on B 5:30 I now call to order the regular and organizational meeting of the Lake plid Town Council this 13th day of May 2024 at 5:30 p.m. in the government center of the town of Lake plaid Florida I'd ask everybody to please make sure your phones are either off or un vibrate and we are very pleased to have with us tonight Reverend Norris from the Lutheran Church who is going to lead us in our invocation and pledge so if everybody would please rise let us pray Lord Jesus Christ as We Gather here tonight for this town council meeting we seek Your Divine guidance teach each of us to use each minute of our time wisely and effectively let your goodness reflect in their decisions tonight that they make here in the months ahead and in the as the Town Council Pond many different things that are coming before them in Proverbs 3:5 and 6 you say trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding in all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight with these words that in our hearts we humbly ask you to instill Clarity within each individual gathered here this evening we pray for Fruitful and beneficial discussions this evening help us and help them our council members to stay focused on the tasks at hand facing this board and this community of Lake plet as we come to the end of another school year we pray your blessings upon all the graduates that will be moving on and all the students as they break for the summer months and we pray all these things in your most holy name amen amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you thank you Reverend Norris okay at just this time I'll ask the clerk to call the role please mayor Holbrook here council member Hayes here council member Worley here council member Charles here council member eart here okay uh for months you've heard us talk about the sound system and it's got some problems here I am pleased to say we have finally signed a uh a purchase order with Basset they will be coming in they're going to redo all the uh speaker system be a whole new mic system so hopefully our our speaker system here will be much better in a few short weeks we now go to uh cons send agenda one a through F I'll make a motion to approve a consent agenda one second all right we have a motion in a second any discussion from the podium hearing none we'll take it to the audience all right seeing none bring it back poll the council council member Charles here yes council member Worley yes council member Hayes yes and council member art yes all right there are no items for consent agenda two so we'll move on uh presentations and requests to speak first of all we're going to have a status of the tower we appreciate the owner being here sir if you would like to come up to the podium just a quick note so since uh this was placed on the agenda by councilman everheart she asked for status of the tower I thought since it's privately owned it was appropriate to invite the owner of the tower Chuck spk who I've known for a number years um anyway so chuck if you'll introduce yourself and then give us your plans Council um yes my name is Charles sperk um I'm the owner of the tower I apologize in advance um for probably not having something a little bit more structured or a little bit more informative I apologize for not having something a little bit more formal a little bit more informative to the council but um as Kevin just mentioned you have known him for quite some time uh I've met with many of you that are up here tonight uh five six months ago with the status of the tower in regard to you know what's the future of it look like as we all know it's been vacant for a decade or maybe better um I could bore you with a very long history on why it's vacant I'm not sure how relevant that is but I would like you to know that the intent is to make it a North Shina star again I know it's a Premier Property for Lake Placid I know a lot of people look to the tower that it's got a lot of historical value um I guess like politics I believe the tower has a lot of um opinions on it as to what it should be used for and who it belongs to and I've been approached by many many people about for example opening it back to the public um that's one thing we'd really like to consider um part of the history that I inherited when I purchased it 15 16 years ago or whatever time frame that is is that there was a conflict with the telom equipment being up there and open to the public at the same time for fire safety issues Ingress egress you know legal legal eyes and EAS beyond my comprehension beyond our scope that we can talk about tonight so I'd like to speak to that um because of that Tower it makes it a more complicated property and Kevin and I have had this this discussion um several times as he's reached out to me and really impressed upon me that you know we really like to in group Spirit see this Tower restored and put back into something that would benefit not only the public but the community and and give me an exent strategy etc etc the intent like I said 12 13 years ago we had to vacate the people out of the tower we had to live and survive their leases so we had to wait one by one until they expired we actually had a plan with the town to put 38,000 Square ft there knocked it 1961 footprint down and revitalized the tower and and make it a a North shiny star again the problem is by the time that took to get all the tenants out legally and then there was a we worked with the town to put in a French drain in the north end of the parking lot because it's a filter to Lake clay the real estate market fell part and so that opportunity kind of opened and then it kind of closed so where we are today is there was a lot of Telecom equipment up in that tower for the last 15 or 20 years but slowly but surely each one of those tenants or Telcom people have come to your Council and found other places to go and we are down to our last major carrier which is what we've been handholding for the last two or three months they are officially turned off but decommissioning it right now is as we speak we have a meeting with them with the engineers to take off their final pieces of equipment here may uh May 21st is the walk through so we anticipate that's going to happen in the next 15 to 30 days why I offer and share this with you is because it has a lot of relevance as to what the future and best use for that shopping center will be we've discussed options from renovating the shopping center as the footprint is today but it's a 1961 footprint and some people might call it architecturally obsolete the center itself of course not the tower so then the next conversation is what do you do with the tower and a potential purchaser or developer for the land may or may not have interest in the tower because it doesn't necessarily foot their footprint so one of the discussions is if we could open the Tower or is there a conversation to be had to open the tower back to the public which that option has come on to on to the table or that's something that we've been discussing what's the logistics in that what's the legality in that how does that coexist with the the shopping center that may or may not be knocked down etc etc so trying to find the answers to these questions and the due diligence to these questions are timec consuming so I will answer questions to that point on that if you'd like but I would like to close and and say this I think in another 60 days I can come back I'm going to take the input from what we discussed tonight or any questions I might have and I'd like to come back my daughter's going to have birth to a baby in about three weeks so I probably won't be able to make your next meeting I live up in Boston but I would like to return to you in 60 days with more specific answers to your questions and by that time we will have removed the last telom major telom person up there T-Mobile which then will put on the plate more serious options we've already been in discussions with Engineers we've already been in discussions with with uh realtors in the area um I've been approached by many people in here Ken has helped us um U Mr Compton just reached out to us that Mr Harris I believe knows has two viable suitors for it so I'm interested in in finding a life for thereafter for that Center I think just like this Consul is because as I shared with Kevin my goal is not to have this Center it sit empty for the next five six seven years we have the same common goal in that because paying taxes and paying insurance and having no Revenue isn't exactly a very good business person or business plan so it's not in my best interest believe me to have that empty we've had some complications we had some problems we've had some break-ins um I've had some health personal health issues the market wasn't there before the market seems to be revitalized interest rates are a little higher but we are going to put it on the market here in weeks or months not years but to get the highest and best use for the town for myself for the community we have to look at what our options are clearing the Tower of the telom to revisit the opportunity perhaps to open to the public if I took a straw poll right now and went right down the line one two three four five six said should a tower be open to the public or not I'm pretty sure we wouldn't get a a one two three four five six we wouldn't get a 70 vote and there'd be some people that are in favor for it and there's some people that wouldn't so these are one of the things that we want to arm wrestle through I think the Tower is very significant and icon the public the people that have come up to me feel like it's an identity to the town and identity to their businesses um so how do we make that work there are grants available you know to go up there and restore it we've already put 40 or 50 Grand into it just in the last reent months we have a working contract on the elevator so it's still in function that the telom company people needed it to go up and down we're doing some maintenance on it we're right now getting ready to and we sent Kevin some pictures and Dana and a few others that have helped and gone through this with people literally hanging from the tower trying to paint it so we painted the exterior walkway and we pain the painted The Underneath now as soon as the telom equipment's off which is the next few weeks we want to paint from the platform all the way up um I reached out to the EDC I reached out to your president of your mural company we're open to colors or suggestions if there's something that ties into the town with it being the city of murals or or the colors or whatever we're not partial one way or another to what that looks like so if I can get some direction or I can get some help or there could be a a workshop or a committee or something like that we're happy entertain and put the paint up there that would make most sense our intent is to put light back on the stock of the Tower and light it back up we used to have the colors up around the railings for the high school color for the high school team they got turned off about a month ago when we started doing some maintenance up there and taking some of this Telecom stuff up but the intent is to put that back on so we could probably spend a couple hours here on this topic tonight um which is probably not appropriate I've probably already exceeded the window and I know you guys have a long agenda so I'd like to take a pause there I'd like to take any questions that you have I promise that I will come back if I'm so invited with answers to any questions that I'm not able to answer for you tonight um we're in a due diligent stage to to find out what makes the most sense for the community and for myself with the property the intent is to move it and and improve it and I'm sure that when it gets knocked down we'll be in front of you again saying hey do you want this or can we do this or with this square footage and this parking and there's all kinds of regulations which is not really my my center of expertise so we'll be building a team and bringing people to you for that so again my name is Chuck sperk I'm the owner of the tower um I live up in the Northeast I spend three weeks out of four weeks weeks in in South Florida namely Hendry County that's where Kevin met me probably some 20 years ago um we built a lot of homes um I want to make things pretty and shiny just like everybody else does too so we've worked with the city and done quite a bit of improvement to it and putting good money after bad so to speak because we probably all know that the tower is going to get tored out for for any big user with what's going on across the street and with Wawa and the shopping center etc etc but we want to do that and showing good faith that we're here to cooperate so with that I'll take a pause I'd love to answer any questions that you have and I promise again what I don't can't answer for you tonight I just want to say since we had our first conversation months ago I really appreciate the effort that you've put forward so far thank you and yeah I think you're going to be nothing but a A positive plus for the town and I I applaud you for what you've done and we just look forward to working with you in the future I appreciate that mayor so your tent so your intent is to take the tower down eventually not so I should be more specific about that the tower itself no we don't intend to take that down okay the shopping center that's there's 14,000 square F feet that's a one level called eight or nine ft CBS construction Old frame etc etc the intent is probably to take that down the footprint but not the tower itself we we would like to find a owner for the tower and find a use for the tower power and there's a whole range of options that have been discussed and I know you know how rumors go you start one thing you tell one person one thing next thing you know there's six people that got told and they called me back I'm like wow that's a new conversation I never heard that one before thank you for that I appreciate no the intense is not to take the tower down I I think that would be a disservice to the public and the people and and expensive and the tower has been structurally inspected twice it's in good sound condition there are some cosmetic things like railings and painting and and windows and you know tiny little things but the structure itself is A1 and sound and we'll be there another 100 years I thank you for coming um I put it on the agenda because when Colleen and I were campaigning we went to a lot of uh houses door knocking to introduce ourselves and over and over people were wondering what is going to happen with the tower they all love the tower they remember they talked about going up in the tower they talked about the shops that were down below at one time and so so I asked to have it put on the agenda so that we could give a status update to everybody who was asking us what's happening so I really appreciate you coming thank you I'm happy to be here and again I would like to address any questions you might have but it's think of it like a jigsaw puzzle you know we we got to start with the edges and and Define the the borders and then start filling it in sort by colors and there's a lot of due diligence and answers that I can't you know solve all by myself so what I'm trying to do is bring the right players to that and then cooperate and and come to the town and get some direction and and some wishes from there but we got to have an interest and we have to have somebody with capital and we have to have a fit that would be fit the theme of what's going on and it's got to be economically feasible but again I want to just finish with just because the center's been empty for the last 10 years that's not my objective going forward if somebody can convince me with an economic business argument why I want to continue doing that going forward I'd be happy to entertain that but it's it's it's painful for me to so so I'm here within good spirits my health is good and and I really want to move forward with this and restore that property to what it potentially can be which is probably one of the Highlight properties on that route corer 27 may I say one more thing I wanted to really sincerely thank you and I haven't seen you since we worked with you on the Watershed project for Lake clay but we could not have done what we did to save Lake clay without the man he brought his environment Al people and his engineer in um he took the north end of his parking lot and took all of the impervious surface that's all of the from triangle road all the way down to his North End of his parking lot for the retention of all that runoff that was going straight into Lake clay it's not just the parking lot it's the all of the rooftops all of that impervious surface he worked with us and he spent his own money to work with with us on that so we could do the first phase to save Lake clay from the runoff from that whole area so thank you I appreciate that councilman you know not only I'd like to add that and that project did take a little longer than we thought and that was the window we had a $3 million project planned as a knockdown like I said at 38,000 Square F feet and economically that project got delayed and you know it was really no sense we W couldn't go move forward with the shopping center plan and I think at that time your consultant was Laro if my name you know strikes I remember your plan for that and you know we had a good plan and we had a good idea and unfortunately sometimes real estate can be cycal as we know it and we just we swung and Miss at that opportunity so hopefully now is a bigger better and and another opportunity and we're motivated to make that happen and again I'm all ears I'm not stuck in anyone's sense my ego if you will I've always thought that piece of property was one of the most unique property of ever had my portfolio I could put it on the market and get what I can get for it and just move on and say wash my hands of it but then I can't assure what that future person is going to do with I really do want to see that Center become something special so that's why I've kind of held on to it and that's why I've kind of dragged my feet with it so to speak trying to figure that out and that's what I'm going to do the best of my capability with your help any further questions thank thank you sir for being here thank you very much for having me Mr LeBlanc you want to step forward my name is Ken LeBlanc um yeah I have been talking with Chuck and uh and I've brought two different investor groups to town from South Florida you know with de really good money and showed them the project to see if they would be willing to take it on um a few things one I've gone up the tower the tower from the platform down is built stronger than I ever thought it was it's very Stout building um from the platform up needs to be fully renovated um and the lattice down the sides needs to be renovated so as I looked at this project with these people and we looked at tearing the building at the bottom down what we would have wanted to do is build a U-shaped building at the bottom um do artificial turf in the middle do maybe a brewery a restaurant um shops um things like that some people have mentioned maybe it'd be a good place for the chamber to move and the Chamber could sell the tickets to go to the top and um and maybe a boutique hotel on the second floor of this building would be good so a lot of good ideas um now but the you know the main part of it was that renovating the tower at the top and putting a viewing platform indoor air conditioned viewing platform and a bar above that was the concept so you'd have a restaurant at the bottom a bar at the top um you could sell tickets people could go up and go to the platform and they could view or they could go up to the bar as well and that's kind of the concept um along with this u-shape building at the bottom that we thought would be feasible and and would work and would be profitable the problem came in when we looked at the cost of renovating the tower it was about $3 million so while the bottom could be built profitably you average in the cost of renovating the tower into the whole project the project isn't profitable anymore so two people um that I talked to um have said that they they wouldn't be interested because they it would not be a profitable project talking to Chuck he had thrown out the possibility that he might be interested or willing to donate the tower only the tower not the land the tower to an entity whether it be the county or the town or something and uh and let them renovate it and he would sell the land so he would make his money by selling the property at the bottom somebody would take over the tower and then there would be some kind of public private partnership that maybe could allow this concept to happen so um you know some things that I've heard about is the county is selling the County's Hospital you know they're going to bank a lot of money they're wondering what they're going to invest that into is it possible that you know they can use money from that he could donate the tower and they could use three million of their money you know to renovate the top of the tower and then have an agreement with the restaurant at the bottom to run a bar or something you know a lease but you couldn't expect to lease it out and make it profitable for the county you know because it would make it unprofitable um you know when you try and get $3 million back right it's uh so it would have to be a public private partnership um to make this happen but somebody has to be the one to make it happen and I think the only one here to make that happen is probably Town Lake plet or somebody in the county to spearhead and say this is doable let's talk to the different people who would be involved is anybody interested you know because Chuck can't make it happen I can't make it happen you know um but if somebody who can make it happen steps up to the plate and says okay let's get the partners in the same room talk and see if we can make something happen and I think there is a project to happen here and I think the tower you know I would hate to be the person who owns the tower property and have to tear that Tower down after what I saw as far as the construction of that building because it was significantly built so which is great you know um but everything exposed to the elements at the top needs to be completely you know taken apart and rebuilt and you know it's probably a $3 million project so I think there's something that could work here you know if other people think so and can do this you know not to say somebody won't come along as you know and just have a lot of money want to spend it but I haven't found that person yet you know spended you know a not profitable project so that's it thank you Ken so Mr Mayor just following up on I appreciate both of the conversations that just took place and also what Joyce said is we had a lot of feedback from the citizens on the interest of refurbishing renovating whatever we want to use on the actual Towers talking about the symbol the iconic the things that could be done or when they were chill you know when they were kids they'd go up and the restaurant and the gift shop so how do we as a council is this a future item we have to take on I don't know if this is to I'm GNA address it to Mr Mayor if it's to Kevin because you know Mr LeBlanc has just raised some good points if there's an opportunity with the county that's going to make you know a sale and may need to reinvest some money how do we as a council make the decision or not to go and try to set up the right meetings and pursue that that is a very good question um I don't want to leave it on the table I'd like to us either make and I think that may decision or not I I don't know what your decision would be tonight but maybe you might it may be a subject for a workshop and you come to a consensus about what you want to try and do or approach the county and maybe we need to have that discussion or we made it if you want to add it into June's meeting we'll have a continued discussion about it and maybe we can look at options I'm not sure I said that's that's a little I've done a lot of different things in my career that's a little bit different than most of what I've done do you know what the timing is on the sale of the hospital for the county Mr LeBlanc I think it was in the paper this morning if you read it online I think and I I think they're moving along maybe even quicker than that yeah I would I I'm concerned on delaying it another month for Workshop or another month when all of a sudden things other people may be getting in on trying to determine how they could have that funding coming their way um you know I appreciate um that in a couple months he's going to come back after he has his grandchild to give us maybe an update there I you know how do we contact Leah who does that to try to gain an interest so at a minimal the next town meeting we can have an update if we can get you know in the ground on seeking some funds I can give you that update now if you'd like go ahead the State of Florida has in the microphone the State of Florida has uh adopted chapter 155 I believe it is that says how that money will be spent and it's very restrictive on the County Commission I don't think a tower would fit into that at all but we can ask right so the commission the County Commission I'm very familiar with that law you certainly can ask the County Commission anything but that money I don't see would have a chance maybe tourist development money because you you got that on your list and say we want tourist money to fix the tower that's a better fit but the hospital money will go to healthare that's just what the law says so the the county connection is the money right to see if they would allow us the money to to buy the tower is that what you're saying as I'm confused I think that's what Mr LeBlanc had said you know there's a option that they're going to be um selling the hospital right and then where where will they reinvest those funds I see typically there's you know okay call it um Wonder was capital gains and things like that of where they're going to um invest them and so the the question is and I think he said Leah is who can we talk to to see you is there an opportunity for any of those funds to come our way now and I I appreciate uh Mr Harris's comment and I'm the attorney for the hospital board ah yeah but I I still comments no I mean I didn't mean it like that no disrespect I meant your feedback but I would you you can get told no if you ask you can't get no told no if you don't ask so any money that we could try to find whether it's grants whether it's TDC um I'd like to figure out how we can pursue those I I think the TDC has u a lot better funding for that and a better connection for that I think it would be easier to make a case U through the TDC um and they're always looking for projects so I think that might work out well so we'll see but I I'm I don't I I I really don't think that people are clamoring to purchase it right at this point uh maybe the property but not the tower itself uh am I mistaken with that Chuck Mr Chuck I'm sorry I'm I'm not I'm not thinking that people are clamoring to purchase the tower am I mistaken with that um most people that have inquired about want to get it all because especially if they get a discounted or something and when it had the Telecom equipment to it I had offers as much as two and3 million just for the tower because of the cap rate investment from the telom equipment but now that that's gone the desire for those people it's it's diminished considerably and and I think to Ken's point you know you can go from a Volkswagen to a Rolls-Royce MH the concept of putting a bar up or something 200 feet in year and redoing the entire top when you have a limited footprint of whatever that might be to get something that would be self- sustaining and and to be able to pay for itself or pay back an investment is probably more the limiting factor than what utility you would use but if you were to restore it to just going back in the Elevator Shaft which is very strong and the elevator could be just upgraded and just put a platform where people will go up there just to see the views and take pictures or put a live video cam up there where people could tour and see something like that this is a very reasonable cost and and it wouldn't be much to maintain and then maybe you take your footprint down below with your EDC or tourism or something like that where people go up it's not so much even about selling the tickets you wouldn't need much revenue to do that but if you were to make it a bar for example like Ken was talking about a restaurant you know two or three million investment to the Top If it could be engineered if it could be done you run into a lot of applications to get an Roi back on that probably very difficult but to sell the land for somebody to want it without the tower it would go under contract probably within 30 days or 60 days so we don't want to leave the redheaded stepchild at the altar all by ourself we want to figure out what we want the the the future of the tower to be and you only have one opportunity to to marry it with that Center or not marry it so if you would carve out the center for example the tower and give I don't know five or 10 foot easement around it give it Ingress egress to the back street and allow people from the center to use it or to to go up in it or whatever that's probably the most economically feasable because that doesn't take a big investment but if you tie it to that then there could be like a big box store or a big restaurant that would would come in and some the things you'd really want as a town and that big Corporation say look that doesn't check our boxes we we don't want a 220 foot tourism Tower in our package because we don't want to maintain it we don't want the liability etc etc that's where it gets complex look if if this Tower didn't exist which is why we're all here discussing it tonight it's just another piece of commercial property that's two acres and and you know there's lots of fits for that and lots of needs for that trying to marry it with something that is is consistent with that Tower or protect that Tower or then open it back to the public is a little bit more of the thinking power and that's maybe where we could have some committees or workshops or talk about or something like that but I agree with you you know times of the essence because once we sell the property off if I partition that off and just sell that then it's kind of stuck by itself and this is kind of why I've dragged my feet with it because I I really want to make a joint decision what makes sense for for both Parcels or or both pieces so to speak um can one question for you I I don't know if you can give the numbers or not but let's say the tower was carved off by itself right what is the uh estimated um insurance and maintenance cost just to sustain it without making any profit um just from liability or whatever it's currently insured for that right now it's it's nominal it's $45,000 a year it's not a lot now if you add use to it where people go up there and potentially again this above my pay grade and and before my time but you know I know for a fact that people in the past had snuck up there with the parachute and jumped off it and and hang like and I understand there's also somebody that that decided to end end their life with their poodle that jumped off it so the rumor goes before my time or whatever so when you start adding those things are open to the public of course I think the insurance would probably go up but I don't think the liability part of it is is great so so all all costs maintenance insurance and so on and so forth is like in the ballpark what 15,000 a year uh the the elevator maintenance contract might run you that all by itself okay um so with insurance or whatever it's hard to say but if you ask me just wag and take a number out of I'm going to say probably probably more in the 35 to $50,000 a year range just guessing Okay and your tourism to to bring people up and let them go up there for $10 or something like that that that could easily pay for itself but I think you want the foundation to work that from the floor or the ground of the retail Center so if you let's say you