all right hello everyone welcome to Destin city council meeting today is July 22nd and I am calling this six o' meeting to order up first is going to be our uh invocation uh led by Pastor David Butler at Faith Assembly Christian Church would you bow your heads please oh God we come before you with gratitude we thank you for being a god of love who is with us each and everyone we thank you for making each of us in this room every person every citizen of this city that you have made in your image we thank you as your blessing with dignity and infinite worth I thank you tonight God for these your servants we thank you Lord for your hand of protection upon our city manager Lewis this evening as he faces surgery tomorrow we ask Lord God that you would guide the surgeon's hands and that his recovery would be speedy and complete father we thank you for our manager our mayor our city staff and our city council members I give you thanks for the way of service that they have chosen to take up on behalf of all of us here we ask your blessing to help us oh Lord to trust you more more than our fears more than our wounds and even more than our accomplishments may we lean on your Everlasting Arms tonight and now according to Numbers chapter 6 The Blessing says this may the Lord bless you and keep you may his face shine upon you and be gracious to you may he give you his peace amen amen thank you so much Council woman abar with the pledge to the flag all right thank you for all that all right moving right along uh the agenda approval entertain a motion or any substitutes okay button I need to add uh appointment of Craig a or I'm sorry Brian aotto not Craig AO I know Brian AO to the public uh Parks and Rec committee under my name please I'll get this right all right anything else uh one thing mayor and that is under the consent agenda for the architectural RFQ just want to point out that the um the schedule of fees is the exhibit B so when it's signed we will mark it exhibit B I just want to put that on the record and that's been agreed to by uh the architect Perfect all right anything else all right seeing none do I have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the motion second second all right Ray if you can call that vote all right so there we go I have it unanimously so moved thank you for that all right public comments I will start on my right hand side and we'll work our way my left y'all's right so anyone public comments three minutes yes sir name and address floor is yours Stephen Sanford Lamar Advertising I come to you tonight confused and frustrated after a great deal of time and energy Council voted February 20th 5 months ago to approve an agreement with with Lamar to remove six Billboards in dtin in exchange for the right to convert six seven structures to digital boards at the end of council's meeting on February 20th the City attorney for the first time stated that the agreement with Lamar could not be formally signed until the city's Land Development code was changed I was surprised by this position because the whole reason in agreement with the city was proposed and necessary is because the proposed action is prohibited by the current Land Development code nevertheless pursuant to Florida statute 7020 the city has the ability to enter into an agreement with Lamar and that agreement is the necessary findings of fact to support council's decision per the LDC and comp plan there's even precedent for this the 2008 fudpuckers annexation the city agreed to allow fudpucker relief from the Land Development code and sign ordinance the agreement with fudpuckers was necessary because otherwise their digital billboard would violate the LDC and comp plan clearly the council had the authority to enter into to the fud puckers agreement just as it does in agreement with Lamar nevertheless despite state law and local precedent to the contrary the city staff has insisted on amending its LDC and comp plan the City attorney stated at this at the end of the meeting on February 20th that she would include language in the amended Land Development code to allow the city to enter into the agreement with Lamar following these statements Lamar on behalf of itself and through councel have requested meetings with the city at attorney and staff to better understand this position despite agreeing to a meeting with councel your staff has never provided a date for any meeting despite followup unanswered email emails requesting these meetings there has been a proposed draft Amendment to the Land Development code as you're aware of and it did not contain any of the language referenced by the City attorney on February 20th despite the fact that the City attorney represented it would include language that the City attorney stated would allow our agreement with the city to be put on the agenda I'm sure you can imagine our dismay and disappointment we feel like our requests to meet with our local government have been ignored additionally unless we have overlooked something in the current draft we do not believe that the actions of staff are consistent with their public statements the combination of these factors is disturbing and does not enhance public trust and confidence in our government we're not asking for special treatment we're only asking for an explanation on why council's vote of February 20th has not been implemented why we have not been provided any explanation or opportunity to meet with staff and why the language represented to the to be included in the amendments to the Land Development code are not there appreciate your time thank you very much right thank you Stephen all right that's good come on down Carrie harbarger 307 Mountain Drive so we're probably going to get into another heated discussion about ice cream and vending on the beach before we do and we get somebody up here graveling and crying and how bad their feelings are hurt and how everybody doesn't tell the truth I thought I would go ahead and may I pass these down I can tell the council that the problem is it's getting way out of hand we have to make a decision and so I'm just going to leave it at that and let you pass those pictures down and we have to make a decision if this is legal or not um years ago I tried it and was told no and I was actually told by David baslac and Kelly Gates and they're more than happy to come up and testify and um that's all anybody have any questions right s men questions all right thank you that's not floating in the water oh and I wanted to say one more thing we had you know and I will tell you that I did speak to somebody the other day about this and this business has been going on for since last year actually mostly this year they Park their stuff at June Decker Park and they load out of the park now the we going to come up here and tell you how wrong that is but the truth is is that the deputies that Patrol for the beach man management for okoa County they were the ones who told me where they store their box truck and they load out of their box truck it's a full-blown business and I really would ask the council to please look at chapter 13 and 14 of offsite businesses please it's very specific what off-site businesses are it's not storing your freezers and your Vats in your backyard it's more of a manage Jal thing to where you can run an office or have a phone it's not a business and it's still running cuz I watched it walk to the neighborhood day before yesterday they were five thick they're five to eight thick on the beach every day seven days a week thank you thank you have a nice day hey push that button name and address and it's all Britney zer 61 Koka Road I just want to clarify that's not us or that in that business that's not us we are kneed deep um and she is breaking a restraining order if she is taking pictures of us because she is a third party associated with a restraining order we have on her son and another relative I don't know if it's her husband or not but there is a permanent restraining order put in place that if she takes pictures or anything that is a violation we clarified with the Sheriff's Office the pictures you have is not us not our company like our our business isn't even stor in this County it's in a totally different County an hour away from here so I I don't really know what she's upset about but that's not us in those pictures that's not our company we do not even have anything ice cream at 61 COC my road that's someone else's business so well that we know of we didn't see the pictures we don't know but if there's any photos of us in there it's breaking the law it's breaking so we need to figure this we' L us from what I saw that's not even us but she cannot take pictures she cannot us she is a third party associated with a permanent restraining order so I'm shaking because it's scary like this lady is out to get us she's money hungry and people do crazy things over money and it's not just us that said we've heard it from many many many many people not just us so so and we are following the rules me and him are in the water KNE deep so I don't know what to say all right thank you for being here all right anyone else public comments seeing none I'll close the public comments and we'll move on to the consent agenda does anyone have a motion I'll make that motion to approve right have a motion toor do I have a second for the consent agenda I'll second with the second councilman Stevens any further discussions seeing none Ray if you can call the vote it Ray all right eyes have it unanimously so moved all right Miss city manager good evening mayor and council members sub yes um so uh this is Crystal Strickland the finance director I'm sitting in for lisis zunzi this evening um as you heard he's H scheduled for surgery tomorrow so uh I'm going to dive right into the city manager reports the first item that we have up is establishing the 2025 tentative millage rate and budget public hearing dates so the millage rate that we set this evening is the one that will be advertised and sent out to all of our voters on their trim notices their truth and millage rate notices um the summary as we um as we discussed at the budget workshop last week uh if we set the millage rate for this this would be the eth consecutive year at 1. 615 this would bring in 13 about 13.4 million a 12 million of that would go into the general fund uh 678 th000 would go into the Town Center CRA and 557 th000 would go into the harbor crra this is an a this would um for the general fund that $12.1 million is approximately 52% of the proposed FY 2025 operating budget and this would be an effective tax increase of 6.76% so with that I'll open it up to council members for discussion all right I don't see anyone on my side anyone verbally discuss all right Council Bagby got it thank you I'll go ahead and make the motion uh the recommended motion I move that Council set the tenative mill rate for adoral taxes at 1. 1615 Mills which is a 6.76 more than the roll back rate of 1.51 to7 Mills and confirm the date and times of the public hearings for the FY 2025 Budget on September 5th 2024 at 6 p.m. and September 16th at 2024 at 6: pm and then in addition I move to cancel the optional budget workshop on Monday August the 12th 2024 4 at 5:30 p.m. I'll second all right I got a motion and second for the original with all respect that's two issu issu need to be sear separate all right I'll remove the everything after in addition right and I'll make that all right so we're speaking just on the 1.61 five um any discussions all right do you have anything I'm just looking for people going for the buttons all right seeing none I will call the vote no are you going all right K okay my I assume there would be at least some kind of discussion about this so I wanted to chime in to give to give everybody the opportunity to push their buttons to have a discussion you know it's been seven years since we've had an increase in milit rate is that right um you know as of right this and I'm not in support of increasing the millage rate I mean I my a large majority of my constituents and friends are blue collar guys and girls that are going to give me a hard time about this and I don't blame them um you know I try not to make decisions based on based on my feelings or emotions or the way that you know I would swing towards certain things but more so based on the way that the people who elected us to be here would feel about this um you know my my question is you know I realize this is a great increase this is a this is a great thing to do to for the health of our budget um fiscally so I'm on board with that but the you know where are we lacking in I mean I realize we've got a ton of money out for certain capital projects that are coming coming to you know coming to aead this year um you know so this affects us in a big way this year but is this necessary for the following years um those would be those are my questions those are my concerns uh would love to hear everybody else's councilwoman a thank you mayor um I too understand that you know there's nothing anybody wants to hear is are your taxes are going up but after talking to the City attorney today the real amount that this physical number doesn't make it sound proper if you look at what everyone's current value what the rate is and correct me if I'm wrong Kim average is going to be $40 a year so it depends on the cost of your home and the value of your home but I'm going to let Crystal explain that better I believe it's about a 133% increase but Crystal can you yeah so if we were to increase the millage rate a tenth of a mill up to the 1715 that would be a 133% tax increase for our tax holders um I looked at the property data again today 78% of our properties are valued under $600,000 so at the $600,000 Mark um those homeowners will pay about $800 to the city of dtin the uh the median value of the homesteaded properties is uh closer to 300,000 those homeowners will pay between 480 and 520,000 uh $20 in total in their taxes so if we were to increase the millage rate by that one tenth of a mill that would be an additional $40 to $60 per household that they would pay in that would generate the city an additional $800,000 um but and that would be like uh like Kim just said that would be an effective tax increase of 133% as opposed to what we've proposed in the motion was just made to uh to keep our millage rate exactly where it's been for the last eight years which is an effective tax increase of 6.76% but the other part of this is because we haven't gone up as a city our roads are deteriorating our infrastructure our buildings we're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul to get new air conditioning units in several of the buildings so if everyone's paying 800 now and we make this increase that's 840 is what they would pay so for the to just make it very simple for those that don't want to try and figure out I'm not good at math either $40 more a year over 12 months is what you're looking at that's the increase in the true value of what we're doing don't look at the number of what the millage rate states correct that's right so that that extra $40 if if we were to increase our millage rate up that one tenth of a mill um you know you could also think of it as you know $5 a