they go less expensive on the design because they want to get the job to do the build so I just say you know is there can we at least explore that well so so is the board's desire to actually do a design to do a design build opposed to I mean proc proc if we do maybe my desire would be to do a procurement personally and just let's see what come where we where we shake out we're talking about just I would like design a design build that's me I don't know how everybody else feel that's how I feel I mean it's a bid so we don't have to accept it we don't have to deserve the right to reject anything inad mean design design bid builds are standard standard process engineered with design that design is competitive procurement which is what you call your bid bu design build your engineer and your contractor would effectively partner up and bid a project to do a design build to do a design build in that situation you have to have a design criteria back the DCP you would need has to be designed by an engineer to spe to certain specifications so that somebody can B it you don't have design criteria upon which a contractor engineering team can do it you're probably not going to get responses right now I would tell you we do not have a designed criteria package for this project so now we could certainly ask if if you want the city's continue contract engineer to provide you design criteria package and you did that you could certainly do that I would say this size of the project makes a big difference on whether you get interested I want to ask U have you talked about what you want in the building I so the only thing that's been mentioned is office space for me and the reason I'm asking that is because I would think that would have a little bit to dictate what the parking lot looked like right that's what I was saying and so I would think you got you know you're a little bit ahead of the game because if you don't know what you on that building and you design a parking lot said man I wish you hadn't have done it this way so how we got to here just so everyone understands when this contract was put before this board one of the uses that was identified was office space my lease for my current office space expires on September 30th so understanding that my lease is soon to expire I started reaching out to duberry to see how can we make this accessible if I am in fact going to make that my office space yeah so that's how we got to where we are today I completely agree we have no idea what that use will ultimately be M but if there is an interest for me to occupy that as an office space I feel it is important if not required for us to have a fully accessible access to that building yeah and I I I think it most of us been around long enough to know that as long as you build that thing and such a way it can be modified U you know I had an office complex and we've changed it all over the place you know and so but but if that's to the general consensus of it then yeah I think the parking lot would probably fit for now long but if it were going to be something uh special type Arrangements in that whole building with the exception your office and they may would to God that you had to change the parking lot particularly if they needed more ramp space or something of that nature you know but anyway um I just just want you to think it through before you just do a general parking lot you know thank you thank you very comments um my view would be that if we're going to go out and ask people do a solicitation for people to try to find who's going to occupy that space we go ahead and do it now when we find that person then we do we look at this next steps that would be my view because what he's saying is that if we don't get the parking lot and whatever then he he will have to renew his lease so we've got till September so the sooner the better this it's the end of May right middle of May it is and that's why I went ahead and got this because it's you know going to take the engineering consultant um time to design it then it has to be bid out then it has to be awarded and then they have to actually do the construction so you know it's going to be difficult even if we were to approve this task order tonight to get us before the end of my lease so am I am I wrong to say that a lot of these businesses that's been in business that the parking lot is there that from that parking area that all you would need is a ramp and that is not something that you need an engineer to design am I wrong in in in doing that I mean did y'all build did they build a handicap ramp for everything in the city I mean I mean did they get engineered I mean it's my understanding once you have a a parking lot that you don't have to have the storm water and you don't have all the engineering to convert it to a handicap that would be accessible for your for your area and and I just I I just I just don't think it's necessary I think that we need to talk to the city uh planning to see what they're going to require that would be approved by the city planner I I will defer to play but I in my experience in my opinion we have to provide accessible parking and accessible access to this building because of it's a public building it's a little bit I'm not debating that with you right now what I'm trying make to you there's a cheaper way to do this than to spend $112,000 unless talk to someone about can we use the parking that's there and to do that I don't think it's too much to ask the planner to go out and look and we use this stripe it off that's beyond hisle work who who who approves a building once you take and and buy a building and you want be County Inspector guy is planning well the County Inspector when he T billly beer and find out what he will require to open it up for an office space I I'll be glad to have a conversation Mr Bearden I think that you know in Chris's defense he reviews signed and sealed plans that are submitted by an engineer to make sure that they satisfy the Land Development code that engineer signs and seal seals those plans stating that they're in accordance with State Statute or the the Florida billing code so you know I'll be glad to go reach out to Mr beard I'll be glad to go reach out to Mr Perry