we all set okay we will call this meeting to order uh just one housekeeping before we begin with the invocation for those of us on the de I've been asked to inform everyone that we do need to push the green push the button so that it appears green before we speak in order to pick up uh in order to pick up our voices and after are speaking please depress the button so it no longer goes green to avoid cross talk so with those instructions did I do that correctly all right um let's uh we we'll call the meeting to order and we will begin with the invocation from vice mayor [Music] Carol we are thankful for this town and its residents we are grateful for all who work for the betterment of our community and all who serve on its behalf that those who work here and those who serve here be ever mindful of the town's vision and mission statement Grant this Council the wisdom to govern amid the conflicting interest and issues of our times the ability to work together in harmony even when there is honest disagreement a sense of the welfare and true needs of our people personal peace in our lives and joy in our task amen amen if you'll Jo [Music] mayor Foley here vice mayor Carol here council member alwat here council member Smith here council member Altier here let the record show all members are present thank you uh item number two are there any requests uh to reorder the agenda any requests for for deletions or emergency additions if there are none uh can we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda sorry all in favor I all right any opposed no it is unanimous item item three we have a presentation and a proclamation for the Florida Alliance to end human trafficking we have some Representatives here um if you'd like to come up to the podium and please introduce ourselves and I I understand you have a brief presentation as is that correct okay great thank you good morning morning I want to thank you for helping our community become aware of the fastest growing crime in the world today child sex trafficking we are here today because we are in a crisis and we believe that addressing the crisis of human trafficking through awareness and action alongside our government leaders is one of the the keys to end this travesty since the pandemic child trafficking has become the fastest growing crime in the world America is now the number one buyer of sex and Florida is number three in the nation for hotline calls the buying and selling of humans is a multi-billion doll Global Market sex trafficking is in every state and every community and this horror is happening right here in our county social media has opened the door for predators and traffickers to bait and groom a child so they will come to them willingly sexting and sextortion is now the fastest growing gateway to child trafficking according to Homeland Security many recruiters the same age as our children are being used to start these sexting rings in the Treasure Coast four teachers have been arrested over the past year for sexing with students Florida Faith Alliance has created powerful anti-trafficking videos called don't take the bait and these are for middle and high school students with a focus on educating them and their teachers we will be working with school boards to get these videos into every school we are at a Cris Isis it is crucial to bring awareness to protect every child and equi every parent grandparent teacher and every citizen Florida Faith Alliance is committed to bring that awareness with presenter teams trained to go into churches synagogues schools businesses and organizations with Community presentations we believe that anti-trafficking campaign pign can be launched in our community and multiplied to other other communities through increased awareness by postings on social media published material and awareness presentations together we can do this we can cross party lines racial lines and cultural lines now is the time Proverbs 318 tells us speak up for those who cannot speak for them elves ensure Justice For Those being crushed we want to empower you as Community leaders to take a leading role in ending this travesty our call to action to our council members and every member of Indian River County and the four counties of the treasure and Gold Coast is to support and attend our free awareness presentation next Tuesday January 30th at 7 p.m. right here at the Indian Rivers Shores Community Center together we can unite to fight and send a loud and clear message not on our watch thank you for your support thank you thank you very much um we do have a proclamation for you but I understand that uh the board of County Commissioners has already issued a proclamation as have other municipalities and so on behalf of the Town Council we are we are delighted to join in supporting your effort so yes thank you our Proclamation um I'll sparia there are a bunch of warehous Clauses but the the meat of it is really in the um in the resolution which is now therefore the Town Council of the town of Indian River Shores calls upon the residents of Indian River Shores to help the Florida Faith Alliance Catch the Wave of Hope and other local organizations to eliminate human trafficking through empowering people to see something and say something together we can rise up to stop this travesty through awareness education restoration and legislation so thank you for your efforts and we are happy to issue this Proclamation from the town thank you you're welcome um sure with all Council y yes okay there you go [Music] 1 2 3 thank you and that's Tuesday night here at what time 7 700 p.m. okay all right item four comments from the public regarding agenda items uh is there any public comment on the agenda items if there is none uh we will then move on to uh the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second all right all uh we have some some resolutions in need of a roll call vote so um we'll do a roll call vote on the consent agenda approval mayor Foley I vice mayor Carol I council member awater I council member Smith I council member Altier I let the record show the motion passes 5 Z all right terrific thank you moving on to item six the mayor's report uh a little longer than usual today but not too long I promise um item number one uh we had a a request by a member of the finance committee to uh assist that member and encouraging members of the finance committee to be in attendance this summer in order to um have a quorum when they Pi up some fairly significant matters such as uh um work on the budget um they they had some difficulty getting a quorum last year I understand miss Christmas and uh so uh I I'm asking Council to you know basically provide some consensus so that we can um uh have the relevant administrative staff reach out to those members and ensure their attendance here because it's um uh rather important that I know it's inconvenient for those who are out of town but we no longer have the benefit of attending by Zoom uh which happened during the co era as pursuant to a emergency resolution so it's important that if people undertake uh the finance committee uh membership responsibility that they understand their going to have to be some meetings that that they're going to have to be here and present for so uh without objection I would ask um uh Our Town Clerk and our Our Town manager to reach out to those members and and ensure their availability um and report back to us and take whatever steps we need to take to um um to ensure that we have a quorum over the summer for these meetings um I think we all know they do very important work for us because the recommendations I find very helpful uh they're an extremely talented group um and um you know I think if we just uh encourage them to attend hopefully that will solve the problem uh is there any any comment on that okay uh item two uh as promised U I just wanted to give an overview briefly of the accomplishments that the council has uh undertaken during the calendar year 2023 it's hard to believe we're in 2024 already but um we are and you know among the accomplishments that this Council has uh undertaken with the assistance of our our staff are a number of personnel additions due to attrition I think uh through natural attrition we've we've had some fairly significant openings uh in the building department and Public Safety um and I think that uh in administrative staff um I think we've uh we've had some incredible Talent added to it and uh uh I know that all of council encourag is uh uh Mr harping to to hire the best and the brightest and we have our support and you know if you want exellence on a team you have to have good team players so um that's that's one I what I think is one of our greatest accomplishments uh I believe we've uh tighten the management um management and procedures among among the town uh it's fairly easy to kind of get settled into the same old routine that's the way we've always done it so we're going to do it um well I you know I give credit to to Jim and Janice and and Pete for U having a look at you know items that could be uh tightened and improved uh one that leades to mind is our use of the consent agenda for now for items that uh we used to individually go through and uh they really didn't need it and uh uh if you look at our consent agenda compared to the consent agenda for the County Commission um you know we're we're uh we're a little late to the game so um I think uh also we have the the mechanism if there's ever any item on here Council knows that they could pull the item and we could have further discussion on it but I think uh I think that was a great a great addition to our our process um we are streaming meetings uh I know we're working out some technical glitches but um I hope that the lack of in-person attendance means that virtually people are watching our every move here um I think engagement of our town um our town uh residents is very important for us to get proper feed feedback uh particularly in the off season in the summer months when we do the business continues even though the residents may go back uh up north in some instances um as