month that that extra $40 that each household would pay us would help us accomplish some more of these projects that we've had on our strategic plan for a long time it might also make possible uh the next item that we're going to discuss is the debt issuance and to councilman Bagby and Dustin's uh point at the last meeting they say why don't we borrow for 10 or 15 years instead that would cut off uh $3 million in interest that we would have to pay but just like a a blue collar homeowner um you have the income that you have and the income that the city has would not allow us to borrow at a 15-year or less right I we just don't have enough cash flow to make those monthly mortgage payments right so it is going to cost the city additional in interest but if we had a mill rate in increase that would increase the the cash flow coming in so that I could borrow on a shorter duration uh for example or we have uh we have requests in to increase the amount that we give to the lifeguards for the Lifeguard Services uh my next year's budget is hitting pretty much uh safety issues like the playground that we had to remove most of the components uh for safety issues the the athletic field lighting um that is catching on fire and components are falling down down the uh the Leaky Community Center I mean these things are like in very serious condition because we have not properly invested for in the preventative maintenance programs for all of these facilities and they are getting to the critical position so um future revenues for the city is something that our Council really needs to take seriously and um and we have time to continue considering that uh just a a reminder the millage rate that we set this evening at public hearing number one on September 5th or at public hearing number two on September 16th we can still bring the millage rate down with no penalty this to the city no issues if we were to try to raise the millage rate after tonight it comes at Great cost and expense to the city in terms of first class mailings out to voters um and some other things so just want to make sure as you as you vote on this this evening you're you're you know you're aware um and again you can change your mind in the next meeting and bring it back down if you like um but bring it up yeah but you really shouldn't bring it up well it at this point that gives the public that there is enough outcry that even though it would make $800,000 if the people that would have to put out that extra $5 a month or $40 a year come to the meeting and state we know our city needs this money but I don't want to give up that extra 40 a month a year I don't have it so this is a a perfect opportunity for those that care that want to be a part of the discussion you can see we have an empty house here with just a few citizens so we would like for more people to come and tell us what you really feel instead of just throwing it out there on Facebook and not showing up to do anything about it so so we can do this tonight and we're not locked in correct that that's correct and also you know the the city of dtin we commonly get complaints about um the state of our Parks the state of our recreation centers uh we're not trying to become big government here at the city of dtin right we're we're Okaloosa County we like to keep things small and tight and flexible we like to move to meet our citizens requests as quickly as possible right um but it it's um you know a cash flow issue at this point and if our people want nicer Parks if they want nicer facilities uh for recreation and at the parks if they want uh increased lifeguard services at the beaches and so forth uh this would help a long way and also we have these we've already made these commitments we've already purchased the one Harbor Boulevard property we have already made the commitments to the county to complete the the park developments at Crystal uh Shores and at Tarpon Beach uh a lot of these capital projects we have on our list for next year we've signed in our local agreements and we have to meet our commitments thank you all right cman Stevens I mean I kind of agree with Johnny and Teresa I mean pretty much if you want the services I mean we got to increase our fees otherwise these Services aren't going to be here much longer um I mean what how how low are our fees we're like on the bottom right now in the state are you referring to fees or taxes or uh for the uh the mill rate I guess yes we're one of the lowest in the State of Florida so I mean I want these beautiful Parks too I mean you look in Panama City they got that beautiful ball field out there uh Fort Walton has awesome Parks what do we have ours don't look like those and we're never going to get there with way it is right now just to put it in perspective uh less than 5% of municip alties and local governments throughout the State of Florida have a millage rate under 2 Mills our Charter caps us at 2 Ms and we're not proposing to change our Charter John can I ask on that only because it's on the same topic does if we were to change the millage rate tonight or you know vote on this and it passes where does that put us in the rankings from where we are now we're we're still in the the 5% lowest in the state of Florida uh cman Bagby yeah uh wow couple of things number one uh I know you're just filling in and stuff so less uh opinions and more facts and answers to questions I I got it I just I know that's that's mine Nico yeah well there there's a lot of opinions there and number one they're incorrect because because when you're homesteaded there is a cap okay and you're not raising because you can only raise it on a homesteaded property 3% not the 17.3 3 43 which it would be if they weren't capped okay it would say so it would not generate the money that you're saying it would off of the homesteaded properties no we're not proposing to increase the the values of the property no I you can't do that only the property you okay I'm I'm pretty confident I know this issue fairly well so we're going to raise taxes effectively 6.76% by keeping the millage at the same so what some folks are considering is no that's not enough let's raise it 133% okay of course not on the homesteaded property so the people I'm I'm more concerned about I know Mr D will probably talk about the businesses and I'm concerned about them you know they come right after our our permanent residents but we have a lot of permanent residents that rent particularly military member members uh people that are here for service industry jobs and others that are not Homestead and their their taxes would go up you know 13 well their rentor their landlord's taxes would go up on those non-homesteaded properties uh 17.43% because they would get the full impact of the increase which is that's the percentage increase between and it depends on the property value I understand that so when you have more lower valued properties it doesn't go up that much but if you have higher properties it actually goes up more than that but the average would be between a 1715 and a 1.6 615 would be that that in and of itself is just a 17.43% increase if I calculate right so and this isn't you know this is not the the time of the year I think you know one of the uh main issues that's going to be voted on or debated during this upcoming election is inflation and people you know the price of inflation and for us to create or add on to that inflation I just don't think is the right move I do agree and I said this at the last meeting you know Services the fees on Services ought to go up if you want to use something you ought to be we ought to recapture whatever it costs I'm 100% behind that but to tax everybody particularly those who don't use any of our services and we actually have people that don't use any of our services I don't even have parking stickers on my car yet but I'll probably try to get those sometime in the next two years I'm going to charge you're going to charge me to park that's fine if I use that parking charge me to park because that's the the service fee model and I do agree that we need to have a comprehensive overview and we talked about this today of look within the next two months we need to bring back a simplified plan so that we aren't incentivizing developers Builders and others to do an Integrity check and tell us that that dock only cost $50,000 to build when we know it cost probably 120,000 a bill so we need to fix that and we need to fix it fairly quickly and I agree you know in the out years we need to look but the staff has not brought to us factual data that says here's here's what you need okay here's what we're going to have to spend and you can do that you tried to bring it last time but we kind of got cut short on the you got us you know you can raise the millage you can charge fees and then everybody starts going well we can't you know Institute a fee to launch a boat at Joe's by you I everything ought to be on the table I don't disagree with that but until we have that conversation I I won't support raising taxes in this city on people living in homes 133% uh year-over-year that was calculated by the Florida Department of Revenue by the way no Mr Bagby just clarification yeah were you were you just saying that your concern was for the Air Force and the service industry people that are renting the homes of a second homeowner because they're going to pass the tax down to them yeah they will have to pass that tax down to them and where do they fit in the priorities of well their their their property taxes are not capped I'm talking about the people that are renting these houses that you're concerned about I don't understand I thought I heard you say there are permanent residents yeah they only may be here for two years but guess what they're permanent residents their kids go to our schools you know their kid they launch their boat at Joe's by you so the residents that you're talking about they're residents yeah I just understand they're not homesteaded residents you know like probably all of us are but they're still residents and they still vote here yeah in in pretty good numbers all right cestin thank you mayor to compare the city to Blue CED workers that have a budget is not realistic blue colored workers don't have the ability to increase their pay 10 to 15% every year which this city has done for the last seven years through the increase in property appraisals um so they don't have the ability it looks like we may exercise that ability the uh and and the problem is is like Jim said inflation is hurting a lot of people I don't know about other folks that are in business I've talked to a lot of them in Destin their businesses are down considerably because the economy is just not uh what it would or should be and to increase the business businesses taxes and and we play games with the the homestead and properties under 300,000 the average price of a a business on the Harbor is probably 2 or three million so when you increase that by 16 or 14% or whatever it is it's not $40 or $50 in addition to that the city's revenues don't just come from from uh property taxes the franchise fees are 3% now when you figure that into a business and I can only go from you know what we spend on electricity every year that's about $88,000 a year to the businesses that we operate to provide jobs for people in destined um until we get down to the point where we look at our budget and say we need to see what 3% reduction in operating budgets across the board will net for us it may well net as much as this 700,000 will be but whatever it Nets that shows that the city is caring about the citizens that live here and not caring about creating a a large um Behemoth that goes forward which is what happens with almost all governments i' make one other point and um the letter that goes out when we do an increase is going to go to Every property owner inves when we if we if you all decide later on to lower it they don't get a letter you just lowered it and they just had the letter that said you were planning on increasing taxes folks for you those those of you that are planning to run fre reelection people in desk are going to tell you very clearly what they think of a tax increase and that's all I have to say on this issue Council M so I guess I'll I'll do this with questions like my typical format there uh Crystal um we expect to get money from outside such as grants in a lot of instances correct that's correct if we don't have money in the general fund can we get those grants how does that process work is it uh the grants we receive uh we we've been pulling in about 12 million a year in in Grants the last few years they're all cost reimbursement grants so I have to send the canceled check to the grantor in in order to be reimbursed and that's why it's really important that we keep a healthy unassigned fund balance so that I have the cash flow that so I can keep paying people and uh getting reimbursed so by not accepting this ad Borum increase it makes it harder for us to achieve the grants to provide the services at no cost to the citizens as well so there is an impact correct that that's correct okay well thank you very much for that Crystal I appreciate your time all right and oh Council okay so if we were to raise like funds for those that come in and rent our fields for all these softball games and stuff like that that money we could increase with that money go into the same pocket or bucket as if we were to do the adorm increase to the resident so if we made more money off of those that are coming in for tournaments and stuff that could offset what we would have to charge our residents am I right that that's correct so uh fees for recreation go into the same fund as ADV valorum taxes and right in the past years our Recreation fees were covering about 24 20 to 24% of the cost of running our parks and our Recreation programs now we're down to 14% coverage uh expenses keep going up as you know but uh the revenues haven't been changing so is there a plan for us to increase our fees like for the fiscal year in October do we have that I know we talked about it at a couple of meetings we were going to get us back up to paying for themselves like these tournaments they pay a higher fee to rent the field a higher fee to come in are we making plans to correct that now at the uh the most recent time when we discussed increasing the recreation fees it was requested that we go back and do a fuller accounting to match the actual revenues to the actual cost of running all of the programs uh the city historically has never tracked at the level that was requested so we started that this past March uh so we're Gathering the data um and we're trying to refine and allocate the expenses out to each of the programs to understand which one should be increased um so the proposals for fee increases that we brought last October uh this past I think it was January and and a few times this year they've all been pushed off until that analysis is compl complete all right my last question will that analysis be done soon enough to where we could make that our 2025 money income not likely all right counil winm for what it's worth miss abar our Recreation fees for running those facilities are the highest in this area so just