Bell or whomever else to see if they want to provide me with a quote to do the work without certified or or sign and sealed engineered drawings at the end of the day it's kind of like building a house without blueprints yes I can call a friend of mine to go and do that but the product that we want may not be what we ultimately get okay well is the rush trying to get you into the building sure that's why I went ahead and headed in this direction I've been trying to get him in the building for two years ever since been here what I'm asking Mr chairman unless they can ask Mr beard what he will require to convert that to handicap parking that sounds sounds good to me if it's okay with the rest we just we just take this back up 's is you back up after you've gotten some answers on that sure I'll be glad to bring it back thanks yes all right moving on so the next item I have here under one second before we go any further I just want to remind the public um and this that we are currently live on YouTube Okay okay so people can rewind and listen to that old really want all right thank you all right moving on to 6C are the staggered board terms so in the bylaws that you all approved at our last meeting there was some um Direction in there as far as following State Statute it made recommendations for those stagger terms I put together a little Matrix if you will basically what I did there is I just took the seat numbers put them in an ascending and a descending order to determine which seats ended up with shorter terms uh at the end of the day this is just a you know potential solution to help with the Staggering certainly open to whatever this board wants to do but that's kind of the most Equitable way I came up with determining who would would have the I guess lesser term than the others as you'll note on there Mr Paul's seat and Miss balo's seat uh will have the longest terms of four years primarily because Miss Balo was appointed in 2020 and then obviously whomever uh replaces Mr Paul will have you know a smaller term um as well so you know I felt it was fair for whomever that replacement is to have that longer uh full full year term um and to give Miss back a additional time as well because she's been here the sest now what are you saying that you know what you saying that in the end of the four years that we're done can Council reappoint or that's correct y so State Statute states that the terms are set at four years the appointments uh so that date that is provided there is the end of that term where the council would ultimately either reappoint you or appoint someone else so you say my term men in 522 of 25 there's a couple of different staggers yeah there's there's a couple as it stands right now from my understanding the council ratified every seat last year correct so technically from that date you have four years until a reappointment is required considering the Staggering that's required or that's provided in statute that's where I came up with these different end dates to to try to get us back on that schedule oh so you the ascending um the staggered by ascending is that the one that is it conforms more to the Florida Statutes way of recomendation I believe all these conform toida statute they do conform but the recommendation in the um Florida statute I think the ascending order is what yeah if I remember correctly the the guidance in the statute basically says that the first three seats would serve one two and three years respectively correct and then the rest would would serve four years with the initial except when the city council your initial appoint which is what we have so stat statute has releas that element doesn't apply that it is about us having some degree of Staggering but if the CRA been appointed initial instead of the city council that's how have so that's where we find ourselves a little bit of flexibility so the question today would be whether we would vote on the ascending or descending y or some other idea that you all may have outside of this play Rock Paper Scissors can draw can clip quarters I don't think it really matters does it I mean if they want us out I'm glad to get off and it won't be off yeah it doesn't matter to me I I just think that you know the ascending order looks good if we just need to make a motion which one is the right here okay this one ascending and then um I I'll make a motion that we just go ahead and go with the ascending order um on the SE ter all in favor say I I I all oppos say no he okay motion carries 5 so we're going to sending I'm I'm the first one off yes so your ter will will be up on May 22nd 2025 yeah so year from now yeah yeah little to the date so all right so the next item I have is is under seven new business a request to approve closing documents I believe Mr Aon is going to give you some update on that we are due to clo we are due to close June 28th um of this year on those two properties um we had put this on here as a placeholder with my intent hoping that I'd be able to give you closing documents and we can get this done early obviously we are not going to order Title Insurance because you're not going to get Title Insurance written over the substantial code Lans that exist rela to these prop proper um in reviewing the title search though that I've done discussing with underwriting what we have determined is these properties are both held in trust and their respective trust one is trust 111 one is 129 it appears from the face the deed it was the intent that these be created as Land Trust under the Florida Land Trust act when you do that you deed it to a trustee of a land trust you don't have to make any reference to beneficiaries and when that deeds done correctly the statute gives us the ability to basically look Beyond look past who a beneficiary is we don't need to look at the trust itself we can act on the recorded trustee in the face of the deed these Deeds weren't quite done that way they were deeded to the trust then comma Land Services Corporation as trustee accordingly the guidance that I have gotten and I tend to agree with from underwriting and again we're not writing insurance but I want to make sure we're actually taking title to this property not creating a problem for us