we will now call the regularly scheduled Town council meeting to order uh we have uh already done the invation in pled region can we do the roll call for the regular schedule toting mayor Foley here vice mayor Carol here council member alwat here council member Altier here let the record show all members are present with the exception of council member Smith all right on item two agenda reordering deletions or emergency additions um I have uh one request to move item 3A um down to item 8 B so we will have um uh that as U uh that as a as a change uh is there a motion to approve so move second all right it's um all in favor of the agenda as uh as amended uh signified by saying I I I I all right it's unanimous uh we will now move to item 3D which is the solid waste and cycle based collection franchise agreement overview uh all right so let's move to that I know we're all anxious to hear how the uh the new contract negotiations have been going and what Mr har has uh thank you Mr mayor council uh in brief uh as everyone is aware we've been engaged in the uh uh procurement process for solid waste and recyclable collection uh went through the process in its entirety the um uh the BCC the board of County Commissioners had ratified the agreement that was drafted and reviewed and prepared the franchise agreement they did that on July 2nd I believe it was um and now it's here for um council's ratification I just want to point out a couple things and then I'll turn it over to Mr Sweeney um for him to address just some procedural issues so at its core the residential collection service uh for solid waste currently uh and these are um monthly charges uh is 2934 recycling is 1470 and yard waist is 976 uh with total for current collection Services of $538 uh effective 101 2025 uh we will have um uh essentially Solid Waste will be 698 cycling will be $458 and yard waste will be $386 totaling uh $15.42 cents uh monthly for the residents now for the uh multif family and Commercial I only pull out a very brief comparison section because there are a lot of variables here um we'll be publishing this we're coordinating with um uh the HOAs to get this information out to them set up meetings let them know so they can begin discussing but by comparison a two cubic yard size container two times a week currently would be $190 52 uh there's a an incre a decrease to $187 and4 and then you can see the differences in the 4 cubic yard and 6 cubic yard uh depending on the uh frequency of uh of the pickup you can see it did go down uh a little bit in the commercial M excuse me multif family so with that I just want to turn it over to our town attorney to discuss just a little bit the process um uh especially as it relates to the um uh to the change over in Billing from subscription to University uh thank you Mr Haring uh mayor councel members of the public so what you have in front of you is just a brief recitation of what the timeline is and and this is as much for the benefit of the public as it is for our Council most certainly um we currently have an agreement um with another provider that will expire so uh as many on this Council are are familiar we we had to work through that within the last year and a half to get an extension and continue with them however the county and I see our Solid Waste Disposal District uh manager director here Mr meta um so certainly he can correct me if I'm incorrect on any of these statements but the county was also coming up with a end to their contract so the county put out uh acting as the solid disposal District or swed um an RFP the town was included as an add-on which allowed us to uh be included as the proposal and also to see what the cost would be um any County did as Mr Haring just mentioned uh there were multiple vendors came back waste management was selected and it was finalized and presented for approval by the board of County Commissioners on July second important terms the contract commences as I just mentioned October 1 2025 an initial 5-year term there is a 3-year additional in uh extension uh from October 1 2030 to September 30th 2033 and then there's one more additional 2-year um that would have to be mutual to extend all the way to 2035 importantly for uh the town um the county is going to be utilizing the same process which is to place it on the property tax bill as a non-ad borm special assessment and so just as brief background what does that mean when you receive your property tax bill there are two bations you are assessed and and pay your adorm that's based on your property value uh less the exemptions whatever may be appropriate and then as a separate nonv value based section that's the non-ad theorum section and that would typically be for a specific fee based one that's most familiar to many is you know storm water assessment that's typically based on say something like coverage for the town we currently do not have that in place for our Solid Waste Disposal instead we have an ordinance within the town that requires every person in the town as developed property to utilize our franchisee so we enforce that but it's a onetoone relationship by the individual property owner currently with the uh hauler okay the county will be utilizing this and it is the intent for the town to also utilize this and this is the process um let me move to the next slide my apologies so what happens is pursuant to this Florida statute we would advertise the intent to do that for four consecutive weeks in a local newspaper um once that has been met we would bring to the Town Council a proposed resolution to establish the intent to utilize the uniform method uh for this uh it has to be approved in order to meet next year's October 1 beginning service date um by January 1 of this year so from a time frame perspective of important it's a very important date yes sir and and and so that's why we're bringing it now here we are in July and they expect to bring you a couple more things over the next couple months so make sure we do not even get close to this date so what we would be doing is as mentioned we'd be advertising be bringing back a resolution I'll defer to Mr Haring on the actual meeting on what that date will be you can reference that in a minute assuming it it passes I'm sorry yes sir [Music] councilman no I I I'm not aware of that and and it would also the fact that we have an ordinance in place still requires that you have to utilize the services of a solid [Music] [Music] waste uh to be honest with you Council I I I had never looked at that part of it I look at it again and I don't disagree with you but I believe that would be contrary to the terms of our ordinance which why don't we ask the gentleman here problem and and I'm happy to have him come up because again he was Mr Meto was the lead so Mr Mayor if you'd like to bring up Mr mea at this time or however you'd like to handle it [Music] and Council just for reference it's on [Music] page just for references on page it's numbered both 11 and 38 in your packet in 8 um in8 uh I think it's B or C excuse me it's uh 33 8 C so if you look at you know you know how how they're numbered uh in the end I I mean my position is it's it's it's moved because of the Town ordinance I agree so um they are required to have a hauler um if they so choose to self Hall um I you know I don't know how that in this agreement would conflict with our ordinance that requires someone to subscribe to service and I mean I defer to our town attorney but well let me make a maybe what that's referencing is I sell on occasion to the County Convenience Center I think that might be the reference but could you come up and address that point say