I mentioned we have budget issues and all sorts of stuff so um I think that's a great benefit for us and for the town residents um on beach erosion not really an item we wanted to have to deal with in 2023 but we had to deal with it uh for those of you that saw the latest edition of 32963 uh there was a great article and picture of council member Smith who's been uh working very hard on this issue as has uh council member aler council member alter and I know vice mayor Carol has as well we've all worked extremely hard on the issue us has the administrative staff um I I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this is the first time I feel that our are um pleased to be designated um have sector 4 designated as has a critically endangered has been heard and acted upon and I think we're also uh seeing progress in getting um funding for restoration and um um projects in the beach it was on TV this morning for those who were watching channel 34 that noted that Indian River county is moving forward with the restoration and preservation project on these beaches I'm sure Jim will have uh some timing for us if not sorry for throwing a throwing a question your way that you you have about half an hour to figure out the answer so you can go for that um the Land Development code review uh this is one of those projects that I don't think is um has got an awful lot of uh appeal it's not something you know residents say thank you for deleting all those redundant Provisions in the Land Development code and clearing up any confusion but it was something that was long overdue and really needed an overhaul so that that process began in Earnest last year we've seen some uh some of the more simp items presented to council uh We've made those changes and there's more to come and hopefully we will finish that process up by uh by the summer uh our continued diligence in the water issues um uh we have uh approved a resolution under the consent agenda supporting House Bill 777 and its companion bill Senate Bill 1088 um uh and then there's a another bill that you know I I presume Council will will join me in supporting which is um House Bill 1277 which uh uh is a complimentary Bill to the uh aforementioned um uh H HB 777 in short um these bills just provide some measure of protection for municipalities that are at the mercy of other municipalities providing water services in terms of uh fairness and rates and uh limiting how much money can be uh transferred over to the general fund House Bill 1277 which is in its early stages limits that a 10% um of the gross number um it's a start that's about all I can say but we'll we'll continue to follow on that and pursue a legislative agenda um can't thank Bob aler uh can't thank councilman alwat enough for the work he does on the Utility Commission uh being the representative on Treasure Coast Regional League cities where we're often at odds um I know it's not pleasant going into a hostile room uh meeting after meeting but uh more more about my winning friends and influencing people at League of cities later on in this meeting um so thank you Bob thank you everyone for the special meetings over the past year and the support in um in making sure that we get the best water services at the best price for our residents and that more importantly we ensure an uninterrupted reliable service flow in the future um you know this this particular franchise agreement um you know does expire eventually and I think what we've all learned is 20 25 years in the context of utilities is not a very long period of time so you know you really need to we really need to plan for Alternatives and we will continue to do that um we continue to engage the town in countywide and Regional matters and you know that that I think is of great importance you know if we want to seat at the table in uh in everything from funding to influence on uh County ordinances to you know protecting the the special nature of our area and uh doing a great service for the wonderful homeowners associations that we have um you know we we simply have to be engaged on a continual basis and you know that that involves um some effort on our part and thank you everyone for that um our town clerk has um instituted uh town clerk meetings where the town clerks get together and they share information uh try not to reinvent the wheel if somebody knows how to do something um they share it um I I'd like to say it's one of the examples of government cooperation uh it's we don't see very much of it in our day and age but they do a terrific job on that uh as for the public service uh Department um um thank you um Mark for being here uh Chief is is out ill uh we wish him a very speedy recovery but um there's some terrific things that have been done um I could go through a list that would take half an hour but ensuring the compatibility of equipment from surrounding departments is just one example of kind of the top to bottom review that that we've seen so uh what do I mean by that um we had oxygen tanks if I get this wrong correct me but we had oxygen tanks that were not necessarily capable of being swapped out with surrounding Department equipments um should they run low and and they be needed so you know those kinds of things um they don't get noticed until something goes wrong um so thank you very much for uh all of the uh uh processes and reviews and we continue to do our best to hire uh the best and most capable and dedicated people so those are just some of the accomplishments um of the council and uh and and the staff and uh we will we will continue to do our best for the people of the town and U next year we will uh we will review 2024 with the same with the same order that we we did this year uh last item three A1A traffic um I'm sure we all get comments from people on it and I get I get suggestions from um in instituting tollgates at the beginning of the wabaso bridge to 7-Eleven to um uh taking over A1A and putting down um um like railroad crossing gates and checking residency th those are not those are not feasible obviously not feasible things to do um and we can't have turns only in one direction we're limited jurisdictionally and what we can do with A1A uh these are you know seasonal problems and I know they're frustrating uh as as a year long resident uh I get used to you know pulling out and not having to wait uh 10 minutes to be able to make a turn to the left going going north but um uh all in all I think that um I think that we're seeing you know better traffic flows uh and we'll continue to do what we can to work with our our partners and stakeholders on a regional County and state basis um to keep an eye on this and uh um we'll have to we'll have to be diligent uh particularly when we start seeing you know occupancy in the new development behind the 7-Eleven that is the city of Vero Beach is just so it's clear some residents think uh that's our jurisdiction it's not that's the city of Vero Beach so um wish we could do more for traffic on A1A but um I don't think we're going to see tollgates or um or or crossing barriers anytime soon um with that um that concludes my report for today um we will move on to council member items are there any council member items yes Mr Mayor uh councilman aler there was the public safety pension fund meeting yesterday and it covered through the calendar year so I want to bring you folks up to date and uh I have I have a a suggestion is as as we go through it this I'm sorry this is going to take take a little bit of uh time the good news is from from a return uh perspective the fund's total return was 13.34% over the trailing year as the markets came back stock markets improved interest rates dropped and so forth the bad news is that relative to The Benchmark that the fund is judged against we continue to substantially uh underperform and that's due primarily to the real estate uh Holdings the be blunt they're just a disaster uh they uh they were they they were down uh uh over 14% uh last year now there's as I've talked with you about before there's big swings in how the real estate gets valued in these privately held funds as opposed to a publicly traded refund but even if you look over a threeyear uh period uh they've only earned 4 uh two 2% when if you uh well excuse me they earned uh 3.2% if they had been put into a real estate investment trust Index Fund Vanguard and Fidelity has we could have earned an extra two percentage points the other thing which is hurt is they have two uh actively managed Equity Funds which if I was a portfolio manager my old job I I'd be scared of uh for for my uh job for example the MFS growth fund underperformed by 6 and a half no actually when you take the account expenses by 7% last year and by uh annualized uh over 4 and a qu% over the last three years so you know o overall net net you know we're just we're we're leaving a lot of money on the table because of some of these investment choices that said I have some good news to say is that the board yesterday agreed to reduce the Holdings in two of the uh actively managed Equity Funds at MFS growth and Manny and Napier by uh 10% of Assets in each and put them in an index fund so now we're up to about 40% in the Fidelity 500 Index Fund so that that is a good news there so I think we're slowly making uh progress there but uh unfortunately you know if you look over the last 5 years we've underperformed our Benchmark by 4% annually each year for the past five years doing Simple Math and not doing compounding which make it the fund would be 20% larger if we met the Benchmark you know that would really cut down on what the public safety uh officers would have to have to kick in the second thing I I want want to bring up is something that that troubled me in the conversation uh uh yesterday we we we had this issue with bar Crosby before and unfortunately came up with the chair chairman R Rick Villers he started to comment about how the multiplier on the pension fund ours is 2% where the average is usually about 2.75% and was complaining about that that uh the effectively the public safety officers is getting a raw deal I