in the future is that we need some documentation that Land Services Corporation Land Services trust Corporation actually has the ability on their own without consent of the beneficiary to deed this property out had the Deeds from Mr H in 2014 to these respective trusts been done in Conformity with Florida statute we wouldn't have this issue so we're working through that we do still expect we'll close at the end of June but that's why we don't have closing documents ready to go is that in review about well we went back we went well back in time to when this was actually owned by Habitat for Humanity and be it out and Trace those forward and that's the only one that causes a problem or a potential red flag but we'll be ready to close on time in my opinion and what's the closing June 28th June 28 that's the signed contract why is it you can't get Title Insurance well T well we can get Title Insurance they're just going to carve out an exception to that lane and typically they require any insurer is going to require up front did any lean or encumbrance be satisfied at the time of closing they're not going to write over the top of these code leans and we don't want to write over the top of code lead I apologize not being there at the last meeting when this occurred but it helped me understand exactly there was a lean on this property and sizeable lean yes sirable lean and the CRA agreed to buy it without that lean being satisfied no the CRA has negotiated with the city of defunc who holds that lean it's a code enforcement LAN for the satisfaction of that lean for $200 right $2,500 which is the administrative cost to city7 are we s a president here where you take and go to code and you get a a a lean and you don't call for a judgment to sell at the courthouse steps why was this not sold at the courthouse step because the city is not elected to move forward with the foreclosure process that's not our choice that's the city defx and in this case the city was agreeable in negotiating Mr Irvin because that's was one thing the board asked him to do was make sure he'd find out what whether we'd be encumbered by the lean or not so ultimately could we get Title Insurance in the future after the lean is resolved yes we certainly can go back and issue it in the future but before closing we would not be able to you can't get the city to sign off on the on the lean before we close or did that close them I wouldn't advise the city to do it and I don't think the city would either because they're intend if they were release over $170,000 of lean and this person were to say I'm not closing keep you know um fine take take the earnest money whatever I don't care I'm just not going to close I want to keep my property now well then we'd be out the property and the city be out $175,000 so the idea is when the CRA buys it the city has agreed that in exchange the CRA acquiring it and putting it under the cra's purview for blight remediation that that's what the base of the lean reduction would be it serves a public purpose and we will add and after we close we will get to correct we can I'll bring it back to the board to discuss depends on what you want to do with the property well unless I mean multiple discusss the county takes it the county would they need Title insur they probably would pay for it then and you let them do it and there's no reason for you to pay the up charge for a property that you're only going to own for a couple months that's your business we'll have we'll know that by that we'll know by the if if you have a lean that is satisfied is that not an IRS issue that the IRS would look at the the lean as income not in this scenario no sir was there an appraisal done on the property before it was purchased no the um board voted based on the total purchase price being $100,000 they voted to act under Florida statute that allows the total purchase price I in this case being something that's exempt from it and this board's vote allowed that we use the comp that the county had on the P County paid $30,000 for the Mooney Bail Bonds building that's adjacent to these properties that's what the board operated there's also a tax D sale down the street I forget the name of that street the one that's between the parking and the courthouse before we get to the uh the uh health department on the right tax theed sale and I think that tax seed sale was less than 12,000 and it might have been two lots for it and it was a tax SE sale so it was auction but I wasn't here and I did not take any responsibility well in in in one of the I think action items that probably should be considered tonight is whether or not that lean or fine reduction of $2,500 is satisfactory to this board is there a motion is there any more discuss other words is the board agreeing to pay $2,500 to satisfy this lean if it does acquire the property this is what Mr so now we're down from 172 to $2,500 corre what we will and and and just so the board understands that fine reduction will only take place after the property is brought into compliance so not at closing but after after that property is brought into compliance now will they will they halt the fines when we close um or will the fines continue until we do continue to ACR so be kidding me well but that the contract that is going that we got to take in how much is the fines per day so let me clarify the agreement that we have with the city will remain intact which is which is $2500 right those fines will continue to ACC acculate every day that the property is no longer comp we don't have to pay those fines at $2,500 whenever the the blight gets remediated $2500 goes to the city and it's and the the lean is is over what is it gonna cause to take care of the BLS once once we own that property though as the CRA will will we have to will the fines continue and be okay because it's still blighted no so so the fines will continue on the register correct however our amount that we have agreed to pay will not change it will still continue to be $2,500 and if we don't remove the B for whatever reason then the $2500 is no longer in right okay thought that has been what is the blight did you say is the what would it cause to correct the blight the blight is the house of