way I read is that under our PR we had to utilize the services of the public for example for falling not know um a nonexclusive right so a home we want to use bring bring a large game up and have fall away that would would not [Music] violation that's correct and Mr Mayor if I may just for the record this is um uh himan he's with the county and I just want to yes I just want to knowe peremptorily that um Mr M has been a great assistance to the town to the residents of the Town through this entire process and and we uh thank him at nauseum for that good morning Town Council my name is hon schuma I'm the managing director for the solid waste disposal District uh pleasure to be here I uh you know appreciate all the support from Town Council Town manager Heather Christmas was on our uh selection committee process so it's been a great partnership working with you uh regarding that question we we always um part of the non-ad assessment that was mentioned which is currently administered right now by our department um it includes disposal of garbage it includes the collection of recycling and includes the use of the convenience centers so residents are currently have those services available to them and although the county is a subscription based service right now that's why that provision because the convenience center is included that they may self haul and and you know they could opt out currently I I understand the language is in the new agreement as well I think the the right for a resident to use a convenience center is always available to them if they have things that are you know even with this new franchise agreement um garbage services once a week so if they have additional garbage they may self haul it you know to the convenience center or to the landfill uh there may be other items that even with bulk service it's only limited to four items a week so so so these are the things that they do have we wanted to make sure they had the right or the ability to sell fall and use the convenience centers cuz we're not making any changes uh to the convenience centers that is a service that's going to continue to be available to our our residents including the town residents um but we're going to follow the same suit uh you have it in your ordinance we're going to be going through the same process and timeline that's shown above and we're with our board also putting it on universal service meaning every resident in unincorporate IND County will have on their non aborm assessment a collection charge and that is something that's going to be administered through the property appraiser and the tax collector and it's not something that a resident is going to be able to opt out of we're not going to have an ability to to say okay you know if you're an improved residential property you're going to get assessed for collection services for 12 months thanks okay so just currently if um if I GED my house and I wanted a uh dumpster um the way I read the Contracting ordinance I'd have to go to Republic first and Republic would either bring the dump store or tell me they couldn't do it within the time frame that I forget what it is in the contract under this non-exclusivity provision we do not have to go to waste management you can go to Power chunk falling junk that's correct do it yourself buy one of those things at Home Depot and C it that's correct that's correct so that's that's how I read this provision but it doesn't it doesn't mean we can opt out of the entire contract that's I do think that that's a common sensal common sensible reading construction of the of that language but you can also read 323 because it it it's it's couched in language of choice it says residential customer may self all Solid Waste recycl materials or yard waste if they so choose there may be people among the constituency who say I so choose sure I so choose all the time they they can self choose and but still have to pay the assessment so well yeah well but I the point is that if this isn't the final agreement it's an agreement that could be revised so that it creates greater Clarity at this time our board why invite yeah I no I understand it could be clarified I guess uh right now it has been executed by our board so if there is a future Amendment or something like that I mean that is certainly something we could we could clarify um we'll be following the same process in in terms of advertising and going back to our board to to uh you know get the final cost set up uh maybe there's an opportunity to to amend it but right now it is executed that is what's been agreed by both the county and waste management to have that language in there well well you're well you're up here at the at the uh Podium if you take a look at the second bullet point up on that screen there it talks about that the tax collector collects the assessment and remits it to us then we have to what then turn it around to waste management that see that seems like to me to be an unnecessary step that waste our staff time no the the way we envision it with our um sort of interlocal agreement between the town and in inter county is that uh myself my department will be the contract administrator so all invoicing for waste from waste management for unincorporate indu County and the town of Indian Shores all that invoicing on a monthly basis will come to me and my staff we the county will pay Waste Management on a monthly basis this process is is to allow the Town Council to work with the tax collector to sort of collect the fees and what will happen is the the town will then reimburse the county on a whatever monthly quarterly basis um so it reimburse them for what the cost of collection or the the cost of collection so okay yep yep so it'll there'll be a pass through between the the town to the county but we will manage directly the invoicing uh and the payment to waste management for both Town residents and unincorporated but so the customer fees will won't come to our bank account and then we have to send it at the waste management what you're saying that I'm not I I believe it will probably come to to you first that case scenario it'll be like the adum fees is we'll get the money and then it'll just go as soon as we get we probably pass it through there might be something we can work with a tax collector where it just goes straight to the county but at this point this is what it would be set up we have to work with that and deal with that thank you great oh can I ask another question while you're while you're at the I'm sorry um section 6.1.1 says residential collection service shall include the following types and level of curbside service this is at page 14 and there are three types of curbside service solid waste yard waste bulk trash my understanding is that Solid Waste happens regularly on an appointed day and that so a route is followed on that appointed day it I I'm reading this to say it's the same with respect to yard waste and bulk trash that's correct so that the trucks on on a particular day are going to come through the community to pick up yard waste on one day and then it's going to come through whether you I call up and say I need stuff taken away is going to be a truck that comes every once a week for yard waste and and also for bulk waste that's correct so with this new franchise agreement what we've done is um Solid Waste is once a week yard waste is once a week recycling is once a week and bulk waste is once a week that doesn't mean every resident we hope every resident doesn't put out four items a week but we we basically have it with the pricing that we've obtained is those four Services uh will be available to Residents once