keep that in mind um if we were to increase this is that something that could be allocated by resolu ution or ordinance to certain funds like if a 10th Mill is increased could that be a portion of it go to um safety portion of it go to parks and wreck and things like that um we we could if Council requested it uh right now it just goes into the general fund and I track them against the the recreation expenses um the reason a lot of fees at other recreational facilities around our County and and other places are much lower is because their adums are double or triple what ours is right so we could though to answer the Absolut yes whatever if Council wants to make a resolution or motion to earmark or commit funds from a certain Source they can thank you all right councilman Bagby to round it out okay I I think I misunder stood because uh I think Mr G's question was could we not Would we not have the money to to do our matching part of the grants available if we don't raise the millage was that your question that was not my question my question was if we raised the millage would it allow more funds for us to get larger grants more available grants larger quantities larger amounts okay that that would depend on the availability of Grants but all right so I misunderstood that question uh on the whether or not the analysis can be done the analysis can be done you know that we might have to put something on you know the back burner but the analysis could be done within a month I mean we're already halfway there they already show us they just have to do you know it's a whether we want to emphasize we want to see that now next meeting meeting after or whatever you know then that's resetting the staff's priority so it's not that it couldn't be done it could be done before the beginning of the fiscal year uh to answer I think is the proper answer to your question and then I remind you the short-term registration or the on the condos uh is also a uh Revenue source so I'm just I I agree that we need to relook all our fees from top to bottom but not our millage not this time until the Staff can justify increasing the millage because they haven't done that yet and we we are still good for although the M the numberers I think too low but that's my personal opinion 5 years out we're still in the black on all our funds isn't that correct uh we're dangerously low by 2027 we're still in black on all our funds so you know we got five years to figure out that number but uh or solve that problem which we should do now I agree 100% I just don't think the millage increase is the way to do that all right I think we can all agree that we have been using duct tape and Destin for maybe a little too long and I think if I'm reading the room right maybe not the millage but I think we're all in consensus that this issue isn't about the taxes it is about having the fees to generate the funds to give the amenities that we need for the citizens and for our community so I'm glad it comes up very uh pointed in a tax discussion but hopefully this allows us to get a little bit more uh spearhead driven on the fees and finding the uh other ways to do things so um what so we're not voting to make this happen tonight we're voting to push this to a two meetings reading one and two yeah we're voting tonight so what you're voting on tonight and I the motion was to uh to set the milit rate at 1.61 5 which is the same place it's been for the last eight years um what we vote on tonight goes to the property appraiser and will be printed on the uh the truth and millage rate notices that go to Every property owner all right I think everyone said their piece I'm sure this will get quoted somewhere in the news of how close we were of discussing this uh but Ray please call the vote on the 1. 1615 all right okay well then I need to change my vote my vote needs to change yes okay yeah I see what you're saying so that would tie it up would it not no no you're going it's going more into the affirmative there's already four so you're number beond the prevailing side council member DUS okay thanks all right good deal all right thank you guys so much Mr Mayor I we'll make go ahead another motion as soon as I get this box out of my way thanks Ray it's gone thank you the uh I will make the uh motion whoops too far to move to cancel the optional budget workshop on Monday August the 12th 2024 at 5:30 p.m. I'll second that all right have a motion in the second just uh one question on that or comment so there's been a lot of discussions about uh bringing back some clarification on Park stuff and Mr uh Stevens just talked about other other parks in the area and all that so are we hoping to have maybe some of those final discussions at the at the council meeting when we actually finalize the budget then is that kind of what you're yeah so uh I had a if and I'm sure you remember I had asked staff to bring back to this meeting the $200,000 that was sitting out there allegedly 200,000 there seemed to be some discussion between the finance director and the parks and Rex director on exactly how much was out there but to bring that back and tell us what it was budgeted for for the remainder of this year okay because they had they stated and I I'm assume they're correct that some of the money that had been budgeted for parks and recck had actually been used to do emergency repairs or repairs on something that obviously involved parks and wrecks I hope but they uh informed me today in in my update that they weren't able to get that completed for this meeting but they promised it would be at the next meeting and it'll be on the agenda and then we will figure out basically this discussion we had last time was well where are we going to put it and we couldn't land on exactly how much we had and what was still budgeted what that money was already budgeted for and should we change those priorities so yes that my understanding and chral can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that discussion will be had at the next full council meeting that sounds good I just wanted to make sure because I know sometimes when we have discussions of things that go into to too much detail we're like oh we could have already you know solved this somewhere else but okay I'm on the same page then thanks all right Council mtin thank you mayor I I would just point out that we had a pretty vigorous and extended conversation on how we could get where we need to be with our money without having another budget Workshop where we can get an example of what a 3% reduction operating is how much we could increase our recreational fees the impact of our short-term rental plan the whole myri out of what we talked tonight then we're making no progress and to Teresa's question about how quickly we can do these things as Jim said staff will do these things as quickly as we tell them to that's how this works and so for that reason I would say we need to have the second budget Workshop so we can discuss these things and go forward and try to figure this out without doing the first reaction of every government in the world which is well we'll just raise taxes so I would be against this motion and I think we should have that optional budget Workshop right BBY yeah and I'm I'm more than will if that's consensus I'm more than willing to uh withdraw my motion the the thing we we have to have a meeting I I I agree 110% with you uh but a workshop where we can't actually make a decision where we can't actually direct staff we can well there's a consensus and we kind of work around that I mean I think everybody knows that when we bring this budget back in September I'm going to recommend that we reduce the uh Merit rise from 4% to 3% so I think it it's not incumbent only upon the staff but it's incumbent upon all of us up here you know we all need to be looking for places to either increase revenues so I'm okay with the short-term rental registration despite all my friends in that business I'm I'm for reducing spending on Merit increase from four to 3% I mean I I'm going to bring back some specific proposals that we can't really decide on in a workshop uh that that was my only reason for I don't need to sit up here for two more hours and go well I think I'd like to do it like this well I want to charge for Joe's by you well I want to charge for you know bring back and and you know better than anybody up here how this works you you bring something in concrete uh and make that proposal we vote on it and if we get four it's in the budget or it's not in the budget so but I if you want me to draw the motion I I I'm not hard over but if y'all want to do the workshop I my all right well I've got a question yeah okay for Miss cop Miss cop the budgetary process we're allowed to have more than the mandatory minimum number of meetings that deal with the budget is that correct you can always have more meetings I I thought that that's the way it is I want to verify with our with our legal department so we could have a special council meeting where we could vote on things if we're going to move forward in an expedited manner I don't have a problem with that I got it okay and the date for the optional budgetary Workshop was or is 12th it was August 12th August 12th I'm sorry can we have a motion to turn that into a special council meeting to deal with budgetary issues I'll I'll make that motion if the second I'll second that okay all right we're amending all right any discussions on turning that into a special seeing none Ray call the vote um it's a yes all right we're going to go down the row I mean you're see me yeah I know but my all right John run down the r row yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you all right so we are changing the work up for the budget meeting into a special council meeting on the budget all right and it passes unanimously so moved all right crystal all right the next item that we have this evening is uh the bid results for the Clement Taylor Park and I'm going to have our bid committee chairman Jeff de issu uh oh the debt issuance oh my goodness I'm skipping right over uh we have a yes we we have uh Mr John Ford here this is John Ford from Ford and Associates is the financial adviser to the city and um he's helped the city craft uh two solicitation documents and he's going to review those two items for for Council right now hit the red button right I I remember this time uh good evening nice to see you all again um at the last council meeting that I attended Council directed us to go out with a competitive solicitation for bank loans and for a possible underwriter for a bond issue two separate avenues for borrowing money happy to go through the differences in those processes again uh before you tonight are a draft request for qualifications for underwriter and a draft invitation to negotiate for bank loans that we and staff have worked on over the past couple of weeks um both of these documents would go out and hopefully bring back uh offers from commercial Banks to extend you approximately $25 million to pay for variety of projects here within the city um we have requested a term of 15 and 20 years in the bank loan document um that amortization has been chosen in conjunction with staff happy to go into that more detail um we will be looking at the terms conditions prepayment options um all of the all of the things that you would be concerned about if you were borrowing money from a single entity in conjunction with any responses we received there should the council choose to move forward with a bank loan it's a a process of two to three weeks following your approval to get all the documents in order and bring it back to you for final approval the underwriting RFQ uh is exactly what it sounds like a request for qualifications we're asking the underwriter items about their firm about their team about their team's experience about what they think about the city of Destin and considerations that you should be making in jum in conjunction with borrowing money right now um that would involve uh things like rating strategy uh in addition there's a non-scored element that asks about their um proposed fees and whatnot where they see compensation for this issue coming in so I will pause there I think and wait to respond to any questions all right NE see that yes okay I'm see none all right oh ceson sorry about that thanks on on the bank request you say we're asking them about 10 to 15 years uh We've requ Reed amortizations for both 15 years and 20 years on the documents were sending to the banks yes sir I've been borrowing banks for a long time and I know the rules are different when you are a government entity but they don't really want to do loans that long if they do it cripples the ability to uh set an interest rate that is as low as it could be um well two things one I agree with you that banks are less inclined to make longer loans uh and two I agree with you that as the loans get longer the interest rates tend to get higher so we agree yeah so we have the option to set the term on whatever amount of years this Council wants to set it on if we deal with banks is that correct yes sir you do yep so if we uh if we did one for five years then you refinance it and at the rate interest rates are now and what the future looks fairly nothing certain in the banking business or the future but I would expect them to be going down and we would of course have to discuss with them the uh prepayment penalties which I would not even contemplate and uh and if we want to refinance what might be the uh they reaction to that anyway 15 to 20 years you're not if if that's all our RFQ is going to say I don't know how many how much response we're going to get well the RFQ is multiple pages so I I summarized it it says a good bit more than that um as for refinancing I will not make interest rate predictions uh I've done that before and uh I usually end up eating the glass that my crystal ball is made out of so um there's that as for refinancing for a term of 15 to 20 years I think it is very likely not certain but very likely that Banks would require some sort of refinancing during that period they probably would not want to hold a 15 or a 20e rate I agree so our RFQ is going to make that option available to them so that they can propose what the best deal is they could give us I suppose does it say that uh it doesn't but it can happy to make that change I don't know if we need a motion for that if you can make that change without a motion but that's what it needs to say come back and tell us what you can do for us to give us the best possible option certainly and not give them an option that they don't want to do anyway okay happy to make that change thanks okay councilman Bagby I just want to make sure I understood uh because I agree but I was what we discussed today was either uh probably a 15-year uh amateurz with a payoff or a balloon payment in 10 yes and then um and no pre penalty and then we talked about whether that should be in the RFQ or just that it should be addressed in the RFQ if there were any prepayment penalties and I think we landed on we would just address or ask them to address any prepayments is that where we ended up that's what we typically ask about um as as I mentioned to you earlier