built 25,000 ft² as a center there or I think we did the calculations with with Kevin and and Dana before that it could potentially be up to 45,000 ft if you took 3,000 SQ foot Bay and ran your tourism out of and something like that and then made it to was close to the proximity of where that to the elevator would go or whatever that's probably very easy to maintain because you're not maning it with an extra person you're you're not doing really anything other than maintaining the ele elevator and you know perimeter fening or perimeter guard rails etc etc cameras or whatever I mean maybe you'd want volunteers or whatever somebody to go up with them just so you say Johnny don't crawl up on that or you know again above my pay grade but I'm sure it could be thought out but I think to make it full glown and put it into a commercial establishment where you're trying to serve plates or dinners up there or something like that I think I not that I don't think that's not a great idea I do think it's a good idea but I think that's a harder cost business model to justify okay no I I was just thinking if it was just like a just there as an icon not with the restaurant and the bar just the icon and the elevator just a ballpark just a you know off if it were just for Scenic and put colors on it with the town or murals or with lights and stuff like that just to make the simpol like a lighthouse let's say coming into a port at Sea right um I I don't think the maintenance on that would be more than 20 or $225,000 a year to to to just but but nobody goes up nobody comes down other than maintenance not open to the public opening to the public it's a whole new can of worms that you know hey I wouldn't even want to pretend to come up here and tell you that oh it'd be this this and this because I'd be fit to you again as Kevin said I've done a lot of things in my life but not run a business model of that nature thank you okay I was just going to say um just quick comment I'll be happy to bring back some estimated costs of just the tower I can get insurance costs liability costs you're going to add a labor cost for a person somewhere in there just because you're going to have to keep track of who's up on top and what's happening but um but we can come back with some of those costs bring it back to the next meeting and further discuss and see where we go from there unless there's some other Workshop or something you want to schedule in between sounds good everybody knows me my name is Donna Davis if he donates it to the town can the town do a fundraiser town do a fundraiser if he donates it to the town he donates the tower to the town keep it a local Town Tower instead of a county Tower can we do a fundraiser A Town fundraiser and raise the money for it I don't yeah I'm sure I mean it it would have there's a there's a multitude of things you can do I mean that yeah that's an option uh there there probably be a lot of details that would have to be worked out you know who's going to who's going to manage it uh you you know I mean I guess we're open to anything at this point I've never pursued it but I did find online in four or five people have of forward it to me or whatever there is a grant available that would be specifically available for this up to a half a million dollars but it has to be sponsored or initiated or or the the grant has to be requested by a governmental agency no details on I never looked into it I'm not a government so therefore it didn't apply but I I know that that exists out there how to qualify for and whether that makes sense again another topic for conversation yeah thank you if anybody comes up with any ideas I mean don't don't be afraid to bring them to us I think that's what we're looking for is uh especially after all the comments is you know what can we do and what can't we do so but again Juck thank you for for being here I Look to seeing in what 60 days okay that's right okay so Kevin are you able to look to see where grants might be available because it it sounds like there's a number of the things right if there's grants available TDC money that might be available fundraiser maybe there's even private donate donors that you know would uh contribute to get this icon back up and running so will you be lead to this one yeah ABS absolutely actually that's where Dana's and I Dana's first conversation with me on about the tower was about what grants are available so uh that goes back a long ways historic preservation grants come with a lot of strings so I will find out about that but I'll also caution you I do have experience on two different facilities that have used historic preservation Grant so we'll see what's out there what's available and and come back with as much information we can in the next 30 days and then moving forward I just want to make a quick comment that I know that even when I when it was closed and I took Swift Mud people up there to show it to them it's hard to get people even down from up there that'd be the hard thing getting them down you can see all the way to the north end of this tooga you see all the way to 988 on a good day I mean it's just fascinating I I think think that at the time um and Chuck was kind enough I said if you would you donate it to a foundation if we took the responsibility for it and he was even considering that back then but now that the T the electronics are gone that makes it more feasible but I was thinking even if we just put out like if you want to go up in the tower and you want to get it restored you're GNA have to donate now first because I think people would do that I think they would just give money to try to get it rest so they could go up in it again because it's beautiful all right any other comments all right we'll move on to number four organizational Town Council yeah I guess the uh first one is the election of the vice mayor so that's going to be Council discussion actually several of the next ones I'll make a motion that Joy Eberhart be nominated as the vice mayor Joy's been on the regional utility advisory meeting for 12 15 years I think she'd be an excellent vice mayor okay we have a motion is there a second okay lacking a second I guess we move on I've been asked to um do this this task and I do have a lot of experience it wasn't something I was seeking but I do have a lot of experience and I do know all the staff members and the director ctors and I do for the time being I think I would be a good fit to step in and do it for now anyway so I would nominate myself I'll second okay so what is it again oh she's I'm nominated myself okay okay all right we have a nomination in a second any other discussion clerk PLL the council council member Worley yes council member eart yes council member Hayes yes council member Charles yes thank you second item is the uh council member everheart was on the utility slake pled Regional utilities advisory commission um so she is oh that's I'm sorry council member sap was the council Thea on to the lake PL Regional utilities advisory commission so we need a council member to fill that spot as the Lea on I name nominate council member Joy everheart I second that okay we have a motion a second any further discussion okay hearing none clerk I ask you to PLL the council council member Worley yes council member Charles yes council member Hayes yes council member art yes thank you okay uh third item is the Tourist development de Development Council uh council member Charles Wilson had the was on that term that's a representation that flip-flops between Avon Park and Lake plid we have two years left on our term so we need a council member to be the representative on the tourist Development Council um considering that de warley is familiar with the tourist Development Council you've been on it correct I would nominate Deborah warley I'd like to be considered for that as well with my experience in golf and having worked with the tourist Development Council before I would like to take that as well all right well we had we had a motion right okay is there a second second okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion clerk pull the council please council member eart yes council member Worley yes council member Hayes no council member Charles yes the fourth one is the highlands um Highland County Recreation board rpac uh that one has currently is served by Harry Deano who's um his term expires actually in July but his last meeting will be May 15th coming up the next meeting is August so we can either have a council representative or myself whichever the council prefers um serve on the rpac board so I'll make a motion that Our Town Administrator take that position second okay we have a motion a second any further discussion I think uh Kevin has so much going on right now um it should probably be somebody else do we have a vice mayor and a TDC on the same person I think Kevin can handle it I'm sorry what I I didn't you're on you're going to be on TDC and the vice mayor so I don't think that's going to be any more overload on Kevin's position than it is on on your personal time well who so I mean I don't know it is a big position and like Mr Brantley said it holds a lot of money with it um Mr Mar what do you think would you like to do it he's already said he would yeah I'm whatever the council chooses I just put my name so it's an option for the council we had a staff member before that was a board member you actually have two board members um to elect on that one but the second one doesn't happen till December with Eva so it's whatever the council I'm fine either way okay if if you're if you're fine with doing more work a quarter I'm sorry it's a quarterly meeting so it's not yeah it's not a lot of work in between so okay all pull the council please council member Hayes yes council member Worley yes council member Charles yes council member eart yes okay that takes care of that section there are no public hearings so we'll go to number six resolutions resolution 202 24-12 of the lake pla Town Council regarding the voluntary annexation of lands owned Li laate Holdings comma LLC so if anybody needs any background on this this is leate Holdings is a property adjacent to the property that um Dollar General is going to go on between the lake Henry drives so it's voluntary annexation that he's requested to be annexed into the town limits it's just north of the American leag Legion it's that parcel that's being developed North American Legion on the opposite end north of that parcel there I make a motion to accept and pass resolution 20 24-12 a second all we have a motion a second any other comments from the podium okay hearing none we'll take it to the audience saying none bring it back pull the council who did the second I didn't hear I think did you do second it was n it was NE sorry council member Worley yes council member Hayes yes council member Charles yes council member eart yes okay now we go to number seven okay let me pull up this is I don't think we have anything there do we at this point oh 7A there we go all right mayor council member agenda items I say the first one is council member Charles you had citizen feedback um getting choked up over this um so I at the last meeting I said I wanted to come and just give a brief overview of a lot of the citizen feedback when joy and I ran for um council member positions and and so I'm going to go through it pretty fast and I don't want anybody to walk away to say we're recommending any of these ideas but I think that with the upcoming budget and things that we want to do this is just feedback from our citizens on things that they would like so we visited we talked to over 500 people and this is kind of a cination of a lot of the feedback from them the major themes were communication Recreation Youth and Family ideas infrastructure and miscellaneous under the communication is respectful discussions and transparency professional responses to the public a lot of people don't know about the meetings and events and I know we've had discussion while it's on the town website and Eva now has set up next door and I think that's excellent and I know she's working on a Facebook a lot of towns and I use cliston because that's where Kevin came from so he can help us on a lot of that but kiston has a town Facebook site we have a Lake Placid life Facebook site but that has a lot of information in it outside of uh town so I think that we can really communicate a lot you know call it fundraisers that you brought up that might be needed or other needs that we have along with meetings um to our public um a lot of it was that the all the public meetings should be streamed recorded and posted I know this meeting is I don't know if the other ones are like the LPA meeting the regional utilities and that so something uh that you know people want to learn more about the town and they do want to participate I think we have an opportunity for a lot of volunteers out there if they knew what we needed them to volunteer Recreation was a lot you know we need more Youth and family activities uh came up a lot a splash pad or Park you know not a water park but just a splash pad Park um a dog park with benches and shade um community pool now that's a huge one and don't walk away saying we're recommended a community pool but it did come up over and over people want the bowling alley back and again in the roller skating rink but a lot of this as we explained it wouldn't be the town doing it it would be you know investors or developers that would come in and if there's a need for return for them I'm certain that they would do something like that a lot of the seniors wanted activities they're willing to volunteer they're willing to tutor they're willing to um get give different type of lesson so they they actually have a lot of time on their hand that they want um things to do and they'd be glad to volunteer the barbecue uh grills at the park need to be replaced and and a lot was who do we report issues to if we see fire ants on the playground or different potholes or different you know maintenance needs there's a lot of confusion on who you report things to and I think with you know Facebook sites and just sometimes just publishing you know I mean everything can be called to the the town but lots of times it's break it down who in the town can I call to or send an email to that that you know would bring to the attention things that can make the town better um the question that came over and over is do we need a recreation department and I guess years ago we had a recreation department or we had at least a recreation committee so different times people would come up with ideas for advisory committees that could really help with some of the ideas uh that might be worth pursuing the Youth and Family ideas were a lot people come from different areas or where their children or grandchildren are and they were throwing out some pretty unique and fun ideas like a Bike Rodeo a bike parade a dog parade um a lot of people wanted to take advantage of daine Park and maybe have music in the park on a Friday night with you know food trucks or karaoke talent shows um people told us about these park run events that to get people especially the youth out for exercise in that every Saturday they would have this uh park run and that you would you would you know get a card and You' basically note that you attended and after so many attendance they'd give some type of small recognition to the kids and even a community garden next chart is on infrastructure a lot of good feedback on building on the success of the journal Plaza and you know how much fun how beautiful it is and they'd like to see more restaurants and shops in the downtown area uh we talked about it early a lot of interest on renovating the Tower and the area around it uh comments that the sidewalks and the curbs need cleaning and you know dead plants and flowers refreshed and we talked about that earlier next chart is um there is an interest on affordable and safe housing um and we we had a lot of single parents that talked about their interest there um different ideas on Transportation options a boss a little trolley around town especially you know talk about 5 10 years in the future um if the historic area is built out more um lot came up about local job opportunities uh people are interested in in more job opportunities and then smart growth they don't want to overpopulate the area to bring traffic congestion accidents and crime and they don't want big box stores downtown um so under the miscellaneous we should be pursuing more grants um a lot of people on the 27 Corridor uh expressed interest in a no jake break ordinance which I didn't know what it meant but I found out later that's the big trucks um the new police station needs to be downtown nobody was saying they didn't support a new police station it's just the location that is the concern of a lot and I know we're going to talk about that later there were questions on the pickle ball courts where the location is the size of it the priority and the rationale and that CRA changes for membership and type of spending should be expanded Beyond just infrastructure they felt that there's multiple solutions that are needed to improve the lakes and how do we um get Workshop meetings with d Swift Mud fish and wildlife you know all of the different stakeholders um that have some type of input um and budgets to improving uh the lakes and the canals um a lot of interest to support our small businesses to help support and grow them another interesting one is that only elected officials should sit on the dis or at least the council members be more clustered together and that here we go Kevin the chamber sound system is horrible a lot of people just stopped coming to the meetings because they don't they can't hear and don't understand um everybody loves our small quaint town they don't want the big box store in the historic downtown area and there's a lot of support of volunteer groups or special teams advisory groups on some of the things that um even the earlier uh recreational items that people are interested in helping with and then no one ever came to the door to ask for their feedback and ideas so they thanked us a lot on that and and I know that they thank us just bringing it forward to share to the council this is the voice of the public these are the Lake Placid and some of the surrounding areas feedback oh next steps as a business person there's always that next step chart so what I threw together is proactive changes maybe we pull the public for more feedback in town improvements uh we then prioritize into immediate short and long-term actions you know I always say it's like your five-year business plan your 10-year your 15 how do you want to see this town in 15 years how do you want to see Lake June Park in you know 10 years a sign ownership and you heard me say that earlier who's going to own this item because if not it's like any meeting we discuss it and we walk away and nothing happen so I'm big on ownership we're applicable including a lot of community volunteers we have somebody who's already come forward in setting up soccer and I just can't thank this person enough um they they've set up their own Facebook site they have 60 kids already signed up with their interest in getting the soccer program back up and running in this town and just and that's with their short communication we could help communicate that a lot broader um investigate Grant and funding opportunities and determine any future budget impacts I think with us the budget coming up in another couple months to work on the timing's good on some of these items is how do we work that into the budget hold public workshops I think the workshop we had earlier Kevin was excellent and so maybe we have workshops on some of these specific areas um to see who we can get volunteers and for any further feedback and then of course give periodic status updates if not it Just falls in the hole and we never follow up on it I felt this mic was kicking back at me so back to the horrible sound system Kevin any comments um yeah it was when now I'm doing it um when we were going door too um we didn't do the usual thing and just introduce ourselves we made a point of asking everybody asking people what do you see what's lacking what what do we need and that's where all these things came from and over and over again is there is nothing for the kids to do nothing for the little kids to do the intermediate teenagers uh the uh young adults they travel out of town for their they're partying and then they drive home and end up in an accident um so I think that she I think you covered everything um and the other thing is that people remember how nice the downtown looked at one time with the plantings and they really want that to come back that's thank you that wasn't very informational I wondered what you all talked about when you went around I think the in the information is is very good and I'm I'm glad to hear a lot of it I wonder where these people were when the bowling alley was open I wonder where these people were when the skating rink was open because they closed because nobody came so I would I would think that in order to make a case to reopen these places we would have to show that there's something different in our environment that would now make these things successful um and some sort of a marketing plan or something that people could could say okay now they the demographics have changed or the ideas of the people have changed and now this could be successful now then because it was not successful in the past so um repeating the same mistakes you know doesn't seem to make sense but I still understand and it's a it's a countywide problem that people say there's nothing for the kids to do well there is I mean if you if you go down the Parkway and you look towards Sebring High School you see a ton of kids out there playing baseball or softball or soccer or depending on the season um there's there's a lot for them to do but you know it takes parental invol involvement for the kids to do it as well but I think the soccer idea is great I'm sure there there's probably room for baseball and softball as well so you know a lot of these things we we can do and we can address so oh one thing I just remember I also remembered is that we talked to um a lot of Hispanic speaking people um we took a translator with us and um they feel neglected um for example with the utility uh paying their utility bill um or I they just feel like they're left out so if and some of them suggested having in their little communities maybe um uh translation um services or I don't even know how to set it up but it was just the impression that I got talking to people who were you saying feels neglected pardon who did you say feels neglected the Hispanic Hispanic community I think that's a valid concern too I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of Hispanic folks that come down uh to the Lake June Park in that area on the weekends but um but yeah I can certainly see that now I we'll just make one comment on that our uh custodian here at Town Hall is Hispanic and he does a lot of translating for people that need that come in when they want to pay their bills or they have a question and he they'd pull him in and and do provide that service but we do only have one Hispanic speaker so all right move on the next any other comments from anybody come forward state your name please Sharon Hudson I've lived here since 1959 uh I've been a business in town several times in in the county I now have the purple Irish t- room in town I've asked several times for feedback from the town for over a year for what about the Planters in town they're looking sad what plants can I put in the one out front because it needs some attention nobody got back to me I've been to the town several times um asking what our signage is I think the our town or our committee here you do not support the local businesses in town you do not You Hinder us when we're trying to run a business you don't let us put up proper signage and if we ask for that information it takes a year to get it it's now in Lake Boulevard is desolate the medium the planting is not done on a properly basis it took me a year to get somebody to cut down that palm tree that was dying there's a palow bush in the middle of my parking lot there on inner Lake a car can't park here and it can't park here because that is a paletto bush Bert not a palm tree so we need to take care of that but we need to pay attention to the local businesses that are struggling to stay alive and I used to be so upset when people would say well the Northerners are gone back or the Northerners will be here in November we don't need the northern people to support us we are a small community and we need to shop Lake Placid first but in order to do that our town Council needs to help support us in the summertime and in the winter time that's all I have to say thank you just pay more attention to local businesses you know years ago Mr Brown had a business what do you call it business Merchant Association Business Association Merchant association mercian association we're working on that yeah and that that would be very beneficial not only for the the businesses but for us because I personally have never gotten any of that feedback well I've been in this room numerous times you I'm not saying you haven't I'm just saying it's personally it's never come to me but I I would like to see the businesses get more proactive and you know like we're working on a a merchant Association is what merch Association but I think that we need to be in on a lot of the things that are going on here at the Town Council I I I think a lot of these issues could be resolved if if we had the communications between uh the businesses and us so yeah it works both ways I've been communicating for over a year mayor well you you say that but I have not heard it personally you may not of but I know these others have okay yeah thank you folks I I appreciate you K LeBlanc um you know with what you were saying if we have a strong CRA board and uh you know agency I think if you think of Sebring nobody downtown Sebring complains that Sebring doesn't try because of the CRA the CRA tries really hard and has tried really hard for years and made a lot of um great progress over the years and uh now they've made incredible progress you know with the U Home and Garden television thing they're doing but I think if we can build our CRA and have a board on the CRA that is not just the Town Council then I think we can strengthen the CRA and then people in the community will have a lot more interaction and and that kind of thing um you know and if we just look at how Sebring does their CRA and their CRA board they do an incredible job and U so I think that that could help with what she's talking about yeah yeah and I don't disagree with that uh our CAA is still uh relatively new so it's we're we're we're going through a lot of growing pains with it and uh you know hopefully one of these days we can we can be up and running and do like sebring's doing but uh uh and I know some of the comments that were made will will maybe help benefit that in some ways but yeah I I I agree with what you're saying no just okay okay I think one of the things we need to realize too is that that lake plid has more than one main street it's not just Main Street it's Interlake as well and some of the businesses that are in on Interlake have been there since heaven knows I've been here and sheron's been here and some of you folks that have lived here a long time I'm seeing Pam knocking her head over here but um interl is is very critical to getting people off of 27 and and into our town and I think Main Street development has done a great job and Ken's done a great job as well but we do have iner Lake as well we can't we can't ignore those Merchants yeah and if I can say I agree 100% with you um Interlake you know needs a revitalization effort you know uh what's happened on Main Street of the joural plaza has happened you know because I've taken my money and done it but I don't have enough money to to do Interlake and everything else you know but I you know there's ideas and if people with money you know get the ideas and they can do it you know so the CRA in large part can create visions and they can put the vision out there that other investors can come along and buy property and renovate it and and become part of the revitalization effort so if you have a a master vision for revitalization and multiple partners working at all at the same time but working from the same Playbook you can Revitalize an entire town you know you know that's if you just go to Mount Dora in places like that you know that have been revitalized the entire thing is revitalized you know and it's just uh you know if you go to mount door you'll see there's about three major land owners downtown you know that own the properties that are have really made the revitalization effort happened so um you know and it's just a vision you gotta you know in the CRA you know their job is to create the vision and put the vision out there right so I think a strong C can help you know Revitalize Inter Lake as well right yeah I think the other thing that's helpful and it gets back to communication it it does trouble me that for a year you know one of our business owners has had concerns in her mind and it's real it it hasn't been addressed so you know on our town website it has who the Town Council Members are but what it doesn't have is how to contact us so maybe we should be putting our email underneath to give more accessibility when you do see issues uh because I'll tell you if somebody writes to me and I don't want everybody to write to me I want you to write to Nell but I want you to write to Colleen I follow up I mean I'll send it probably on to Kevin right he's going to get them but then I will follow up what is the status in that and so um I think that we can make ourselves more accessible for feedback also from the business owners and from the public on what are some of the things that we should be working on to help improve our wonderful town and surrounding area I will just make one comment that specifically because that was what Bill Brantley was talking about keep Lake plet beautiful on that Interlake in the plant list which they have recently I was actually discussed at the last um keep leg plastic beautiful meeting on that plant list because that's kind of their side of that not the town side of that so they do have that list now uh um as of a week or so ago a plant list for that so that may be a contact if you have with Jennifer Bush back on the chamber she may be able to give you that answer got it you got it okay good okay I want to go to number two number two is Lake plid community redevelopment agency that was at a request of council member art so I'll let her take the lead on that one oh very okay um so I guess for those that don't know our CR is community redevelopment agency and it's funded by um make sure I got this right when it was formed it was there certain tax real estate tax base and every year after that as the real estate taxes go up a portion of that is funded transferred to the CRA to spend um currently or in the past currently the C is comprised entirely of the board members and what I would like to do is we're allowed to add two more members I would like to add two more from the community who have expertise in Redevelopment so I think the first thing is to make a motion if I can that we add two more positions to the CRA from from the community I'll second that you'll need to amend the CRA ordinance no actually it's in the ordinance they're allowed up to seven people my apologies I'll go read the ordinance again okay but um it it's up to seven people people two of which may be from the community if you've read it recently I'd defer I think it was in our pack I think it's in our packet I've read it too it is there you can bring it up um one two sorry I did not remember the ordinance saying that okay yeah it go back it is two okay not line yeah line item two there last paragraph the last sentence pres The Authority okay I had a I've been thinking about this ever since when you were we talked before you were elected um you know I was worked hard for to get the CRA and we're doing fairly well now but it did dawn on me