a week and the residents are going to know say on Tuesday you can put your yard out that's correct and on Wednesday you can put bulk trash which is odd one of the things lar odds and we've tried to do so far right now and we're working with Waste Management the way the franchise agreements is listed is all of those services are going to be on the same day so it the community will be impacted but it'll be impacted one day a week so if the designation for a particular area is Monday all four services will will be uh provided uh on Monday for example so you'll have multiable trucks on that day just that for one day then the rest of the 6 days or whatnot or rest of the week it'll be it'll be quiet so I I don't know if this will create issues but I I frankly can't imagine that most people be putting out bulk trash at all we hope not we hope not yeah so they have a truck running through in our town the vast majority of the roads are maintained by the HOA there's very few public roads as you know on my my HOA that is a issue uh with the big heavy trucks sure coming in I mean ideally bulk trash when would show up when somebody called for it I I you know my community I I'm not going to see a refrigerator sitting out there once a week or whatever is the definition of bulk trash I I don't I I I I don't know if that creates scheduling issues but something I would think about because it's a tremendous wear and tear on the on on the roads there something to think about yeah currently in our franchise we had it basically where the resident can call for bulk service and waste management had up to 4 days to come pick it up yeah and what it's done is sporadic so you call today and now waste management is 4 days your neighbor few houses down calls a few days later and so now you have bulk sitting in front of houses you know throughout the week uh this this basically allows a routed service to be done um some communities some HOA communities have have opted to maybe designate one day a month uh it's certainly something that uh you know if a community requests it and it and and it you know waste management is willing to accommodate that and and and I approve it in writing then we can make an adjustment to that but but there'll be sort of a caseby case basis uh we we certainly understand about the wear and tear but we were just trying to streamline it so that it's just you know and again we're limiting it to about four items a week um but again hopefully not everybody puts out B every week thank you thank you thank you Mr Mayor so what you now have up is assuming the resolution is approved by Town Council before the end of the year we then would move to work with agreement with the tax collector um which would again authorize them to put it on the tax bill collect it and then ultimately uh charge us a slight reimbursement cost which is all delineated by State Statute um once that happens then we would have an opportunity to uh you know have that reviewed and executed within 60 to 90 days hopefully and then it would be part of the budgeting process that would have to be approved much as Mr mea just said they're working through now um in anticipation so the town would have this the numbers we expect would again be static but as part of procedure it would have to be approved by This Town Council so uh in short the important thing is for This Town Council to see and improve a resolution before the end of the year and at this point I turn over to Mr Haring on maybe timeline if he has hopefully you'll um see that October at the latest sort of what our what our what our aim is our time frame yes and and again working in conjunction with seeing what the county is doing theyve course they have been actually doing this already for years the count County already includes through SED uh the recycling aspect on your county bill so this is just a modification the process has been great and again I I can't thank Mr meta enough he's just done an excellent job on behalf of the Town residents as well as the County residents and that completes unless there's any questions for uh yes maybe Mr metha or or or Heather can answer this question if you go to page 52 of the section of presentation page 79 of our total uh packet it refers to the Excel formula for calculating rate adjustment and the rate adjustment references uh CPI but what was confusing to me is it also reference the it says where CPI 1 what's the publish CPI 2 then it refers to published monthly fuel price uh January of the previous year verse but it's not in the formula I'm I'm I'm very confused why is that there good question is the formula incorrect formula doesn't have it's not at all that looks like a one um I'll take this back and take a look at the fuel because uh previously we removed the fuel adjustment Factor because they're on compressed natural gas and and in our current franchise agreement we removed any sort of fuel adjustment uh factors all okay cuz I saw it in there it made me think the formula was missing okay those variabl that's okay I'll I'll I'll double check back thank you thank you no all right thank you very much again for [Music] [Music] um we have really smart constituents who read these things I know it's nightmare for any other we [Music] may Lang [Music] [Music] [Music] just you know try to anticipate thank you again for your work yeah just one one one last thing I ran the math a single family resident uh home if I did math right will save $460 and 56 cents a year that's real money so thank you we're doing a great job negotiating and I know you did a lot of Heather did a lot of work as well and Mr meta as well so thank you that that's appreciate [Music] so we going to have [Music] [Music] com okay there being done we going to now move to the agenda [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] to [Music] [Music] onlyif I hope I'm not think I remember corly even [Music] ifate so if um if anybody wants to talk to you if you want to talk to us [Music] I would say in an abundance of caution um the the changes have been uh very closely watched and so uh I I believe in fact that once uh Friday if Mr uh if if our candidate here was the only candidate um and he was qualified it's a two-part aspect um in fact he would be the presumptive nominee he would be subject to everything so he would be subject to the Sunshine Law so uh you know basically until about 12:00 tomorrow I believe when our qualifying closes that's your opportunity to speak with him about town council member uh matters let me let me be clear about that again it would be something that would come before the Town Council so you wanted to talk about anything else you certainly could at any time but um in an abundance of caution I actually would suggest that we dou check that absolutely yes Mr and I'll make sure I send that out I differ yes sir absolutely absolutely and just to be clear there's more than one candidate I'm a candidate yes you are Mr alier is a candidate one okay Okay [Music] we okay dep [Music] yes sir I'll have you an answer short let's move on [Music] to [Music] being year 24 25 Bud meeting um is there any further discussion on this is a motion to set the [Music] maximum. so move all second wonderful I vice mayor Carroll hi council member alwat I council member alteri let the record sh the motion passes unanimously 4 Z thank you [Music] discuss mayor Foley vice mayor Carroll hi council member aler hi council member Altieri hi let the record show the motion passes unanimously 4 Z all [Music] right disc moment ago discuss mayor FY vice mayor Carol hi Council M aler hi council member alteri let the record show the motion passes unanimously 4 Z all