I I was glad I was there you know his credit he allowed me to speak I kind of countered that a little bit again I had to point out that unlike almost every other municipality all of the insurance tax proceeds under 175 185 we give all those to the public safety officials uh officers excuse me most most municipalities take that money and use that to fund their Pension funds there are some that maybe provide about roughly 50% but there there there's not many of those and you know I I want to I I had to point that out again and I pointed out in the actuary gave a report and public safety personnel contributed out of their own Pockets $138,000 last year into the fund the 1751 5 money which we grade to give them was $239,000 so net net they they got 100,000 they contributed nothing in an aggregate now that's not true of every officer because the way to 175 185 allocation met and you go back year after year I have a I have a a spread spreadsheet I don't have all the numbers quite updated but the last time I saw where the public safety officers contributions exceeded the 175 185 was back in 2012 so it's it's a great deal for them the money is compartmentalized they take it with them when they go and we continue not to get any credit for this and it really disturbes me because I know we've had some issues uh with Staffing over there and this information is is apparently being circulated around that that the public safety officers are getting a r deal on the pension and they're not and what what I would ask if we could get a consensus on this uh deis is to uh direct the town manager and Deputy Town manager to put in an educational primer together because it's a really good deal and uh if we're not going to get credit for it then then we should change the contract and we're going to hear this stuff I I thought we had stop this I I was troubled that Mr Villers brought this uh up again and um so one other thing I want to say on this and I sort of hesitate doing this but unfortunately under the Sunshine Law I can't have a private conversation with you on this the public safety fund uh hires a an attorney who's supposed to specialize in Bonnie Jensen she does us a disservice I brought this issue up she says other communities contribute to 175 185 money and I said Bonnie they really don't there's a few every once in a while do but not to the same extent happen and she's also interjected herself on investment matters where she clearly doesn't know what she's talking about and we the taxpayers pay for her that and and again just it just uh creates uh uh issues so you know as you heard me ad no him say the when you think about it from a financial perspective the uh the town is a Investment Management uh pension fund management company with a side business of a of a of of a government you know I I really try to keep uh on on top of this so I I I would ask if uh you know uh be be happy to answer uh any questions and I would ask for consensus to direct the uh uh the deputy Town manager and the town manager to put together some kind of educational primer so people know the know the facts over there thank you councilman um comments from Council questions I have a question the two names you mentioned um that were a problem with the pension fund they're always the same two names I mean is there a limit on how long these people can serve or how do they get elected to that and isn't one of them a former employee well the the the way the way the way way it works well bar Crosby is retired so he's he's not involved anymore the the way the public safety pension fund is set up they're required to have a representative from the police side correct me if I'm wrong and and from the fire side we appoint two members and and then the four elect a chairman the the and the chair and the chairman lives not a chairman excuse me elect a fifth member which not necessary chair that individual doesn't even live in the town so but the uh the uh public uh employees select their their two people and I don't believe there's term limits on that board not that I've ever come across but correct me from wrong Pete uh mayor council I'm looking now at our code of ordinances I don't know if there is any type of term limit as was suggested so I'll look now and find out but councilman is correct that they are selected on their side we're completely independent of Town Council or any aspect when they're selecting the fire representative and the police representative that's that's dictated purely by I think actually by State Statute quite correctly yes that's correct um so I'll I'll look into that right now and see if I can give you an answer in just a minute all right um so uh just a couple of comments from from me thank you for the for the presentation um the bottom line is short of appointing two members of the pension board uh the council uh basically is the pocketbook and pays it uh pays in you know the the contributions that were required uh but we have according to statute very limited authority to do anything other than do what we're doing here which is just to you know breede some truth and um and reason into uh into it but uh it's not like we can pass a resolution and say you know we we disagree we're going to increase or decrease the rate of return we're going to fire the attorney that's something that's really beyond beyond our control um I do think councilman alwat has an excellent idea um for uh the town uh subject to Mr Sweeney's uh okay that we're not interfering with any kind of statutory prohibition or collect a bargaining agreement by having um an educational seminar to basically walk people through the facts and have an open forum for any of the psos that want to attend so that they understand everything from top to bottom um uh it it won't be a public meeting um but I would like to attend that as well because I'd like to um like to educate myself on on the uh the top and the bottom of um of the 175 1885 it is uh confusing to say the least and when facts are uh confusing it's easy to demagogue the issue and I think that there that's happened an awful lot with thisinformation that's been given out to Public Service officers uh I would love to know you know how many actually benefit from the 175 185 program um and is there an alternative to uh structuring the pension plan so that it kind of you know that those monies benefit everybody as opposed to potentially just a few that are in the program so um I know that's a lot to swallow but I guess the uh the request would be uh subject to you um you corrected me if I've got what you're driving at wrong Bob um the town to put together um a presentation and if you need to bring in a professional from the towns side uh to have you know an honest look at this then you know let's let's do that uh because I don't I don't want us to see us losing you know capable Public Safety officers who are getting bad information on um you know what the value of the pension program is and not the least of which which you didn't mention which is that consistently were fully funded or close to fully funded all the time um and the oped was 137% funded so that that funds the uh retirees uh Health Care insurance I I would challenge anybody to find a find very many Ops they're even 100% funded in this country most of them are pay as you go yep so education is always good um and um uh I guess we don't we don't need a resolution for this I think we just need a consensus is if there's no objection uh do you understand how to proceed yes sir and um you know Pete if you have somebody in house that does you know pension or arrest of stuff um you know by all means you know feel free to you know do it for free since we pay your firm so much money on a on an ongoing basis absolutely Mr Mayor although we don't have anybody like that so it'll be free for nothing but all right tche but no I don't I don't want us to uh uh to cheap out on this you know we we should do what we need to do in order to you know hopefully you know have this um you know have our our side of the story out there and uh and present it in one one location um you know I would Envision for those that can't make it a PowerPoint you know also so that it can be distributed to people so that they understand you know the benefits of a fully funded program that uh that is structured the way ours is well M Mr Mayor I recall from our two past negotiations Heather did some really nice uh work on this that maybe can be uh updated to she gave to the uh Town Council time and gave to the uh uh gave to the employees as well I mean was open kimona they saw all the stuff the the survey she did and everything else I you know look I know it was a lot of work but I I just think this is so important we're not going to get credit for this and we're going to have a lot of turnover why the hell do it I mean really because you know the taxpayers are are you know shoveling a pretty good amount of money since 20 2012 through 2013 the 175 185 plan that we gave directly to the public safety officers total $2,183 th000 you know it's not it's not insignificant that's it's a small Force there it's not a 400 person Force that's real money certainly uh if Heather can help us from not Reinventing the wheel that's great um and um well why don't we perceive with that and we'll put some dates together uh I I think uh your points are very well taken councilman our order and um um we we all are we're all on the same team here we want our we want our Public Safety officers to uh to have good retirement plans we want it as an attractive tool for recruiting um but we also want you know there to be a corrected misinformation of saying well it's 2% as opposed to 2.75% you know therefore you know you're getting a better deal in municipality X if you go to them well they may only be 40% funded who knows if that pension plan's even going to be around in 50 years to pay out um um you know the um the assumptions in the plan are not the same so I I think that there's there's benefit in education and I'm I'm All supportive of it so let's proceed with that council member Smith so the only problem I see is if you get this