that CRA money is tax do it's the tax dollars that the town people pay into in our in the CRA in area so in that in that area the people that are paying the taxes have actually paid the increase in taxes not the business owners but the actual people that own the building so the taxpayers pay it then in addition to that not just the town tax dollars come back in but also the county tax increases we get that too so we not just get our increase in tax dollars we get everything that the counties paying in extra since that uh Line in the Sand we get all their money too so it's really tax dollar so the only thing I would say I don't know if we should add one or two um I would say for sure maybe one but there needs to be a criteria just to add two people without any kind of criteria I would like to see some crit here maybe that they actually own property in that are in the CRA area that maybe they have that and maybe you know maybe we should have a process where they may application and we select somebody that's maybe best qualified or we feel that is it is like the um really knows what's going on in the community and gets feed actually wants to go get feedback wants to put the time in so we can really do this thing great I mean I see it I see we could do it and we're missing a lot so I think we could do it but I think there needs to be criteria for these people I would like to see them actually paying into the tax base um and then some kind of criteria maybe develop an application or I I just had that thought okay de I agree with you I think that it's important that um we do have a a process for people that would like to take that position uh and and I think it should be two simply because that makes it seven which is not an even number I think that's very important but um I I do think that there should be some criteria just as there was for uh as as you got put back on the council but I mean you know nobody else came forward and and you did but that's because you wanted the position and that's and we're glad to have you but I think that this is the same thing we can't just pick a couple people out of the hat and say well you need to do this well maybe you could do that but you need to make application if you would like to do this so I think that's that's important and then we can as a council we can choose the two people that we want to go on to the board well my Envision was like the uh Regional Utilities Commission that they are supposed to be experts that can uh they're not just anybody off the street so I think the first thing is if we can make a motion that we can add to people with the consideration that they have expertise or are business owners or I I just leave it Broad and say can um Town Administrator develop something and and say you know with criteria and then approve the criteria maybe at the next meeting or something I I have one question though for our attorney um are members of the CRA under Sunshine Law yes yes okay there's also nothing to say that we can't have a CRA board that would those people would be leaz on to the actual business I mean there's all things you can do yeah you like the The Advisory boards we had talked about but that we had envisioned volunteer volunteer advisory Boards of course then they would be under C under Sunshine Law also yeah I think that that's another consideration you don't want to put too many people involved because then you have all these people under Sunshine Law and nobody can talk to one another without without a violation so true and the business owners can't talk to each other I've actually looked at Sebring CRA and I've looked at some other Town CRA and it's easy to look at sebrings they've got a wonderful website and so they've got who the makeup is of the um the members and granted they got a lot more money because the first thing people tell me Well we just have have a little bit of money well hopefully over time we'll have a lot of money um so I do support adding to I mean Town Council is fine but I'd like to get input just like we did from the citizens we got a lot of good input from the citizens on things that they think we should be working on that maybe over the years there were other priorities because it gets back to priorities money and priorities right and the amount of time you have to spend on something so I personally would like to see us fill that agency or um with seven if if our ordinance already allows five which says it's town councel and two additionals I'd like to see us add two additionals and I would like to see them be business owners I think the more we start involving our business owners in some of the decisions that we're making I think it's going to only benefit this town so I mean the Sebring CRA is not town council members it's made up of just the public and business owners I'd like to see us go in that direction when we get lots of money I'll be coming back with a recommendation to turn the mix up to get the feedback because at the end of the day I think the Town Council makes the decision of the spending of the money so that's mine I mean I I would like to modify your um because your motion is to add two members I'd like to modify it to add two business owners as members the business owners in the town that are in inside the town limits do we have a motion on the floor or we just you have a motion in a second to add two position C you want to modify it I can if I could modify it yeah a wants to revise It i' Go With It yeah all right so we have the motion modified motion you want the modified motion buiness modify the motion that the the two additional people are business owners or have um professional expertise in the area of Redevelopment um I'm kind of stuck on business owner I'm kind of stuck on business owner I don't want the either or just business owner and I'm your second and and if I may I'm the second okay I I want to keep it open for someone with professional expertise because we may be limiting ourselves by just having business owners there may be somebody out there who is a genius but does not own a business but if you're not a business owner you don't have a stake you have an opinion but you don't have a stake may we hear from the audience Michael Noel my wife and I own some businesses downtown but we're tenants and I thought I overheard one of the comments being that this would be a property owner someone who actually was the taxpayer into the CRA funds and I would urge you to consider that a lot of my money I generate to pay rent to the property owner so that he can own that property so I wouldn't be not that have a voice in it because I don't live in the property but um I would take exception personally to being a business owner excluded because I didn't own the property because our investment far exceeds some of the residential values of your voters right now so out of respect for the businesses that are tenants I think those business owners should be eligible for a participation in your in your CRA and I appreciate your comments I just been thinking about this a lot and I just worried that we're also in charge of the County taxes as well I was just a little concerned but you're right Mr Noel you create a lot of sales tax for this town wish everybody would buy your gas in town we get a portion of every the sales tax that's also used in the town limit so spend buy your gas in town don't go somewhere else and buy it because we do get sales tax every time you sell something the town gets a little bit of it okay and that's really what I'm saying I'm sorry that that's really what I'm saying um Mr Noel is that you are a business owner and you should be eligible for one of these positions uh I don't think you have to own the building in the land you own the business and that that was my thinking also as a business owner not as a property owner so but I really appreciate that clarification except that's not the clarification that Deborah Worley gave I agree 100% with Mike my name is Marlene bargar and I also agree with joy I think you need to have people on the CRA who have one expertise and you also have to have business owners and those business owners do not have to own a piece of property in town they just have to be a business in town we tend to have we have ignored them all these years and so we need to open up our doors and let them in and if you want two business owners and maybe a member of the council might want to give their seat to add more people but I think we ought to have a c that's made up of town people the Town Council is here you don't need to have it made up of all Town Council Members what makes other things successful is you bring more ideas in and so I'll just leave it at that but I think you have an opportunity in front of you which is a great opportunity to give voice to all of our business owners whether they own a piece of land in town or not and we have so we don't realize how much talent we we have in Lake plet people are here that have experience in many other areas not just Engineers but Architects and land developers we need to embrace all those people and bring them in thank you um one one clarification um our CRA is set up differently than sebrings and it's by the charter by the ordinance or by the method it was paperwork whereby it was created I think they have six citizens and one Council liazon ours is defined as the Town Council plus two others so we're limited we cannot have somebody on the council give up their seat or we change the code right then you got to redo the whole no I know but yeah Ken La Blanc uh yeah I would just like to chime in that you know I understand you're set up with five Council people and two extras and I think that's the way you should go right now I think longterm C uh the C SI has a really good makeup and if you talk to Christy over there you'll find out that you know she says we have one person in finance we have one person in real estate we have one person who's a developer one person who's a designer or something like that so they have chosen to have very specific categories and she said before she didn't have that and it was chaos and she said but once they decided to have each individual um you know category filled it became a completely different CRA and much more Progressive and much more functional she said so I think longterm changing from this to that by changing your Charter or whatever it takes which I I understand is not easy and takes time but I think it's a good idea to start the way you're starting now I think long term it might be a good idea to change it you know more like what like I said why reinvent the wheel Christie's been doing this for years you know and this Sebring crra has been in business for years and they finally figured out how to do it you know so maybe we should jump through the learning process and jump straight to the you know the way they figured out works best you know and I'm sure it'll work best for us too but um but I also agree that you know just being a business owner or a building owner will cut out the possibility of some very talented people that are in our town because you know we had a lot of retirees here we get a lot of retirees have came from all kinds of places with all kinds of skills and are willing to to volunteer and help um and um so if we've got somebody who's experienced in revitalization you know from some other place and is retired here why not utilize their skills you know if they're willing to give them right so I think there's all kinds of um you know possibilities there okay I was going to say the same thing that Kenny LeBlanc just said it is a community redevelopment Agency for redeveloping the community and a business owner might sell flowers doesn't really know much about Community R development my husband and I owned architectural company we did planned Urban developments I can't be on it CU I'm live outside of Lake plid City Limits but I would say I wouldn't just do pro business owners because they might know everything about flower shop but that doesn't mean they know about community redevelopment so I would just think about opening it up to people like Kenny lean just said uh clerk what have we got is a motion where are we now I think I think Joy tried to revise so but now hearing from the the uh the audience the people I'm back to the original that it's two two additional people and of course like like with the Utilities Commission they'd have to be appointed by vetted appointed by the council so it's back to the original motion so the original motion that I had was to add two positions business owners then you Revis it to say or have professional expertise in real Redevelopment yes you didn't get another second from now to second year revision so I'm still going to stick with business owners or with experience in a in a relevant field in Redevelopment or a relevant a relevant field a relevant a relevant field area second okay okay I'd like to I'd like to bring up again I'm I'm not going to be in favor of that and and the reason is I don't think we should limit ourselves one way or the other let's add two community members let's see who comes to the table let's see what credentials they bring and then let's choose let's don't limit it now so I'm getting confused on because we have motion and a second and then we revised so you did so the revision didn't pass am I right Bert because n didn't second clear me up here no she I didn't second but then she came up with another motion and that for a second let's let's start let's start from scratch you can can we just withdraw your motions all and we'll start I was gonna say start over yeah that's the best thing I start over ask her to ask her to withdraw her motion okay so motion to add two people your other motion you have to withdraw the first motion okay I withdraw my motion and you okay with withdrawing okay sorry I getting confusing okay and now we're going to make another motion okay so I make a motion to add two more positions to the CRA to be composed of a bus to be composed of a business owner or someone with relevant expertise and I will second that okay okay and then and then just for my clarification then we're going to ask these people to come in and give us a little presentation and then we will choose from that pool of candidates you know we can have 20 people apply yeah I'm good with that I'm good with that okay so we do have a motion in a second any other discussion from the podium no I would just like to add um very good point because maybe we have a retiree who was on a CRA in another town and they could add a lot of value so I I appreciate the comments that everybody made I just have one more thing just to make it you know really nuts um the mission of the CR basically is to improve infrastructure to decrease blight to improve walkability street signs Landscaping that type of thing that's what the CRA is really that's the mission of the CRA okay and secondly I'm always concerned about people that come to Lake Placid because they like it here and they found the wonderful small town atmosphere that they were finally looking for and then they seek ways to make it like the place they just came from that they didn't like that's just a concern okay I'll take it to the audience any comments saying none bring it back pull the council council member eart yes council member Hayes yes council member Worley yes council member Charles yes okay now go to 7 A3 cadium Festival Town involvement is that it's still on the CRA so now going forward for the next meeting is that when whoever is interested should put forth their names how do you want how do you want to do this I think Deborah said something about we need to create some criteria for it don't you think I think we need to create some criteria for for the position need a form and some kind of criteria maybe questions saying so you could vet out whether they're expertises and what business they own well I think if somebody submits their resume I mean we don't have to take the time to make a form just have whoever is interested submit their experience and we can judge by that okay I agree similar to what we do for the filling the open position submit your letter of qualifications and your interest and be able to use that and and people are going to submit it in a way that they're going to really you know give us the um the criteria and their qualifications that they feel would be beneficial to the town but it it might be important to at least I'll probably say this word wrong succinctly try to put down what the mission of the CRA is because people may not even know what a community redevelopment agency is about and and what is the mission of that what are they supposed to do so how can you be qualified for something if you don't know what that agency is supposed to do the uh CRA description is on our website it's on our website the development the whole I know it's on there I've been I read all of the 86 Pages took some notes as well but um I'm just say saying that we might want to at least if at the very least put that directive on there that if you want to know what the CRA is really about please go to the website click here click there because it's not just one click it's a couple but you know click here click there and and and take time to read it so a question I have is the other thing that came up on the um CRA uh was not just a membership makeup but also I guess today only make decisions on money for infrastructure and I know a lot of the other towns you know go beyond just infrastructure sidewalks roads um curbs and and parking so I didn't see that if if that was something that needed to be changed in the future especially as more money comes is that something that just the committee can do I didn't see it actually as part of you know um our code well going forward because I also talked to christe Vasquez the Sebring CRA executive director and um and I went through their website they have um set up for um they have one matching Grant of the $10,000 for building facades they have another $110,000 matching grant for outside table seating they have another $5,000 grant for interior modifications I asked Christie if it'd be okay uh actually I'm trying to what I'd like to do with the next meeting is discuss diverting some of our funds from Pure infrastructure like sidewalks to and divert some of the money to the businesses so modeling I asked have her permission to model after their um programs to basically steal all their verbage for um requirements for for the matching grants if that's how we want to go I think Mr Harris I'm sorry I think Mr Harris say may be where you need to weigh in is that a CRA board request that would modify the ordinance or the plan or is that a Town Council question as far as modifying the plan actually it's in the CRA paperwork that it includes streetscapes and such so we can we can divert from sidewalks Street you're going from Street Scapes to faades which is the grant program for Sebring if you're going to match their language that's facades um and then interior Remodeling and exterior seating well so that's a change from what the current plan is and that's the question for the attorney how you if you do that as a CRA board and the request I'm not sure how you change that whether it's appropriate here or whether it's the board that's what that's a question for the attorney I believe so I guess yeah the nuances I've already gotten in trouble tonight once for relying on my memory so I don't want to do that again but having said that my recollection is that we distinguished between public and private using the CRA tax money for public infrastructure sidewalks uh crosswalks the Landscaping streetscaping um I remember the council had a really cool design U proposal regarding North Maine in front of Ken's property making wider sidewalks and something much more walkable and usable that I believe is the type of infrastructure defined in our CRA as opposed to taxing everyone and spending that on on a private person's property two different deals I believe you're going to have to come back to town Council to make that large of a CH that's significant change I I expect a discussion on that that would be for another town council meeting yeah and what I was hoping is if you would give us some guidance and you already have one and we'll find out what we need to do to make it legal and bring it back next meeting if that makes sense yes as it as it stands now the mandatory requirements of the CRA plan are the legal description of the B boundaries of course and the the certificate of need basically the idea that we need these things the criteria for slum and blight because that's what it's meant to for slum and blight because that's what it's meant to get rid of it's not meant to as as our attorney said to to augment any one particular business it's meant to increase an area so that it you would have less incidents of crime you would have better walkability and you would have better pedestrian safety and crosswalks and Street lighting and Street scaping and things like that that's what the CRA is about is about that infrastructure like that it's not about awnings and signs and things like that it's the bigger picture but it it it may well need to be readdressed because some of the projects and things that are in the 5-year plan and the 10-year plan in the current CRA um is they was done in in 2007 so a lot of these things have been done and a lot of them have not so there's still some valid points in the plan maybe a workshop that's if I make make a suggestion it sounds like it might be the issue for the next Workshop before the next meeting to hash out how you would like to change the CRA and then we can come up some language and then address whether it's an ordinance just a simple ordinance change if you change the boundaries you go back to the state you start over if you change the entire composition of the bo I believe you go back to the state you start from scratch for these changes I'm not sure and we get some Direction but if we can do that we'll set if y'all would make a motion or to give me a direction that that be the workshop before the next meeting we can do that and address CRA issues um or if you want to bring the other two members on board first and then have them involved in the discussion that may be an option too it's entirely up to you I don't makes no difference to me um so I think we should wait and get the two members on and then go as a as a group of seven that just we may remake the wheel in the wrong direction if we don't do that I think this might be for Mr Harris the two people that you pick for the CRA will they have will they fall under sunshine and will they have to bring up their financials yes they will fall under under sunshine I don't know about their financials I don't think they will because they're not eled and and just another quick note um I have to thank um Rachel and Eva for carrying the ball on the C going to all the meetings and keeping us on the straight near what we're supposed to do so I know that we've been caught up quite a bit it was too near when I we started with it I thought but we've also caught thrown around um there there's a couple programs if you qualify for them you can spend some of that money to do actually actually a plan you know spend the money to do a plan before we really get just going um one's called Main Street is it Main Street America we can apply to be part of it but then they give us a plan so we can actually have a guidance before we just go and Sebring I think has over 500,000 at one time they had 700,000 how much do we have3 130 150 I don't remember but anyway I just thought you know that's kind of where I had thought we could go and maybe try to get a plan and not stop spending money but just maybe get an overall plan for our downtown area that I thought that was a good good idea I I like to though come back because I think she's asked an important question that may um you know if they have to do a form six I I didn't think they did because I do you know they EV holded with the ethics for form one yeah could be form one not form six so they may have to do a form one because they're do all of our advisory C board and our LPA um Regional utility I think they're on it too only form one though yeah so form one is very limited I do a form one um several for one's employees right and and it's not elected right it's non-elected elected position I would be very careful about that because this those are advisory boards to the council these are going to be part of the CRA and I think you ought to find out the correct legal opinion sure it might it might let's let Bert figure it out that's why he's here right just so when will you get us that response so we can make the public aware so that because that may have a bearing on who wants to send in their interest letter yeah good point okay this week is slammed next week I'll have your answer and then how will we communicate that because if if we're talking about the next meeting to have interest letters so that we could appoint the people through Eva okay Eva can handle it so so to the public if anybody's interested in uh applying with your interest on being the two additional um CRA members um get with Eva and that she will have within two weeks the which form requirement if any that needs to be done so evil have the requirements right perfect work on it and and I'll jump in because it's part of the item D1 discussion about uh we will include those website and however we advertise that's part of the D1 cons discussion about how you want to advertise and what we do to fill these positions so that'll kind of be fleshed out this along with the other items all right any other discussions okay anything from the audience okay we don't have a motion or anything do we Okay you finish all right so now we'll go to 783 cadium Festival Town involvement um okay I well most I'm sorry was this okay most I wasn't concerned about the event fees um I just want an insurance that the town would be cleaned up for the cadium festival and Allan provided I don't know if it's in in here or if it's only in our packet but he provide an extensive list of things that they do uh with uh edging trimming pressure wash there it is it's in there and um and actually thank you for doing that but also this way people know that you do have a handle on it and there's a lot of work to be done and some of the things I even notice is what they make sure that there aren't any there aren't uneven pavers that might be a trip Hazard um down to that detail so thank you is is it safe to say this similar checklist is done for the country fair is this kind of like a twice a year these are the activities and that's great same thing so we're done with that yes okay so now we'll go to 785 federal legislative earmark I guess I put this on here to assign to Bert and Kevin um so um over the last um couple weeks uh one of the um call it the the grant applications and and for a better word that was submitted to Franklin's office back in March they came back and they wanted it paired down this was the $85 million Grant they wanted it paired down and um Kevin said and and there was a short window we had like three days to respond so Kevin tried to set up a meeting amongst the council we weren't available that that was the special meeting that you saw then it was cancelled and then because of the tight time frame it went forward um and so I Feel Again transparency that if we are putting to a position where we have to make a decision outside of town Council um that we should at least at the next meeting Bring It Forward have that similar discussion you know not just for the public but also for the council members on um what exactly was um submitted so and in this case also because it's you know it's a it's a Federal grant that we're asking for so um I think the grant is in the package Kevin I don't know if you want to take it from there or Bert who's got lead but it's just a brief you know um summary to the public and to us on um what was submitted yeah so I'll I'll take it from there so um so Congressman it's a federal aark request from Congressman Franklin's office and on March 11th the council passed a resolution which is included in the packet um this is the letter not the resolution this is the resolution it lays out the reason for the grant the reason we should qualify it uh qualify for the grant and kind of the background of why we're why we're getting there in that um in section six it laid out a order of what would we would apply for the grant um so it talks about annual grants at that time when I'll speak for bird a little bit we've had a lot of conversations we didn't know where they were going to come in and what how much we were going to apply for we broke it down um so if we have they came back and said yeah you can apply for 20 million we would have included items one and two um possibly three is 21 million so we broke down the areas we uh added some additional estimates because it's been two years since we had those um those Engineers estimates and so this is 2-year inflation uh rate it's in here and it says it in the resolution we're very clear about what it is so we took the first item on the list which was passed by the council and that's what was applied for in the letter to Congressman Franklin the reason for the try to H the special commission uh special council meeting was we have two new council members that ran on a plat form about the Wastewater treatments collection system so we was trying to give them an opportunity to weigh in and if they had decided to change that priority list that was passed by the previous Council then that would have given the ability to do so um without a special meeting then staff's only choice was to go ahead with what the resolution the council had passed so that's what we did and moved forward and applied for the gredal grant it will be a while before we have it goes through the care regressional Mark process um we'll know in the next couple of months whether it made the list and then we'll wait on Congress to pass a budget which we know if you pay any attention takes a while so it may be any number of months before we um in fact have this money so but that's this is the whole the whole uh application the modification and where we're at so and Birch letter so it's in the packet for anybody that would like to see it there is a 589 page 489 page the full application is available um from Eva if you really want to read all 489 pages of it um that was the original earmark request so the 587 page that's the 85 million so that so that this March would if we added that up that's 85 million those are all the projects that so my only question is I thought it was at the March meeting or that there was a decision that we would go first with Placid Lakes was that the the December meeting so when when we're going to go forward to bid right it was the utility advisory commission had to make a priority list of okay uh we think the sewer plant's going to be $28 million we only have $40 million so which area should we decide would be the first ones we we start and that decision at that meeting was Placid Lakes so something happened between then that Placid Lakes felt to number three PL lak trying to understand just timing of events with these different Grant requests the December meeting had Lake pled first yep and then pled Lakes it was that schedule has not changed it was still plasted Lakes first and then plasted Lakes start on the lake that feeds into Lake June so that priority did not change between the December meeting and this resolution Placid Lakes was part of the recommendation it was different than the Utility Commission recommendation which was Lake Pearl and lak Arena but the order was still Lake Placid first north and south and then plid lakes in that order so that that that did not change in that recommendation we're talking about two entirely different grants however that motion was to focus narrow down what we would be looking to bid on under the current $40 million Grant so they're two different Grant applications but the $40 million Grant was to reduce it down with theep Lake plid first then Placid Lakes so we excluded we had already excluded sun and lakes we had already excluded South toown we went in and excluded Lake Pearl Lake Serena Lake June Point Lake June Hills we left in Lake June Road so that was those were