right item we have Aion board member [Music] Mr okay um this is the Bo [Music] thate we have pre little influence statute we do we do have the [Music] ability there was another um applicant was Albert iino Public Safety member um that applicant was discussed at the um at the pension board uh meeting uh both had an opportunity to speak and Mr dagostino was uh selected unanimously uh by the Quorum present um given the uh Town council's U ministerial role per Statute in this um uh we're only presenting the um the member that was actually uh approved uh by the board on that particular day okay thank you right I I seem to recall the statute actually says our approval is ministerial which makes one wonder why we have to approve a ministerial act um but be that as it may is there a motion to approve in a second second uh roll call vote mayor Foley I vice mayor Carroll hi council member awater I council member Altieri I let the record show the motion passes 4 Z unanimously okay uh item 8e ordinance number 573 it's the second reading of the cemetery grave markers Mr Sweeney has to do his legal requirements for the second reading thank you Mr Mayor ordinance number 573 an ordinance related to John's Island Cemetery amending Chapter 93 of the code of ordinances of the town of any MH specifically section 93.6 d double grade markers section 93.0 6d2 are the provisions providing for applicability and inclusion providing for separability providing for cment of errors and providing for is there any discussion uh as it is a second reading is there a motion to approve in a second so Mo second roll call vote mayor Foley I vice mayor Caroll I council member aler I Council moral Terry let the record show the motion passes 4 Z unanimously all right terrific um item 8f is to appoint a voting Delegate for the 2024 Florida League of City conference um I'm going to uh uh nominate Mr Outwater if he's willing to if he's willing to do it uh I do not plan to attend you do not plan to attend there is a uh a resiliency conference that I've got in the agenda on about a month later talking about uh beach erosion coastal flooding I think that's a much more useful use of my my time and taxpayer money I I had looked over the Florida League of cities agenda and didn't see anything that really uh jumped out so I I I thought it made more sense to attend the other meeting okay I withdraw my nomination based on your your comments uh uh I I agree with you the um uh the items on the agenda do not uh appear to be of any great significance and you've probably heard me up here before saying that with the municipality our size um I'm not sure how effective Ive uh the league of cities is an advocating for municipalities our size so uh while it's a a good thing for us to stay engaged and keep our finger on the pulse um unless anybody else wants to go I would um I would say let's um uh alert the Florida Lega cities that we will not be sending a voting delegate this year will be I know they will um all right so that takes care of uh a discussion with probable and possible action we did move uh item 8A uh to item 8G so we are going to go back to the NPD ms4 presentation so that that concludes the voting the voting items for Council by the way yes and uh thank you for uh moving that um Mr Mayor just want to let everyone know um we're uh fortunate to have Maggie Geraldo with kimley horn um she is helping us manage our Municipal storm water operations and uh permit so uh we're going to defer to her to give us a presentation on what we're doing and where we are right now and answer any questions if there are any Maggie thank you so much good morning everyone um as I mention my name is Maggie Geraldo I'm with kimy Hon Associates and today we're doing a presentation uh about storm water and the town's storm water system this is primarily to comply with the town's mpds permit and we're going to go in a bit um um in a couple minutes in more detail as to what npds is so the purpose of the presentation is to educate the staff uh and the public about storm water explain how the town's storm water system operates uh and demonstrate how to identify elicit discharges doing this we'll be able to help the town comply with the storm water uh management permit requirements um so what what is storm water so in Florida it's just rain when it comes down it falls on roofs it falls on your lawn driveways roads and it takes with it essentially everything that it finds along its path so it takes with it leaves the Bree fertilizers pesticides as well as uh bacteria that is found in feal matter from animals um yeah uh so what is the npdes so npdes is the mechanism that regulates storm water in the United States um it is part of the Clean Water Act that was stablished in 1976 by the EPA um and like I mentioned it regulates our storm water um and it has different um components to it and the component that is applicable to the town is the ms4 which is the municipal separate storm water system uh so the npds the national pollutant discharge elimination system aims to minimize the discharge of pollutants into our storm water um and it does that by education by setting rules policies guidelines that municipalities or counties um or um agencies have to uh obey that uh and then by doing so it protects the health of our our our Waters Lakes lagoons our oceans as well as um groundwater as I mentioned it is required by the federal state by I'm sorry at the federal level um and at the state level and um it as I I sorry as I was saying um it it is integral when you have a municipal separate storm water sewer system which is the ms4 and what that is is that you have a separate sanitor seore system that goes to your wastewater treatment plant and a separate um storm water system so when water goes onto your um STM water inlets curb inlets it goes into uh a separate system that can go and eventually discharge to Rivers lak lagons groundwater swells lots of different components depending on what you have within your community at the Town the primarily um rout that the storm water goes It goes into the Lagoon without Falls or it could go into the ocean as well uh and that's a little description of how the sary SW pipe goes to the W water treatment plan and um and the storm drain goes to uh surface waters or groundwater um so what the town does is the town the town's permit um requires the town to establish best management practices so Implement uh ways to help reduce the contaminants and pollutants that are going into the storm water system um some of the best management practices that the town utilizes are here so the town has installed filter Fabrics filter baskets that have um a Filter Fabric uh they've installed these along all winter Beach Road these uh baskets collect debris before it goes into um the storm water system and prevent it from um entering the the the pipes um and eventually discharge through the AL balls so it collects you know as you can see in there debris siment um the town has also installed a baffle box at Indian Lane um and it has the same um uh it it uses the same um concept as the as a um filter box where it collect sediment and debris this is significantly larger um and it it is at the end of a system before the water is discharged through an alall uh so what I was saying earlier when I mentioned elicit discharges so illicit discharges are uh discharges that are not composed entirely of storm water runoff uh they can be deliberate or it could be an accident as well it can be chemicals it can be raw materials uh it could even be bare soils um some of the examples that you know can be found very easily is you can have grass clippings they're