educational seminar together is getting the the psos to attend well then put a put a put a slide deck together what put put a a slide deck together and make sure they all get it Mr Mayor if I may yes U Mr Haring um my thought would be we would go ahead and put together a presentation something that we could provide publicly here place on the website and just simply distribute to everyone over there with directions if they had any questions to you know uh contact those that we identify in that regard it would be U uh something that would go ahead and distribute um you know to everybody that all the relevant parties involved to council member Smith's Point um you know I don't know if we can um get an informal survey of you know how many would be interested in hearing a presentation from the town uh that's a good point if we're going to we're going to go through this effort and only two people show up uh I don't know I don't know what more we can do but um I I have a feeling that you know if they understand that we're trying to uh give them an overview of where we stand on this and how they benefit as opposed to maybe some negative information that the public safety officers are hearing from Representatives on the pension board then they may be they may be interested in attending um just a thought if um if there's interest um you know good percentage then um let's proceed I think it's I think it's a good point um so we all in agreement on that um and if not let's just put a deck together and say you may want to read this at your leisure it's an important enough issue for them that uh I'd be surprised if we don't get a fairly significant number of people to attend so uh but let's let's poll it see what um see what we can get we'll take care of it all right terrific thank you very much um while we're on this topic uh and to save it later on in the meeting I did ask the town manager to circulate a bill that uh was introduced I don't know if it has a senate companion bill yet that does affect contributions to pensions and we're watching that because that may um that may have an impact on um on what the town is required to contribute and limited to contribute um I I'll confess I looked at it very quickly and when I looked at it I said this this doesn't really affect us yet because we're well above the thresholds for Public Safety officers that are required by that bill U but you know my old saw is a bill starts out as a horse and by the time it gets out of the committee it becomes a three humped camel so you know we need to watch we need to watch the bill to make sure that uh there isn't uh an impact on us as we head into budget season as well because these things fastly and furiously can kind of work their way through session and then at the end of the session all of a sudden bang you know we're um you know we've got to come up with some money or we're limited uh in terms of what we what we can contribute there was some talk about that anyway just something to watch um all right anything else on this item nothing all right moving on to item 8A uh discussion with possible or probable action we had at last meeting said for council members to consider who would like to volunteer to be on the um Treasure Coast Regional planning Council as the primary designate to attend particular meetings I'll do that all right without objection vice mayor Carol would like to be the primary designate uh is anybody interested in alternate uh I'm I'm happy to be the alternate I'm I'm here year round uh SO meetings that Sam cannot attend I'll be uh I'll do my best to make myself available they don't uh Council now even refresh my recol I think there's only One Summer meeting anyway right so yeah they're not they're not every every single month yeah okay um anyway it's a it's it's a pretty interesting uh interesting thing I I will say when I first got on Council uh there were these mysterious acronyms like Mo Metropolitan planning organization and Regional planning Council and uh you know there's no manual that tells us how we do this right so I had no clue what they were and then you go and you find out that they actually Regional planning Council actually has a fairly significant input in terms of what happens uh regionally um and it's uh not just good for us to to uh participate in the process but also to be aware of what's happening so um I think you'll enjoy it Sam all right item 8 B um bright Line stop fort Fort Pierce Fort Pierce has asked us to support um their effort to get a station stop at bright line did you want to speak to that or um uh I I followed um uh the efforts in in that regard I know that the city of ver Beach submitted a letter to Bright line um in support of um uh a stop in Fort Pierce I support that as well and I think it's probably a good idea for the for the council to commission a letter to to Bright one I don't think there's any other Avenue to which express our that we might express our opinion to other than right directly to Bright all right thank you um any other comments on that or I I'll I'll just say it was very well done presentation that they uh put together I sent a note to uh mayor Linda Hudson and she responded said you know basically thanks for your potential support so uh I I I would be in in in favor as well somebody has actually used right line to take a uh a train from West Palm Beach down to watch a Philly Marlins uh game it's it's a great way to travel and avoid I95 and if we could leave from Fort Pierce rather than having to drive down the West Palm Beach I think it would be even better so um I also thought the presentation was really well done I thought they did an excellent job in all their background um my only question is and we might not be able to answer this is what that increase the train traffic once they have another stop there or are they is bright line limited and how many trains they can throw through here no mayor council as being the former City attorney for four Parish became very intimately aware of bright line as I understand it there is no limitation on their hours of operation it's it's business driven um the earliest trains leave for Miami now Miami station very early I believe 5 or even 4:45 coming the other way from Orlando um but and returning as late as 10: or 10:30 so there are no hours of operation on that it really is as I understand it and they've always conveyed a business model where it's designed to have people use it and that would mean getting them from Miami to Orlando early in the morning to visit Disney World and possibly get back or vice versa so much of what we've heard is try to keep it moving quickly but I don't believe there's any leg limitation on the number of trains they could run the only limitation that I'm aware of is the settlement requires the station to be built in either Martin County or St Lucy County so that settlement does not conceive of any station in any River County so to councilman Al's point the closest place would be St Lucy County yeah that's my understanding as well um the uh I think you know I think there was a uh uh I will say mayor Hudson you know I spoke to her after a meeting last week and she said she would appreciate our our our support of it um I don't I don't know if it's true or not but I'm going to say it anyway uh my intuition tells me that with a stop in Fort Pierce um if anything it would have the effect of slowing down train traffic because they can't be screeching through it 80 M an hour and then hitting the break so maybe there's a a tentative benefit um I you know I've also heard the you know the the number of trains increasing is not likely because the uh ridership has turned out to be very disappointing thus far so uh you know the economics are always going to drive this and unless uh unless a trend happens where people are um going to opt to uh take all their suitcases and five kids and put them on the train and take them to Miami instead of loading up a rented minivan um I I my intuition tells me it's probably not going to be tons and tons of trains coming through so if there's consensus we will issue a letter uh supporting Fort Pierce's request I thought the presentation was excellent as well um and we'll move on to the next item which are staff updates um Mr held is out um we had the report statistics look about normal for this time of year I went through yes uh Mr mayor council everything seems to be um uh tracking consistently uh just a couple of quick notes the U uh eth edition of the Florida building codes now uh in effect um also you may have noted or recall that um uh there are Milestone uh inspections that are required to be done as a result um of the Surf Side collapse a new change in law so we've had um actually nine uh buildings uh that fit within those parameters that we've received those inspections keep in mind we are as the town essentially the repository there's no statutory requirement for us to do anything with those uh the statute just simply names the local jurisdiction as the repository so uh I just note that um that we've had uh nine so far that were done um uh prior to the December 31st uh that particular deadline so um if you have any other questions on that please get with me or or our uh or building official uh and finally we're uh continuing in the uh large process of migrating over to the new um software company that makes the building department software speak with and consistent with what everybody else is doing that's been a a little longer term Migra migration because the county did it Sebastian did it so they're We're All In A system that um you know hopefully we'll U you know we'll talk talk to each other uh from data wise uh and that's all I have from the uh uh from the building department anything on building all right uh item 9B Town treasur report you have my report if I have any questions I'm willing to answer them if not um I also attended the pension board meeting that was held this past Tuesday um one action that they did they did approve the upcoming Actuarial evaluation for this fiscal year and the impact of that is the employees required contribution rate went