the four projects that were left in um as far as our application was going with the EP this was a federal earmark um so different Grant application between the two that we were excluding on what we were trying to focus on going out to bid on do we know what the timing of them giv us feedback on this maybe the when I look up federal ear marks we um said we will know something by December December December okay so it's a it's very we may know something sooner we may know something later but that's just when you look up and try and find out the answer because it's based on when Congress acts there would be two steps step one was if we make the congressman's earmark recommendation and then step two is if Congress approves step two was I think what Kevin is referring to will certainly be later in the year step one will be sooner than later don't know the answer how much sooner one thing that I think is important to note about the earmarks this does not compel hookups it's totally consistent with the last vote um and it would be could be used to fund 100% of the hookups so it's I believe compliant with what you could request anything else any discussion on that okay we'll move on to 786 uh the police station location discussion this was raised in the last meeting I did um pass out the C assessment from cool and cob of what they expected the difference in the and it's town of Lake plet I just got that this afternoon they've been working on it trying to put it together so that's why you didn't see it as part of your packet it wasn't done um on the difference between option one and option two the uh and there is and literally I printed this out between just before the the budget Workshop or the orientation Workshop so I have not reviewed it entirely uh so but basically you'll see option two is roughly $95,000 more expensive it's a flatter site better access growth in future this is their opinion on the uh on the location there's also an additional $31,000 in design fees that go along with that um the they ran into some issues on the permitting as they started looking at the permitting of this site and that's why you'll say it's option one actually delays you a little bit longer than option two as far as construction only because of the way the Swift Mud permit and do connections that it may add some delay the retention Pond which is huge out here and we get into Swift mud's um regulations is not sized for anything other than this building so they do have to enlarge that pond or believe they will have to enlarge that pond and go through the modification and then because it's adjacent to us do uh us27 doot will have to weigh in on the plans and the designs so that's why the uh they you may see a couple of months additional to stay on this site as opposed to go to the other site the other site's more expensive because we um have to add you're adding retention on either site but we have to add parking lots that we were going to use the existing parking lot site here there you'll have to add a front parking lot and a back parking lot and uh sidewalk around the back couple other things so that's where the uh difference uh the difference in funding is at do you have this charart for the public to see you gave us a chart I did like I said I did not have time to put this on I don't know you you don't have it Eva that you could just put I don't have it did I was that one of the ones you sent me no no I literally just got this this afternoon so I did not get it on the uh so now that I caught up with you so option one is the current location and option two is looking at building it on Hill crust Hillcrest was the previous location origin that was the previous location I apologize for that so that was the previous location was the S side on Hillcrest it was actually the rear of that property not the front of the property um for a relation that's the vacant lot in behind um Mr Harris's office so that is where the county was going to build the fire department and we were going to build the police department the county couldn't give us answers on their design is again I was not involved in these initial discussions but I sat through the meetings where the council was um fire department didn't know on their property and how they were going to develop the ponds and it was delaying the process of us planning for the police department so that was part of the reason and the logic I believe to move it to this site and uh but anyway as you had those discussions I also just so this is the trying to provide you all the information that I could in the between the last meeting and this meeting we also had a a conversation with USDA just so you all are aware of a possible low interest interest loan as opposed to using our [Music] um Reserve funds or infrastructure Reserve funds which there are reserves but infrastructure fund that's currently funded with arpa funds and our infrastructure fund I uh we would qualify for a USD low interest R which is currently at 3.5% um we do qualify for 55% Grant but they don't have funding from Congress for that so we have no idea if we would get any Grant but we do qualify for up to 55% Grant however that process USDA is a um a little bit of a tedious process but it is a funding possibility it would take somewhere between six and eight months it would run concurrent to either of these options so if you were six to seven months under construction under option one you'd only delay a month if you were under option two you're going to delay about two months before you start of construction I just want to lay all that out there for your discussion um if you wanted us to apply for that's the only grant funding that I have found that's available for the police station we tried as you know for the legislative appropriation we did not get um and that was just trying to protect our funds and use other people's funds as possible POS uh another note you can go up to 30 years on this low interest loan there is no prepayment penalty so if you had other other funds come available or you decided we don't want to pay the interest over the 30 years and then use your reserve funds there's no prepayment uh penalty for that so that's I leave it up to your discussion Kevin you said something about $331,000 in in design fees where does that land it's not in this line item it's another spreadsheet that's very confusing um and I was confused at it and I was familiar with all the numbers so I didn't provide you that basically they have $31,000 in additional and that's a lot um an additional design they have to design the parking lot they have to move the build the building doesn't change right you're picking it that building up and putting it somewhere but now you have to design the parking lot you've got to design the storm drainage which they have already started part of the storm drainage design um it changes that he modified some of these numbers because you don't have if you put it here there's a uh just drew a complete blank on what that is um you've got to put concrete pipe in front of the police station because that's where all the swells are and you have to move the swells and reroute water because everything from up on the North End of the property flows South into the pond and so that water has to be rerouted so there's structures that have to get constructed that won't necessarily have to get constructed on the other site so it's not just here's the price it's what the price differences are as he as uh cool and cob move through that design change to come up with as accurate an answer as they could in two or three weeks so option two according to this paper is roughly $95,000 more expensive plus 31,000 in design Fe correct okay so it's really 126 ,000 more expensive that's correct so I I don't know if this is possibly this needs a motion or something to to move forward but I I just I don't want to move backward on this project um and I can certainly appreciate what the people said that they want the police station downtown and I understand that but I I think that folks that I would feel the same way if I didn't come out of that business but I know now that I was in law enforcement as a civilian for 20 years and the difference that it made over those 20 years for what you had to do at a location versus what you can do in your vehicle has totally changed and anything that the officers would do at a police station they now do in their vehicles so having the police station out here that's going to Lo that's going to free them up to be downtown more and so their presence downtown is going to be better better seen if they are downtown so um and I think the other things that were brought up when we first discussed this months ago before you folks were on the council is that the the idea was that we would create a municipal center and and that the town hall here would be the the center the municipal center in addition we would have the police station here and eventually possibly a fire station and EMS all in one Municipal area we have plenty of room to do that on this site so um that being said um I would like to make a motion that we let's move forward with the police station on this site the way we are currently going um in an effort to get it completed in a timely manner because we really do need that um I don't think you girls t the police station you went there but I really don't think you took the tour we did did you go in the evidence room we went wherever the chief took us if you went in the evidence room I challenge you to be able to turn around because I couldn't and I'm shorter than you are so um you you literally if you pull a a drawer out you can't turn around and the longer we delay this project we've already delayed it literally 10 to 15 years and the longer we delay it now the worse it's going to get we need to move forward so that's my motion is that we continue to move forward without delay on the project as it has currently been voted on option one to put the police station here I'm going to make a second then I wanted to make a comment um yes when um we purchased this property and I was part of that this was that it's named Government Center because this is where it's probably going to be more the center of Lake pla in the future than anything else downtown it's going to be obsolete eventually downtown so we're looking to the Future this complex this building will last the town I think at least 50 years a 100 years from now I mean we still have we don't we have 17 acres here what's that Acres yeah I think it's 15 17 1 yeah we have 17 acres here to grow and we have a backage road back here that will be incorporated so we will have a light down here I mean it's all been very well planned and we also spent $30,000 on that Hill Crest site we might as well thrown in the trash it didn't fit there either it's a difficult piece of property it's narrow so we have tried and tried but um and I just wanted to make a comment last meeting I got interrupted when I started I never said Police Department out of my mouth not once not any time I never said Police Department ever I was talking about assets and you can stick your head in the sand if you want to but okay originally we have other buildings and we just need to know not saying I'm just saying I thought it was a great idea that the town the people that are in charge of all the assets for the town should know where they're at we voted on a $40 million sewer plant I don't think anybody's been to the site we have offices over there we have offices we have this wonderful building I was talking about Harry's building out here that he's organized with all the small equipment there's buildings all over the place but when we first started with the police department we were going to take the police department where it was at we're going to sell that building now we even talked about which wouldn't have been feasible but trying to you know make this so that actually the police department it's not going to cost that much money you know okay we're going to sell what are we going to do with these buildings so we're going to what are we going to do with the police department we're going to just keep it as a shrine what are we going to do with that well the plan was we sell Town Hall okay we did that we sell the police department and then when the fire department moved out that was a hard nut to crack because how do you sell a police department but now as things have moved along and now we're going to have this giant utility it's a great place for our utility to move to where everybody can be in one place we have that glorious um ambulance and fire department building there to put all of our equipment in to get it out of the weather the things we need to get out of the weather but the I'm not saying that's what we should do I would just like everybody to have input on that maybe have an asset discussion and let's look at all the assets I never said anything one darn thing about the police department I didn't even know it was going I didn't even know how much it was going to cost last meeting I've gotten up to speed since then so now I know so I just wanted to make that statement thank you all very much okay so we got a motion a second any further discussion from the podium yeah I'd just make like to make a couple comments um so and Deborah I Mrs warley I appreciate that um I do know though that that when this building was purchased to be the center it was also in planned at that time the police department would be part of it and so for whatever reason over time right we've run out of room where we don't have room to build a police you know to have it hous within so then we're moving towards building a new um site and again you know I I appreciate the comments but there where there is a building is kind of the comfort and security and if now all of the officers are going to continue to be in their cars then why do you need a building so and I don't think that's what we want I mean you're not building a building just for an Evidence room it's there is going to be the chief's office the detective you know you've got people inside that building and because they are inside that building brings a lot of comfort to people there's a police department in the center of town now I've just heard that the center of town our vision is it's moving so because I don't call this the center of town I call this northern part of town but if in the future the plan is town is growing more North and this will be the center then that does bring a different but the residents are on not here the majority of the residents are down by the school and and that that's a lot of the concern too with you know the kids walking and so I listen to a lot of people on the location and and um I mean is there ever plan for a fire station in town I mean is that just a dead item alog together and I don't mean to be delaying this at all I really don't and nobody including myself um doesn't agree that we need a new police station okay that that's just I want to put that out there it's the location that's the concern and people are also you know the fire station too too I mean as this town continues to grow you know the need for a good fire station in close proximity is very important I challenge you to take the fire station to the county we even tried to try to figure another town hall downtown we we spent $30,000 trying to move it over to that same site and it was just money wasted we moved all over the place when I said let's build a new station rather than put them in an old broken down building again that's not designed for a station that's when hos Compton jumped up and donated that land on South Main that didn't work either I mean it's a challenge there's not that much um I don't know I mean we tried and we tried for years and we tried for years to find a place for when at Town Hall when we moved there was two women sitting at a desk together with elbows I was afraid we were going going to have a fire and it's going to be a disaster you would not believe the conditions there because we kept trying to find something downtown this building was only 975,000 look at it it's gorgeous we got all the commercial equipment we got all the tables all the chairs people still hate me because I said yes let's do this with the 17 Acres on 27 only 975,000 right good point um again there's no question that we need a new police station um from what you showed us absolutely no no question about it and I understand that the officers are in their cars now but again the feedback that we got and I remember it from well and I I'll corroborate what Colleen is saying the feedback from the people is that there's the intangible comfort of having a police presence closer to the main area uh it it's just so warm and fuzzy uh rather than out here where it's you know and they they understand that you're in the cars they understand all that but for some unexplainable uh warm and fuzzy they feel much safer if there's a building the perception of a presence in the downtown area uh police department is not a building a police department is people and that's what we need to accommodate is our people we need to accommodate the proper storage of evidence so that arrests that we make can go to trial wait I'm not arguing we do need a new building but that's the only question is the location but the location is already underway out here and we just need not to delay any further this as as Colleen said she wasn't aware that this the town is Project expected to grow in this direction and I'm sure the people that are in town really don't want it to grow in this Direction I mean I lived in town for a long time and I wouldn't want it to grow in this direction either but the reality is this is the this is really the only way for the town to grow is this direction and we we need to be we need to be good stewards of the taxpayers money and look to the Future and sometimes that vision is a little more clear than the folks that are just seeing their their own town I want to ask the police chief if the police station was here or if it was downtown where would your police officers be the same place they are now they'll be in their cars out on the road okay that's their job that's they're not going to be spending a lot of time at the Town Hall at the police station no I don't even myself they're going to be downtown protecting our citizens yes okay thank you okay no it it's understood and the people you know understand that you will be in your cars you will not be sitting at a desk at the station wherever it is I can't explain it's just the the perception that there is the building is there that yes ma'am there there's studies that show that there's no scientific evidence to support that a police station in the center of an area makes it safer people just feel safer with it there I I I I actually understand that what I try to get across is the officers are in their car the location of the station is irrelevant the officers are on the road doing their jobs that's where they're at they're in their cars they write their reports in their cars they can print the reports in their cars and hand them to you right there everything is done from their vehicle now we used to be we had to handr write this stuff and go back to the station and do it all it made sense to have it in the middle of of town then because we were tied to the station because of that now we're not the the technological advances have made it to where the station is just a place and for lack of better things to house evidence we need to house our evidence and to have our support staff to process the paperwork administrative and yes yeah okay it that is what we are looking at doing yeah it is nothing to do with I personally would just like to see this project continue I've I've worked here for 26 years as a police officer and I've seen this this debate continue it is circled around the field like this plane that is never going to land and every year we go around this field is exponentially more money we are adding to the price of this building when we first started the estimated cost of this Police Department was 700 $135,000 that's including the property Construction and design we're now up to almost 1.5 million because we continue to delay this project and delay it to to get more information to look at different options this is a plane we need to land I get right now is probably the worst time to build but there is never going to be a better time better time it is never going to get better so we have to make a decision a commitment as a town and move forward okay okay we have a motion in a second just one I have one question to Kevin just to clarify on the cost so what we're saying here is option two is 95,000 more expensive but it's a much flatter site with better access and growth so we're talking 95,000 uhuh what we're talking 95,000 plus 31,000 in design fees yeah yeah that was I 26,000 that's what exactly I was going to say 95,000 plus the 30,000 in the change in the design fees and is that something that you feel grants could cover or or where would that funding come from if that was um a decision taxpayer dollars the well sure everything any addition the whole 1.5 million any additional money right now is depending on where the bids come out or whatever is going to have to come out of the infrastructure fund okay if we apply for the USDA low interest loan there's no guarantee there's any grant money available for that we're eligible for 55% of that to be Grant they in that discussion they said we don't have a lot of funding for Grant we're not going to tell you there's any Grant available it will be at the time of the processing whether we get any of that Grant or not so that's the uh that's why I didn't even put I didn't put low interest Grant loans although it's a grant it's a loan grant program primarily loan you may qualify for Grants but they're funding for Grants is always a challenge so that's a uh we haven't found any other grants out there to pay for any of the any of other cost we using our ARA arpa funds um to cover the other piece of this and which we still have I believe we have time but time's on not on our side June of 2026 those funds have to be expended we have to close out the grants on the same timeline so we're not in a huge crunch yet okay yeah the when I well I didn't know so I needed to go find out I thought that the police station wasn't going to be under my per you but evidently it is but so I went to find out where's the police station going I heard it was going out here but I'm a council member and I don't know where it's going so then I found out I found about the figures we did lose a grant I think wasn't it we had like about around 555,000 grant money is that right okay and we still have that we lost the other grant money so the difference between 15 a million5 and that's going to be come out of infrastructure so um they're still applying for Grants but we already sold Town Hall um that was supposed to go towards the police station what were we going to do with that building it really didn't serve any purpose and we it wasn't I just we just needed to sell it so and build a real police station so so we sold we sell the building they're in let's say it's probably maybe around 300,000 and I think we sold the town hall for 350 so that's how much plus the 555 we have in the grant money so it's the difference now we're trying to see if you look at the assets that way and I'm not saying what y'all should do with these assets assets but evidently Public Utilities needs the police station it makes sense because we we can't sell it for anything else almost but that's the figures and that's kind of where we started this whole thing to try to get to where we could afford to build the police station and and don't forget the building that we have now is a police station that's a valuable piece of property it is and we can sell that that we will sell that and then that money comes right back into the just like into our fund so have to say Lorie slay did a beautiful building with our Old Town Hall but I'm just saying we sold that to fund the new police station we will sell the building they're in to fund the new police station we have this wonderful grant money of 555,000 so we're whittling down on that and now we're talking about maybe getting a grant loan type of situation so we're not done yet but it is tough people were really mad that we had Town Hall out here but we had people it was a serious critical situation we had to do something we couldn't just keep looking around for a site okay so the motion is to keep the police station here yeah move forward with the police station with option one all right that that's the motion we're talking about okay uh any comments from the audience I'll be brief um Mr Ken Blanc um I think you know I expect that when historic downtowns grow it's normal for the town hall to move out of out of the downtown it's normal for police stations to move out of downtown they they become bigger you know the facilities need to be bigger than what the the historic downtown can handle um you know when the town hall moved here I supported it because town hall is not it's a destination people drive to it to do their business and they leave it doesn't really bring value to the downtown um and I think the police station is kind of the same thing I mean fortunately we have a substation for the sheriff's department in the downtown so we will have a police uh substation there still I assume um but I think um I think the problem is more the warm and fuzzy thing that you were talking about people feel like it should stay in downtown they feel like Town Hall should stay in downtown they feel like the police department should stay in downtown but reality it doesn't change anything for it to move out people drive to the police Department I had to go there a few times I've driven there I had to go to town hall a few times I drive there you know and I just drive here instead so I think it's a I think the Town Council has got to make very smart decisions on the behalf of the town I think this town hall being purchase was brilliant idea um I think it was a very good idea and to save the town a tremendous amount of money in the future and I think uh the police it's time to build a new police department it's it's long since you know time to build a police department I think this is a smart place to build it the lands free you know like you said you're going to have a complex you have your Police Department with your town hall and things like that I think it makes sense I think it just makes practical sense and in the future this is going to be more the center of the Town than the town you know downtown is right now because through annexation and growing you know I think it just makes practical sense so I'm in support of police department here thank you had a conversation with one of our older members of the community that's been around here a lot of years and we were talking about the the police station and of course moving the the town hall from where it was to here and he said John he said I want to tell you a true story he said years ago when Town Hall used to be downtown and they decided to build that new building he said everybody in town was against it because they were moving it out of town well that it really is not out of town it's it's still in town uh and he he said no matter where you put it it's it's going to be beneficial to the town and he didn't have a problem with it anywhere but I I thought that was interesting that that that that he would he would just say people a lot of people just don't like change and I understand that but I I think we've got to make a decision on what we think's best for the town and that that's the way we need to go so at this time we'll go ahead and pull the council council member Hayes yes council member Worley yes council member Charles yes council member art yes thank you at the risk of delaying this discussion I I need to know some direction on whether to apply for the USDA low interest alone or not uh my my question is I understand a loan and we've got the money in the infrastructure account how how much would we spend on interest over the length of the loan I I don't know if that's a question we can answer or not but uh I I I think to help save the taxpayers money uh my personal view is let's let's just go ahead and pay for it then when we sell the the police station we got and maybe even the other property down on hill on Hill Crest that that money's more than going to make up for it but that that's just my personal opinion I don't know if anybody can answer my question on how much we would pay an interest on the loan because you can't guarantee we'll get the grant um Michael Noel I would take the 3% loan and you still have the money in the bank and if you want to prepay the loan you can without any penalty and that frees your hands up for other projects that may come along that you're not particularly looking at it's being on the radar right now okay Mr Noel was a is still a financial advisor so that's our I think on good authority I you know we can all always not accepted if they do decide to give it to us and Kevin beats his head against the wall we don't really have to have to take it if we do get it I mean you can always say no we changed our mind and say no and then we can look at our situation then you want to you want to make that motion apply to the ground yeah I'll make a motion that we apply for USDA loan towards the infrastructure for the police department I'll second all right we have a motion second any further discussion from the podium hearing none we'll take it the audience all right bring it back P the council please council member Worley yes council member Hayes yes council member Charles yes council member everheart yes okay 7 D1 Advisory Board appoint uh Advisory Board appointment replacement this one should go a lot faster um we have a vacancy on lpra uh we have an alternate vacancy on the LPA I've received an interest letter from an individual that's interested in serving on the LPA um and then the real question is how do you want to go about advertising and filling positions because you could there's several members the council members could make recommendations they could open it up to the general public The Advisory boards can come back or we can do all the above we can put it on the website just quick consensus about how you want me to advertise for the board positions Kevin what is L PR and LPA and now C that's the one we did already right yeah that's what I was thinking didn't we do the utility and put you on it already you're adding you're adding two members to the CRA board so I'm ass I not going to assume anything but if you want me to put it on the website it how we solicit nextd door app how we solicit me uh volunteers to our boards I see what you're saying we don't have a process in the past it's been done a couple of different ways we've had LPA members that come up with a member to make to fill a vacancy and they've made that recommendation we've had council members I understand that have made the recommendation to fill so and then if you want to open it up to the general public and say anybody that's interested and apply which I believe is the way we did the Council seat um then we can do that I just wanted some direction I think it'd be a good idea to have a consistent format for that so I would make a motion that we that we do put something on the website and have that consistent format that someone anyone that is looking to fill a vacancy that we have advertised if you will that they would come forth with a resume and be prepared to to speak before Council to uh to speak their peace I guess I should say and then and then give a a date certain a number of days that they need to respond by if we if we go that way yeah we also have then give them like respond within X number of days right yes yeah it happens on a normal basis so once we open those positions it' be filled for the next council meeting um so that'll be the the date for these if you want to do that we would get it posted it'll be how they'll have until the the week before the June meeting if you're looking for that so okay I'll second that motion then thank you had us I was wondering if we had a second or not waiting for that we have a motion of second any other comments from the podium I need to address one