not supposed to be going into St storm water system sometimes uh they may have uh pools uh pool water that gets drained pool water should not be going into the storm water system it should be going into your sanitary sewer one it should be going where and it should go into your sanitary sewer um and sometimes you may even have um connections that you have for overflows that are directly tied to your sanitary sewer because you should not be discharging your pool water to the storm system um sometimes you have this if you have contractors in the area they may easily dispose of you know any chemicals pains in the storm system um washing uh of vehicles should not be done also under the street because that's just going to run off into your inlets into your storm water system and then when you're um when you're observing um any Waters of body water um you can see it's easy to identify um an elicit discharge because you're able to see color in the water or Sheen or maybe a smell sometimes you may be able to see foam that is um indicative of uh illicit discharges um and then how to help so everyone should be on the lookout if you see um any debris if you are witnessing any dumping um You can call the buildings the um and then obviously also always REM um remember to remind any contractors anybody that you may have working in your property uh that only range should be going down your drink yeah do you guys have any questions terrific thank you anything from Council on this um Mr our uh my recollection was on MPD that uh we have to if there's a construction site if there is a certain amount of rain a/4 inch or a/ inch we have to go out and inspect that site after the rain stops is that is that accurate correct so um that is part of some of the uh other best management practices that the town has which are requirements that mpds has when you have any type of construction in your property depending on the size of the property you will either have um a an noi uh for a generic construction permit um or you will end up having an npds permit with um both types of permits you have to have a storm water pollution prevention plan um there needs to be inspections and you cannot have any outfall any um any discharges um from your construction site onto the roads onto the public property everything has to be contained on site okay so this is a question of the Town manager how how often and I see our Public Works director here so maybe go should go to him but uh how often do we clean out the uh baffle boxes and filters uh we have a schedule um in fact we just I think it was last week or the week before we just had a clean out we're on schedule to clean all uh clean quarterly I believe but but how my question is how often do we do it quarterly quarterly quarterly I'm sorry new okay great thank you perfect thank you very much um this is Maggie just for clarify this is one of our community outreach kind of points that uh we're using to get the higher rating so that we lower hopefully insurance rates and there's some crossover y sir and we'll have some additional uh narrow narrowly focused crfs items uh for for for that rating as well all right great thank you very much all right we'll move to staff updates uh building official reports and statistics uh uh Mr Mayor on both the um uh code enforcement and building official um both Jake and Fred are in uh classes today on the national electrical code training these are things that they don't schedule that are otherwise scheduled uh that they have to do um I spoke with both Fred and Jake about both their reports if you have any specific questions I'm I'm happy to try to address them and if not I can get you the answers okay uh so for 9A and 9d uh building official and Public Works uh does council have anything for Mr harpring uh that he can either answer or funnle over to uh Mr held or Mr Bryan s Bri on the um just on the code enforcement piece I I just want to note that uh Council if you had any questions about the uh c turtle uh survey that was just recently sent out to you um that was done just just please let us know we can get those uh we can get those answers to you if you have any as that that has come up at the beach insures meeting we sent that over to the county because they were asking there was general questions about it for uh uh yes um fortunately we we're used the same vendor so there's overlay excuse me um so the county has uh the report that we just did um as well as um so Quinton bur got okay great thank you so I just I do have a now that you mentioned you know the um uh the turtle issues come up it's almost cyclical like every 3 four years um is there any reason in particular this year why um why the issu seems to be being brought up more and more by uh different different bodies um I I think historically the town to some extent um may have relied on the county um but I felt compelled to take the town's responsibility into our own hands and and I think that's why there's a little more visibility but as Council knows our first uh goal here and we've met with some constituents as well um is you know try the education piece because it's unknown to a lot of people uh so the reports that we send out are are hopefully um you know are hopefully working that way okay thank you very much um 9B Town Treasurer Heather Christmas Town [Music] Treasurer um you've received my report I don't really have anything else to update you on so if there's any questions I'm gladly helped you anything NOP thank you thank you very much I know it's been a busy time for you uh Public Safety chief good morning good morning just an update on the number of items we've got working over at the public safety department if you haven't noticed our traffic enforcement has been way up for the past 30 days um almost double what it has been in previous months so we've been very very active um an awful lot of warnings not so much uh written tickets but an awful lot of speed warnings and those types of things um our detective Bureau has uh historically this is a downtime for them where they start slowing down quite a bit um they're actually busier now than they are than we have been uh in the past during our uh during when we're in season and when we have all all of our residents in town um and uh we recently just put out a a fraud uh bulletin to all the citizens um we've had several cases of uh been gold bullion issues uh there's actually article in 32963 this past week I believe um and we're continuing on with that process this has turned into a state wide investigation um and also has some federal Outreach to it also so uh one of our detectives is uh is the lead on this and he's been very very very busy over the past uh over the past 60 to 90 days um we' received a number number of EMS training training AIDS over the past uh 30 days or so we actually have a uh Workshop set up upstairs in our training room um and we're actually moving all of our employees through that now and it's uh um Advanced uh EMS techniques on uh how to do inter osus which is actually a bone stick um where we actually Infuse IVs uh through through the bone into the bone marrow um so we have a lot of those training set set up and we have additional equipment that we're going to order next year to actually continue to to to build on that um we have an awful lot of our employees uh over half of them currently enrolled in a uh driver pump operator program um for the fire engine and the ladder truck and as soon as they wrap that up which will be in the next uh 20 days or so um they go into ladder truck uh operations and ladder truck certification so uh we're actually enhancing those levels of training and