from 9% to 8.09% of salary and the town's contribution went from 22.74% of pensionable salary to 17.7 n% so that will be reflected I'm going to do a budget adjustment for that um they also changed the assumptions on so they did they're now taking in a prospective approach to the assumptions or to the Actuarial valuation so these will be our contribution requirements for next year as well so when I do the budget for next year I will be using these rates and they will not change so that was one change they made the pension fund is 95.9% funded with a 6.75% in assum assumed rate of return at a 5.75% which I have that number it would be about 87.7% so that is what I have for the pension fund if anyone has any questions any questions pension fund no no question just point out the Flor retirement system using the same I believe the same investment assumption we are are very close they're only 82% funded where we're 97 and probably that was as those the figure for us was as of the end of the f year which would have been September 30 we're probably with the market run up probably over 100% right now so yeah thank you for that you know typically if you if you graph this we're we're we're more at fully funded than we are or near fully funded you know yeah within two two three percentages then we are below that yes right okay thanks and the only other item is I will as I just said I will be having the budget amendments in February for the first set of amendments thank you when does audit season start again so a budget season start is starting right now but um we will hopefully have the financial statements in March or April it depends on when we get the actar evaluation for the general employee Benefit Plan okay great thank you thank you deputy chief Shaw Public Safety morning Mr mayor council uh I just want to start by saying how appreciative as me being the most senior Public Safety Officer what our pension means I think some of the younger guys to just it's a lack of information so everything the council member Outwater said I think is spoton um I think they would be well served by having an informational meeting I can preach it to them until I'm blew in the face but you know sometimes they want to hear it from somebody that's a little more knowledgeable on the topic but for me personally I want to thank each and every one of you um I'm close to retiring so you know a couple years I am more than appreciative of the pension and and everything that you guys have done and continue to do for Public Safety so that means a lot to me um so next item we uh councilman Atwater and Mr Haring and I met with fdot yesterday about the crosswalk I think it was a very informative meeting I think it was good uh Chris Carris is the Treasure Coast supervisor for fdot I think it was important for him to have eyes on the area I think we agreed upon uh a plan of action how long that's going to take I I can't tell but he's promised to keep us in the loop with everything that he's doing but it was very important unfortunately the crash data is against us it's one of our biggest hurdles um that's why it was important for him to come and see while we were standing there yesterday we had residents that were crossing on the road and the traffic was heavy so it was it was important for him I think to see I think he got an eye opening uh you know by being there and actually seeing it so we are moving forward with the crosswalk uh and the other only other item I had was the D vessels may I just stopped and make a make a couple comments so I pointed out uh Mark and I pointed out to him there is a a town-owned public beach access path and he he made an interesting comment and I said wow that's he said I drive past here all the time I never knew this thing existed I thought wow that's that's that's a interesting point down at the south end of viru Beach uh down in the area to 17th Street Bridge there are beach access paths down there because it's kind of similar to ours they sort of blend in they actually have signs there I I I I would suggest that's something we think about uh I would use use what ver Beach did I think it's a an an ugly sign but maybe we just think about putting a a sign up there to make people aware you know that that is a way to get to the uh uh Beach where you don't have any issues but I thought that was a very telling comment him because i' suggested that maybe we put the crosswalk there it's not in front of 7-Eleven and CDs where we got all this cross traffic going back and forth with the Landscapes and everything but have it up there and have it and and uh build a sidewalk south from the point of the beach access it's only be I don't know maybe a couple a couple hundred feet which would connect in with the the sidewalk in front of the CVS and so forth and then that way people get the CVS they could get the 711 they could get to uh get to the beach but uh maybe at the end I would ask for some consensus to ask the uh the town manager look at the idea of putting a just a sign up not not real big but all right thanks for letting me he was checking on that we're we're supposed to be getting one they may have done it but he was checking on it so if he it hasn't been done it will be done in the next month or so I left yesterday feeling more positive about it than I have anytime previous so I think it was a good sign does it make sense to you know see what the response is before we start throwing out Alternatives um because you know it I I I mean Mark I I I I think you and I agreed to kind of let him go through their process see if it gets approved if not there's an alternative which I didn't really understand maybe you have better knowledge of me about going through a permanent process I didn't understand what he was talking about there as an alternative I think that that alternative involved the town kind of initiating and and maybe funding a portion of so let's not do that yet so but he you know to the deputy Chief's Point uh I I've worked with ch Chris Caris on on some other other things he he listens he's he's responsive he he he made the comment he says you know I can look at it on a map or even Google street map he says D driving up here from Fort Pierce and seeing what's going on at uh you know particularly that time of day thank God there was a lot of traffic the traffic was backing up uh from Bear all the way up there as as as as the deputy chief said a lady came came across and she got stuck in the middle Mark had to stop traffic Mark turned to Chris and said yeah I paid her to do that so but but but but but but it it really did illustrate the point you know the place is a mess down there I mean we all know that but for him for him to scene he was taking pictures I I put I put Maps together uh uh for him uh marking all thing out with distances and and so forth so I think it was I think it was a really good meeting so uh so give you credit for getting that schedule thank you I appreciate it yeah I feel real positive with it so um next item was the Der vessels we've been dealing with the Der vessels in the Indian River Lagoon Last Summer at our Max we had seven we're down to three of the three one is in the process it's already been tagged it it should be removed in the next 30 days and then we'll start the process on the last two it's going to be a pretty fluid ongoing you know enforcement deal with us with the new anchoring limitation area so we're we're rolling with it but we're down to three and and hopefully here very shortly we'll have those last three out I think that's all I have do you guys have any questions I I have just have one from the beach and Shores meeting they talk about the deric vessels and it seems like they're always the same amount of vessels out there because they said that soon as you get rid of some some more replace them Y and there's just no way we can monitor that I mean how do you know if they're going to abandon it you don't correct and the one that's still out there um it looks like some kids had got on and and just tore it up knocked all the windows out you know did more damage to it so it is a nuisance I mean obviously you know kids that live down in that area are you know got little dingies that they'll ride out and through those little cuts and and yeah they're boarding these vessels and you know somebody gets hurt yeah it's it's an issue but unfortunately like like you said we get three removed and a couple months later we got another one and they can Moore those boats anywhere so the new anchoring limitation area um which is just gone into effect you know it's still new educating people because there is a gentleman that's somewhere right off of pebble Pebble Beach Estates there is living on it now he says he moves it every whatever the 10 days whatever the time frame is um you know he'll move couple hundred feet one way or the other um but we got to get out there and educate and we we're doing that our Patrol boat has been out there they just went out yesterday and uh put eyes on the vessels that we still have so we're we're working on it but like I said it's going to be a constant thing this this will be a fluid thing that we're just going to be dealing with okay thank you yeah thank you you know this coming most of us all of us here come from the private sector this seems like a pretty easy problem to solve um and council member Smith every time I drive over uh the barber bridge I look to the right and I see that same derc boat that's been there um submerged for 120 days um you look to the left you see the same one that's been there for more than 120 days uh the anchoring limitation area which this Council supported is a tool but it's not a Panacea because all you have to do is move out of that anchoring limitation area before the time is up um it's timec consuming you have to get the GPS data to prove the case so it's a tool and you know thank you I know it's going to be um an added brick on your load to do that but but it is important um uh and then uh worked with commissioner O'Brien on what what the county dubbed uh operation leaky bottom which was what led to the anchoring