okay the motion is stated the motion is stated is just fine but a couple of times tonight we have talked about using Facebook and I believe another app if you are app if you are using those for Town Communications that comes under uh public record and you've got to save copies okay of every iteration are you doing that so right now for the website we're covered on everything um the next door app we don't do Communications with the public we just post the meetings or posts the information it is saved under the next door app but Facebook is a whole different I talked to the communication officer at pyland County uh in length on how they're doing it up there she that's all she does she she that you see that Highlands County very interactive on Facebook that's one person that does that on a regular basis and they have special software and everything that they're doing that with and they keep copies Chief has something on that I think that he's that currently we do use the software at the police department to Archive everything on Facebook that we do a Facebook the the lake pla police department does yes um and actually I don't believe it's actually much more to add the town onto that account to Archive a town account if the count Town wishes to proceed that direction my only point is tonight that if you are using these other services you must keep copies of every iteration okay to remember when you're doing that you have to keep copies of everything even posts that are deleted you have to have the copies of it Chief is correct okay poll the council council member Hayes yes council member Charles yes council member Worley yes council member eart yes okay 7 D2 FD grant for Lake June Hills lift station and Force main so Lake June Hills has its own wastewater treatment plant um we've had multiple conversations with the president of that Home Owners Association and their board and they would like for us to they're interested in closing their wastewater treatment plant they would like us to seek loans or seek a grant to install a lift station and Force main to tie into ours on late June on County Road 17 North um this would be permission to apply for that Grant through D that Grant cycle closes at the end of June so we would have to get started on that Grant fairly quickly if not then we're into next year a year from now's Grant application so I need permission to apply for the grant on Lake Jun Hill's behalf how many homes does that service that sewer plant that has no reuse that Wastewater Plant serves approximately 100 I didn't get the exact number but approximately 100 homes are in that Lake June Hill subdivision on the Wastewater Plant so for me this is an opportunity to take a that that plant was built I think in the 70s take a hundred homes off the the I can't hear you I'm sorry I can't okay so that to me that means we're taking 100 home sewage that's not going through any kind kind of process for reuse we're taking it off the lake and so if we can get a grant to do that we're wiping out 100 homes just that and they want it and it's a good thing I believe so I'm going to go ahead and make the motion that we do apply for the grant I'll second up yeah years ago when we built the plant these are the type of little plants that we wanted to incorporate uh and and put them into our system so this this just fit right in with what we wanted to do do you all know where that plant is if you go the back way out of town okay if you go the back way out of town like you're going the back way to go to 27 like you're going out towards Heartland to you turn before you go go go to Tangerine it's way down there right by Lake June right down at the bottom of the hill okay you know where that mobile home park is all right any other comments from the podium U just quick so this is a $500,000 Grant that's how much we think the Grant's going to be that's a very rough estimate we haven't done any engineering estimate on this so but just based on our current bids that we're getting on this is much smaller lift station than what we're putting in at camp and Conference Center that was 320,000 for that one um this is a small oil station so it's a guest but yes it's $500,000 Grant request and so this would be gravity is that what we're thinking or is it to they have a gravity system this is good cuz it's it's right across the road from the current plant pretty much it's not across the road it will be on the same site as the current plant all of their gravity into all of their their facility grav into a lift station which then lifts it up into their plant it's not a lift station that we would take over or maintain we need a what I'll say is a real LIF station with dual pumps and a panel it would still be on the same property as the um current waste Water Treatment Plant because that's where their all gravity is designed to so it's actually would be on part of their property we'd have to negotiate where exactly because we haven't done that piece of it but it would be on the same site um you want I can probably pull it up and show I was say clarify that for me because today they have a wastewater treatment one of these many sites right they self-sufficient for that subdivision for about a 100 homes and so this would be not to reroute it to our Wastewater Plant this would be you're saying lift stations and continue to use their wastewater treatment plant no their their wastewater treatment plant would get shut down okay right now everything gravities in their their hund home subdivision everything gravities to a lift station which then lifts it up into their plant it's gravity it's below their plant their B Plant if you ride by there their tanks are above ground a Gra gravities into a lift station and that lifts up into their plant where it's treated this instead would gravity into our lift station which will then pump it to our wastewater treatment plant okay thank you okay where we at it's getting late we have a motion in a second all right any other discussion to the audience bring it back pull the council council member Worley yes council member Hayes yes council member Charles yes council member art yes all right what's next the technical assistant Grant yes um Regional planning council is RPC we'd like to request permission to apply technical assistance grant with the r with the regional planning Council um in fact the deadline was May 10th so we've actually have applied we will withdraw it if the council disagrees um this is a technical assistant grant that would help us with a downtown historical district overlay and a us27 overlay um get started and I'll let Dana if she wants to add to it you're welcome too but uh this is to come up it started with the parking and as we look through options and try and figure out how to do parking and right now our historic old district is kind of Main Street and in Lake and how you incorporate other neighborhoods into that and what you do with an overlay which is primarily facades and and what it looks like but it will also address barking and some other things so it's a technical assistant Grant through Florida commerce I believe um and so it's permission to apply for that Grant how much money 75,000 only 25,000 $25,000 does this are are you looking for a motion is that what we need we need a motion yes I'll make a motion that we uh approve the technical assistant Grant with the RPC to help us with the historical district and US 27 zoning overlay I'll second it okay you have a motion and second on the on the podium any other comments up here take it to the audience bring it back pull the council please council member [Music] Charles yes council member Hayes yes council member Worley yes council member art yes all right next is 72c fdap playground SL splash park Grant request directions this is we are allowed um we are allowed to have two fap Florida Rec recreational development assistance program Grants open at one time if the council would like us to try and apply for another one those are due in August end of August end of August um and I need some direction if they want us to uh if you would like us to to apply for one of those f app grants uh there's been discussion tonight in in my conversations about a splash park and we also have two playgrounds at Lake June Park that are in need of replacement so just need a little bit of direction on where you'd like us to go and whether you'd like us to apply for one I'll jump in because this was uh a lot of interest from the public on you know it's Florida it's outside the weather's beautiful give our kids something to do so there was a lot of interest in pursuing again not a water park but a splash park a splash pad um and so you know I totally support it so I mean I'll make a motion uh that we pursue the do you say fap is that how you say that acronym uh and I also let me just back up I also totally support replacement of a lot of the items at the at the parks um and that came up a lot you know people pointed out what some of the things were wrong with some of our existing old playground structures right you know if it gets used it gets worn out and um I think it's important that uh we we replace it so it looks like this is a dual fur app request it'll be one of the other so it's either going to be you're not going to get both fap grants are limited to $200,000 they're also Point based we're going to have to be creative on either one of these I believe to get actually make the list so but it' be one or the other just based on the uh cost of the if you're going to build a splash pad you'll spend all 200,000 on the splash pad so if you're going to build do a park you might get well no not not for the size Parks we have they'll be well over $100,000 plus installation so you're probably going to get just one park out of an out of a Grant application when you say the park you mean playground equipment I mean playground equipment so there's two at Lake June Park um one on the west side by the ball fields and then one on the east side so there's two of those playgrounds that are there so so how will you so we need to decide one or the other you can't that was my I wasn't yeah I wasn't clear enough in my direction so that's you need to decide whether you want me to apply for a playground whether you want me to apply for a splash pad or whether you just want to wait and try next year I don't want to wait I want to try for something um is it do you think this is an annual because I was looking at the fur app um website and they you know I saw the whole thing about their interest in trying to find areas for splash pads and and actually they showed some pictures of a water splash pad which was interesting you know in right in the lake which I know brings all types of other questions on lifeguards and things like that but that was in their last um meeting presentation that you know are looking for somebody some town to come forward you know with some type especially commit to it be open in the three summer months of a splash pad um but I'm equally if nor more myself interested in getting the playgrounds up to the conditions that they should be in and if they're not in an area where it's shaded that we need the shades because you know it gets to be hot and then it doesn't get used because of the heat from the Sun you know for the kids to use them so I'm I'm not going to do we have to make a motion in order to discuss it that's what we have to do I'm just going toch pass to my other council members on what their ideas of which priority we should go for but I do think we should if there's money out there let's go for it so I'll make a motion for discussion because you do have to make a motion oh motion for okay gotcha so I'll make a motion notion that we apply for a grant for the fur playground um and my reasoning for that is we already have playgrounds and we know they're successful so let's go ahead and and do the playgrounds and have this hopefully to can to um also be able to cover some sort of a u would also be able to pay for some sort of a cover for the playground second okay discussion I you have to second it for discussion you second it okay okay all right so now we can discuss it um so um I know there was a lot of interest in a splash park but I think oops I think although there was a lot of requests for um slash park I think TimeWise efficiency wise is to go for the playground equipment now and then have Community involvement to figure out where they would like us flash Park and and do that in the next go around but concentrate on the easiest thing right now is the playground equipment I agree they need covers I had this discussion with Mr Mardi and he that he's comes from an area where they did have covers because the little children's skin is so tender and in Florida it's always hot and they can't even use the equipment so what's the point but he said if the hurricanes come and we probably need to discuss that later but if the hurricanes come they take down the tarps of course so they don't blow away and then they don't go back on until after Hurricane Season so that's during the hot time so I just wanted to point that out because I had the same question to put the tarps on so maybe we need to be more aggressive putting them back on I don't know I just wanted to tell you guys that that's wisdom here thank you I and and I'm fine with that I I also o asked though Kevin take a look to see if there's a chance for something with the splash park like I said I went under the I actually printed some pictures of it I think I um and I'm like oh they're asking for people to sign up for this so if we only have one opportunity for a grant that's fine but I'd like to know what this we really want people to sign up for something might be because I would ask for feedback on if there was an opportunity to do both then what is our feeling on that I can assure you Dana will give me plenty of feedback on that I didn't hear you I'm sorry I said Dana will give me plenty of feedback on the splash park okay we have a motion in a second for apply for the grant for a new park new playground okay uh any other comments from the podium take it the audience Ken LeBlanc um yeah I'd just like to support um I mean and I think the town should always be making this town a more livable place um so Parks especially spash park I think is something that's on a lot of people's mind I think it makes sense like you're saying you know it's it's you know maybe we need to plan for the splash park and maybe you're looking for funding next year because we got to figure out where to put it and everything else but I think it should be on the radar I think a lot of people have wanted that for many years I mean I wish I had it when my kids could actually use it but you know maybe grandkids can use it someday but I think it's a great idea and I'd like to mention the property behind Bert Harris's office there before you guys sell it off maybe that's a place where a splash park could be or a place for a dog park to be or something like that you know so dog Park's something that I've heard a lot of people would like to have in this town as well so but I think it's good that you're pursuing these things and the splash park would be awesome if it comes by all right okay bring them back pull the council council member Hayes yes council member eart yes council member Worley yes council member Charles yes okay well now go to D2D pickle Bow Court and lak Pla June Park rpac request so I'm going to bring this I'll bring this up before we get into the rpac request so um this will be for the August rpac board meeting this is a conceptual rendering of pavement when I say pickle ball report we did get we applied for and received a $200,000 grant for the pickle ball courts um I my request I'll go to in a minute but this is a conceptual design that has Paving parking you'll see 83 spaces we'll have to come back or my intention is to come back to the LPA and the uh and the council to request that 50% of those stay as grass parking lots grass parking spaces and not pave parking spaces but it ties into the original conceptual plan phase two of of Lake June Park so I'll bring that back up just for you to look at but that's a very different than what you had seen originally or a year ago when you went out for the pickle ball court um this is the nitty construction cost estimate nitty construction is the leading manufacturer pickleball courts in the area they did Spring Lakes Spring Lake is very happy with their with their uh construction and what they did um the $229,000 estimate you will see is going to be higher than that when you look at our total cost estimates because we we did um reduce the interior dividers from that was in part of the original plan to Forfeit which adds 8,300 to that 229 and then we also added for the design uh the four Cabanas 8 foot long Cabanas in between the courts um for discussion and so that's not big enough so this is our current cost estimate for the pickle ball courts Paving lighting of the pickle ball courts um pretty much everything that's in that plan that we could come up with and and do so we could get it done at once total budget of right at $700,000 um I'm asking for a town match of 200,000 which matches the f app Grant and the and my request R pack would be for 299,000 um as a contribution if you approve the request so that would be the uh rpat funding request we would go as far as we could with the uh Paving depending on where the we believe we have good estimates um but they are just estimates and depending on where this happens and when this happens that everything changes as we've known of the last couple of years so uh it's open for discussion and what you would like to approve or not approve as far as the we I did not provide and I probably should have just the pickle ball court with nothing else but without parking and without access to the pickle ball courts it didn't make a lot of didn't make a lot of logical sense to me to put them out in the middle of the field without um without the rest of the costs so I will add in and I'm sure council member Charles will um jump in on this one um where it's shown there was a question that she had discussed with me about keeping that area for um kids to play in you could shift the pickle ball courts it's flat section you could shift them to the South and slightly to the west and still fit them in and protect some of that play area and stay on the flat section but then if you don't if you go too far you start running into that elevation which runs up onto the soccer fields so open for discussion so do we have the F fdap Grant already do do that one's been approved so so far so far we have the 200,000 was approved the 200,000 from the town is not approved no town is not approved I know the town yes so the 200,000 fep Grant is approved um we'll receive that sometime this summer I think when the new budget goes into effect is there a timeline I think not positive but I think it goes into it it comes in with a new budget so it'll be after July 1st we we're putting in 200,000 because it's a is a matching Grant no that's it's it is a partial matching Grant the 200 our pack likes us to match 50% it's been an argument back and forth over time from what I understand um so and it has also been the argument that we are a third the size of of Avon Park and Spring Lake and sun and lake and Sebring and therefore our match should not be the 50% match that is typical for R Pac right I believe there has been some reception to that and we're approaching this so that was the original Grant requests for those that had seen this earlier I think our match was at 18% and it was $77,000 um I did raise that but we're also doing quite a bit more with the parking area than was originally intended in that original request so I may be a little aggressive but i' rather ask for more and get less than not ask for as much as we can get our town ad administrator will be that person there fighting for the money so he's our new guy that the the um arack people seem to be in favor of pickle ball because if they get enough of them they could have a tournament here so this is for eight courts with lighting that's correct you need eight courts in order to host a tournament which is to host what to host a tournament you need eight courts which is why Spring Lake only put in six so I mean this was a lot of the feedback was the location you know we can go back to the map because where it's currently for these um it's the flat area in front of the Pavilion that when um the families have picnics that's kind of a lot of the area that the kids will run around and play uh between there and going over to the playground um so that was a big concern you know there was questions on is it really going to be used do we need eight of them should we start with four of them so there was different you know and I actually looked you know Kevin I don't know if this would even work but looks like it would to me but over off a Jackson Road between the ballparks is a nice long big flat area too you know uh cuz pickle ball gets noisy very noisy you know a lot of people you know those that like it don't want it right next to their house because of the the constant noise a lot of people ask the question in the summertime is it really going to get used a lot so there was a lot of feedback on you know at that time it was 450,000 now we're talking 700,000 is it really a top priority of the different um other types of activities that people people would like to see in the town I can tell you from the feedback that I get on pickle ball I get really tired of pickle ball because I hear it a lot but um there are people and I can think I can tell you meal Lake Oak Island Heaven only knows where else that are playing pickle ball um in Earnest and and they are definitely looking for sites to play in addition uh you you may not be aware we took the shuffle board courts out of Downtown lake plet at from Stuart Park and at that time we said to the public that we would put some other type of entertainment somewhere else and this is kind of what came up at the same time and so I feel like that's a nice tradeoff that we now we can have this upand coming sport which it truly is uh upand cominging sport be out there at at the park and I don't think being outside is going to bother these people at all they'll play Early in the Morning they'll play late at night especially if it's lighted I don't think that will be an issue and as far as the children playing I I get that they've been accustomed to playing there but children will play anywhere they really will yeah my concern is you're taking away the line of sight from you've got the Pavilion where the families are having their picnics and and now you're um by putting the pickle ball court there you're pushing the children more towards the soccer field so there's 's a lot of line of sight too that's that came up as concerns I'm sorry where's soccerfield on the bottom here soccerfield goes up towards um Inner Lake oh please I'm not he's not really showing it so we're all the um can you point the words are yeah down there this it's up here this is up here why aren't they going this way why don't they go this way this the Pavilion in the want to be yeah but are these aren't bushes these are trees there's room underneath they can play there uh playing the traffic no see I think some of these things especially if now we're talking 200,000 of town money to contribute um it'd be nice to have workshops to allow the public to come and give comments on us moving forward with you know this type of activity a lot of towns do that they put out the say the town is looking at adding pickle ball courts here it's going to be X dollar we're going to get grants from here but we're going to have to contribute this and to get that feedback on is this really the best interest of the town's money if it was all grant money is where it used to be right it was pretty much all grant money now it's kind of flipped that we've got to kick in a lot more than we've originally anticipated there was a great deal of discussion on pickle ball courts before you came on Council um and Mr Wilson was very strong on pickle ball courts and I think you can go back probably a year or more so yet again um I'm not against workshops in any way however it does delay the process and we've already been a long time looking at the pickle ball courts but if we want to put yet another project back into reverse or neutral uh we can and two or three comments on if you just want to do the pickle ball courts with nothing else and you're talking about a $400,000 project still lighted um with the pond which is required depending on where you want to put it if you put it on the West side it's still going to be that same 400,000 you don't have access to you don't have good access to restrooms on the other side the other part of this is it ties to parking in for the Little League which Parks all over that area um all over this area they also park on the other side but the vast majority of people Park in here during Little League games and it also solves some of the issues isues with the boat ramp because you're now Paving this area um that's why it's a $700,000 request and not a $400,000 request because you're actually Paving the road and creating these will still be grass spots um and these will be grass spots but you start creating that pavement area so we're done with the uh potholes and the issues of of some of that paved area so it's a combination of multiple things for that area like I said if you want to move it then that's an option it's just up for discussion I just just want to make those points that it's pickleball courts is still a $400,000 project lighted with a pond if you want to do Paving as part of this project then that's a $700,000 project well there's no question that the paving the potholes by the boat ramp are pretty bad needs to be addressed I just need a motion in a Direction before and if you want to move this to June it's fine there's not a rush on that but we need to have Direction before we apply to rpac because I can't put an application in part rpac committing Town funds without your approval and permission there someone that wants to speak yeah you go ahead yes if I may my name is Josephine cley and I have heard a lot about the pickle ball courts in the last three years okay um but I'm never heard anything about the um lift stations but I have heard about the pickle ball for three years okay but try to talk to a councilman on something else other than pickle ball was very difficult on the outside of this building I am a pickle ball player um here's my concern uh now that I'm getting your ideas and what you're thinking uh you're hoping to bring in more maybe tournaments okay uh what my thought is I play pickle ball at these different places you have the Genesis Center who offers to everyone which is wonderful it's not seven days a week but it's play about five different times through the week you have sun and Lake on 98 which is a very nice pickle ball court that's Sebring you have spring and Lake you have sun and Lake North I'm sorry then you have Spring Lake on 98 very nice pickle ball courts Jolly Brown in Sebring and you've got sun and Lake South so you have quite a lot of pickle ball courts you only have one that has lighted the one that has lighted courts or Charlie Brown now I'm thinking why don't we start small why don't we try four p pickle ball courts and as a pickle ball player I can say to you people do not want to play out in that heat okay especially you know I know it's a big active Sport and I love it I think it's great but I can't play out in that heat I know a lot of people that can't and they'll say gee whiz we put these pickle ball courts in and nobody's using them so why don't we try small why don't we try four pickle ball courts you know it's a Direction and if we see it so successful let's expand but when you have and my understanding is there's a development right behind Lake June point on Catfish Road that's going to put in multiple pickle ball courts in their Community okay they're going to be a private community so I'm saying we have all these pickle ball courts and I'm looking at what you're proposing if all eight courts are used at excuse me at once you're talking 32 players well I've not seen that and I've been to several of these pickle ball courts okay um and then you have weather conditions you have a lot of conditions with pickle ball that you really don't get to play but again it's the biggest sport out there it's wonderful it's great but I'm looking at the money aspect could we not put that money into something better for the town for right now and work on building more pickle ball courts that's just the thought because you're just not going to get competition in here coming right away for eight pickle ball courts unless you have some big plans of bringing in like I see I see it in Naples I see it at all different parts of the country so why don't we start small it doesn't hurt because we have so many things on the stove right now so many projects so many grants out there and to me this is not a PR priority because we have so many pickle ball courts but I don't want to I I mean I want to go along with hey that's a great idea start out with four but that's just a thought so it's not like and I am tired of hearing about it I I hear you okay because I'm a player for five years now I'm a golf pro it gets old so anyway thank you so much as I recall um when we started talking about this a long time ago and here we are Reinventing the wheel again um but there was some tourist development reason why we didn't want to build Four Courts that we needed to build eight was it Casey wall that told us we had to build eight or needed to build eight to make it viable or something I think the whole tournaments you needed more than four right and then and then I heard something that for tournaments you really need 12 or something which which brings more people in and more right you know but if we can bring the tournaments we can bring the tour tax dollars right so right so just a quick comment the Council made a decision to apply for the grant was based on eight courts so if you choose to build something less you can turn down the Grant and we'll go on and move on to something else they would probably pull our grant money they would they would yeah okay thank you I knew there was a reason there somewhere thank you pentress I'm one of the people that usually stays till the end so I've heard my fair share of pickle ball discussion over the years and years and years and council member Charlie Wilson would always during his comments talk about pickle ball for 20 30 minutes so I appreciate revisiting certain things but I think for the stability of the town the staff once something comes up before the council and it's voted on several times and they didn't it's gone to a County uh level there has to be some kind of process where we don't open it up again again and it's over p i don't play Pickleball but a lot of people love it but we had I mean a lot of great ideas floating around there but we I would encourage you to move on that's all I say thank you and I understand what you're saying but this was all done with the old Council now we've got new members and they've got different ideas uh but I I I think we're kind of locked into what we got so so we're I think we're pretty much going to have to stay there Ken La Blanc um you I'd say since 2005 I've been driving through that Park dirt parking lot wondering why it's not paved so I think it's a great idea that it'll get paved in this project it's about time and um and I think you know I would build the eight courts and allow us to have tournaments because that puts you know they say heads and beds right so then people stay in the hotels and people go to wet dogs and they go to the restaurants downtown and then it helps the businesses so you know I don't think we have anything like that in Lake plet right now Sebring you know gets the benefit of their Ball Fields having tournaments all the time you know so I think it's you know it's good for us we got a lot of space out there so I think we can make things happen and I I think this makes you know Lake plast a more livable place you know uh the the tennis courts at the high school my kids go there all the time in the evening and play tennis if there were pickle ball