certification that we have for our employees on the Fireside um historically also we continue we we have a a Slowdown period where EMS activity and fire activity tends to fall off during this time of year we haven't seen that this year um we continue to maintain a fairly High um EMS response um and the and the crews are extremely busy out there um and I already mentioned the mailer that we sent out I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have at this point yes sir I just want to compliment you on the mailing on the fraud yes I thought that was very well done it was done in simple terms of people who are not necessarily computer literate well understand and I plan to send it out to a number of relatives across the country so well done thank you very much um actually that was a complete team effort um and it had uh detectives Bure was involved all of our Command Staff um many many of our employees are all involved in that process so it was true a a true collaborative effort to to assemble that and make sure that we got the right message up I will do that sir thank you thank youall thank you Chief keep up the good work um all right next item I believe I misspoke I said um we were going to cover 9d I meant 9e code enforcement 9d Mr Bryan public works good morning Council uh morning you've received my report if there's any questions in regards to it I'm feel free I'm ready to answer anything from Mr Bryan no I just you know once again I want to compliment you uh you know there are uh things that are are are being done that were never done before and uh want to thank you for you know all the tidiness all the nice Public Works things everything from you know American flags on the right day going up to uh the things that make our community different and uh and aesthetically pleasing so thank you for all your work thank you yes sir uh 9f Town [Music] Clark good morning Council I just wanted to give you an update we alluded to it earlier in the meeting about um the upcoming closing of our qualification period which is at noon tomorrow Friday July 26th I've had one person file for qualification who you introduced earlier and I've had two residents pick up packets that are still outstanding but there's a possibility that they may be filed and that's the status two residents have picked up packets or have emailed packets um so there is a possibility that they may be filing for for thank you Mr Mayor um just briefly I will have an answer for you on that I want to provide absolute clarification and again I don't want to be premature if there were other candidates a lot of this Dynamic can change if there's more than one person versus incumbent so I will have an answer to all of council by email so that you can know whether you can continue to speak with any of the candidates prior to election um right you're looking at me I understand I can't talk to Bob and Jen that much I got from you and again it's it's a Nuance I have the sunshine manual and um C different levels the last thing I'll just mention is I am heading at the Florida Municipal attorneys Association uh their annual meeting starts today uh at 1:00 in Naples so I'll be traveling over there it'll be for 3 Days um I have an opportunity to meet with colleagues throughout the state and follow up and any other emerging issues be able to report backk thank you very much and by the way congratulations on the appointment for the bar association why don't you explain what that is because it's a pretty uh pretty prestigious thing for us to have a town attorney in the position you got um thank you Mr Mayor I sincerely appreciate that and all of council um the Florida bar is a mandatory Bar Association you cannot practice law in Florida without being a member of the Florida bar there's approximately 110,000 members and underneath that there's about 26 different practice areas ranging from criminal law Civil Trial tax probate one of the sections of the Florida bar is the city county and local government section it's intended to encourage Municipal attorneys County attorneys School District Attorneys to apply there are approximately 2,000 members in Florida and as of July 1st until June 30th of next year I am the chair for the entire section uh responsible for all programming coordinating continuing education Outreach conferences um there was a nice little uh promo yesterday the Florida bar pushed out and um I'm very appreciative again of all Council support for this thank you sir congratulations um no no rate increase otherwise we are going to start auditing we will take up the audit if we are are there any pressing issues with you're bubbling to the top at this point um yes and and just very briefly some of which this council is very much aware of again uh septic to sewer uh those issues certainly across the East Coast um much of the condo legislation uh the new iteration of the live local act um still has not been fleshed out and a lot of municipalities are still trying to determine how that will work um and again uh I was at the state of the county meeting last Friday and unfunded mandates was a huge aspect of that presentation uh I I don't have the exact number but if I recall correctly Mr Tanish the County Administrator mentioned that it's somewhere around 70 cents of every dollar paid into the county cers goes to support unfunded mandates and of course those would be dictates from the state of Florida you have to do this but we're not going to give you the money on how to do it so again those are things at the local level we continue to monitor very closely okay all right thank you very much anything for our town attorney no all right Town manager Mr Haring thank you Mr Mayor uh just a brief update on our uh Paving projects we continue with engineering on um India um excuse me on um uh Beach Comer and Pebble Lane uh that's uh concurrent with the uh uh agreement that we're working on with with the city of buo Beach uh they are looking at uh right now we've sent them over a u basically cooperation utilization agreement uh to coordinate the paving with the septic to sewer uh piece on Beach comr and Pebble Lane so that's uh that's ongoing uh if you have any questions about that I'm happy to provide you more information uh in any greater detail we do have an open house scheduled and in August uh there will be um there'll be at least two mailings uh to every one on Beach comr and Pebble Lane uh of our September 12th uh open house to discuss the project of course we'll publicize it otherwise on the website so that you know Town members can come if if they uh if they desire we'll actually probably be doing it in here so we can broadcast it and uh have it have it retained for people's information uh the goal is that that project on on Beach comr and Pebble will really set the template for the upcoming uh work on all the other town roads relative to the septic to sewer piece which as council member awater noted earlier we are really trying to get resolved um within the statutory time frame uh I I note um quickly and will'll defer to council member alwat on Beach and Shore items other than to note um uh that uh there are um uh really just generally we working with the county on the beach access agreement for Beach comr uh Lane that's not an issue we've done that before with other people uh they have two other uh beach access access locations one in John's Island and the other uh is Turtle Trail um so everything seems to be lining up uh and again I'll defer for more detail to council member Outwater um other than that Mr Mayor I don't have anything uh specific to note all right is there anything for our town manager um I presume we're