and I'll say it for everybody else's benefit uh my experience with banks is that it tends to be a very institutional approach to prepayment uh there are certain Banks out there that are very open to the concept of prepayment there are other banks that are very closed off to the concept of early prepayment and they want Institute what's called a makole penalty uh which basically says that as interest rates fall in the market uh you will incur a penalty to prepay your loan and what it does is it offsets the cost of the bank of having to turn around and then make new loans at lower interest rates uh we obviously don't like that because it precludes your ability to refinance your debt um for savings so we we've made it clear that we will prioritize early prepayment Provisions but by my experience banks that offer good prepayment options and banks that offer the lowest interest rates do not always correlate as a matter of fact some sometimes it's negatively correlated so a bank that says yeah you can prepaying this any time if they offer you a rate that's 100 basis points greater than somebody that says no you can't prepay this for you know five seven years you know it's very hard to say well this is quantitatively the best option sometimes you have to say no I like this one better or no we're more comfortable with this based on our trajectory and then we talked about so many things but I think on this issue I also ask that you know the bid committee bring us the top two or three is that where we landed because the council needs to make this decision not the bid committee make a recommendation of a you know their number one choice that the council needs to own the debt okay not not the staff of the bid committee the council does and I I want to look somebody in the eye because they may not have the best number but you know if they're local you know we we can all and we can put all this in the RFQ but the things that I asked to be put in the RFQ was the balloon the PO possibility of a balloon payment the possibility of paying early without penalty or interest additional interest uh and that it it be amateurz over a longer period with that balloon payment which is usually how you you can make you know the first five years and then you got the balloon payment and you can either refinance or you can make it a 15-year amateurz over 10 and then you can have the balloon payment uh I'm sorry amateurz yeah over 15 with a balloon payment at the 10year Mark so that that is the flexibility that I'm looking for in the RFQ or I'm sorry the U loan bank loan invitation so do we and I I are we going to see the actual thing before it goes out or because we're talking about a bunch of different things and we're saying oh yeah we can do that we can do that but it's not in here no they are not in a motion the the the drafts are in here um for several reasons we're not releasing these to the street until August 7th okay so if you would like uh we've actually already made a couple adjustments to the draft that's in your packet a couple of sentences one to address um you know prepayment options right um I know we discussed that this afternoon but I just it's not right here U but we can bring the revised drafts back to you at the August 5th meeting because they're they're already substantially complete and we and again we're releasing these uh Nationwide as well as to uh Banks and Underwriters that have uh been contacting the city of dtin the release is scheduled for August 7th okay counc m thank you sir I'm sorry please no you can press his button now I apiz now I do have some serious questions I I just one lader question for you and then I have a genuine question for uh Crystal because I truly don't know the answer to this one but um lower term higher payment correct lower lower term of loan higher payment yes yes sir longer longer I'm sorry say it again the shorter the term of the loan the higher the payment yes sir typically yes so my question is and this is serious usually I already know this answer when I ask but I really don't know since you're the financial genius out of everybody up here regardless of what we're talking about when it comes to City matters and and I realize what councilman dtin said about 5year refund Finance but I also know the state we're in right now financially can you see us affording a a higher payment for the next five years until we can potentially refinance no sir I cannot but um our Municipal our financial adviser has also gone through all of the cash flows with me uh given all of the current policies in place and I believe we're both in agreement that the city really cannot handle a cash flow that's less than the 15year mark 15 to 20 year would be ideal in order to keep operations operating yeah I would agree with that based on the revenue projections that M Strickland has shown me five years would create a significant draw on the general fund well I appreciate that and I hear what we keep saying about we're going to find money somewhere else but seems like every time I'm up here I watch us give $600,000 away to somebody that refused to pay uh penalties and fees on short-term rentals I saw us give away $30,000 just a couple months ago so we recognize the dire need but when the rubber hits the road we back down so I I I don't want us to depend on finding a solution if we just are constantly in turmoil up here and can't agree on increasing a fee or or accepting a a penalty may may may I make one quick response Mr Dustin may I restate something that you said ear make sure I understand you asked about a five-year refinancing uh I did not interpret that as a 5-year term of the loan okay so I believe what he was referring to is if we were to go out and get a a loan with a long rization um you know 15-year mortgage but with an interest rate that's only good for five years we would then have to refinance it whatever the prevailing market rate was five years from now I apologize and I I thought he meant a 10 year and then refinance after five I thought he meant get a 10y year term and then refinance after five so I must have M her I apologize I think that there's I think there's a couple things going on I think I think one hand we are discussing the term of the the amortization um and again the way what it's currently written in the document is an amortization a total repayment period of 15 years or 20 years we've asked the banks to give us two different options and I'm not going to lie there's not a lot of banks out there that I think are legitimately going to give us uh a 15-year fixed rate or or much less a 20-year fixed rate the other question is okay if you're willing to give us the amortization how long will you hold your interest rate firm for is it going to be a 5year rate and that we have to refinance in years or is it going to be in 10 years we will not know the term of that rate until we get the responses back we can't tell them hey you must give us uh you know a 15year rate with a 10year reset they might respond they might say no just not going to respond to that so so that's part of what's going on here we're talking about two related but different items sir I appreciate that Mr Des I truly apologize I thought you meant 10 year and then refinance five I apologize all right counc dson yeah and and I understand the predictions that we can't sustain higher payments at the current Revenue rate well we've all talked tonight about how we improved includ intend to improve that if we have the short-term condo rental on a program we project at $100 that raise $400,000 if we increase the revenues from our Recreation from our from our uh licensing for contract Ing and building then those are all incremental increases in Revenue I think we're all committed to try to get to the point where we are back in reasonable shape so the predictions that we can't do the cash flow at this public at this Revenue stream we at right now really hold no merit at all unless we do not do what we said we can do you know 400,000 for the short term if we were to even reduce our operating budgets by 3% for five years that's Crystal you don't have that number do you uh 3% reduction in what's proposed for next year would be8 $800,000 uh staff was considering um putting so we've been trying to put secession planning into place so that we have alternates uh as you know we have high very high turnover in the city right now so a lot of jobs aren't being covered yes with the high turnover right so they have proposed uh putting off the timing on adding these extra positions that would help continuity um so those are mainly the the programs that they're proposing to put into place for a shortterm period but they don't think it's sustainable for long get to the goal is quite fluid and I welcome you're looking at other ways okay so that's 800 and 400 so we're well over a million 1.2 I guess yeah unless it's signed in the black white for example if we were going to go down the the SEC uh Bond route uh they would require copies of our policies in our in our documentation so until something's signed in black and white it's not something that I can reasonably give as projections to uh stakeholders or potential lenders okay and and one of the reasons that I do not look quite as favorably upon bonding as you is that very problem with it and they don't allow early payoff either generally without great penalties in there are the fees that we pay the bond Council and the people that sell them I've been through three of them not such a good deal in my opinion but anyway back to my discussion of the money even if we don't raise recreational fees and we don't do anything else 1.2 million in 10 years is 12 million yeah I still don't see how that would be sustainable but if we cut our bond interest or our Lo loone interest in half I heard you would say earlier and I think I concur 3 million we could save per we went from a 20year duration down to a 15year duration you're correct at current uh estimated rates that could save the city about $3 million in interest expense you're correct um also keep in mind that the funds that we have proposed to pay this Debt Service are all highly restricted uh funds for example the uh gas tax number two it's only for comprehensive related plan uh plan items addressing uh growth necessitated Road uh impact fees for example um the other one was the electric franchise fee that uh Council wrote that into ordinance that that's restricted towards undergrounding and or Debt Service towards undergrounding and then the the funding from the 2C so the funding sources that I was proposing were not general fund um I was hoping to avoid going into our unassigned uh cash flows and trying to assign those more restricted harder to use funds okay well I point out to you that the ordinance that restricts the use of the franchise fee is a city ordinance that we write and pass and modify at anytime and so you're making the point to me that if we have excess in general fund we're prohibited from using that to pay off our debts no I'm not making that point at all okay well I'm trying to keep the concentration on on a line here Crystal um the point I make is how much would we have to raise the uh millage rate to generate 1.2 million more a year which is seems to be the easy solution that would be less than 2/10 of a mill how much less 1/10 is eight 710th is $800,000 1.8 yeah 1.8 which is very close to two10 so the point I'm making is this is the way to do it rather than raising millage rates whenever we want to let's let's show the people of Destin that we care enough about their pockets that we're willing to not just take the simple knee-jerk reaction the government takes well we'll just raise taxes so I do need to see the agreement or the document that's the rfu that goes out to see that the things that need to be in there in in there and I take it at your word that you'll get it for us and that we'll be able to see it so I won't make a motion to that effect but we need to see the RFQ often I have seen in my 35 years of this that we write rfqs that make it pretty hard for some folks to participate and I don't want to see that happen on this issue well if I may I spend a lot of wasted time answering those and I put a lot of effort into cutting some of that out so I hope you'll like this one okay councilman Bagby yeah and the points points you make are valid which is even more reason to have the absence of a prepayment penalty or a minimal prepayment penalty because the one thing I like about the banks as opposed to the bonds that I've dealt with is you're right there is a prepay because that's their revenue stream they have factored that in but it's easier to refinance a loan or if we amize it over 15 years with a 10-year payout and a 5year balloon then and there's no prepayment penalty if we have the example we talked about SA was excess uh interest Revenue so this year we're going to have about $800,000 excess interest Revenue uh and I didn't propose using all that I did propose maybe half of it uh if we're entered into the uh thing because some of that's coming from trust Mark some of it's come from restricted funds some of it I mean that interest is earned on a lot of different places but if we have the no prepayment penalty and you're correct that interest rates do go down in five years there's nothing that would prevent us from refinancing that loan if we could get a lower interest rate without a prepayment penalty correct and so that that is why that to me that's the one critical element you know that's the little cross I'm going to die on on this it's not is it amzed over 10 years or 15 years or 20 years and you know it's the lack of a prepayment penalty is is my number one issue and um I know I made that clear to you and Crystal um this afternoon but that's I I agree with you you know there's a way to get there without just raising taxes but it's going to require some work on our part and some hard decisions right yep and we talked this morning at my briefing on sorry I didn't get to talk to you on this um to that point of potential payments or balloons coming uh it's not in black and white so I've kind of tasked myself to figure out at the TPO we got awarded 4.6 for the cross town which is one of the projects that's going to be inside this larger package so we're going to try to get in black and white signature and if that happens then hopefully in a couple years we'll know that there's almost nearly $5 million coming which is 20% of what we're loaning out so just food for thought of potential revenues and chunks of money that might be coming down the pipeline here sooner than later uh while you guys do what you guys are good at so that's more just everyone's food for thought more so I can't talk to you guys outside of this meeting um so with that uh does anyone have a motion that I can entertain on the floor may ask a quick question please yeah just based on some of the feedback does the council feel that it makes sense for us to go out with both the bond underwriter RFQ and the bank loan yes sir okay thank you Jim looks yes it says to move to release the RQ it as proposed but are we just going to put the umbrella of all the recommendations as well or are we doing as proposed I know Dustin said that he wanted to