courts they'd go there all the time and play pickle ball and maybe I would too you know but I I think I'm about the only person I know that doesn't play Pickleball everybody talks about it now so a lot of people are playing pickleball and um okay okay all right so so just quickly to Kevin so so again the biggest thing I kept hearing was the location just pushing it back a little more towards the soccer fields is that like a big deal to do to to kind of be you know cuz you can see where the children's playground is and then we're putting a Park paveed parking right next to the play structure there and then we've got the pickle ball courts and then again you've got the Pavilion up there so if you kind of push that a little more East because this is still just a conceptual design you haven't gone out for where the Pond's going to be and everything like that I think there was a lot more that needed to get done we haven't begun engineering on it until tell you had approval so [Music] um just an engineering estimate so yes you could shift that I believe sou still a lot flat there right it goes a lot flat andir amount of flat land there that you could do field so I I believe you can provide some space in between the Pavilion or adjacent to the Pavilion kind of under that tree the parking for the playground was intentional that can shift and go you know so depending on where you're at but the but you could easily shift the uh pickleball courts to the to the South that's the correct direction I think it is um to the South to the bottom of the page and and then provide some space there and that would be uh really that would probably be up to poulston to look at that and on the elevations and see where you get and depends on your fill but I don't see any issue with that the U the item on the agenda tonight is to prove whether or not to apply for a grant we can always fine-tune the layout later correct this is just to apply for the grant well this is the r pack which is their part of the matching I guess you want to consider it a grant from the county that would be correct um and they have to approve it before we'll actually start design so so there's a chance to tweak the design later correct we could actually come back with a revised drawing which will still not be a final drawing until they do the engineering and S set size of the ponds this is a conceptual plan so this is the Grant and committing us to 200,000 potential that's correct 200,000 from the county county reserves 200,000 fap Grant which you've already received and then the request rpac rpac may come back and say we're not going give you 380,000 but we'll give you 200 and we can come back to the council or we can reduce Paving and pave the section which was part of the original and pave the section up here um up here around the boat ramp and hold this off for a later date depending on what the funding ises if they fund all of it we anticipate that we will do all of the road paving along here and approximately half of the parking spaces so and is there any opportunity anywhere else to get grants because I I agree with Mr LeBlanc I mean that dirt you know it's not even even there um you know for that showcase Park having it PID would be the thing to do I mean I had even mentioned to Kevin I would like to see the road continued between Jackson Road and you know along the backside to be able to connect you know if you're coming from Placid Lakes area and you want to get to the park you know there's a half Road there behind uh the park you can't even drive from one side to the other it's never been finished but um that's a story for another day I guess but so so is there any other opportunity to continue to look to see if there's any type of grants for the whatever we're going to get saddled with I don't know if anywhere else that you're going to get a partial grant for this um Road Grants are tough to get it's usually based on the recreational facility and then that's part of your match and part of what you're doing is putting the roads in and that infrastructure to accommodate that so there may be something out there I'm just not familiar with it yeah I'm just think conf Federal something because we've now got Florida we've got County there's some federal money or something there may be we I just haven't seen it what is the opportunity for us to table this till the next meeting yes are we going to miss a rupac meeting if we do that no it's it's in August could we table this for the next meeting sure motion to table need a you make a mo I'd like to make a motion to table this item till the next meeting and that way we can maybe get some better input on pickle ball players and um some as to how we have gotten here in the first place second okay a motion second any other discussion take it the audience hold the council please council member Hayes yes council member art yes council member Worley yes council member Charles yes last thing on the agenda is the Lake June Fish and Wildlife Commission planning of aquatic plants actually there's couple more items but couple yes um that is a just an information update fish and wildlife has been approved to plant 20,000 funding has been approved for them plant 20,000 plants along Lake June scrub Park so uh you will see that I don't have a timeline yet from the county and Fish and Wildlife but that will be happening and it should help it's another step in your multiphase approach to uh doing something to approve Lake June so that was that one um my walk-on item is 151 di Hall property by Centennial Park you had previously approved D $290,000 to purchase that property um it has sold to eock realy she is willing to sell it to us for 300,000 um I wasn't going to add the 10,000 even 10,000 is within my spending Authority but I'm not going to add that 10,000 and say yes we'll make an offer on it so I want Council Direction there is I don't have all of the answers so my question would be contingent up upon approval by the attorney that's handling that real estate transaction which is Roberto CA the reason we didn't close on that originally is there's a title issue and there was a question about Title Insurance because of that title issue we now have a second seller that has been sold AO has title insurance so we anticipate that we could get Title Insurance there is still a risk what I couldn't get answered from Mr CA was how great a risk who could possibly come back and make a claim on that property if we purchased it so there is a there is a risk associated with the property I'm not 100% sure of what that risk is we could not file a claim according to him because we had no contract we had no right to file a claim so we weren't part of the property even though we' have leased that property for a long long time um but I wanted to be fully clear there is a risk if you approve purchasing that property that somebody may be able to come back in the future I don't know who and make a claim on that property so um but I would direction if we want to maintain that park by Centennial Park it does include the building um we have talked about it in the past I did not bring the drawing with me I thought I did um talked about it when we originally were looking at purchasing that that we'd have the building to be available for birthday parties and small events and we could also put about approximately 20 Park in spaces on there without eliminating the park so um I wanted to put that out there for Council discussion to as to whether to move forward she was not inclined to wait a month she wants to she's planning on moving her real estate office into there and she was not willing to accept the 290,000 that I had been previously authorized to offer so uh that's why it's back up on tonight's agenda for the additional 10,000 if you are still inclined to pursue purchasing that property or not so now they want more for the property than what we offered well it's a second seller she's already the original owner sold the property to Eve Brock Now Eve Brock is closed on the property at closing cost and expenses and so she's not willing to sell it for the same price how big is the building on there I don't have the square footage of the building I've been in it walked through it it's been completely remodeled estimate about, 1500 square fet it's two large rooms a bathroom a kitchen two bathroom two large bedrooms I guess what I would call or two large rooms not so one was probably the living room one was probably the bedroom there's two bathrooms at least one of which would have to be remodeled to a uh handicap bathroom so there would be some expense at some point moving forward to get that handicap candy you do you remember how big that building was okay it's it's a block and a half from Journal Plaza it to me it's a great location for the park particularly if it was some irrigation and tied into that building we had a similar Park situation in clu and we run it out for birthday parties all the time the building they have a place to go inside use the bathroom go use the park you could get dinner at one of the restaurants in town come back block and a half you got 20 parking spots kids have a place to play play so that's my interest in the park um it's like I said another asset for the town if you're so inclined but uh and then what condition is the building just thinking of future maintenance and upkeep and repairs the building was recently renovated so the building is in very good condition um flooring it's all been painted it's actually in I was very surprised it's in very good shape it would not the Scouts for years yeah but Mr gon Danner had remodeled the building recently so in the last four or five years I would say um last one year oh last one year so uh very recently renovated it's a it's a it's within the CRA you could C use CRA funds to do the parking areas you could also use CR CRA funds if you were so inclined to put the playground equipment that we had had to remove because of the age back on that property so logically it makes a world of sense for that neighborhood and for that area to me and uh but again there is some risk that I think is relatively minor but I'm not the attorney looking at that so yeah if I can speak to Ken Blanc so I I think it's like you said it's in a good location the building itself well it's not much to look at I think you know probably you put a outside covered area on that so people could sit on you know while their kids are playing they could be sitting in underneath the roof it's a great place for birthday parties it's uh you know we had talked maybe you know uh I think in Clon they they had a similar situation they would rent it out for dayare or something like that it's got a lot of opportunities and options but you know once it gets bought and turned into something else you'll never get that opportunity again it's been a playground for I don't know longer than I've been here and uh it just seems to be like a good location for that and like you said it's in the crra district so maybe it becomes C project but as development and there's a lot of development that's going to happen around there more you know residential and things like that it's it's you know in a good central location to all of that so I think it I think it was a good plan for the town to buy that property and if you're going to have to buy it for 10,000 more than you had to buy it before that's not that big a deal you know in my mind right so especially if you got the fund set aside for it already so I think it'll be good worthwhile for the town it'll be making the town a more livable place and walkable I have the square footage is, 1420 square feet um there's four Lots 65 by 126 so that's the size of the property it was built in 1965 and it does appear to have central air so fiscal impacts 300,000 1,420 square feet no no he's asking it's 300,000 300,000 plus closing coods yes and where would that come from it's also going to come from the our infrastructure fund infrastructure we have money 2 point $2.1 million in there currently okay no I agree I I like the location I like the great opportunities whether it's for parties or five 10 years for now Recreation Department I mean the the park sitting right there um so Central so I'll go ahead and make a motion that we move forward to purchase what's the address 151 D Hall 151 yes Dale Hall um but with the caveat that the title risk that the Our Town attorney is comfortable with whatever risk can be you know mitigated can I make that in the motion like that that would be my scare when you said there's a risk associated with it I have had to recuse myself from that issue because I represented Mr gissendaner in the past and his daughter they have now sold the property to Eve Brock so that conflict I believe has gone now that said we've already paid Roberto to come up to speed on that uh um let he or I'll have a conversation with Roberto and let see and and and we'll figure it out is that close enough yeah I mean I'd like to proceed that's my only concern is make sure that we can mitigate the risk to the town I I agree with what he said any risk should be minimal from what I know but Roberto has done the deeper dive into this so if you'd let us guess your motion is fine okay okay sorry second okay she's second I just say that it's on the property records although they're two or three weeks behind it's still in Dr glissen Diner's name it's still in D ganner's name but they're two or three weeks behind I know that at the courthouse so we just need yeah just make sure what's what's going on with the title okay so we have a motion in a second any discussion from anybody pull the council council member Charles yes council member everheart yes council member Hayes yes council member warley yes okay um and last for me but uh we we skipped over the pipe bursting project update so I'll do that update real quick the uh we had a pre-construction meeting with the contractor that's the pipe bursting project on interl from 27 to Maine um they once again have delayed the start of that construction it will start on August 19th um that's mobilization none of the uh pipe bursting will actually take place until the beginning of October it'll run through December 19th or 20th which is about the end of our grant they can't delay it any longer we're going to lose that uh cdbg Grant but but uh they did ask and we gave them tentative permission they would like to do most of that pipe bursting at night so they don't affect any of the businesses during the day so there will be at the locations they do about 300 feet at a time so at that 300 foot Mark there will be excavations so but they want to impact the business owners as little as possible when they're doing that project we don't have until they get into a lot more of it um um we won't have any exact dates but that's that was their request it doesn't change the price at all but they would do the uh most of the pipe bursting at night so that's the update on the pipe bursting project we'll have more as we move forward and get closer to uh to them actually starting work if I may the I believe sherion raised the question about not getting Landscaping done on that side of the street or in some of the areas that's one of the reasons what we're waiting until thank you the pipe bursting is done because it's a transite pipe which is brittle that's all I have you have something okay well go ahead I I'll let you go first then then we'll finish up uh my my question is uh for Kevin can you give us an update on the status of the uh wastewater treatment plant contract as far as you were going to be uh uh looking at possible value engineering or maybe the city doing some of the demolition work or you know things like that can you state your name and address please for the record I'm sorry Jack cley 607 Sunset Point Drive yes we uh got their proposed reductions in scope at the I believe it was Wednesday last Wednesday um extremely disappointed in their recommendations and what they were willing to provide to us and they chose they do not want to participate in Owner Direct purchases so right now we have about $4 or $500,000 that were is their maximum reductions in their scope of work their statement to us is they already saved us $7 million or $6 Million by being the low bid which is not an adequate response um it is setting the tone of the way the construction project will be which they're not going to like um I've have fair amount of experience in this they're not going to like me much but that's okay um but very disappointed in their comeback on the uh on the reductions in scope we have not signed a contract we're still uh we're scheduled a meeting with the engineer penon tomorrow to go over those and discuss and try and come up with a game plan before we're going to sign any uh okay contract and and the original uh their their original bid was uh was it like 32 some million 34 million 34 519,000 or something in that neighborhood okay so and just just one more question then the uh design Engineers for the project they're also going to be the construction manager that has yet to be determined okay uh I would strongly recommend that you hire somebody else as a construction manager that way the company that you hire would be looking out for our interests when you have i' I've worked in construction management for many years right and if if you have the design engineer as the construction manager they're looking out for thems first and the owner second we're waiting for a proposal from a engineering firm that is not the design engineer okay thank you very much you're welcome and Mr Noel I apologize your paper got lost in my paperwork should have had you come up a long time ago I apologize 74 Lake June Road my wife and I also own a couple businesses downtown in the journal Plaza so I was looking for an update on the status of the service road that runs behind the journal Plaza approximately from Belleview up to about Dal Hall I understand some CRA funds are dedicated toward that repaving just wanted to understand the scope of it so I can stay within my three minutes the uh so I I wish I had a date certain the excavation point to ran Court I don't know if you're familiar with him or not they were issued the purchase order I believe in January um might have been the end of January or early February he I was less concerned with the time frame than the scope of the work to understand whether they're going to pay the full 18 foot right away as wide as possible and I can elaborate on elaborate on why I would suggest that I will get him and I will contact you and we'll let you know and give you an update on that okay project yes some some quick history because I haven't fed my wife yet so we can't stay much longer anyway but I've had a couple conversations with Scott Ole he's a oper operations manager for sugar that runs a sugar Express and they are going to double siding out to the bridge at John smoke and they want to extend their Boardwalk for viewing of the locomotive when it's in station they've also purchased and to my understanding I think they might have already finished the renovation to increase their capacity from two 200 to 400 passengers so the train will extend quite a bit bit further down the track the the RightWay that the town has runs from essentially the depot all the way out to almost Dal Hall so it would be a great opportunity forward looking to pave it as wide as possible so that potentially there could be parking there sugars expressed um a willingness to contemplate putting a path through there with historical signs alongside that property and right away so it would be a real opportunity to promote that train traffic and we could make a nice designated Loop where people could find their way all around our beautiful little town I can tell you that it does not anticipate Paving the section between the depot and the next Road um that's not there's no Road there we have own right away but there's no Road there so it does not anticipate that piece of it um we've also been in conversations with sugar Express us on a railroad turntable and so we're waiting on actually it's in their B court now as to what they would do they do own the cars to increase their capacity and uh so we're waiting on an estimate from them and then be pursuing grants and a Cooperative discussion with with Scott so we have had those meetings um from there's another local Township that's trying to court them to bring the turntable elsewhere we're familiar okay so just to that extent of course they want to put in a park with more parking so it would be I think to the town's great advantage to maybe contemplate taking that road a little bit further to the depot and as far as North as you possibly could I hope I have an advantage and that president of US sugar is My Backdoor neighbor so okay thank you for your time all right I'll take it to my department heads anybody have anything everybody shaking their head no okay we'll bring bring it back to the podium and start down here uh I would just like to thank people from attending people for attending the meetings and really to the businesses I your input into uh the decisions that we're faced with and just the vision of the future is so important so I really appreciate the comments no I appreciate the support of the council to move forward with the police station where it is now I consider that an an issue that we don't have to bring up and discuss again and and we can move forward and I I see that there are a lot of things that we need to do as a counil but one of the things I think we need not to do is to redo things that have already done let's move forward if something's already been decided it's been decided move forward and I thank you for the police department gbra I just thank everybody for hanging in there I know for everybody it's been a really long day so so thank you very much ditto on hanging in there thank you Mr attorney not a word does anybody have anything to come before Town Council if not meeting adjourned --------- start CL time orientation Workshop this 13th day of May 2024 Center and the time is 3:05 if everybody would please rise well first I'd like to make sure everybody has their phones off or un vibrate if not it's a $55 fine that goes into the brook vacation F I would Town attorney if he would please lead us in our invocation and pledge dear Lord thank you for the town of Lake Placid please guide and counsel our government as we conduct democracy for our community amen pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for clerk would you please call the role mayor Holbrook here council member Hayes council member Hayes here council member worly here council member Charles here Council Ember har here okay at this time I'll turn it over to our Town Administrator okay I'm going to try something different tonight so hopefully everybody can hear me notice a different mic um since I'm bad about speaking and projecting uh purpose of the workshop is simply to go through kind of an orientation we have two new council members and to kind of go through all the sunshin law review you'll see it on the agenda I put times on there just because we have a lot to cover in a short period of time it's just supposed to be an overview and then it will lead hopefully to further workshops as the council wants to delve into projects or visioning or anything in depth and we'll schedule additional workshops so we'll jump into it pretty quick um our attorney Bert Harris is going to start Us in on the uh Sunshine Law review and structure and voting and straining and public records so very well you have my is that where you wanted to start there you go I am going to walk through a few of our statutes and constitutional Provisions regarding public meetings sunshine and public officers the council is subject to an ethics requirement to take a certain number of hours uh for ethics and how to do government which will be a deeper dive into many of these Provisions uh today I'm going to give a few of the high points and show you where the provisions are found um I pull this together recently and the first is the public records stat uh statute that's also found in section 24 of the Constitution um so public records and public meetings are kind of a big deal in Florida um the Constitution enshrines that you will conduct business in public and that all of our records will be public there are very few exceptions for our public records if you'd go to the next one um this isn't going to work out exactly as I had planned of what's going to be on the board which one do you want Florida Constitution I was going to Florida Constitution section 24 I've spoken about that the next one would be uh Florida public record section 1901 that's you're well ahead let's let me just oh there it is yeah this there you go all right there we go chapter 119 is the um public records act it uh defines public records it provides that public records are to be made available to the public um every Dot and tit that Eva makes or I make or the mayor makes is not exactly a public record but certainly when a document is finished it is um not all drafts are I don't intend to go into exactly where one would draw the line because if you have a series of drafts they may all be public to show the evolution of that but if you're sitting at the desk with a pencil trying to scribble out where to get started that probably is not public records um include email texts as well as written documents um can you go to the next page or scroll up on that um it's a fairly long statute you will also notice U 119021 uh talking about custodial requ requirements each public officer is actually responsible this is not something that we get to throw over our shoulder to the clerk and say good luck uh if it's on your cell phone it's your responsibility to preserve your texts um one easy thing to do with email would be to copy Eva that that would put the burden to a degree on Eva or if the town wanted to get every commissioner or or member of the council a cell phone to use with a separate email address you can do that um I have found that personally very difficult over time because I have one email address and I then have to go back and sort out public versus private and you can certainly do that it is more time consuming it's not automatic if you have your separate accounts and your separate phones then it would be a little more automatic and a bit easier uh 119071 this is the one that makes public records more difficult and that is the exemptions the very narrow individual items remember this is a concept enshrined in your state constitution and then fleshed out in the statute and I've lost count but it's probably 15 pages long of the things that you not only don't have to produce in many cases you cannot produce a lot of them deal with law enforcement ongoing um investigations are exempt from public records certain private and personal information uh would be exempt from public records um Social Security numbers um the the list is so long it is nightmarish because when someone sends the record request to Eva or to you somebody's got to go through this list of 20 pages of fine print to make sure you're not producing something you should not public records is also something that uh carries a statutory penalty of attorney fees if you're asked for a public record you have a public record and you fail refuse to prove it uh to produce it you can be sued and you will lose period um you the duty is on you to preserve the public records the emails the texts the copies I was in one discussion with the attorney general's officer I forget her name 10 years ago and she would take the position that if Eva sends me an email her copy is a public record my copy is a separate public record and I think that's a stupid interpretation but she's the attorney was the deputy attorney general in charge of it and that was her interpretation so there's a lot of the public records Concepts that get down to how many angels on the head of a pen um and if you have a problem it is best to stop and look um I can help Eva can help we can go to the Attorney General's office but failure to respond is not the option is not where you want to be I have seen a lot of different agencies handle this in many different ways FW fish and wildlife will have a separate officer that does nothing but search people's cell phones records and emails and response to public records and they'll give you a statement gee is this what you want they're insulating they're trying to insulate themselves from litigation and lawsuits and that liability will pass to you personally if you lose not just the town defending you if you win the town would pay that or has the right to pay that for you um but if you lose you don't it's also a crime the initial if you violate public record no that's sunshine I'm sorry um public meetings also enshrined in the Constitution and the same provision is a requirement that all me meetings be public um and that is taken equally as serious as uh the public records and again there are um continuing education courses that you're required to take and I encourage that early and often that will really get down into the weeds and discuss the exact number of angels on that head of that pen if you'll notice on this page I underline that last paragraph in italics reasonable notice of the such of such meetings if you if we have a hurricane coming and it's uh upon us and we need to make certain changes or authorize certain expenses that may be a shout out the front door call The Press do what you can to make it public and get on with it there are certain requirements for emergency meetings that's a little bit different um if you get into no when you're in a public meeting the statute also requires it's further down on this page I don't know if you can do that I think um there's your violation if you meet privately outside of a public meeting one commissioner talking to another now that does not include your other entities like um the LPA you can attend those meetings or the regional utility any member of council can attend those meetings and can discuss in that meeting or outside of that meeting with one other member of the of the utility or LPA you cannot encourage two LPA members to talk one to the other but you can go talk to the individual or appear at the meeting in most cases we should be noticing and I don't know that whether we do this or not the LPA will be on or or the utilities meeting will be on such and such a date there may be one or more members of Town Council present that's the safest okay good that is included in October and that's always there in case anybody wants to attend and see what they're up to so it it is if you accidentally violate it and don't understand it will be a civil citation if you knowingly violate it it's a second deegree misdemeanor fine and punishable um and then the next line You'll see where they shall assess the fees is that all of that one that's more fees and trial and appeal they discuss it at nauseum um the Florida Constitution Municipal Powers if you can go to the one says Municipal Powers gives um municipalities it spells out the powers that our government has that County Commission has and this is an excerpt from the Florida Constitution and it basically says we can conduct Town business um the Florida Statutes then spell out these three Provisions uh you can one is established two is the corporate powers and three addresses annexation about uh taking in additional property and again that one says you sus it out in the Florida Statutes and there's a lot of Florida statute regarding annexation and our ability to make a deal with the county for example to Annex enclaves um to um there's generally those this is an oversimplification three types of annexation one um by consent if someone is adjacent to the town they can say I want in um we have in the past if you get Town water you're required to file or sign a consent it's recorded in the public records so that when you become uh contiguous the town can elect to Annex there is another provision on annexation where people can vote to come in that vote can be done by a consent and you get a majority of the owners representing a majority of the land to consent to Annex we've done those up and down 27 and you can Annex that way or you can actually have an election so I guess that's the three types and then the fourth would be uh make a deal with the