we're already in hurricane season but we're um we're well prepared we're continuing to coordinate uh yes of course we've got our uh uh our Public Works director is very happy we've uh got our equipment lined up uh to have our piece of equipment that we get for a few months each year which I've talked to some council members about so uh we're very fortunate to have a very experienced team here uh in regards to uh those items all right terrific well let's um let's hope and pray we have an easy season so uh thank you very much Mr harpring uh item 12 Council committee reports anything okay take care best of luck uh nothing from Mr alter nothing from me U summertime we tend not to meet except for barbecues and lunch and nobody wants to hear about that so um vice mayor nothing Mr Outwater yeah I have beaches y yeah you have your pack 12 a thank you uh you have your packet item 12a the uh update from the beach Insurance preservation advisory committee which uh I attended as uh our representative on on July 15th so I noted a couple things there that I underlined in red is uh apparently the County May uh may get some more money to assist in the sector 4 uh construction so for those of you who are not with this type of nuance on on the beach there are uh uh I believe it's eight sectors along the uh along the beach starting from Sebastian going south to the county line with St Lucy County the vast majority of our town is in uh sector 4 and for a whole host of reasons which I won't go into because it really bugs me when I start talking about it sector 4 is not listed as a critically eroded sector which means that trying to get money for beach replenishment is much more difficult but uh uh Mr Haring is working a lot with the with the counties is something I brought up back in in 2015 we've made a lot of progress the County's been uh very helpful so we're going to do a dune replenishment so it's not a full Beach replenishment where you put sand all the way out to the water but it's a big step in the right uh uh Direction so more more money has been handed out to uh buy the the state to potential uh people who are doing this type of uh work we did get on the list but it has sort of a rather bizarre uh requirement is that there's a limited amount of money approximately $36 million which is a drop in the bucket as we all know given all the damages occurred on our uh on beaches up and down uh both uh Coast so the money is available in a first come first serve uh approach so basically what you have to do you have to rush to get anytime you do work that's approved uh that matches up against the requirements you have to get your invoice in on a first come first basis to Tallahassee you get paid it's rather uh bizarre and the project has to be done by June 20th to 2025 which I think will hit I think the reality is a lot of money is just going to going to disappear but if we can get a few more bucks out that so so much the better the sector four work that I talked about the last thing waiting for was a US Army Corps of engineer counter sign it's absolutely amazing how slow this process is as people go uh back and forth on this but the uh the County's uh Coastal Engineering division is going to putting out uh bid documents for the RP they're expected to go out in early August of the Lays to obtain bids and construction is anticipated November 2024 to April 2025 window that matches up uh with the end of of turtle season the other thing that that came up which was important uh under Department updates and I'm sorry I didn't uh put down the definition on the document you see on the second page there new BPP that is the be Beach preservation plan so theya they occasionally do updates of these over the next 15 months are going to uh have a target of getting this done and my ears perked up with uh the idea about creating an offshore sand borrow area for those of you who come from the uh Northeast and uh councilman Smith who's not here today she she lives in South Jersey Shore and I used to go down there all the time a lot of the sand comes from offshore we don't drive it from trucks in in in the north Feast from the sand mines like they do down here so my ears perked up with the idea well maybe we can pump sand from offshore on our beaches which I think is a lot more efficient unfortunately the study just includes steps to propose a creation of an Northshore borrow area not actually doing one so this is sort of the first first step so any questions that before I move to the next item uh no no for me anything yes okay uh the second thing is uh many of you may have seen an article on 32963 ver Beach 32963 about the increase in the projected cost of the water and sewer plant and which wasn't explained particularly well in in in that article is where the information uh came out it came out as a result of a public director's request on my part the city of er Beach the city haven't been transparent on the cost of this is a massive uh uh understatement so I they knew what the cost of the plan uh the the shall I say the revised projected cost of the plant was when we had the Utilities Commission meeting in which I'm the town's representative but they didn't disclose it then I asked for a public records request for the bond underwriting documents uh so I I worked in the bond business for for 35 years I went to see the proc that was going about uh on the way that they're doing it and I I won't rehab the article I think they're doing it wrong Unfortunately they have a finance director there and I'm sure the gentleman has uh good qualifications on the day-to-day buiness he has no underwriting uh experience that I've been able to tell or dealing with Wall Street so they're solely relying on their uh consultant which is pfn which is pretty well-known Municipal uh uh consultant but I think the scoring syst they doing which was written up in the article I won't go through that is completely wrong but what I wanted to talk about today was the the cost of the plant which uh again this is a projection they're going to put out uh rfps around October or so when we'll finally see the cost of a cost not to exceed so back in August 2022 they were talking about $82 million in a meeting then I pointed out to them that Orange County North of of Orlando had completed a plant that was substantially the same in size there was a couple little extra things that were done in 2019 they completed that plant it cost $103 million so they were projecting in August 2022 $82 million that dog don't hunt I pointed out at the time I was told I didn't know what the hell I was talking about so then they raised the cost of the plant up to $130 million the only way that was discovered was that uh John cugno at a taxpayers association meeting leted a drop uh in a discussion I kept asking for a Utilities Commission meeting where we weren't being given a number now as a result of these documents here it's the projected course is up to $156 million so I I ran some quick math from August 2022 to uh uh the most recent number the cost of the of the of the plant it's up 90% from September 2023 so went there it went from 130 to 156 million the cost of the plant has gone up 20% CPI from August 2022 to now is only up 6.1% so they say well construction cost are way up and uh you got to understand you know and well yeah they they did jump up during the period uh right after Co but August 2022 we were pretty much through Co so I tried to look out and look at construction cost Trends so and this is why the internet is great the US Department of interior the Bureau of Reclamation has cost indices so they have cost indices for pumping plants for structures and