limitation area um our biggest impediment was fish and wildlife services in the state um they're Cooperative but they throw up their hands and they say well if there's a working radio on the boat um that limits you from you know tagging it as derelict and getting it out of there so you look at this there's a I call it the tugboat and I I don't know if that's one of the boats oh it's gone yeah that's gone that's gone um nobody had touched this boat for probably 5 years and it had fuel in the tank it was an environmental disaster waiting to happen but because under the current guidelines you know there was a radio um that if you attached a battery to it it would work um couldn't touch it you had to go through this process of trying to track down the owner um we have enough um work with the legislature right now but uh Florida state law favors liveaboards on a boat it's kind of a policy of the state that they want to be a boter friendly place I think we want to be voter friendly too but um there's got to be a a corrective balance between people who you know everything from insurance jobs to you know to uh uh just you know abandoning a boat that you know they don't uh they don't want their brother-in-law to get as part of the estate settlement I mean there are a panopoly of reasons why people are abandoning these vessels and I think you know we we um we may be well served reaching out to our other Community Partners Orchid US city of arob Beach and the county I know the county some people in the county would be supportive of um you know trying to get some State legislation that actually makes a little bit easier and a little bit more common sense uh to take care of obvious problems because try to explain to John Q citizen that those two boats I mentioned and those are just the two most obvious ones uh can't be touched because you know somebody may come back someday where there's a working radio it's not sensical so uh um so anyway that's you know maybe that's a a legislative issue for us to take up next year ask you know representative bracket or Senator Gro to uh to have a look at this but we know you're doing everything you can do so anything you need from us politically will be happy to support it no I appreciate that y anything else for all right um let's move on to Public Works Mr Mayor if I may um aside from uh you know the variety of uh things that are going on day-to- day um uh Mr Brian our Public Works director myself and uh some folks from do and their contractor uh willco are going to be uh out uh on A1A conducting a survey of uh the bike path and all of that work that's going on um the majority of that work is uh associated with uh electrical work that's being done by FPL U subcontractors there is some other contractors out there but um we've already documented and are following up on issues uh like reflectors and turn signals that hadn't been replaced in locations that that should be as well as a a lot of the issues on the bike path so uh be out there tomorrow uh doing a survey pinning and marking every particular location uh along uh you know along the bike path and um uh and and following up on that uh so that's pretty much what we have in um uh Public Works other than I I did want to mention we do continue to uh survey the beach and I'll mention some more about the the beach in a minute um uh Larry was very uh very helpful and uh getting us our U our sand at beach comr in a timely fashion and getting our contractors and stuff like that together um after some of the more recent recent degradation and keep in mind for us that particular piece is a really a public welfare uh piece for us to be able to have public safety and Public Works to be able to get down on the beach so that's what I have in the context of Public Works Mr Mayor thank you anything well he's wearing is Public Works hat no okay uh item 9e code enforcement report somebody's playing hide-and seek with a boat on a trailer with you huh so sir good morning education more education than anything but I'm GL go can could you just tell me what if you could give me an example or in this case what what's a landscaping violation um overgrown grass Hedges to B um inance trees growing out of others okay okay thank you thank you Mr Mayor uh want to start by following up on the comment you made about our uh our consent agenda I was at board accounting Commission on Tuesday and their consent agenda goes all the way to AG so we've got a little bit more work to get there but um am sincerely appreciative of being able to do that moving into some of my items the first is and if we have it up there thank you heather um vacation rental so as mayor mentioned we are in the middle of session at state in kassee uh they're about 3 and 1/2 weeks in and we'll be ending very quickly in beginning of March so just a quick background if any of council doesn't have the history of vacation rentals in Florida prior to 2014 there really was no regulation at the state level of short-term or vacation rentals those terms are used relatively interchangeably um they are all generally understood to mean anything less than 6 months because once you do 6 months in Florida for a lease it is exempt from sales tax and that's the main reason why so there was no background in go ahead thank you heather in 2014 uh the state was a little bit late to the game Airbnb VRBO and several of these other operators had really started to get momentum and locally jurisdictions had started to implement ordinances regulations and rules regarding short-term vacation rentals uh section 50923 was instituted and it had a very specific preemption language that you could not regulate any of those types of of uses based solely on either classification use or occupancy so a lot of people were attempting to suggest they could not be in single family a zoning section such as an rs2 or three or or whatever the corollary would be in your area also limit the number of days or also limit if you had to be a certain number of people in anything that was in existence in any area county or city otherwise prior to June 1 of 2011 was grandfathered so you could have those restrictions even though the state uh in instituted the new statute if you can move forward the town did not have anything so start with the background that the town never would have been in a grandfathered status we always were subject to the statute however we had some ability to and everybody did to regulate on other bases and a lot of them should and are tied directly to life health and safety issues um jurisdictions such as fire code inspections Ingress egress objective things uh number of parking stalls or parking uh limitations at a unit so we in 2019 instituted 16120 and I'll I'll pass out the full background of all of this along with that in a minute if we can move forward board um as probably many of you are aware this industry has not only blossomed but now has become a behemoth particularly in Florida with our tourist draw so we are currently in compliance with state law last legislative session last year Senate Bill 714 died literally on the next to last day virtually uh going back and forth between the two houses it would have preempted virtually everything to the state including those that had been grandfathered in before it also would have given dbpr which is the highest Department in Florida that regulates a lot of sub divisions such as hotels um they would have had more teeth and also would have been responsible theoretically for more licensing or scope of responsibility and it also would have cut back on some of our ability it did die however if we could move forward it is again uh back in the legislative session and it is a I believe a top tier issue it has moved through the main bill is 280 and as uh I have it up here now 280 has been already uh recommended and referred to two different Industries I passed both of those regulated Industries as a subcommittee and and fiscal policy is another one um almost uh universally although in fiscal policy it was a 125 but it has now had a second reading it continued to move forward and my understanding is that there will be a another reading to I'm sorry uh later today at some point on that um of course it has to pass both houses and would have to move forward and we are getting closer to the end but if it were to pass we obviously would have to come in compliance because regardless of whether they're going to allow previously grandfathered we never would have been grandfathered in anyway so I don't want to be premature and start to suggest we need to move forward with anything it may die it may be mod SL several times there's already been a committee substitute but I want you all to be aware this is moving forward I think it's appropriate to follow you may have seen an article the county has added at least one dedicated code enforcement officer to start to add policing to this they utilize an outside vendor to essentially check the advertising platforms Airbnb vbo and several others that are out there to find compliance but it's it's going forward so by next meeting I should have a essentially end of session report to be able to update you on this so are there significant differences between the House and Senate bills um at this point the house bill there are some not significant I would not say councilman um there are some but the Senate bill is really driving it and uh probably some of the the biggest things are again number one registration fees and Licensing fees would almost totally be preempted to the state or really diminished to a very low level locally that was one thing that was designed to try to make responsible operators if they had to pay for a certain threshold they weren't just doing it on a whim they would be responsible and truly into the industry that is probably going to be reduced and again preempted in part to the state the second part will be the licensing and and there's the state level licensing there's a local sales tack license that you would have to get locally here to remit those sales taxes so there are several versions um but I I can tell you theoretically what