county to Annex enclaves and we do have some of those that we need to address um see what's the next page Town Charter the town Charter uh we don't elect the mayor tonight as you know he's already in office but the important point is to note that uh the mayor is both your chief executive and chief administrator he executes the direction of the council and he administers the staff presides at the meeting and votes only to break a tie the vice mayor elected it annually at the organizational meeting that would be this um serves in the absence of the mayor replaces the mayor should he drop dead we have actually had that happen once uh Dal Hall next appointment of town employees mayor with consent of counsel that's an interesting question don't know exactly what that means I would say we operate the way the US Senate and the president do when he nominates a Supreme Court Justice it has to to pass the legislature um same language and then there is a list of the Town employees that um or officer no employees that the town the the mayor would let's see appoint with the consent of council that too needs to be done today next supervision of the Departments and that fleshes out the mayor CEO and chief chief executive and chief administrative he bosses the Departments what have I missed Kevin voting and abstaining just how you do that yes is there one more should be one more page in there voting and abstaining I'm sorry Florida Statutes vote required it's 28602 012 it's the same as the public records um um and there's the language uh it requires the clerk to poll the board and it requires every person on the council to vote unless you have a conflict of interest the statute goes on to explain where those conflicts are listed so there's no misunderstanding if Kevin can scroll a little further down it will say if you do site to a conflict of interest you have to name it and be very specific there is a form that the clerk will hand you uh to be filed with the clerk uh saying exactly what your conflict is or may be now Kevin what did I miss I think you're good just about on time just about pretty close we're good we started a little bit late and you finished early we get to ask questions you bet I'm sorry I meant to suggest that during the as we go forward no we have to stand so I'm I'm interested in on the emails because all of us are using a personal email so should we be getting a government email and keep that completely separate yes uh I would like that I I mean I guess I did not realize the extent of subpena my phone and where my emails are so so you'll have Town emails um within the next week we had to get with the change in the uh it provider we had to get all the emails straightened out and all the old emails archive so we before we canceled accounts and added accounts so that's all got cleaned up at the end of last week and so you'll be getting um Town issued emails and then are there retention requirements on these emails or is a safe way copy EV on everything and let her deal with that there is a schedule put out by the Florida Secretary of State regarding retention and destruction and you certainly can follow it that's a whole another book uh because it varies it gets down to that number of angels on the head of the pen for example if Eva gets a letter from John Doe about his utility bill opens it up scans the letter throws the way the envelope some could take the position well the envelope might have had a return address that's a public record so it depends on what the document is as to how long it's kept I'm more concerned on as a council person my email and we're going to set up a new email so I guess I need to learn on what's the retention requirement for that our individual government email that we'll have your individual government emails are going to be covered under Microsoft 365 they're going to be archived the town keeps all of those you delete it it's still there okay so you don't have to worry about that retention we're handling that on our side okay perfect and then just a second is on the text right because I don't know I think most of us are using our own personal phones and that's what's kind of being published and yeah there are going to be texts so maybe at a separate meeting we do talk about a government you know I'm not here to you know increase costs but at the same time to protect all of us because today's you know communic ation is um you know everybody Texas I mean it's just a quicker way to do it I can tell you I have Fred over the cost to government a long time and on several issues and I've come to the conclusion that the legislator made a policy decision that uh information will be open to the public cost be down right so I think you you make a very good point yeah I mean I don't want to carry two cell phones but I also want to protect myself and the town and so how do we preserve the texting that we've gotten in the last month are they still on your phone yeah how do I preserve it right now save it on your phone right now I don't know whether do we have a I know the police department has a program that will preserve a text does the clerk the clerk does not have that I think about that so something we will research and get back to you on okay and then um the uh continuing education classes how oh the excuse me the continuing education classes where and how a lot of times their video um Commission on ethics I think put some out and I don't recall if Deborah's actually taken them more recently Deborah who did that um I think it was the Florida Lega city has sums and then I did go to another site that Eva gave me um that was the ethics so Florida Le City that's right I just took one I took one a week ago Sunday and it was Florida League of cities and I should have gotten an email this past week with a certificate that I took it and I did not so I've got a check on that just made a note to that effect but that's where they are is a Florida League of cities but it's the acronym.com it's I can send the link out to everybody but is there a list of which ones are required so that I don't inadvertently not take one the required one is the 4our ethics okay so that's the required one um so and that's the one that I sent out to now so I will send you the link go ahead and do that and then you've covered your four hours it was very interesting it was a I thought it was it was a a PowerPoint thing and I set it up on my on my counter and I could work around it because I had it on speaker and still look at the slides and you know so it wasn't 4 hours just sitting at my desk you know looking at that screen so but uh I thought it was interesting generally you have to sign that when you fill out your form every year for disclosure when you fill out your forms for disclosure they ask that have you completed that and you have to sign it then you have completed it okay I just need to do it ahead of time need to do it ahead of time somehow okay and then my last question is if so if I get an email even it's on if on the new town account I should forward to you if if we're going to be using an A A Town email account you will not need to forward that to me because it'll be archived okay already but if I get one inadvertently on my personal I need me and I'll I'll archive it okay thank you so Kevin I already have a town email is that has that changed with the new provider no yours is fine the mayor's is fine it was we had the change and so we had to get through that change so we didn't have to Microsoft getting them to up and down with the emails it's easier to delete but we had to get the archiving set up that's all set up now so it'll be seamless at this point and if you forward something to Eva it's automatically archived because it went to her City email I have one more question is uh on the agenda items that must be um they have to appear you know items that we're going to discuss have to appear on the agenda you know tonight we have an item that came up you know for this tonight's meeting an item that came up that wasn't on the agenda that's going to need a decision so how do you handle something like that I mean so the add-on agenda items um when they come up then you have to set the agenda it's the first one of the first things you do at the meeting and so you set the agenda and it's an added to the agenda at the meeting that's legal yes the attorney that attorney general I was speaking of really wanted you could tell a requirement for agendas to be published in advance and not added on for public notice but there is no law that I know of that requires agenda to be every agenda item to be listed you can add late our town code says we're we're supposed to have everything to the clerk I Believe by Wednesday um and before the meeting and then the clerk is supposed to publish it I believe Thursday or is it Tuesday and Wednesday it's Tuesdays and Wednesdays we're able to get it out we're we've been getting out on Thursday and then it gives the mayor The Authority or the discretion to approve the addition of a late filed item uh later which has happened from time to time emergencies come up different things have to be handled right away so yeah it does happen if you can get it to Eva by Tuesday it's much more manageable if you can possibly get her the agenda item and the backup information on Tuesday I'm sorry I didn't hear I don't understand your mic your she just said to try and get it to Eva by Tuesday and then it won't be an issue okay sh your mic you sh my your your mic's reverberating yeah and and if I may that doesn't give Council very long to digest a 400 page agenda and I don't I do not pretend to defend that and anytime Council says I've had a belly full of that and you want more time I think you ought to say so and and that causes staff to back up it may mean things don't get on this week's agenda but if you need more time you need to raise your hand and tell us that's my two cents I'm the county is pretty strict very yes and they do and they you and people do uh adjust they will adjust okay oh somebody asked about ethics I believe it's chapter 112. 313 if you want to start looking at it it will address things like nepotism uh doing business with one's own agency basically you cannot um chapter what chapter 112. 313 and special private gain if you're voting on something that could impact you or your family yes ma'am I would also recommend to Google Sunshine manual 2024 that will go over quite a bit the the new one's out for 2024 so that she's talking about this book yep yep it's out it's on PDF form at lists every court case y addressing public records and sun sunshine and it's a great resource I carry it every meeting it's two years old pardon two years old it's because they quit because they quit publishing it now you have to print it it had I don't have the new one okay if everybody's good we're going to move on um we have we're going to work into Community Partnerships a little bit we have a couple of speakers that are going to work on that and uh first is with the Chamber of Commerce Jennifer Bush then you're going to see in your thing some of this other is going to move fairly quickly as we go through unless you have questions and then we'll jump into the questions but um just kind of a broad overview on some of it hey how are you it's Jennifer bush from the lake pled Chamber of Commerce I just wanted to Welcome All of You To Town Council thank you very much for what you do for the town of Lake plid just to give you some background I have been with the chamber since 2019 just as the festival started I took the executive director's position in 2020 when Eileen May retired and we are just submerged in the community we do everything we can possible we are member-based we have over 370 members um and we do everything we can to promote our local members and make sure that our community is prospering uh businesses are growing things are happening in town we also host the country fair first weekend of February as well as the cadium festival so if you have any questions for me or want to little know a little bit more and be happy to invite you down we are also The Visitor Center so we see approximately 12,000 visitors a year in the Chamber of Commerce as well as the mural Gallery so we have all of the original renderings of the murals that are around town I personally sit on as president of the mural Gallery as well as the treasurer of keep Lake plet beautiful so and I have a few things for you today any questions for me I'll give you a few things here Jennifer you host the keep Lake pla beautiful meetings Dro dropped next thank You' that was my bill wasn't it no thank you thank you so another uh Chambers is probably our major partnership with the community but another one that's big is keep Lake classed beautiful and the president is Bill Brantley he's got a ton of history that he'll go over and talk about that a little bit hello bill brandley for the record um as far as keep Lake past beautiful um Bert probably knows a little more than I do it's been around 25 30 years approximately Bert was President for like it's the first half of it I was President for about 10 years the last three years Ray Royce and uh Donald Clark um were kind of back and forth president and somehow I got nominated again so I'm back at keep Lake class the beautiful president um we have two funding sources we get grants from from um keep America beautiful past few years they have not had the grant program um we're trying to get back in sequence with that our other source of funding is the signs that you see on 27 and on Main Street um we collect about 13,000 to $14,000 a year U on those signs um so what we normally do with the money A lot of times we'll pay for outside tree work to come in U we shut down 27 we get with a sheriff's department we close the roads trim the Palms on 27 we do some other projects such as uh we get with the sheriff's department and the uh prisoners they put out fertilizer before the cladium festival they help weed they help sometimes plant clums um keep Lake Placid beautiful also kind of administers grants on behalf of U Town of Lake Placid the first one was 27 beautification all the oak trees all the palm trees all that was through keep Lake pla beautiful in the grant that they um U they were able to acquire the latest one was Dain Dain Park that was right at about a million dooll um renovation of the Park built a new Pavilion moved trees put trees in did sidewalks um and beautification as far as that goes we are a 100% volunteer volunteer U volunteer uh organization which as we know it's hard to find any volunteers usually our board meeting consist of myself Donald Clark and a handful of other people and some Town employees um we try to get some Community involvement last couple years we haven't I think the last time we had them we had probably 25 to 30 people after our last Hurrican that cleaned up daine Park we all got out there and on a Sunday and and usually what we do is we just call our friends they call their friends and everyone comes out and helps we're going to be planning some more um oak tree trimming um on uh Main Street try to get that cleaned up we'll get the Palms on 27 trimmed the ones on Interlake trimmed and then if you see things you know we always try to focus on trying to get things done before the cladium festival um so that's obviously where I is right now it's kind of hard to plan things two weeks in advance so we're trying to do that now to try to get those projects done prior to um the festival and as we all know we love Lake plid majority of our volunteers are not even Town residents they come from out of town they come from everywhere just because they have a a a deep love of Lake Placid just as you know even during elections people show up that aren't even in town Lake class and want to vote but um we got a great response to most of our reach outs as far as the people coming to help and if you guys see things that you want to kind of focus on you want us to look towards you want us to do a little bit different um yeah we're always welcome you know welcome some ideas and obviously always welcome help if y'all y'all can do you have any questions I do yes um this is great and so the medium like on Main Street is that I'm trying to understand between the town and the organization who does what who pays for what you do the planting we do the maintenance or how do kind thing um you know if the town needs help we'll call in you know we kind of oversee the prisoners sometimes we'll call and try to set up them to come out to do certain projects um I see Harry's been doing trimming the The Oaks on Main Street um we we the past few years there hasn't been many Community projects as far as getting people together and getting out the triming I'm I'm president again I want to try to start getting th those those guys that we call on a whim and they come out and help us trim trees and stuff like that so as far as paying for things um we mainly paying for fertilizer if we pay for out of our fund we pay for certain tree trimmings we'll do that if we got to take trees down but really Harry's been doing a great job as far as keeping up U the past few years as far as the things that need to be done you know we we know there's a half dozen trees that need to come down we know that you know that's on the list and we're going to try to start getting gear back up to get some of those things taken care of so then planning of flowers is your group as far as replacement of a lot of the flowers as far as the flowers we do um have a a uh certain list we like to see people stay within you know because we don't want these things that that are invasive we don't want you know so we do have a list of things that we had just gotten from Mr ivanz Jose um so if they do want to plant their own Island out front they can but they need to stay within the same plant pallet that everything's compatible we don't want things to freeze every year we want to be hearty um we've taken fire bush off because that's been a nightmare that that stuff grows so fast we have to cut it down and trim it twice three times a year we just don't have the the time do that so um as far as the flowers you know a lot of times with we've talked about with the Chamber of Commerce you know if new businesses come in if they want to improve their Island we can help fund it as far as that goes we do have money to be able to do that um we've just really never had many requests as far as coming to us but we'd be welcome to look at any kind of beautification that's what keep Lake plased beautiful is about it's not just about plants and fertilizer and trimming trees it's it's obviously the overall beauty of our town thank you well that's good to know because like I call it on in our travels when we were introducing ourselves a lot of people were saying the islands on Interlake Look so Sad compared to how they were years ago and I think it's a just a confusion about who to go to to ask for plantings and what they can do and what the list is and any suggestions on how we can get people up to speed that the shops and the I don't know just something as far as that goes obviously we'll start going down Island by look at it and I'll tell the real struggle um and the town employees can tell is irrigation IR there could be five full-time irrigation guys and they'd still be busy all the whole time you know our inconsistency with some of our wells which is very important to try to get reuse down 27 um if we can figure that in some way of the grant to get that down there because that's going to be way more dependable we have wells that go down we have wells that we can switch back and forth but as you see when you drive down 27 you see these green spots that are 5 foot from the irrigation the rest of it is dead we we just need more consistent irri and if we don't have Irrigation in those Planters and working properly doesn't matter what we plant we're on a Sand Ridge they're going to die so so we're going to try to focus on the irrigation and and eventually hopefully have reuse to be able to have it more consistent yeah in the in the meantime maybe take out some of the Dead bushes that are there and they just even just put down mulch for I'm I'm getting anxious that the town looks perfect for the cadium festival right and we we want to do that too obviously as far as mulching is a big plan you know a lot of times we'll get a semi Mulch and have the u u sheriff's department help us put it out because right now nothing's growing because it's dry but soon as the rain starts the weeds come and obviously the more mulch we have and easier to spray the round up then it makes more sense because yeah we can't we can't sit there and pull weeds and all these planners so we want to mulch as much as we possibly can to prevent that yeah so well anyway sign me up and you have the volunteers I will call you not a problem maybe that's people don't even know that they could help yep like I said people come out out like I said majority of the people just because they all want to be part of the town they are they're not Town residents they're just people that live everywhere else that just come together and try to beautify the town and then since we're talking as far as Community um I got two other things real quick as far as U the TDC and the rpac as far as when I was on school board I I was on TD or uh rpac for about 10 years that is one of the most important um County uh groups to have important or U um influence from this board you know there's a ton of money that gets funnel different ways and let me tell you what Avon Park has great representation they are going to get everything they can get and it's just between the Sutherlands and some other people I have there so you need really good reputation on reputation on that and same with the TDC TDC I've always felt we're a stepchild um I've always pushed to get our own TDC down there but there's a lot of money that does not come our Direction Through the TDC all right thank you thanks Bill thank you Bert did you want to add to the keep plake plas since you started it yeah I would I'd like to take a step back first one of the questions was how do you draw the line between town and kpb and that is it's very difficult it's blurry it's if Billy and I have time and volunteers we'll do and if we don't it falls in Kevin's lap we started keep Lake Placid beautiful 30 years ago after we got a lot of these grants uh down Interlake we raised the money on Maine out wad a grant and it was obvious the town of 2,000 people couldn't afford to maintain 27 so we created that as a 501c3 do grants to try to supplement the town budget for fertilizer and maintenance and that's the grant went away Billy is it back now one of the funnest projects was South Main Street I'll tell the story and then I'll shut up we uh put out an irrigation system which is no longer in use we tried to use natives the paletas oak trees some pine trees and we try to get all the heavy work done in advance and invited the community to come out with us and literally dig a hole sit the plant in the Hole by the irrigation and turn it on and we had 120 150 people John was there show up to help people that had never been part of the program the banks bought t-shirts and somebody brought coolers of beer and Deborah was right in the middle of it uh so there's a lot of people that respond to help the town if asked parents brought their kids I mean it was uh it was quite a show it was it was great yeah there was another one on North Main when they the crep mles somehow I found out that Al also on North Main um planting the uh crepe myrtles I think there was a I helped on that one and there was a whole team of people that showed up yes ma'am okay so those are those two we also have um down at the ball fields we have the miracle Le field and these are more financial for ours as as a different to a partnership um but we helped fund the JC's Fourth of July uh Little League Baseball obviously is down on the fields almost on a nightly basis it should be about the end of their season uh it is my grandson season so uh soccer league if it reorganized we've been out working on the uh irrigation on that one for the last several days trying to get that one back up and running because there's been conversations on with the soccer league about them getting reorganized and and be be using the fields it' be good to see uh kids out playing those Sports the Halloween Trunk or Treat you're going to see coming up asking for waiver of fees the smoke 5K the e-learning 5K those are all things that we um typically wave the fees that's a council decision annually and uh that is primarily police department and public works as far as picking up trash and organizing things and locates um every time we're in De vain park for Cadian uh cadium Festival we have to make sure they don't hit our fiber line and our water Lin so we Mark those out and then pressure clean the sidewalks and get those set up so those are kind of the uh Community Partnerships if you will that that at least I know about or I've learned about since I've been here so um we're going to move on to council advisory boards and y'all just interrupt me if you have a question so um Council advisory boards and um other County boards so the local planning agency you've heard some conversation about that we have five members currently on the board you're allowed three alternates we only have two at the moment um you're supposed to own in town or you're supposed to live inside the Lake plet Regional plan area so those are the kind of requirements for the local planning agency community redevelopment agency um on the agenda tonight for some discussion you currently have five council members you can expand with a Max of two more community members they meet quarterly the uh Lake plet Regional utility advisory commission that council member Joy sat on for a number of years um they have five members they can have up to seven there is some a requirement they want expertise in the utility financials it's not just a general membership type thing it's a little bit different and they meet every other month and they also have a council liaison which you'll have is part of your organization tonight tourist Development Council um that membership moves between Avon Park and Lake Placid so it bounces back and forth Sebring is being by the definition of when it got created created Sebring has a permanent seat on it since they're the largest um municipality in the county so if we ever became larger than Sebring we would take that and have a permanent spot that is currently in our turn Charlie that was Charlie Wilson seat so you'll make a decision tonight and who's going to fill that seat on the tourist Development Council arpac which is the recreation and parks advisory committee they meet quarterly they're two voting members from our town and one alternate currently we have um Harry debano last meeting is on the 15th this month and then he goes off in July but they don't meet again until August they meet quarterly so uh Eva's term ends in December so over the next um few months actually tonight you'll have on the board to either choose one of the council members or myself to be on that rpac committee and then you have Heartland Regional uh Transportation Planning organization the board members of that are mainly County Commissioners um Seven Counties I may be wrong on that one six or seven counties that are represented represented there are some of those or cities are represented we don't have a representative on the board um it's representative at large by commissioner Arlan tuck uh we do have the a board member or a technical advisory committee member and that's Dana Rell so um that's kind of the advisory boards and and uh County boards so just going over real quick departments and Personnel uh just so you know uh Administration that's myself Town Administrator uh we have the town engineer Dennis Murray who's in the back and the town clerk that's Eva that's the administrative side of it and uh so Finance Rachel Osborne is our finance director and in addition to payables receivables and payroll which are typical typically what you see in a finance department it also includes all of the utility billing customer service Human Resources um she sits on the PRM board so uh I think Bill and mentioned it that or somebody mentioned this we're 2257 people I think is our last census counter something like that so we're a very small organization in town of Lake pla though that we represent and have use of about 25,000 people that use our facilities and eat downtown every day and that kind of stuff so uh anyway so we all wear a lot of hats in in the town uh planning zoning and code enforcement is Dana Rell um and you're going to hear from her in a little bit uh the Police Department chief Mark Snider he also includes the crossing guards up until last year he also that also included code enforcement but the uh the town moved code enforcement into town hall and that's now under under Dana so um facilities and Recreation oh I'm sorry Public Works is Alan kefir and not only does he does streets sidewalks um garbage he also takes care of the cemetery the parks that are not Lake June Park and a whole lot of irrigation um then town properties which is what I like to refer to as facilities and Recreation is Harry debano he takes care of all the town hall all the maintenance of facility around that Lake June Park which includes the ball field and the boat ramp and all that um a lot of the Landscaping down in Lake 27 Main and a whole lot of irrigation um we have spent probably 10 or 15,000 replacing heads this year uh it's an ongoing challenge broken lines we have a lot of irrigation a lot of it's old irrigation so it's going to be a a constant until we get particularly along 27 if we can get some reuse grants and and replace some of that irrigation and we'll talk about that a little bit later on but um we're hoping after the Dow Hall intersection project or Tower Street and 27 intersection project we've had meetings with DOT about doing a large Grant in rehabilitating some of the irrigation and tying in the ReUse with the new plant so it's a timing issue our reuse was actually going to go down with the construction of the new plant so we're going to be relying entirely on our wells we'll be out of we won't have reuse for approximately a year here while the new plant's constructed and uh so that's going to affect some of our some of our uh Landscaping as we keep trying and make it all work off of our wells we lost a well about a year ago unless we redig that well which we're trying to avoid it's under a power line Duke stopped us from replacing the pump and um just because of location so our only option there would be to dig another well and then utilities which I'm still currently in charge of is water and waste water we have four plants and three Wastewater plants the three Wastewater plants are going to be combined into the new new Wastewater Plant so um and then I'm actually moving ahead so that's a good thing we're GNA go to Eva and ask questions oh absolutely I'm sorry a couple what what's the acronym PRM you said Somebody's on a PRM board public risk management it's a uh same as in business okay yes public risk management is our insurance company to say so each uh it's made up of memb cities it's kind of like a co-op for lack of a better word on the top of my head um it's a Consortium of municipalities that have joined together and they buy insurance as a pool it's an insurance pool and then they go the pool goes out and buys excess reinsurance so that's public risk management and um Rachel sits on the board and I'm the alternate on that board and then do we have how many parks do we have and do we have a list that we could get a copy of uh certainly we can do that and I meant to have it and I didn't bring it but I actually have a list of all of our properties in the town so if I have the half hour in between that's fine I might get it to you tonight but I have that available um Allan you may have to help me on that we have Lake June ball fields we have Stewart Park we have John's Park we have a little pocket park behind the police station um we have Taylor Park what Taylor Park Taylor Park is the one off of yeah you don't have to if I think we have one I'm just curious as on your staff Harry has Lake June Park but all the others are under somebody