quarter of six change he's wondering what it's going to cost though it's it's basically demolition cost and throw it discussions with the county and sure so so a thought that has been presented with the acquisition of these Parcels is to work with the county with the county having a first R of refusal at whatever we have in these Parcels as an ink kind um adjustment or whatever you want to call it gesture rather they would do the demolition of the structure once that demolition is complete and we have satisfied the code violation we would pay the fine and then we would then transfer those over via a sale to the county whatever we had into them did you negotiate that before you agreed to purchase it so I've had conversations did you have it in writing have they agreed to it no sir I have not um it it was my opinion that we didn't need to have those formal conversations without having ownership of the property wow well because we didn't own the property to even have that agreement at that point so right right now we're at $60,000 for the two properties right plus the 2500 30,000 each so 30,000 each plus so um $62,500 plus closing fees things of that and then the county will demolish the buildings and then we in turn give those properties to the county for that cost that we had the cost the county would pay us 62 whatever Plus cost what they would make us whole on the deal but what they B monetarily or just in the in kind of to tearing down the building both so in kind through the Demolition and the monetary purchase so we we would get maybe like you know $40,000 if they say it cost 20,000 to ter no so that would be in addition so the in kind would be in addition to the amount that we sell it to okay so we're GNA get our full money back plus demolation okay and it's a cost neutral transaction for everybody okay that's the C's expressed the desire to do this they're not going to do anything until we own the dag of things that we can't you can't do any more than the than I don't understand why you can't have an agreement with them that upon the per upon the closing that they would take and do this I mean you can negotiate anything and put it in rting con contingence I mean that's desires to do that you think it's appropriate to do it at this point we could go ahead and do a turn like a a letter of intent or something an option contract either one and my goodness theive I mean you know there's there's millions of dollars traded in real estate every day where you have one contract and you do another contract close them at the same time but y'all open in a a a set of worms here that if the county says no we're not going to do this then what are you going to do with the property and how much would it cost to to to Sol the the blight well our job is to remediate blight so our job is know what we're getting into before you spend the money I mean is a moving Target though Joe so look if the county does it at their cost it ain't going to cost us anything if we have to go do it on our dime it's GNA probably cost us maybe $20,000 I don't know just a guess wild guess so now then you've got 80 90,000 in property you don't have an appraisal for and that's this board right under Florida statute to VAR the from the appraisal if it so desires I've St that all I've had to stay I not being I will not vote on this issue one way or the other Mr Johnson Florida Statutes can require you to vote you vote no but you can't yourself per statute okay is there a motion to uh approve the there's there's nothing on the closing of are you asking him to would you like him to go ahead and see if he can negotiate something with the county in writing so that when we get to the next step I think will a mistake to take buy a piece of property thinking that something too late for that now that you not not know what happen I think whenever you are in your negotiations you if if you if you put out here that the count is going to do this yeah it should have been negotiated they should have had an agreement and everybody should know what the end results is on this when you come in we just bought we just bought CR Crescent without knowing what the end result is no that's a little little bit different proper for isse I do agree with that also can we get a vote because Kathy has to go so okay we don't really need a vote but I was just asking the question do you $2500 that somebody has motion second on the $2500 well we're fine with the 2500 I think to approve that we the reduction of this you know to 2500 second all right all in favor say I I all opposed say no I okay we got four yes and one no motion carries thank you you see this again your last meeting in June okay sorry all right you go ahead thank you thank you kley she is stepping out Joe the next agenda item he's going to come on GL next agenda item all right so the next item we have under new business is 7B request Direction on broad-based code fine reduction so this is kind of a piggyback on our last item and conversations I've had with the interim city manager Mr Kobe Townsen we've talked about for other blighted properties that may have significant finds whether the board would consider a broad-based agreement in other words the city City would say to the CRA we will reduce all fines that are levied on these properties for or down to $2,500 that way we wouldn't have to go for each transaction or each property and negotiate individually Mr Townson so that's kind of where we are now to see if there's any interest in that and if so if $2,500 would be acceptable if it's a lesser amount it's more whatever the case may be once I have that direction from this board I'll then work with Mr Townson Mr Townson work with the council to see if we can come to some kind of an agreement for that and this would be based on the fact that the fines exceed the $2500 correct that's correct okay so is this something that needs to be voted on or so yes if you want to provide me direction if that is except don't need a need a vote necessarily as much as give him your guidance is this something that because if it is going to be negotiated we need to have a written agreement I think it's a good idea personally I I AG I don't know how Joe feels about it but it's it's