just take it at face value but that's kind of up for you guys do we want to solidify it in the motion I think we need a motion for us to bring back a Redline copy of the RFQ and the invitation to negotiate to the August 5th meeting that's correct that that would be yes motion I want credit for that I think he's allowed to all right dides everyone understand the motion all right all right we have a motion in a second by councilman dtin all right call on the vote there we go I just have it so moved thank you guys for your work thank you all for your time all right crystal fourth C all right uh here we are at the Clement Taylor uh Park RFP results um Jeffrey Kad our grants program manager will talk about the bid committee results good evening uh the city did receive five proposals um for the Clement Taylor Park renovation project um the big committee met to evaluate these proposals unfortunately I have to report that we found all five to be unresponsive for various reasons um so I shared these results with the county and they talked to Treasury and everybody concurred that that was the right finding and it was their recommendation that we go ahead and rebid the job um I did ask that if we rebid uh if I be allowed to make some changes to the RFP to add some clarity and Define a few things and they said that was fine so some of the changes we made are to remove the limit of 1.5 million we also uh provideed an example of a pre-engineered gazebo to the specs uh we requested for three references uh we removed the gravel parking lot option and we added more tree protection and we added some lighting details that wasn't in the first release so all of those have been added to the uh RFP that's attached to this agenda item and the bid committee would um recommend that you find these and reject all these that were given and that you let us uh releas re-release the RFP as presented I'll be glad to answer any questions all right Council woman a I was just I'm learning my buttons up here it's kind of fun yeah I move that the city council accept the bid committee recommendation reject all bids for RFP 24-02 re Clement Taylor Park renovation project for being unresponsive in that RFP 24- 05- Clement Taylor Park renovation project be released as presented I'll second that all right I have a second motion yep councilwoman a I did want to ask Jeff when when that bid committee you looked at all of what they came back with what was the consensus they wanted more money than what we were willing to pay to do the park in in like the big scheme of things they were just being greedy I mean are we asking too much and not paying enough I don't understand how five companies could be like they sucked start over we had language in the RFP that limited the responses to 1.5 million so basically we said don't turn a bid in if it's going to be over 1.5 million four of them were so we weren't even if we wanted to we couldn't have accepted any of those for that reason there were other issues as well but that was one of the biggest things thank you okay Council tell me about the gravel parking lot option I see you're removing it are we putting in an asphalt parking lot yes sir we are and that's much cheaper it'll be a little bit more expensive but it was decided that you know the asphalt would be a better option what what's there now gravel well that that is a what I would say is a real natural park we don't have a bunch of asphalt how much square foot of asphalt are we going to be putting in there just a guess is good enough I don't know how much we're putting in there I would say uh generally asphalt's more expensive up front but long-term maintenance is cheaper it is of course it's asphalt it's totally impervious and I've hired a number of uh arborist who look at trees on my properties and say if you want to kill them put asphalt around them the uh existing parking lot that's out there right now is generally in All Eyes considered impervious anyway because it's so compacted okay so gravel is impervious yes in the eyes of the Water Management District it's impervious okay I've had this discussion with about four different Engineers before you came here we all argued about gravel can't possibly be as impervious as asphalt the only point I'm making is asphalt's a bad idea it's not good for the trees it is cheaper to maintain I will give you that but there's been an asphalt parking lot in that park now for for 75 years and it's maybe more and gra i' gravel sorry gravel part I don't like the asphalt you know I will vote to go forward but since asphalt is more expensive and it is environmentally uh not acceptable in my opinion later on down the line I will be pushing to get the gravel back in but I don't want to hold you guys up I think if we make that change we need to make it uh before the RF is released because I don't want to tell treasury we're going to do something and then step back from that later I think it would be a huge hold up to change that language though if that's what council wants to do AC sub suit motion ah I'm fine okay I'll suit uh that the motion go forward with the exception that the gravel parking lot will continue to be part of the plan I'll second that right have a motion a second uh further discussion councilman Schmidt you're up thank you uh Mr Kad just understand five bids or six bids we rejected blah blah blah but now we're changing the requests talking about the parking lot and lighting and some other things is that what I heard the lighting detail that's provided um we did do an addendum to the original release adding some additional lighting details uh due to questions that were asked while the RFP was out questions by the respondents yes so we're not are those changes more increases or just they're not changes clarification on the just clarification on items okay so the only financial change is the parking lot asphalt change well the original RFP called for an Asphalt parking lot but then it also uh provided the option of doing a gravel one so we just took that gravel detail out okay so the original RFP had option now it's just okay that's correct gotcha I was just get worried about changes you know was the the I forget what I called it a year ago whenever we were talking about this but the the outer space portal and all that stuff I just get worried if we keep changing things and going back to treasury it's going to just cause more problems but we okay that when we go back out for bid that all these changes are going to be accept yeah I already got these approved and none of these changed what the scope of work calls for do you have them approved in writing what's that do you have it approved in writing from the county and from the treasury or just uh just verbally I talk to County but you know all these are very and it doesn't take away from the scope of work that was originally called for all right well I've heard the minor thing before mentioned in this in these Halls of this project and it seems like this project once again is coming back to bite Us in the butt again and I believe when we go back out for bid it's going to be probably nearly $2 million in my opinion um I think Miss um f gave us the proposal for a park at Morgan's that's nearly 800,000 for just a playground and we're now going to do you know this is a full Park renovation um you know it's going to be expensive so I hope this is the final time I really do I hope so too one of the bids did come in at 1.46 million and had they included the Gazebo which is a required item has our attorney re reviewed all the the latest RFP changes like Kim is this something that you review and your green are we checking are we good to go on the submission I will review everything with the changes that come tonight yes appreciate it well the changes I uh suggest that are reflected in the RFP that was attached to the agenda item I'm saying the additional change that they may make tonight oh the removal of the uh asphalt whatever they do tonight yes gotcha all right everything slowed down on my end um we have a motion amended does everyone know what we're working on all right call the vote all right I have it so moved uh before we move on Jeff uh for people who are watching and listening the the scope moving forward for just you know moms that want playgrounds in Destin what what's an ideal timeline of this moving forward I know it's treasury we're working at all levels of government I wouldn't asked if I didn't ask this morning okay uh the timeline is such that when we when bid committee makes a recommendation Council and Council uh decides on the contractor and the Construction contract is executed uh we have to send that information into the county the county sends it into Treasury and then treasury has to review the entire procurement process that process um if they agree that was done correctly will eventually issue us a notice to proceed and then we can allow the contractor to Begin work um in this the case of Royal Melbourne we sent that paperwork in in August and it was late December before we got that notice to proceed approval so I'm hopeful that you know by the first of the year we might be in a position to make this go forward and maybe that review time this time around be a little less but that's kind of my my hopeful goal is uh construction after the first of the year all right good deal thank you for that mayor Wagner can I say favor real quick uh this has nothing to do with this subject right now unfortunately I have a personal issue I'm going to have to leave here in a second but before I leave I want to make a public apology to Ken Wampler about questioning his citizenship apparently or residency here in dtin not citizenship apparently is a resident in dtin um just so the public knows the reason I do that is I do not want people that are not citizens making decisions on our how we spend your money your tax dollars um but there was I made a mistake and I apologize thank you so much all right crystal continue sorry y my bad we got an amended motion got a Kumbaya apology and we're off the races all right so we called the motion on the amended on substitute motion amended motion VAB all right okay where all right well I mean if he's not here we can still roll call we have a quum Johnny we need your vote dude motion all right so we got the amended motion to bring the back out we're going to reject all five bring them back out and uh not do not do the not do paid not do the paid parking okay that was a substitute Kevin lock in can I get clarification I thought that was to leave both the paving and the gravel as two options to be bid on no they're saying pull it off all right eyes have it so moved thank you all right crystal now moving along okay uh the next item we have is a report from from our public information manager Tamara Dr T um come on and uh get evening mayor and Council if you'll recall at the April 1st council meeting I was asked to present some information and statistics on what the public information office in major collaboration with it grants Public Works really every Department um involves public engagement so I had spoke at that time on some things that we had done over the last year and a half and I was if you will go and switch thanks atie at that time you all asked for City staff to come back and share more detail about ongoing efforts so that is what I am here to do tonight okay can you forward it one thank you so this of course is not all-encompassing not all inclusive but hopefully it gives you a good Glimpse at some of the things that we place a high effort on the first is social media of course 2024 so much of our engagement uh certainly attendance at different events but overall engagement is a much more important factor to us and a much bigger goal because Enga engagement comes in so many different forms so for social media enhancements we have spent a lot of time working on our original content and are pushing out a wide variety of things as you see if you do follow us so we're always keeping in mind those three major constituents that we have our local residents first the then our businesses and then our visitors and it's a pretty wild um just combination to to fit all of their needs because they're looking for such different things in terms of social media but I think we're doing a very good job of that so um if you can see on that slide according to Facebook companies uh had an average response time of 12 hours with the low lowest response being about 8 Days Facebook deems a business page as very responsive if along with other um indicators they um well very responsive if they have a response rate of 90% or higher and we are blowing that out of the water right now I'm proud to say we are at a response rate of 96% and within a two-hour time frame so that is not easy to do with the limited staff and I also very much credit my colleagues because there are oftentimes questions that are posed to us on there that I simply cannot answer and so public information is always reliant on the grants folks the parks and rec folks public works and other areas and they're always terrific about making sure that I have information whether it's at 8:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m. sometimes 2: a.m. yes yeah trust me the 2hour time frame is killing me because we're so responsive and it it it drives me nuts that I know it's not even higher but that's you know we do get sometimes 3:00 a. questions so we might not answer super fast right yeah okay um we do continue to break our own records of content interactions and this is an area that we failed to address at the April 1st meeting when we were speaking and and it really just speaks entirely to engagement so we wanted to share that tonight content interactions are the actions that users use like liking things commenting sharing saving direct messages um poll responses we don't do as much the others a lot uh website visits link clicks and such so instead of looking at the past year year and a half as we were showing you at the last meeting we wanted to show you what we've accomplished in the last month and in the last last 28 days for Facebook we're up 81.1% in content interactions and in Instagram 35% okay we've also strengthened our presence on the next door app we have a long way to go on that particular app in terms of making sure that we are uh that we are responsive it is growing like wildfire as you know spreading very quickly but we are working on that I do want to say at this time not just to you all up here but the people behind me and the people listening in We are so appreciative when you do share information that is what the whole idea of social media is of course so it isn't it isn't meant for us to post it and it just sit there stagnant it is meant for you all to take it add your own opinions to it run with it so very very appreciative when folks do that yes thank you okay right um we're making ongoing efforts with our website I don't if anybody's paid attention to it but we've done a lot on it we've added uh quite a few different widgets um moved some stuff around around to make things more seamless it is working hard on a Destin chatbot that is in testing right now um so streamlining that flow is really our critical goal with all of that the