improvements on pumping plants and for equipment on pumping plants which on the documents you have on the page that I uh that is on the de here that is is sitting there uh the I I gave you the background material uh it is all all the various course cenes consist of two elements contractor labor and Equipment cost and contract Supply markets and uh equipment so okay they're not perfect but they give you some idea so basically costs have been pretty much flat from August 2022 to currently because you had this big runup and what's happening now is a lot of contractors were taking advantage of Eng gouging and now that is going so let's say they're they're off and in and some these increases show like 5% let's say they're 10% they're not 90% so I I I just want to point out that the whole job of projecting cost uh I mean in the in the private sector if if a contractor uh if a consultant came to me and said well these what the increases are going to going to be i' I I'd fire them because obviously they didn't do the job right up front so I just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention our rates are going to keep going up uh so now they're going to borrow my guess is rough they're hoping to get maybe 20 to $30 million in Grants I hope they're right I they get as every dollar they can you're probably looking at roughly and I haven't run the numbers I built a whole entire spreadsheet to look at uh financing scenarios my last time I looked and interest rates haven't moved too much maybe come down a little bit at the time was about $97 million so if you call $90 million in uh financing costs and my understanding and I may be wrong on this is these costs on the plant do not include the demolition of the plant along the Lagoon that they decide to do that now I'm sure it'll stick the water and sewer uh rirs with that and if they get something done on three corners which is a part of that money will go into the general fund that's the way they operate so be happy to take any questions other than that I don't feel particularly passionate about that so thank thank you very much um my my understanding is the same that um um it does not include the cost of demolition it also does not include the cost of environmental remediation um right which can be um which can dwarf the cost of demolition absolutely um I I thank you for your work um my only comment on the numbers is I go back further in the timeline to get a complete story um I didn't bring it with me today I do have it somewhere in my archives at home um but if you go back to when this was first discussed um it's going to be 8 to 10 years ago when the talk was potentially having a consolidation of the county system absorbing the city system well they they estimated that that would cost the consolidation would cost 55 million so guess what city of Viro Beach said we can build it for 51 so why wouldn't we build our own plan for 51 million fast forward 2 or 3 years when nothing was done well County we can do it you know I think they said for 64 65 m milon Consolidated oh we can do it for 60 uh so this number just keeps moving and moving um not with any uh any real comparison in mind as to what's better for the taxpayers but to keep a utility for a Municipality of a relatively small size just to have its own utility and its own thing it makes zero zero sense uh we said we told you so back then um I was called crazy along with you uh I would think uh I think the numbers are light I don't trust 156 million I agree um the number quarter of a billion has been tossed around with financing by the time they get done when is enough when is somebody going to look at this and say this is madness this is just too much money uh we've been we've been t as a franchisees we've been uh told that we can't pay the rate that uh was negotiated during our franchise agreement with the city by the courts okay uh we negotiated a lower rate that would be matched by you know the city would match the county rate they walked away from that we're paying higher rates now the mayor made a statement that we're going to have shovels in the ground 2024 well I don't see any shovels in the ground I don't even see financing in place I mean I don't know if you have an estimate of when they're actually going to get going on this but meanwhile we have all of these higher rates being paid where's the money going is it going into a saved fund is is or is the money just going you know into a general uh general fund account and getting transferred over I think it's I think a lot of it is the lad and as we talked about up in this day before they transfer money over to their general fund which is used to lower their property taxes number one the other thing that most people don't consider is they also do what I consider to be inappropriate cost allocation so for example they'll take a portion of city council or town clerk budget and attribute it to the utility and I I I could I could be here for a half hour walking through how my opinion they V VI violate government accounting standard board uh practices gby which every as Heather would tell you uh our town Treasurer is what the guidelines you're supposed to use in terms of doing things they've never put a single dollar aside and they knew this plant was coming to the end of of its uh useful uh life so I I mean you know it's you know it's something that you and I testified up in Tallahassee uh about and unfortunately we didn't get the state legislature to doing but so so just to punctuate that note um we will continue to push this legislative session for whatever whatever kind of legislative relief we can get but the more I looked at this from so many different Vantage points you know that's all well and good and the taxpayers um elected us to do that and to and to be uh guard dogs for for their hard-earned tax dollars but at the end of the day we're going to have to have some adults come to um some sobering conclusions and that's not the people on this day is that's the people uh in the municipality next to us and um I you know I um I I just think the this whole three corners operation being done in tandem with the um relocation of the sewer plant um Good Luck I don't know who is going unless there's some progress being made on that I don't I don't see how this thing starts moving forward and you can sign all the contracts and rfps that you want but you know the rubber hits the road when you Mr Sweeney makes his living doing this the rubber hits the road when you get down to the definitive documents and that's where the economic allocation comes in and that's where you find out is it's going to happen or not so anyway in the interim we have a very focused job right now and that's to protect our taxpayers from you know for the waste of the monies that are being paid pursu to the franchise agreement and to explore other options you know we have um um you know we have other options hopefully that uh may fall on different ears as uh seats change and councils and seats change in uh County commissions so with that I'm going to open it up to um public comment are there any members of the audience who want to um join in our tier a about anything no Mr Mayor I just had one item excuse me I neglected to note uh the town is involved in a beach cleanup uh Saturday uh 8: to 9: uh Beach cber Lane if you have any questions just please um call our office uh parking is just right over here and uh we've got all the equipment and everything and uh again I apologize I didn't mention that earlier yep all right thank you thank you everyone for coming today and uh for giving your due attention have a great month and we will see you in August for