this would do would preempt a lot of that licensing to the state and if there's compliance issues arguably has to be reported back to the state the problem is dbpr the closest that I'm aware of um agency headquarters is in Orlando um the next Clos to south of us they have an ancillary office I believe in Palm Beach but really it's Fort Lauderdale so it's just very difficult to police when there's nobody here uh and notably they're not giving additional funding to the most they're giving them more responsibility but no additional funding yes so so to follow up on the mayor's Point again these are often referred to as unfunded mandates where the state will require local municipalities or counties to do things to come into compliance and we've talked about many of these over the last couple years including septic purer and many of these other things without providing funding they they may provideed an a grant form but there's been no Appropriations asking and the other point is that they're not providing funding to dbpr to hire additional people to actually keep track of what's going on even though they're taking their responsibility so um councilman aler said l a fair it's actually it's it's that and worse it's basically we know you're never going to be able to keep track of this so we're basically deregulating the whole thing kind of love those lobbyist up there they do a great job I have a question so so if this goes through does that mean that that our town would have no ability to regulate vacation rentals in the town we will we will likely have limited more limited than we already have ability to regulate however again this all functions with so many different aspects a a a building whether it's in a condo a town home a single family residents still would have to comply with so many things under the Florida building code so that's where a lot of our Authority and regulation would still lie but as far as maybe again zoning aspects or limitations on number of days um the actual license application from one of the things I've seen you used to have to apply and if you got denied at a local level it was all local now if you're denied at a local level you apply to the state and they essentially have veto power or override power to require us to issue it but but just to be clear none of this affects homeowners associations rights to U limit vacation rentals so um this is in the absence of an HOA restriction in the Declaration of condominium of Co-op so um if ji for example says um you have to have a minimum 3-month rental uh none of the legislation would affect that because they're not touching they couldn't touch that that's absolutely for covenants that run with the land yes sir absolutely true this will solely apply to our ability to regulate essentially from a government perspective we see this all the time with associations when they have their own Architectural Review committees for Land Development or building process and the same thing for uh as you said restrictions on rental access erass any of those things those would be private property rights governed by the Association documents um and again I I will just provide information as I get it okay so an example would be Beach comr a lot of private homes on beach comr so like if seven homes on beach comr decided to be verbos and have a zillion people there with a zillion cars and making noise there's nothing we could do about that from the vacation rental sort of Licensing aspect we wouldn't be able to but there's so many other ways that we could for example if people were parking in the rway OR parking on the street we could utilize our police enforcement powers to do stuff like that we we have a noise ordinance they have to comply by that so all of the standard Municipal policing Powers we still have we just wouldn't be able to say to your example Beachcomber will be prevented from having vacation rentals period yes ma'am um so that's what I wanted to provide for background of vacation rentals the only other one that I I wanted to mention out a note that was mentioned before was sovereign immunity that also is moving through there is really just one bill there that would be 472 and the relevant portion there would change the limits the current limits are what's known as300 so that's $200,000 per claimant if there was a claim against a a municipality Sovereign entity a county the state any of those a claim it could claim up to 200,000 or 300,000 if there was multiple individuals making the same claim the proposed new limits um would go to 400,000 for an individual or 600,000 collectively um and I believe mayor Foley mentioned last year's limits same again was proposed last year but were almost 10 times that I believe it was 25 million and 5 million that died but this again has some traction is now continues to move forward so I'm watching those two closely as well as other ones that uh the mayor and working with Jim we've identified just making sure we we stay a breast of what's going on and if there's any questions I'm happy to answer that no and and obviously on sovereign immunity two major impacts it encourages lawsuits if the if the limitation and liability is uh actually higher and the effect on insurance rates for us so as municipality so U you know we'll have to watch that yes sir that's my report anything for Pete all right thank you for that thorough and informative report uh Mr Haring item 11 Town manager thank you Mr Mayor councel um just a brief sector for uh update here today um we're still we've provided um uh all of our data to DP and we continue to have discussions back and forth with them regarding the critical erosion designation um I don't have a time frame for response on that but we we continue to work on that uh associated with that uh and again not speaking for the county and I know that council member Smith was at Beach and Shore but we still await where I've tried to manage expectations and tell people that I thought timing wise um having the county lined up to do the Dune Restoration in sector 4 in the town um beginning in the fall after uh Turtle nesting season is is a more reasonable time frame to expect than what we're you know what we're currently looking at now which is no prospective start date I believe that the county is doing everything they can they're continue to work through the permitting process with Army Corps of Engineers and and d and um the town has stood at the ready and and has assisted in a variety of different things in that regard to try to support the County's work there um I will have a substantive uh update in February uh presentation on uh sector 4 um history current status and then where we may be going so I'll elaborate further at that point in time I will note that there is one pending private um uh Dune replacement project uh getting ready we've uh authorized a um a beach access it's private home down here uh that was hit previously um pretty hard and um so they do have the D permission for limited uh Dune replacement right right behind their structure um uh moving on the mayor mentioned um uh phase two or the Land Development code changes um uh Mr held and I just had a meeting yesterday with our consultants and have gone through in in substance pretty much everything else that's out there in phase two we anticipate having some documents for review and and recommendations and um certainly will'll have um the final package ready for um uh a series of you know Public Presentation and then a council discussion and vote on those uh before the summer so we'll have that done um you know by by May should hopefully be the uh the second reading uh once we get through that so we're trying to move along with that uh in a timely manner um as a a little attendant to um the mayor's comments on the uh on the finance committee there are going to be some uh openings uh just simply as a result of timing on planning zoning uh finance and pension uh this this November so um uh if anybody has any questions or wants any information on that uh we're going to post some general information on the website and uh everyone can uh call uh Janice you're welcome Janice uh they can call Janice to discuss those dates and those openings and and some of those responsibilities um the Indian River Land Trust on March 8th is going to be H having an in the- field uh event uh down here at beum Point uh so you may see some extra traffic and parking we've offered uh the town lot to assist them because it's proximate to the entrance uh so in that regard we are going to be you'll start to see um uh the town just push out some uh information in that regard they have an approved flyer uh that we just got so again that's uh that's March 8th it's a a walking tour uh event uh back here in uh in in be gumpoint um uh finally I would like to uh take a particular note it's uh often um overlooked but not by the town I want to thank Janice very much for her work on the cemetery uh again it's not something that a lot of us like to be actively involved in or thinking about uh but that being said um it's something that's very important to the staff we we um we take it very seriously we've got a irrigation project uh coming up uh in during the summer um to get um uh better irrigation out there get it cleaned out a little bit um but but in particular I want to thank Janice for the management of that cuz she is on point with all the all the folks and um you know and the the Bev people that you know are are calling and stuff like that and it's um she just does a great job with the with the residents on that um that's all I have unless there's any other questions Mr Mayor councel anything for Mr Haring all right easy easy day for you then Jim so [Laughter] questions it's probably because we've been bugging you all week right sir um all right item 12 Council committee reports um let's start from right to left council member Smith okay so Beach and Shores was Monday Jim has already summed up what happened but if anyone uh would like a few more details I can give you a little more details on exactly why all that happened um we have most of the easements for