city engineer and public information have worked a lot in the last couple weeks uh on our project page it is in dire need of some of a not a pretty makeover it needs a substantive makeover so we're working on that and within the next week you will see major changes on that so that way when people are going to the project page it has a lot more meaning and content that's useful for them in terms of communication upgrades we've improved the timeliness and the clarity of Civic engage and Civic wreck um the Civic the clerk's office and it and public information worked on this it was um really really was a frustrating thing for people they were getting notice of meetings a minute before a meeting occurred and obviously that's a little rough to make attendance in or or even just jump online even for a live stream so we've improved that system greatly it's it's working well and people are getting notices um days in advance as they should have been all along so we're proud of that enhancement okay um we've also created and distributed uh number of P PSAs um last year we broke our record on the amount we put out and we've already in 2024 broken our 2023 record on what we're putting out so we're very proud about that these are on a wide variety of subjects some of it is you know as you can see these are just a few but um hiring licensed contractors we've done um some on boating safety we've done stuff with leave no Trace some for specific departments such as the library and uh just getting out there shooting blessing in the fleet and just a number of things so that's that's been really nice to see that increase on that the other great thing about those is it allows us not just to put those up on our YouTube channel it allows us to push those in emails to various constituencies that we know have a Ed interest in whatever that topic is okay um we are working to get all of our informational items and promotional items in a couple of other languages besides English we know that English is not everyone's first language of choice we also know we have some um citizens and visitors that don't speak English at all so we pulled the staff and the senior leaders asked some of their staff members what they really thought would be the most useful thing and it is Spanish and Portuguese so we are working on that I would like to give a shout out to the place that I was a professor at for 20s something years because I could not be doing this part of it right now without those students and those student clubs and talented folks who um we can you know you can enter it in to chat GPT and ask for ask for the feedback it is not conversational it's not always how people speak and such so those um very talented students from all across the world are helping make sure we don't look like fools and what we're putting out there in these other languages that we may not speak yeah but we've got them uh so the one you see up there is a a direct concern a citizen sent to you all Council and mayor about ebike safety so we put that together in English we've got that now out at a number of TV stations and we're going to work with the uh DMV here to see if they will broadcast it you know if you're in there you know how they have the rolling one so I'm going to stop in there this week and see if they would be willing to put that up there so we've got that in English but it is already up on our YouTube channel in Portuguese and Spanish as well I was going to ask real quick is it in Spanish as well because there's a lot of the it is yep we've yes yep great question it is in all of them up there then the then this is just another example again this is not all inclusive but the uh what you see on the right that's a welcome to Destin letter that we put out to all new residents the mayor in public information put that out and we work with query Anderson every so many months to get the new uh addresses for those folks so we've we've of course always put that out in English we are now making sure that we have um it available and this this happen Happ s to be Portuguese up here but we've got it in Spanish and Portuguese okay and then lastly of this piece just Community engagement in general it's so broad it's very hard to to have a definitive uh example of that but just a few other things we wanted to mention that we're working on we are utilizing radio advertisements a lot more than we have in the past and um the radio stations we're working with have been great about it so they are um doing a lot of extra content for us and um doing a few extra podcasts and things of that nature we continue to um find innovative ways to work with our partners so I'm really appreciative of the speaking engagements that many of you all go out and do that is certainly a great way to connect with our citizens and to um make them feel more comfortable about approaching you all and um you Dustin forward opportunities we are now highly involved thanks to a mayor's suggestion to public information for impact 100 we are sitting on finance committees and education Committees of that so that's been very useful um and getting out there engaging with different constituents um we I mentioned the chat bot already that it is working on we're excited about that we are still researching social media monitoring systems and I don't mean by that for people to take over our social media what I'm talking about that is um it is impossible for us to always know about these conversation threads that are going on you guys and many people listening in are great about sending a note or sending a text saying hey did you see what's on destinat or hey did you see whatsoever and that's wonderful what I would love is to find a way to get direct notification on my text or emails the moment something says city of Destin or or city of or city government something like that and then and then we can make a determination of who's best to answer whatever the conversation thread is at the time okay uh and then finally for this part I do want to mention the magazine articles because we work very hard on those and um the mayor and public information does a monthly column but we we're doing a lot more than that we have a couple of dozen of different stories that we've done um locally is regionally Statewide a a few National ones uh with boating safety and other and other areas that just variety of topics almost anything you could think of linear Trail what have you um but we're we're still pushing those out and we we do notice often after we put those out there'll be you know some some emails from phone calls and such just you know people are people are reading them and paying attention to it and feeling a little bit more um connected oh I I missed the QR codes so this is just kind of a little bit of a fun thing but it is a nice visible uh visual representation uh we were trying to make it just everything more easily accessible to to um to our folks so that they feel comfortable checking us out getting to our website so we are trying to make some um pretty QR codes and uh to put out there on signage and such so the top one is one we did for the library the book the sun was for parks and wrecks for all their Recreation programs in the bottom one the sea turtle is just us city of dtin and it goes directly to our homepage and you again you'll start to see this more on signage for instance right now on Cyber where we're doing the underground utilities phase one we've got that on the beautification mesh banner that we have out there so we'll we'll continue to push these out there over time we hope they are visible recognizable branding pieces to Who We Are okay um and then so in the in the big big scheme of things in terms of how we want to continually make sure that we're coming back and that we are fitting our needs and we're not forgetting these things these last two slides show that some of the big picture areas that we're working on so we do want to do a mobile app it public information and other areas are still connecting on that working on that what we don't want to do is push something out there that isn't ready to be done and frustrate people as you guys know there's new apps that come out all the time with even within our own community so we want to make sure that it's ready to go that it's the right one that it's seamless before we do um mention a few others um oh I like that I like the bottom one the guest speakers and panels this is something that we really could do a much better job at if we're having a workshop on a topic it would be fantastic if we could bring in an expert of that topic that wasn't um up here that wasn't down here in the staff area that could whether it's motivational informational but we could we could do a better job of that bringing you know outside experts into share their information on stuff the the recent voting safety day was a really good example of that you know some of the speakers there have just this vast amount of knowledge and it's wonderful and then I think convers there's better conversations that are spurred from that okay and then I'll maybe I'll just pick a couple off of off of here um the Youth and Young Adult engagement holds a lot of promise we of course have our Destin youth Council but the day last last year when the mayor and public information went into the schools was a riot to see they the fire was lit within these students the gymnasium was screaming and it certainly wasn't screaming for public information and but they loved it they were they were so they were so engaged they asked really good questions so um yeah we can do that once a year but we need to do we need to do it a lot more and not just you we need yeah we need to get more we need to get our St our staff has expertise talents in so many areas so I I would love to find ways for us to work with um not just the local school districts but I want to take advantage of you know colleges have these great mentoring programs and other other aspects that we could we could bring in for that the virtual attendance thank the virtual attendance you're okay I I do want to mention that because it's really easy to look out here and say oh there's not a lot of people but even if it's just 20 people that's online and we often times have over 100 on our council meeting nights um over a 100 picture over a 100 people in the seats and it changes the game of how you look at who's paying attention and who's looking so um I I encourage us all to think of Engagement as a much broader broader level than just the you know just the people right in front of us but I'm I'm um I'm proud of punch this punch of all the work that um the staff and public information is doing and I hope that I made it um a I hope I clarified a bit more of what we do do in the kind of direction that we do and I did have my kind of naughty ending um because it is true we cannot force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive but we must never under underestimate the power of planting a seed and in my opinion that's what we're doing with constant efforts to engage that's it any questions way to go any questions yes we got we got several cman Stevens I just want to say you're rocking it um I think what you're doing is awesome um I'm hoping this doesn't need a motion CU I mean it feels like you're doing everything or going to be doing everything um cuz if if we p in writing then it will kind of restrict your creative juices going forward so I just hope you keep on doing what you're doing thank you uh coun Schmid thank you thank you Dr T I really appreciate it um I just want to say thank you very much for taking some requests some feedback uh few months ago whatever I forget what you just said April 1 April 1 um and really putting your you know putting this out there the changes that y'all have done and improved on and just this the facts and all this has been very um very well received and I I truly appreciate it so thank you um and I've heard a lot of positive feedback in the community as well great so I truly appreciate it one uh question comment thought uh because two things I guess one uh one I've I've recently started sharing um Snippets of video uh from the meetings and I've gotten a lot of good feedback because people yes there's potentially over 100 people watching tonight but they might tune in tune out tune in tune out right and so the recap stuff right I'm not sure if you've already been looking into this but you know whether it's publicizing short parts of the meeting as a recap or two I've also experienced not too long ago I put in two the artificial intelligence chat chat GPT uh the minutes to provide uh Mr Ray and their team do an amazing job as well so this is not you know to diss that as well but like you were talking about easily accessible stuff you know um it spit out a very nice summary of right of everything and and an easy to easy to understand and read format and so um I'm not sure if you've already seen that or looked into that but um the engagement is amazing but sometimes people still are thinking well what happened at that meeting right what did we miss and some of us maybe others we have long conversations with the same people all the time which I I really appreciate all those conversations with people but um you know it would be just nice sometimes just to direct them to the you know like ESPN has the quick plays of the highlights right ESPN has the highlights of last night's games I mean almost something like that yeah no I'm not you but just just thoughts but thank you so much for all of it and I couldn't agree more those stimets would be nice and we didn't have it written down as video Snippets but we did have on one of the I think it was the last slide to do uh and I had to email though so it's very good point it's social media and email but we do need to be doing uh sending those Snippets directly to people on the parts so that they don't necessarily have to listen until you know 9:00 at night or 10:00 at night they can just get it in a nice sound bite if you will yeah yes my pleasure councilwoman abar thanks mayor um echoing what Kevin just said you've been just such a ball of fire you've been just you took it and just ran and you've brought so much information to so many different avenues for the citizens to see like Kevin said I get calls from people and they're like I was watching that meeting and I I missed this part but I mean it was like on the fourth hour somebody and I'm like oh my God so I agree if we could do a cliff notes of some sort of this was the quick discussion and this was the end of it just because sometimes we get up here we get really involved and we come to a good consensus but people don't want to sit there through 35 40 minutes of each person's total background of where they're at what they're thinking here's the here's the cliff notes or reader digest you know back in the go to that little nippet you know but uh other than that everything else you've been doing doing it's been awesome I love whenever I get a text from you I get up at 5:00 and Tamara sent out something at 3:00 a.m. I'm like God bless her she got woke up okay somebody got in a wreck don't worry about it when you wake up he's all right they took him to the hospital so thank you for your just being 247 I know