everything is going to come before this board to vote on So You Think it's a bad deal you're GNA vote no anyway but at least it gives him the ability to go and try to get some of these things which the city won't foreclosed so that we can try to work these things out and reduce them this BL so if the city would take an L adjustment on their lean and have S sold at the courthouse steps and that opens up the public for bid agree 100% I agree and I don't understand I don't understand why that if you're going to get a a you know if you're going to go to say all right we're going to get this link and levy on it and let it sell the cour our St so if it doesn't sell then you know we could step in and negotiate it at that time but how many of these properties are we going to be buying at at this amount of money or how many are out there I mean several that's well this would just be pre-planning right here just to you know to to do you not agree that reduction from $172,000 to $2,500 just in case we decide to get a property and just be ahead of the game it's a it's a tool in the tool box it's it's just kind of like a pre we're pre-planning Joe got a majority small majority but I guess we do have majority I mean it just makes sense to me I think it makes sense to me we wouldn't we're going to see everything I mean if the city was aggressively foreclosing on these properties that would be awesome we wouldn't have to move forward on five which is good but there's a lot more than five that these problems exist with and so the idea is if there's some way that Josh could negotiate something with somebody to give them a little money to get them to get off that property we could remediate the blight we could fix the plate whatever we need whatever we desire to do that makes sense that gets circulated back and it would just keep us from having to go to the city each time understand and I appreciate your explanation and But there again I think if you're going to take in have a city and they're G to take in Levy at lean and they need to go through the Judgment process and I think it sets a bad president for us to set here and say okay you can get a million dollar lean and then we can take and settle this thing for $2,500 I just disagree with it but y'all go ahead I'm good Fair thank you for your com all so I think the general consensus is for me to move forward with that to the next step thank you okay all right the next item on our new business is item 7c request to advertise RFP 241c parking study so this RFP is just that it's request for proposal I will uh based on the board's Direction either put it out uh for bid to see what kind of uh interest we have to determine um you know what that cost will be and bring it back or I can put it in the paper shredder certainly up to you at this point the RFP isn't going to cost us any money other than time uh and and labor for you know Staffing to to manage that process but essentially what this will do is identify and inventory what we have analyze its use and make recommendations on how we can better use what we have and then more strategically uh find additional Parcels or whatever for new parking is that something you can do no sir I can go out an inventory all day long I believe the city has done just that uh however this provides us with you know some professional guidance on how to solve some of these pered parking problems this would not be a part of um main streets master plan by any chance no no no I think there's there's guidance in there similar to ours that that is recommended as a Next Step kind of thing is there any way we can partner with Main Street oh um because basically what we're doing is is just um this um RFP is just for us to get a quote on how much they're going to charge us to give us another $95,000 book to tell us what we're going to do that that that's well kind of uh basically what it's going to do is establish a price a proposal to do the parking study um which will then come back before you for you all to make a decision on and then you got to pay another 100,000 for engineer by time you get through you got too have you discussed this with Main Street to partner with them if this is something that they would be willing to partner with us on and split yep so I did bring it up at the meeting that we were going to be working toward this I'll be more than happy to have conversations to see if there's any opportunity for them to help us out financially with that um we really don't know what it's going to cost at this point I have a range of 20 to 100 plus thousand I really don't know um until we put it out for bid and see what the interest is it's hard to determine that so we really don't know what that ask would be from so today all you're asking is is just to send out this um RFP to find out what what it will actually cost this is not going to cost us anything today just for us to shock Joe with $120,000 price T when they bring it back right that that's correct let's do putting it out on the street soliciting proposals that you all will then see and make a decision on do we need to vote on this yes okay all right is there a motion I make a motion we just go ahead with the RFP second okay all in favor or any discussion got any discussion I don't think I just don't think it's necessary my opinion I think it's not going to cost us anything I think you can identify there the parking problem I think you can identify where the parking plot problem is I think you can identify a property close to that facil parking area to take care of it and I'm against anything to do with like paying for another study so my motion is no okay so then got a motion all in favor say uh I I I all opposed say nay nay okay motion carries 31 all right all right so next item under new business is D request Direction on allocation of additional unspent revenue from fiscal year 23 so after further review with the finance staff here at the city it was determined that there's an additional $ 32,670 balanced at our last meeting you all allocated a little over 87,000 this is the additional amount that will be required in order to make that budget whole there's still going to be some unspent Revenue that hasn't been reconciled uh I've been advised