sector 4 only one was denied so that was good and they almost have the FTE permit which Jim said and he went through um the timeline if we received that permit let's say tomorrow and then they did the two weeks posting Public public postings and then the month for the um construction bids and then at least two or three more weeks to go over that that would put us in mid April so and the hard stop on the turtles is the end of April so that's why they've decided that even if we do get the permit that it won't happen until next November and then the um they made a little bit of a fuss over the Army Corps of Engineers which found some kind of possible historical a a fact um as far as what I've heard is it's a piece of wood that's sitting off the coast but that still has to be investigated and it probably will turn out to be nothing which is good and now that we're not doing any work until November anyway we have plenty of time to get that done so I just encouraged the county and Eric who runs the natural resources to not to not just sit back and and wait because oh we finally got the permits but we've got till November so and the only other thing I think that could impact it is if we had a storm I mean I don't know what it means if we had a hurricane in October whether they would actually start in November but um we'll probably have a go and depending on the weather we'll see what happens great thank you that's it any questions on that all right than no report um Florida Le of cities so I I'm going to preface it by saying we um as a member of the Florida League of cities there are many many items that we share our common interest with but as a smaller municipality there are also some items that we do not share an interest with um Florida League of cities just because of the way it's structured uh I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that they they tend to opt in favor of the larger municipalities agenda um when there's a conflict between a larger Municipal agenda and a smaller mun municipality's agenda um that's the case with us and the league of City's position on uh representative brackets Bill uh 777 on um water utilities um and so unfortunately um as I said earlier making friends and influencing people uh at the league of cities meeting I had to say that the the town of Indian River Shores could not support the league of cities resolution this year on its legislative action items because it's a blanket resolution that would be in opposition to House Bill 777 uh and any of the related bills and um there's really no mechanism to parse out our support for some resolutions as opposed to others um as you can imagine it didn't make uh very many people in the room all that happy uh but I did suggest that perhaps going forward there could be a mechanism where we would support individual line items in a in a resolution of the league of City such as uh the vacation rental bills and and things that we share our common interests um I I would not hold my breath for that I I think that leue of cities just has the way structured from everything from who pays the dues and how much based upon the size of the municipality uh they're going to want to use the full clout to support their legislative agenda so um we are at odds that's why we adopted a resolution uh that is at odds with the league of cities and we're supporting you know the attempts to reform water water utilities um it's a uh it's a still a worthwhile organization so I don't mean to suggest that you know we should you know stamp our feet and say you know we're never going to this again because I I think we greatly benefit by being uh involved in it and and um I will say this that there were some smaller municipalities that had Representatives that came up to me afterwards and said you know I never really thought about it that way um you know we we've had a franchise agreement in place for years and we get it from um you know the Fort Pierce Water Authority and um you know we we should be watching this a little bit more carefully some didn't even know they were paying s charges so I think I think that there's a uh an awareness that that came about um uh as a result of that but that's why we're not supporting the the broader legislative agenda even though there are items that we would support um all right I wasn't escorted to the door thrown out of the meeting so I will be attending next month's meeting and uh that's that's my report on January the 3rd I attended the affordable housing advisory committee meeting we received a very thorough U and excellent report uh from Chris B Walter who's the chief of long range planning um two uh items from that report that I would like to highlight uh the first is that uh in a sort of a broad General sense uh very important that the state Housing Initiative partnership ship acronym has approved 1 point5 million of funding um uh for the current year and um that's an ongoing uh source of funding for the um um uh for the affordable U for affordable housing in the county and uh the second uh interesting point is that there's a um new Clause uh which uh uh was very very well received uh it's called a foreclosure prevention clause and um the agreement is that U if a homeowner um risk defaulting uh on his or her mortgage that um uh said home owner can seek up uh can seek fin can seek financial help to bridge the gap uh to get back on track with uh payments and um that amount of money is $8,000 um it's in the form of a loan uh but the interest rate on the loan is 0% two-year term and the Forgiveness uh is 100% um and um uh so that uh U uh that that's a that's a new twist uh to help uh homeowners uh in these in in the circumstances where they may fall behind uh our next meeting is on February the 28th and I plan to attend that one thank you thank you councilman aler well we didn't have an we didn't have a Utilities Commission meeting this month they they canceled it so presis we going to have one next month I want to try to get an update on any uh cost information regarding the water and sewer plant by the airport they've been very silent about that which I just find rather amazing and and troubling there there was an no meeting last month it was just primarily administrative stuff usually in January we don't have one so it'll be it'll be next month I just want to say uh Mr Mayor thank you for bringing up and pushing back against them they need they need to hear that I I listen to some of the Florida leag of cities they have a call at I think it's 9:00 on Monday and they have an all Hands-On deck thing against this uh uh uh representative brackets Bill 777 and they have ludicrous arguments and I'll I'll just mention one just to show you how desperate they're getting they said that uh oh it's a good thing that a city can charge another uh municipality sear charge of 10 or 25 or or 50% because they use that money for parks and other amenities that the other municipality can use I mean it's just absurd the the things that they're coming up with you know I think I think it just really comes down to um that let you know you know fortunately now on electric or Florida Power and Light uh customers how would any of us feel that if I had my house here and you had your house two blocks down you only difference was there was a municipal boundary and I uh you got to pay 25% more than me I mean it's simple it's it's simple uh equity and it it's just absurd how the Florida leagal city but to your point it's the big ones OU is you know they get tons of money from this so but I just want to say uh thank you for fighting the lonely fight so uh right and I know we all want to get out of here but um uh particularly ding was the argument that this legislation U which was sponsored by representative Brackett who I pointed out was a former mayor of the city of Viro Beach which has a utility which um argued that any contract that in its determination was Ill advised at the time it entered into it because they are losing money on that class of service could be ignored is uh uh um is is ging because the the argument the league of cities is putting forward is that this legislation would interfere with the ability of municipalities to engage in franchise agreements and contracts at arms length and negotiate Fair agreements with other municipalities um and so kind of bad news for Mr Mr coring is um I know you have a bilateral agreement with the city of Vero Beach which is great great for ji I'm glad you have it however if at some point down the road they decide that we're not getting enough out of this they can throw your contract out the window and the courts have basically said yeah that's kind of how it is absent legislative legislative action so uh we're making a point of um pointing out how bogus that argument is and some of the correspondents and um you know we'll we'll continue to do that um I I suppose you know we'll just have to see how this all shakes out but um it's just doing the right thing and uh um you know we'll I just remind me since we can't talk about this in private and I know you have all these statistics what percentage of General revenues gets transferred to the general fund by the city I know 6% okay was what the water and sewer excuse me the electric was I think total was approaching 20% 20% um does this mean they funded 20% of your budget from the and and I asked this only in case you know it comes up in the context sorry just interrupt you then they do these phony cost allocations that's what I was going to ask so and you know you could argue back and forth but vice mayor is correct on on the p is right so in in the event this comes up and should there be a flurry of calls with Representatives you know asking for for our input um the 6% in our instance for the city does not include you know the administrative allocations and you know that I'm I'm guessing they're probably above a 10% threshold if you do that right so all right okay enough about that issue um call to the audience is there anyone in the audience that wants to say anything anyone anyone all right with that we are adjourned until next month thank you everyone