you've got kids that probably love that you're so involved with us so we appreciate everything you're doing and I don't see emotion that really needs to be made like John said don't want to hem you in you've got such creative juices going just keep doing what you're doing I mean Dr T that's what you are you got all of this going on you just keep going with it we'll let you know if we need you to slow down but if we don't tell you you just do what you do and duly noted on the kind of Cliff note version or the Snippets we we'll work on that thank you awesome that is the last one thank you so much thanks all right last Crystal for e all right uh for E uh we have our HR Director Jamie dmer here to introduce um a potential new community development director uh for your confirmation go ahead Jamie good evening I am very pleased to introduce Miss Tina deer she was hired with us as a city planner in February of 2024 she has 19 years of planning experience with 16 of those years serving supervisory roles uh to include the development service directors of seal County and we are very proud to have her as our selection for the community development director should Council um confirm her tonight and she is here with us and available to answer any questions or um address any concerns you may have all right have anything I don't I'm not having any oh okay go ahead I'm sorry I didn't click you off I move to confirm the city manager's recommendation to hire Tina deer as a City's community development director second all right got a motion in a second any further discussions seeing none calling the vote I I can confirm it says you voted yes congratulations all right there it goes all right awesome I have it so move congratulations welcome welcome to the team Tina welcome to a higher level of the team thank you all right crystal all right the remaining items under city manager reports are all informational um the first we have the operations financial report uh through the end of May at the end of May we were 67% through the way of the fiscal year 2024 uh we had collected 98% of our ADV valorum properties and we had expended and encumbered 63% of our operating budget in addition the city has expended and encumbered only 34% of its capital budget um uh in June we encumbered the undergrounding contract so you'll see that go that number go up pretty significantly in the following months uh after the uh so um I'll sit here with the financial director hat on for a moment to see if there are any questions about the operations financial report all right seeing none okay uh moving right along then the next report we have which is also informational is our capital projects status report uh so under each of the capital projects uh there's a project review team that meets twice a month and they give updates uh that they write in this report to council to tell you exactly where we are in every uh Capital project so again um I'll just give you a moment in case there are any questions on the status of any of the current capital projects seeing then and next we have our quarterly investment report and this evening we have two gentlemen from Raymond James uh Steve and Brian who are here to uh present the results and uh they're here to answer any questions so come on up to the microphone if you if you'd like thank you welcome well hi I guess we take your questions of course uh thanks for doing all you do it's been challenging thank you I'd summarize what we see if we if we could just to still into the Again The Cliff Notes what's going on what do we see we can't change things or see the crystal ball or make the Callin rates but the uh the good news is last year's performance on a mark to Market Total return basis was 4.7% on the aggregate portfolio that's also currently the trailing 12-month performance number those are the best numbers we've had since we were hired in 2013 uh that's good as far as a green shoot we see that continuing we also for the first time see the trailing 12- Monon performance on just the city's cash bucket with us so to speak the cash and CDs is now up to 6% which is exceeding benchmarks we hope to see that we figured it take some time to get there and lastly the forward-looking yield on the bond portfolio is now a hair under 5% which is also good news looking forward however with the yield Cur still inverted short-term rates are still higher it's still not going to pay as much as we see on cash whether that be Florida Prime at 5.7 or money markets at 5 and a half six U until things go back to normal when that'll be is anybody's guess as we've heard tonight okay thank you for that anyone have any further discussions oh man I thought I would have to hear the word prime a 100 more times right right I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing thing awesome well i% yeah that's the one thing I would say I'm actually surprised to ask um we actually are we we get this the CD reports come out once every couple weeks and at one point the one-year CD was five and a half and the five year was five the last one I got was the one year at five actually was 49 and the five years's down at four and half so we're getting some of the benefits of the other side of that yield curve turn for us in the shorter term we're seeing things you know 6% which is nice we always said that eventually we'll be on the right side of this as things start to change however we don't know for sure where interest rates are going primarily because of the political landscape um Steve just talked uh last week with our portfolio manager that's right James camp and he he said he doesn't know for he said when as were rates are going to sit there they going to stay about the same or they're going to go up or they can go now so he's not he's not really sure yet either but based on a lot of different things with the deficit and all but we're keeping a really close eye on it and in the meantime the only good really solid news is we're locking in really really higher interest rate yielding positions as the older ones at 1% mature we're locking in this four and four and a half and and some north of 5% yields that's that's the good news awesome well thank you for being here the whole time with us and I appreciate you guys' time and have a good night thank you thank you all right all right the next informational report is the TDC monthly report so what you have in your packet is the uh the numbers that are June over June um and they continue to be about 2% higher than the previous year which um you know it that could be related to people charging a little bit more to help them cover their property insurance increases or uh for other reasons we don't know that that's an occupancy change or not um so we'll see what uh July has to bring for us when we get into August uh the last report we have is just uh announcements so uh Dr T do you have some announcements for us I do Monday July 29th we'll have our LDC rewrite workshop at 5:30 p.m. then on August 6 we'll have the SRS public Workshop also at 5:30 p.m. and that's the one that we need to remind everyone that two or more council members may be in attendance we'll have uh what I think is one of the coolest events we do each year is the big truck event on Friday August 2nd that's 9 to 11: a.m. right now we have 15 trucks signed up to be there so if anybody's listening to this and has uh some kind of cool truck that you think um little ones and big people would enjoy seeing please reach out to parks and wreck um so we've got ambulances fire trucks and more that'll be there and then just a reminder on August 10th we have our birthday bash at HarborWalk Village we'll have live music a simple drone show I feel like I need to temper expectations on that we're extraordinarily we're extraordinarily excited about the Drone show but please don't fix your Disney drone shows or you will be disappointed wait a minute you need to talk about how great the fire spinning and the fire spinning well I was going to say and that's actually going to be what ends the night so there really is there truly is something for all ages so we hope people just come out and have a really nice time to that it will be from 5:30 until probably 8:30 or 9 that night and that's all I have yeah what the SRS what was that for the shrs I'm sorry the SRS so that's the when we get to talk about the town center and visions and all of that that is August 6th at 5:30 p.m. all right thank you with that being the end we will move on over no public hearings I'm going to we got public comments here on here twice so we'll go to council first and then public comments last uh councilman Stevens Anything um yeah I got two things one uh just want to tell LS hope he gets better soon looking forward to him getting back um and then item two um it's just more or less about that picture that we got earlier I mean so I know this is not anyone that's here but by looking at it I mean that is a code violation right operating on the beach anyone or I I don't want to speak to the specifics of the pit picture due to people's due process but I'll just say this vending on the beach when you're not beyond the mean high water line is a code violation okay um I guess I feel like like these past holidays that we've had where I've seen a lot more illegal operations either on the beach um at the boat launch or even at the transient docks so I don't know if we can kind of maybe increase Code Compliance to look at that or even the next holiday weekend we got if if maybe that's something where we can have Code Compliance just kind of a little more umph into it so that's really all I got all right and next next okay C's gone C Dustin anything tonight thank you mayor and just a follow-up question are wheeled carts Vehicles allowed on the beach I read somewhere in one of our old ordinances that they weren't is that changed they're allowed on the beach During certain times um and I don't know what you mean by wheeled Vehicles vendors no but the mobile vending individuals that have a permit are allowed during certain hours under the code okay well the question yeah like the chair set up exactly exactly if we're vending on the beach even in the water seaword how do those vehicles or those wagons with wheels get to the water unless they're Dr if they're in the city limits they would not be able to legally get in the water but you know how the city of dtin jurisdiction goes I won't mention any specific places but there are places that are not in the city limits where people can come down to the beach and walk through the water well there are on either side of our boundary and you could take a boat and drop it off I guess and within our boundary think about you know the Crab Trap or on the other side now those those are within the city limits they just are County Properties they come from yeah but those are in the city limits right and on the other side of of where the Walton County Okaloosa County Line is down by pompo joo's is another example but the Crab Trap is in fact I think I meant to say pomp nojo I'm sorry they there you go they are beachfront restaurants but pomp nojo people come down that's right and they can walk anywhere over there the county I understand but once once they get up onto the beach that's different so anyway it sounds like it's a complicated issue and code enforcement is going to have to come to a conclusion on how to address it C Bagby uh first time I'd like to nominate Brian utto uh okay to the parks and rec committee and I'll just one item Mr Bagby yeah I'm not sure where that came from but that was a gentleman for whoever is watching that was here a recent meeting and that's I appreciate him bringing comment and now he's stepping up to the table and he's going to join a committee and that's uh that's amazing for him and a lot of others that are on these committees but I just want to thank you for nominating them sure abolutely all right motion a second call on the vote there we go congratulations I'm sure you're online welcome to the team he's goingon to be here in a couple minutes now yeah he'll be here yeah he'll be here to make some comments and public comments yeah there you go all right yep keep going and then you know besides addressing the financial issue one of the things that we probably need to do in between all our special meetings and LDC reviews and all this is get back to the code enforcement priorities or not priorities or whatever uh and I say that because every everybody that comes in we we could hire 30 more code en enforcement officers and we would not catch every everything that's going on that's wrong in this city and we can't afford to hire 30 more Code Enforcement Officers so we need to say look here are the things you know whether it's parking in the RightWay or uh vending on the beach with a wheeled vehicle that yeah if they bring it in at Pomo Joe's that's a good walk in in the surf down there or the wet sand so but and I would just say th this is this is interesting but this doesn't tell me where it is okay because that could be in one of the beachs renourished and they could still be seaword of the ecl so they could still be on the state's land as it is uh you know that I mean it's I I'm not going to doubt that she saw what she saw and what she said she saw she saw but I'm just saying for the code folks to to do that they're they're going to need a little more uh detail and so I I don't want us to get too too far on code because then they're not kicking people out of places where parking or they're not charging the people who park there and didn't you know yeah so we we just need to have a holistic conversation even in a workshop about what we want them to do and what their priorities are because and and they change in the summer I know what their priorities are but when it's not season you know it's probably making sure Builders are not building without permits which they've caught a couple of folks in my neighborhood doing because you know it's too hard or it's too expensive or they didn't couldn't figure out the software all right councilwoman a thanks mayor um two things um I too want to wish Lewis uh quick and safe recovery after surgery tomorrow we miss you hope everything goes well um my second thing is can we can you address Miss cop what Mr uh Stephen from the Lamar billboard has comments in the beginning was there something that we as the council need to be reviewing sooner rather than later do you have anything to add yeah yeah um you know first neither Mr Sanford nor his attorney or anyone else on his team have expressed any of the frustration to me prior to tonight so I've heard nothing of the sort from any of them and with all due respect that is certainly not the way I do business at all um but to answer your questions at our February meeting um I believe it was February 20th I immediately that same night reached out to Lamar about the next step and it took them about a month to respond to me first of all and then subsequently they did ask for a meeting um with us regarding the code changes and I responded again and said that we would meet once staff and I had figured out the code and comp plan changes that we were going to be recommending to LPA and Council subsequent to that February 20th meeting we all had