to hold off on any future conversations until the Auditors are finished with the financial statements because there have been some expenditures that were applied to the wrong fiscal year so those numbers are constantly changing in other words but as it stands right now they request that you all allocate $326 37 to some fund or some new Fund in this budget year to balance our budget and our funds are what's listed here that is correct or you can create new funds if you so desire so we could put this in the land fund you could because we're going to we're going to be expending almost half of our land fund coming up pretty quick sir and didn't we earmark the previous dollars in the incentive VAR we did we did yes sir you say land fund you mean just per new purchases I think I like that idea personally what do y'all C I know I'm sorry to go yeah well we we just put the 87,000 in incentive Grant I think the incentive grants could use it too but we're going to we're going to expend half of that right there we we've already expended half of it if once we close on these two properties and then if something else comes along Joe we won't have the money we have another Christ's coming up money to repair the building that we purchase well that's another good place we could create a fund for that if we had a fund called land fund could we use it for the repairs of the building we purchased to is it something or would it have to be strictly for new purchases of properties so what I think we have flexibility um within the the budget itself outside of the allocation of the unspent Revenue to move that money around if so desired so in other words in this particular fiscal year in the 6610 account titled land you all allocated an amount to that particular fund that money can be moved around within that budget what however you all would like it's that unspent Revenue that's allocated that has to be dedicated uh or designated to that particular so if this went into the if this went into the land fund now before we closed on these properties then that 32,000 comes right off the top and that allocated fund's already gone that that's correct okay that that would be the best thing to do and it can be used for building because then we can take whatever's left or in that and then move it move it around if we need that's correct that's right so it's the designed portion that has to remain correct way unless it's expended obviously if you buy something with it so get rid of that money right off of these next two purchases how long do you have to allocate oer correct cor correct they would like it to be allocated immediately because our balance our budget is unbalanced right now so if we did it next month during the closing I mean or do we need to do it right now or so I would recommend you do it now and if you want to allocate the land then we'll make sure that that particular transaction has this money earmarked I'd like to make a motion to allocate the $32,000 to the land fund second all right all in favor say I I oh wow allos say n it's quiet motion carries 40 all right we have h a special yeah so uh the next item on our new business is uh e University of West Florida historic trust landmarks partnership I've asked Mr Rob Overton from the WWF historic trust to come and kind of give an overview of what they do and introduce the new Partnerships with the Fant Landmark so thank you good to be here thank you for all having me uh Josh thanks for the invite he told you my name I work for the University of West Florida historic trust obviously we are direct support organization of the University of West Florida and what I do specifically is we manage 32 historic properties in downtown Pensacola about nine acres and we have a 40 acre archaeological and antibellum Industrial site over in Milton Florida we run museums we do historic preservation uh we help manage archaeological sites we help with those 32 properties 12 of those are Museum museums the others we have a couple for our administrative use collection storage warehouse for our Museum collection some Office Buildings but we do rent properties out to help businesses uh we've got a few tenants some of them nonprofit some of them commercial Industries couple restaurants but trying to keep the community um mindful of the history that makes the place special while also putting it to a current current modern commercial use that's uh beneficial for everyone part of what our mission is is also doing historic preservation uh advocating for preservation uh we've got a beautiful downtown here what makes it special is people come in they get the feel that they've stepped back in time we try to Advocate to help preserve that historic nature of the properties while also understanding the importance of current development and I think the two can exist uh side by side we were fortunate to work with p with defunc landmarks and do a partnership over a year ago with the Federal grant that they've got that's taking five they've got some federal funding through the park service to give to five properties in downtown around the circle to help fix the facade to make it back to the historic character of that um McKenzie has been sort of the person on the ground here we've helped manage the back end of that Grant I do have a historic preservation that's own staff that's come over and work with the homeowners and the contractors to make sure that they fit those federal guidelines because that partnership has worked very well U the defunc landmarks has decided that they wanted to merge with us and see what else we could do from our some of our resources to help with things into fiac we have the ability to pull from some University faculty some students to come and do some programs more education and providing a resource to the city the county and hopefully CRA if you have questions about preservation help promote local history we also have an art Museum in our I'm not the art museum guy but we have an art museum and our repertoire Museum so we've been doing some public art and some other projects we do a lot of partnership with the City of Pensacola on some public art projects some historic preservation projects but also doing education Community Education uh