our visioning session that was around February 29th I believe um and again I'm I'm kind of going off the top top of my head here too because like I said I've never heard any of this from Lamar um but it's very false to say that Lamar was not told that code changes were going to be made we told that to them at our very first meeting um a couple of years ago I know that they've had a change in some of their staff and attorneys but they were told from the get-go that they didn't meet the code um so I don't agree with that statement also they went to LPA they were told at LPA that they were not consistent with codes and comp plan and then they came to council and I did say it again at the end of the meeting I'm sorry they they didn't stay like again tonight um but it was discussed publicly so that's just a couple of notes I would say um the bottom line is that I represent the city council not a private entity Council wants us to do something different let us know but as of now we're working on the code changes and when that's done we'll bring you an agreement if you want it on some other schedule let us know but we're working on an LDC rewrite article 8 is signs I guess that goes to LPA in about another month because that's one of the last Provisions other than that I'm doing what the council tells us to do all right how about just to put a comfort level on this could you reach out to their attorney tomorrow and say that you did address this at the end obviously there's some miscommunication and it's still about another month before this gets to where it is in the next step mode would that be okay if that's what the council wants me to do I haven't heard from their attorney since June 6th so I I just don't know where these comments come from that they're not being responded to that's all I got awesome all right uh councilman King thank you sir hey I had um just one one question about the millage R um had two people reach out to me during this meeting asking for clarity I need some clarity as well clearly I don't want I was not in favor of raising the millage rate um the way the motion reads I guess I just need some clarity on what we passed here you all voted to not increase the millage rate you did not raise taxes you did not raise the millage rate right Sor sorry techically that's not I see technically okay technically so we we have this every year we have this same conversation if we leave the mill millage rate flat and the property values go up state law requires Us in that letter to say we have raised your taxes basically I think so we we have by 6.76% because that's how much the property value went up so yes you're going to pay a little bit more I don't know what you know everybody every's different because everybody some people are homestead some people and I don't want to get into averages cuz that's not a good but their taxes are going to go up very minimally because the value of their property went up by whatever 6.7% we did not raise the millage rate we did not raise the millage property values went up out of our control but legally we are required to report that as an increase in taxes because it is an increase in our tax revenue only due to the fact that the property values went up thank you that this is NE this has never been an issue for me in the past I don't know why where my brain went with it but just just for the clarity uh and just for to let the record reflect I am not in support of raising our our Ador taxes or millage rate um I just was a little bit confused and there was clearly two other people who were as well so thank you have a good night them I I was that is just uh one to put a little bit finer point we provided the roll back rate and what the roll back rate is if we had accepted that each year we provided that then nobody's taxes would have gone up at all unless the recapture rule was in effect because the taxes wouldn't have gone up or they went down we had a couple years 0809 I think for the re recapture rule for homesteaded properties cuz your cap at 3% but when the value goes down they can recapture that what your taxes should have been I don't want to confuse it but it recapture would have been they would have paid exactly the same the millage change is they are only paying basically because the value of their property increased if we had raised it then that would be over and above uh that amount I think where it got confusing and this is just my assessment of the conversation was it seemed like where the conversation was going was how do we add more how do we increase the millage rate to get more money out of people to pay for our City's initiatives and that was where the conver that was what the questions were was like what it sounds like you guys voted to increase the millage rate which technically we did but the convers but the but the way the conversation was going was how do we you know up to 2% to the cap right you find four people on this dis that are willing to vote to move the millage to 2% I get I understand how that works I'm saying a large majority of that conversation was correct was going towards the one mill yeah the one mill so it just I got confused okay but it uh appreciate it all right ccor Schmidt you just wanted the record to show that even though you vote a no to the motion that was made you don't truly mean no on the vote that you made you actually meant to vote Yes yes there you go I think I think you voted no because you wanted to go to the role no no that's where I was going to go with it yeah no Johnny was in favor of the roll back rate for everyone looking yeah he was uh yeah I just thank you everybody for tuning in to the meeting tonight and for being engaged in part of this discussion I would encourage everyone to come out to the SRS meeting which is going to be a very very important Workshop that will allow the public to see a lot of amazing things that staff and our Consultants have been working on uh and also the budget budget special meeting budget Workshop that we just added um because you know it's it's very encouraging for me I think Mr Stevens and others mentioned again tonight we've heard multiple meetings about parks and recreational facilities so a lot of you guys up on this table will keep talking about that but I'm looking forward to seeing where you're if you're going to be really ready to Pony up to do some of that stuff so I look forward to it um lastly I will just announce to give everybody an update um for the Destin little league baseball team uh they are currently being represented uh under the name of the State of Florida and they'll be playing tomorrow morning at 10:30 Central Standard Time against the state of Georgia and the Southeast region championship and if they win that game they will be going to California to compete in the Little League International World Series on ESPN so as tomorrow morning at 10:30 central time our little destined boys are representing not only the city but our entire State of Florida right now they're currently in North Carolina playing so um follow along on their social media uh because it's out there so uh thank you sounds like they deserve better baseball fields now your time's up that's it that was it that it I've been very uh very polite good to see I said it for you I said it for you thank you okay so um this is coming from I guess additional thank you uh for you guys at the workshops seem like they want to go forward and putting some dollars behind the annexation strategy I figured if we're going to put money behind it we might as well have a plan only makes sense um so we've kind of been bouncing in between uh Mr zenu and Kim um on just kind of a schedule of what that would look like you know basically the Milestones things that are uh tentative that we would need to hit things that we want to hit uh and basically for your guys' discussion and I honestly we're at a point now where we could think all we want but we kind of need some direction from you guys and that would be um I would prefer to take this as more of a fact-f finding Mission and going to each HOA and and bringing back their pros and cons uh their budget any kind of cips they might have any Capital Improvement projects they might have anything they see coming up that might be um in the form of a a community tax if if they have something uh of high value and that needs to get repaired coming soon and just really bringing all the information back so that we can have a prepared annexation project not only for them to vote on but knowing what's going to come down the pipeline what would get him to say yes and that really correlate with our budget season and so the goal would be to take next year to do that Outreach come back have everything by November of 25 and that would give us time to then at the visioning session of 26 to say hey if if they say yes and bring us into the city at 26 November then probably the beginning of the 26th year we might need to do a div visioning session and some of the budget Workshop where they if they join and if not and so we're just trying to break apart what may or may not happen and unfortunately we have the last thing to do is to know the answer if they want to join us or not so just trying to take a holistic approach from both our responsibilities if they come in financially as well as um a calendar of everyone we want to reach out to as far as the committee I'm sorry not committees but as far as their HOA boards individual public workshops and then get it a little bit more uh fine tuned on our side in the 26 year um so really with that I think the biggest question is do we want to Sunshine a committee and make it an official thing or do we want to have a little bit more Liberty to go and speak to these people individually if we form a group it would just be more less a workshop of getting their cons the considerations at one event and then me going out there afterwards so um a little bit of a lot going out at once but that's kind of where we're at is we want to create a resolution road map to match the budget funds that we have in place or we we uh kind of verbally agreed at the last workshop and that way we're tying money with a plan and we're not just kind of doing one thing at a time um so if you guys have any considerations or maybe a way that you guys seem better suited than the other I think the biggest thing that we've talked about internally is the sunshine versus nons Sunshine kind of being probably the first thing to tackle uh I would prefer staying out of sunshine being how much we're already in it up here but you guys um have the vote so if anyone wants to jump in and leave yep m c nebor um I feel like at this point your progress and your reaction and interaction with those you've already talked to has been very productive I mean I I would make a motion to have you continue on with the small you and Kim and Mr zenui on how the three of you figure out how to do it without it becoming a sunshine so I mean can I make that as a motion okay so it's a motion and Dewey has seconded it okay awesome yeah the last thing I want is government taste in their mouth while we're trying to get them to come into the city exactly we want it to be so awesome so thank you for that okay so I have a motion in second by councilman dtin uh any further discussions on this being more of a fact finding liais on Mission seeing none I'll call the vote take a second all right so looks like we might have all eyes with a delay while it's delayed Kim there we go thank you I have it so moved um do we need Council to direct us to write a resolution to now kind of or at least bring a resolution to them to vote on that would just outline key dates and strategic goals of more of the calendar years based on this I'll go ahead and write the resolution unless anyone objects we need a double double dip yeah we're good all right all right thank you guys um other than that uh the only other thing we we kind of turned uh we brought up uh turnover being a little bit higher right now than typical um something that I've used in the past is skillbridge which is taking military people who are exiting the military and for 3 to six months most of the time 6 months instead of reporting to base it is their way of getting soft and business skills in in uh back in the I say normal world and allowing them to transition and I've used it for my company in the past and basically it's a paid by the military um I guess a intern but they are reporting to the employee versus base for the last six months of their term and there's skill sets across the board from it to finance and everything in between and that might be a good way to leverage relationships with our military community and help uh service members transition back into civilian Hood as well as picking up some skills that aren't on the city's dime do you already have a contact UM it it's all online uh it's gotten very in a good way thorough about uh making sure that it goes that way I don't know if we have any stipulations as a government not being able to but I think we fit their bill of not only providing a skill-based learning center but also they want employment afterwards and that was always a I had to check no on is will they get employed after this probably not um but hopefully for us that would be a yes so do you need a motion no no I think that's just we were talking about it so I just wanted to throw it out there so that's my my last little one one liner there uh City attorney well I just have one thing on the agenda tonight and I've already spoken with most of you about it but just um letting you all know that the city did Prevail again in the Bert Harris case brought by the Destin fishing fleet um and that was was the case that we had won at trial so now this was the first DCA affirming the trial decision so our next step will be to try to recoup our attorney's fee since the city had to expend significant money trying to defend that lawsuit so um I will keep you posted on that awesome yeah I just want to say uh Jamie if you'll talk to is she still here no she's G okay uher Florida okay veterans Florida runs skillbridge for the State of Florida Joe Marino is the executive director and as the first chairman of that organization I might have his contact information so that J and I'm be glad huh to help her uh make contact with him and the skillbridge people over there awesome cool all right public comments hi um Sandy treml 3823 Indian Trail I'd like to ask the question about when the storm drain covers will be lowered on 98 Palms Boulevard right there around windix se you know the they stick up uh when Destin water users had the blow out there the reason the car went in the hole was because they were avoiding that storm drain that sticks up um I've been driving my granddau daughter's little Honda this week and believe me it is not pleasant to stay in the lane so I we need those storm drains lowered as soon as possible um to avoid any injury to per personal property or cars they are really significantly High um especially since most of us are getting smaller cars now and it really affects us thanks thank you so much all right anyone else public comments seeing none all right we good all right meeting adjourned thank you guys so much for your time tonight