I'm coming over with our historic preservationist he's going to do most of it but uh in this fall we're going to offer a workshop here in in defunc on historic preservation for the homeowner what resources are out there if you want to do Preserve historic preservation to your property uh how to research the history of the property uh what things can be used and can't be used and should be used and the best way to do that so just providing a resource you're going to be seeing a good bit of us uh if you've got questions we're happy to work with things I've talked to the city's uh grant writer I know they've got a couple historic preservation grants we're happy to provide some resources for that our historic preservationist can come out and do a survey and condition reports for buildings and so just coming into the community um is part of our service area we're University of West Florida which goes all the way over to Appalachia Cola um and we this has been an area that we really haven't done a lot in and we looking forward to doing that I know in June we're working with the First Methodist Church they're going to do a uh Dr Joselyn Evans with their cougan Honor Society students are coming over I think we've got six or eight students they rented out the defunc hotel for the whole week and we're working with the Methodist Church to do a civility uh working with families and so that's being promoted I know car's helping us promote those but I'm a face you'll probably see over here a little bit more uh got my card if you want it we did uh McKenzie pushed out our little first ever we've done a little Magazine on what we've done in in Pensacola and there's a section in there on the fiac with the partnership but just wanted to come and introduce and um tell you that we're here as a resource I'm not coming in trying to tell you how to do anything but if you've got questions and we can help we're happy to do that awesome thank you so much thank you for forward to working with you guys it's a great little magazine so got a chance to read through it all right uh any public comments okay nothing um six o'clock does anyone want to make I just have one thing under the board member comments um I had a a visit from Chief early today and he mentioned to me that he approached the city council at their last meeting regarding trying to get these foreclosures um pushed ahead and moved along a little quicker and wanted to know if there was any way that the CRA board you know and it was like what Joe was talking about if we could you know if we could move quicker the city could move quicker with the foreclosure process and some of these really blighted and you know exceeded value homes it would be a win-win for everybody you know because like Joe says and the houses would go up for options people would see so it was just something he asked me I don't know if that's something we can we can you it is outside the cra's perview to dictate the city's foreclosure code process it would be an overlapping of the general duties um I know Mr Townson since he has taken over as interim city manager um has looked at exploring the city's original process of attempting to secure deeds in L foreclosure as well as starting foreclosure um he's provided me an updated list that he and Mr strong went over I think he said last Thursday is that right towards the end of last week either way including five properties that are going to be the front five that he wants to pursue foreclosure on and then obviously has the ability to pursue Deeds of L foreclosure on other properties and there'll be a number of those pursued so that process is moving a lot quicker thanks to Kobe huh that that process is moving along very quickly um the city adopted a resolution back in June June of 2021 giving the city manager Authority so that would not have to come before the city council Mr Townson has taken that charge and is running with it okay all right very good however if you allow to reduce a lean to 2500 then that's for us I know that but then the city would not be forceful and for close them because it gives you know gives different that's only the purchase of the property though but if you take that off the table make them do the Clos make them do the well I do agree with that they are they are proceeding forward with that because these properties the the homeowners are not doing anything with those properties I mean I've I've they're just you know I I've got multiple ones that I've we've offered making trades and and they're they're not going to do anything until the city does something but they're are other properties that you know these homeowners eventually when they start seeing foreclosures happening all around them may be willing to sell to the CRA at a reasonable price and then that's when we need to you know knock down those loans because they're not going to do anything with those on those um findes rest my I'm I'm thankful that Kobe is is is taking a bull by the horns and doing this because it has been frustrating well once they start happening people are going to start thinking a little bit more and to have this this tool in the toolbox I mean I mean we're not Joe we're not we're not none of us are advocating I we would love for the city to do all of the Foreclosure work and then we don't have to however it's so slow getting some of this blight remediated because you sitting people just sitting on these properties and hoarding and whatever and it's hurting everybody and if you don't take action against these people then they're gonna they're going to do nothing so if the city takes the action that's great that's the first best first move but you know there's still may be other scenarios where you know some people are you know difficult to deal with you dangle a little bit of money in front of them and all of a sudden they're they're happy so we just got to see what makes sense that's my opinion so anyway anything else my opinion is you're not I wouldn't buy anything without I'm an appraisal and that's my final say all right everything Dy noted and uh does someone make want to make a motion to adjourn this meeting motion adjourned all right you're adjourned 606 thank you again thank you hey Dar good job hey