else what was the thinking of not keeping all the parks under one organization structure Alan maybe you've been here long enough I have no idea the uh the recreation facility basically takes um basic like a lot by itself because it organizes the leagues and everything down there whereas the rest is just maintaining smaller things not as much uh playground equipment like John's Park Stewart Park as far as why the division of supervision uh my crew is the one that just maintains it all where his Department I believe he's only got two employees wouldn't be enough to maintain everything thank thank you I think when we hired somebody down at the parks there was no um pilot there was no Captain in charge of the people and the people needed guidance so that's when that position became more of a Lake June Park where there's people and they need to be managed and helped and you know you know all the equipment here when you see this list the equipment building um is on that list but he manages all that he manag is a lot of the equipment which is stored out here in our little building out here so that was a necessary thing because we needed him because of the people and registering and things like that we we have people that use that Park and there's a fee to their using it and and a time during which they can use it so that way they don't overlap each other which is not consistent with the rest of the parks the rest of the parks people can just come use but but um you know because you have soccer and you have softball and all this kind of stuff you don't want them running into each other and they pay a fee to be there any other questions nope all right then uh we're going to move on let um Eva talk a little bit about budget teline timelines you're going to be seeing that coming up here before long when we run into uh budget workshops may pull up Kevin oh thank you yep let me I'm gonna get rid of that so you went away do that okay so the budget process starts we will come to you in June and ask you to pick some dates for workshops but I've kind of laid out all the timelines this is State mandated these timelines we have to stay within that now Rachel will hand out you know and department heads handle all the budget uh putting it together I'm the one that gets the um uh contacted by Highlands County they'll send me an estimate starting in June of all the taxable values that's our starting number I will fill out a dr420 it's all through the state so we drop our numbers in and it'll calculate what what we're looking to see we can use as our budget but the timelines are very important in all of this so um just some of the things I handle the trim um I do the reporting to the state finance Finance director I will give her the dollar you know the dollar amount that I calculate out um and then they get started on the budget process um we'll pick our workshop dates starting in July um now in July as you go through let's see flip over there Town administrative review go to the next one I think um next slide that that one keep going okay so Highland County will send us an estimated 2024 taxable values these are not the final values but that gets us started so we can do our calculations through this software um on June 10th I'll ask you about picking three budget workshops we've been doing advertising for three for the LA as long as I've been here uh couple of years we used two of those workshop dates um the rest of the time Council was able to get through line by line by line and went through the whole budget and they were able to do it in one Workshop so it just on it all depends on how you want to do it um but we do advertise for the three and typically they're couple in July at the end of July and then one in August so it just depends uh so we'll do that um Highlands County appraiser will then give us another so they give me a little preliminary beginning of June that just gets us started that's not the final numbers they'll send me the final numbers on June 30th and then I will go on to the site for uh State of Florida and I'll do all the calculations there's many forms you have your Tiff which is your CRA funds so a lot of calculations Go in all of this to get that number um so then the big day starts with July 8th is your council meeting at that time you will Council will make a decision I will present present and and the finance director and I will present you with um what the totals add up to where are we at and we'll go into roll back rate in a minute but I'll give you both scenarios of where we were at last year using those that that millage rate and if we use the roll back rate where we're at so it give you a better idea then you'll make a decision to do a proposed millage this gets us started on our budget um to be able to get ready for those budget workshops you have to keep in mind that whatever proposed millage you pick you cannot uh do it go down you can't you can't go up so if you set it here you can't go back up so uh historically they've kept it the same and then come that September meeting we've reduced it then um just to to keep it where we have some flexibility because if you don't do that you can't raise it again that September meeting any questions on that okay um so and keep in mind also um although you're reducing your millage let's say we're going to reduce it from what we did last year if it's higher than the roll back rate it's still considered a tax increase um because it's not part of that roll back rate um excuse me and the roll back rate is is basically what it is is rate that would regenerate the same amount of property tax revenues as approved the prior year so that's what a roll back rate is so it's the same same amount of property revenues um so we'll we'll present that all to you um once you've decided you know voted on that pick your millage then we'll go on to do the budget workshops and we move forward and then advertising starts coming into play for for on my end and getting these numbers to the county because by September I'm sorry from July 31st I have to get it back to the the preliminary dr420 has to go back to the county county does you know you little trim things you get in the mail you're going to see our first meeting date on that trim because I have to have that information to them because that's actually our first advertising is through that trim notice um but on top of that I still advertise two consecutive weeks prior to the first hearing so there's more than just the mandated uh we we do that EX ex ra advertising in August you know for the ordinances so and then comes September 9th your first meeting your first reading you can reduce a little bit very short timeline there we have to adopt that following Monday so that following Monday is the 16th I have to have the advertisement we have there's specific uh I don't know if you've all see in the newspaper it's got the budget summary it's big it's in the paper it's state Manda how big it needs to be be so that that kind of says everything and a nutshells very tight schedule um and we try to move through it and get you all the information you need any other any questions I do I know I back up two charts just real quick just so I can understand so in June you get the preliminary early June the second chart there Kevin and then you the staff starts working on the budget from at that point point start looking at it because they've given us you have an idea of how much we have to spend in that okay next chart I think it's the third chart I want to see it okay so this one or back the other well that's fine and so at the July 8th meeting once the proposed millage is passed once we approve it are we approving at the July meeting you theill based on the staff's preliminary these are what we're thinking okay and at that point when you pass pass that millage that's one you'll move forward with the budget process but you can come along and September and say okay we can reduce it and so o over the course like I said we've maintained the previous year and then reduced it that September just depending on how the budget workshops go perfect thank you that's it is that it good any other questions about the budget all right all right Dana you got extra time yeah Dana is GNA talk about planning and zoning and she already had the most time because that is a long complicated subject which will probably warrant its own workshop at some point in the future but exactly right good afternoon um Town Council it's it's great to see everyone today and we are going to have the most fun conversation out of the whole day which is planning and zoning and I might be a little biased but you know this is going to be great so do not hesitate to um interrupt if you have any questions and if I don't have an answer for you at this very moment I'll do some research and get back to you so I wanted to go over first my duties the boards that I'm Lea's on to and the types of hearings that we hold I think there's a misconception a lot of times that the word planner makes you think that maybe I'm out there soliciting business calling people up on the phone asking them to come to the town or um maybe sometimes the general public thinks that a business wants to come in and I say no way Jose and I slam up the phone and I never do that I don't do either of those things um what I do is I handle customers who want to come and locate in the town they've made the decision that the town is the right place for them and they need to know how to fit into our framework and what our rules and regulations will allow them to do so I take care of daily permitting and inquiries this is usually just general members of the public um we don't have that many permits that come in a week it could be anywhere from zero to maybe 10 permits a week I'm staff liaison to the local planning agency and the board of adjustment I'm the one who adds things to the agenda accepts applications processes them I write staff reports for every application that comes before us that analyze um how a decision can be made based on the facts presented they're all usually a summary of my findings um based in a planning framework if you attended the mock planning and um zoning Commission meeting then you know it I am not the expert witness but I take all this expert testimony I put it together and I present it to you in hopefully a format that's a little bit more digestible I try to do long range planning and this is this can be hard because we have a lot of plates that we're spinning and so that means looking out into the future and sometimes rewriting portions of our code or redesigning certain elements of our comprehensive plan and later at tonight's meeting we'll talk about one of the ways that we're able to do that and it is through a grant that we'll obtain through a different agency if the board is in agreement to that I coordinate the commercial site plan review process concurrency subdivision vacation of rways so a lot of these things things that our town engineer might really have the final say in I'm the one who gets us through the process applications come to me and then they're routed to different departments I'll go over these uh different types of processes in a little bit um but I'm the point of contact for a lot of these reviews our local planning agency like I said is one of the boards that I'm liais on to two of the things that they hear about the most are comprehensive plan amendments and Zoning changes the local planning agency is a recommending body they do not make final decision they make a recommendation that then Comes To Town Council for final decision but the same members who sit on our local planning agency also sit on our Board of adjustment and our Board of adjustment is a DEC decision making body and they will make final decisions on things like special exceptions variances and appeals from administrative officials the only time um I've ever seen appeals from administrative officials are two decisions I made down here in the town of Lake Placid no other municipality I've ever worked on um but the local planning agency ruled in favor of my interpretation of the code both times I'm sorry that was the board of adjustment who ruled in favor so our local planning agency slbo of adjustment members include Dustin Woods who's the chairman and he's the pastor of a church we have hos Compton who's a realtor and I know he owns a lot of land in town I'm not sure if he currently owns any businesses so if I left that out and he does own a business I apologize we have Donald Clark who owns a pest control company Dr oxer Who runs his own dental office Jack edgman who owns a a lead Manufacturing Company Chris Duncan who's a realtor and last I heard own two businesses in town it might be reduced down to one at this point because he's making moves we have Gary Freeman who was our former utilities director but also owns a retail business in town so our LPA and boa is currently made up of a lot of local business owners and it is a diverse Bunch it's supposed to be a diverse bunch and my goal many times with our LPA and boa is if we don't have a hearing and I'm not completely swamped with cases we like to try to get together and at least have an education component to our meeting where we might talk about policies procedures um issues we have in our code and we just until we can get to the point of maybe fixing some of those issues we at least hash it out we come up with ideas this particular board has really wanted to be a working board so they want to help me work through some of these issues that we have so as time allows we really put our brains together and um I just explain all that because I want to put the emphasis on the knowledge that the LPA and the boa have this particular knowledge where um that's why they are a recommendation body and they input is greatly valued by the Town Council because they they get that extra time time with me and and sometimes our attorney or whoever else may be available to get more education in these matters so back to the local planning agency we're going to talk about the two different types of hearings that come across their desk the most and again they're they provide recommendation only but the recommendation should carry a lot of weight and on the the left- hand side of the screen we'll go over comprehensive plan amendments these are also called future land use changes but not every comprehensive plan amendment is a future land use change so we have a map a future land use map we can change the future land use for each particular parcel on that map but they're not always a comprehensive plan Amendment because we have our comprehensive plan and sometimes we go in there and we change the text so that's me kind of really getting in the weeds but a future land use change is a comprehensive plan Amendment a comprehensive plan Amendment isn't always a future land use change let that sink in for a moment okay so comprehensive plan amendments or future land use map amendments are considered legislative they are the creation of policy in the next slide I'm going to go over the difference between legislative decisions and quasi judicial decisions so just know that legislative creates policy so the point of our comprehensive plan is to create policy the policy of how we manage growth as a town if we're doing a future land use map Amendment there's three different ways the hearings can go and this has changed in recent years so it gets it can get a little confusing but I'm always here to answer questions we have smallscale future land use map amendments these are amendments that are under 100 acres now not everywhere in the State of Florida is considered a small scale when they amend 100 acres the only reason ours is considered a small scale when it's 100 acres or less is because we are located in an area a a rural opportunity area Highlands County and some of the surrounding counties based on the size and the nature of our counties makes us rural areas of opportunity outside of rural areas of opportunity a small scale is 50 acres or less so we have double the leeway we have if it's 100 acres or less it's a small scale that means we go ahead and we process it we adopt it here after our local planning agency meeting and two Town Council meetings because ordinances always get read Two Times by The Town Council the first meeting we have with the local planning agency is a public hearing the second meeting we have with the Town Council is an introduction to the ordinance the third meeting we have is adoption and approval or denial of the ordinance Okay so so when we do a small scale we go through that process one two three meetings over the course of two months and we're done if it's an expedited State review meaning the hearing is over or the parcel is over 100 acres or requires text amendments so right now Grand dials that we're working on and will come before you soon is considered a expedited State review formerly known as a large scale this parcel as you all know was under 100 acres but back in the day and not too long ago really the threshold used to be 20 acres and you had to or if you wanted to you could add text into the comprehensive plan to regulate your development because we are amending the text that's already in our code from a previous large scale that is why Grand dials comes before us as a large scale because it is considered a text Amendment anytime we amend the text in our comprehensive plan it is considered expedited State review so that means we go through local planning agency meeting as a public hearing then we have our first hearing with the Town Council also in this case a public public hearing and then we send out our package like that giant staff report that I create and the ordinance and all the proposed changes we send it out to all these different state agencies for their comment I have 10 days to do that and then it's 30 days for them to offer comment so after that period of time then we have our third Town council meeting which is when we either approve or deny I don't expect you all to remember this I'm just kind of going over it and every time a case comes before you it'll be in my staff report and then coordinated State review we are going to almost never see this but we will definitely see it at least every seven years because we have something that we have to do every seven years called our evaluation and Appraisal reports that means we go through our comprehensive plan this is real really real really deep long range planning that thing that I was talking about earlier that's kind of hard to get to sometimes um what we'll probably do and what Highlands County is doing right now they are going through their evaluation and appraisal report process it's basically when you go into your comprehensive plan and you say hey this is everything I need to update from the last seven years that we just haven't been able to get get around to and there's also been these sort of Statute changes that we need to comply with too so let's go into our comprehensive plan and extend our planning period out out another 20 years right now our comprehensive plan goes into the year 2030 when we do our evaluation and appraisal report we're going to extend it out until 2050 so it's really intense it's a really deep process and we will likely hire out a consultant will probably get a grant to do that that's what Highland County is doing that's what city of Sebring is doing I've been attending city of Sebring Vision meetings to see how their process has been going so that I can prepare for when we go through our process like I said we only do it every seven years so as a planner I have seen it done one time for the town of Lake Placid in my tenure but at that time we didn't propose any changes so we didn't have to go through the whole process that was in 2020 so um that happens very infrequently and it is a longer process where the state looks at our documents they actually care very deeply about what we're proposing and what we're doing okay hopefully that's the longest explanation I have for anything else going forward um zoning changes these are considered quasi judicial so we talked about how the comprehensive plan manages growth that is our vision you'll hear me say that all the time it is our vision for how growth should be managed in our town and it sets policy for how we're going to do it but zoning defines the rules and laws governing the design and development guidelines so if I say we're going to allow three dwelling units per acre in the future land use over here in zoning we're going to say yes and we're going to make the minimum lot width 80 feet and the minimum lot size 10,000 square feet and the minimum height of each struct or maximum height of each structure 35 ft because these are going to be the rules that implement M our vision there's two kinds this probably isn't a technical term I just call it straight zoning or plan development a straight zoning District would be something like C1 Highway commercial or r1a single family residential these are zoning districts that we already have established in our town and part of our code that if a parcel has these designations you Open Up Our Land Development regulations and you can identify exactly what the rules and regulations are but if you have a plan development that is when someone comes in and it's not always in some areas of plan development is really um something that like a developer wants to do because they want to do something to get around the rules or not necessarily get around but they have an innovative idea that isn't covered in our documents because if you think about our Land Development regulations they were established in the 1970s so it's so easy for them to become outdated and so hard to keep up with them right so you might have a plan development where instead of having a straight zoning District like C1 or r1a they say well I like the r1a district but I want to tweak it this way and allow this to be different than what is usually allowed outright as a permitted use or permitted design standard in the town of Lake Placid we have something that triggers the requirement for PD which I'll get into in a couple of slides so what is the difference between legislative versus quasa judicial oh I'm doing good on time okay I'll slow down a little legislative decisions they involve policy formation that is why a comprehensive plan Amendment SL future land use map amendment is considered legislative because it is the formation of policy when we talk about standard of review this means if someone doesn't like our decision as Town Council and they want to challenge it in a court of law the standard of review meaning what they have to prove the challenge ER has to prove is fairly debatable this is difficult this is a hard thing to challenge in a court of law the burden of proof meaning what the Challenger has to show is simply that the decision was arbitrary and capricious it's pretty subjective so again that can be hard it requires is less processed than a quasi judicial hearing like a zoning change there is no right to cross-examination and I've seen Bert do this before where so if you're an applicant and you want to challenge someone's expert witness testimony you can stand up there at that Podium and say and who are you where did this information come from correct me if I'm wrong Bert um Pro to me that you're presenting competent substantial evidence so in a legislative decision like a future land use change you cannot do that but in a zoning change you can it does not provide the same level of due process protection which I'll get to in just a moment and the standard afforded to local government is more differential so in a quasi judicial decision like a zoning change that is the application of existing policy to a specific development application so again we're applying the rules to a policy that's already in existence the standard of review I won't butcher this word but there are things you have to like if you want to challenge the town council's decision as say I'm um an applicant and I want to challenge your decision because you told me no on a zoning change I would be challenging whether the procedural due process was afforded like if I'm an applicant and you said you only have 30 seconds to present your case maybe that applicant didn't get due process uh whether the local tribunal observed the essential requirements of Law and whether the local government's decision was based on competent substantial evidence so if you make a decision on zoning and say well I just think it might rain um on your property one day and I just think that's a bad idea like that's not going to be competent sub stantial evidence but if you say uh the meteorologist came to the hearing and proved that it is going to there's you're within a 100-year flood zone and your property is going to be completely washed out and any structures you put in that property will then pose a danger to everyone in that area that might be competent substantial evidence so burden of proof in this case again I'm pretending to be the applicant the burden is on is on me to demonstrate that I comply with all the applicable criteria for approval by competent substantial evidence and if you tell me no you have to tell me why because the burden then shifts to the local government which is you all the Town Council to justify the denial okay adequate notice has to be provided an opportunity to the applicant to be heard must be provided and they must be provided fair treatment and you all as Town Council must act as impartial decision makers expar communication which is that list of people that you talk to before the hearing whether they're on in favor or opposed to the hearing has to to be provided you can have that communication you just have to keep a list and the decision has to be based on the correct application of the law and again competent substantial evidence in the record so we go on to the board of adjustment which makes final decisions these hearings are Quasi judicial the board of adjustment runs quasi judicial hearings which requires that experte communication requires uh competent substantial evidence the burden of proof is on the board of adjustment to say why they might not have approved something so there's I talked about administrative appeals that's like I I won't focus on it very much but for example um at one point someone came in and our code said no neon lighting or anything like neon lighting so when the applicant came in with LED strip lighting surrounding the outside of their building I said that doesn't meet our architectural design standards because it's just like neon lighting it might not be it and again think about our code it's outdated it's started in the 1970s so it gives us that wiggle room for anything that's neon lighting or like neon lighting so my interpretation is it is like neon lighting we cannot allow it actually thinking back I might have been overruled on this one um but I said and they they just insisted you know no I'm telling you this is not neon lighting it's not like Las Vegas it's totally different so they came before our Board of adjustment and our Board of adjustment made a decision that would be an administrative appeal I made a decision in my day-to-day work there wasn't a hearing involved or anything I told the applicant yes or no on a particular thing they disagreed and they came before the board of adjustment for a different opinion okay so something else the board of adjustment does is called special exceptions special exceptions is all about use of a property a special exception is a use that would not be appropriate generally or without restriction throughout the zoning District but which if controlled as to number area location or relation to the neighborhood would promote the public health safety welfare morals order Comfort convenience Prosperity or general welfare such uses are permitted in such zoning District as a special exception where specific Provisions for such exception is made in this chapter so in the zoning code in the zoning District it has to say for example we can look at our um firework tent sales right so the tents are considered a temporary building by our code they're considered temporary our code allows it explicitly says there in the zoning District um temporary buildings are allowed for three months out of every 18month period with a special exception that means you have to get that special permission and there's conditions that might be applied and so we have some that are like that and in this case there will be another one coming up because they put like an expiration date on it they said well we want to see how this goes and if it works out then come back and reapply and maybe we'll extend it for longer um they might say at that hearing these are the types of signs you can have or not have with your special exception it has to be this far away from a driveway entrance for safety reasons these are the types of conditions they might apply so again that's all about use and so we're talking about the number of it so they might say yes you cannot have 50 tents on one property that would be too much or you know yeah I think we could allow it if they're spaced every 1,000 feet apart so then we get into variances variances are dimensional in nature they have to do with measurements so a variance is a modification of the zoning Reg regulations which allows one or more District regulations to be relaxed in favor of the owner when such variants will not be contrary to the public interest and when owing to conditions peculiar to the physical aspects of the real property in question and not the results of the actions of the applicant a literal enforcement of the regulations would result in unnecessary and undue hardship a variance is authorized only for the height so Dimension area or size of a structure or size of yards and open space all Dimensions The Establishment or expansion of a use otherwise prohibited under this code shall not be allowed by variance right doesn't have to do with use right just Dimensions nor shall a variance be granted in violation of the provisions of subsection 15322 or as to the use or residential density of a parcel no variant shall be granted because of the presence of non-conformities in the zoning District or classification or in adjoining zoning districts or classifications so I really want to highlight this is what I really look at when I look at variances and when someone asks if a variance is an option for their property right where it says owing to conditions PE peculiar to the physical aspects of the real property in question and not the result of the actions of the applicant so if someone comes in and says I just want to build my house out lot line to lot line I just need more room I just think it would be better that way I have 600 kids and I they need more room that might be a hardship that's hard to have that many kids but it is not a hardship owing to the physical attributes of the land so if that person came in and said well my lot is really irregularly shaped and I can only expand on the east side because on the West Side even though I have a lot of room there the slope is very difficult to build on it would be very burdensome to try to place a structure there due to the geographics of the site and there's also Wetlands I can't build in like the land itself has an issue not the property owner that is what needs to be proven during a variance okay so I said we would get into the trigger of a PD that stands for Planned development it is a type of zoning the LPR RP which stands for the lake pled Regional plan area the LPR overlay district is a planning tool to guide the transition of the lake pled area into a planned community and allows allows the annexation of properties into the town to ensure development has public infrastructure as a result of this LPR we are going to look at every individual development and make sure it meets the intent of our code and I'm going to show you a map in in a moment that's going to help things be a little bit more clear all development within the Lake Placid Regional plan area shall be accomplished using a planned development this is straight from our code there shall will be no land use change plaque rezone or subdivision without a PD then it says with the exception of existing agricultural uses and developed lands including existing single family units following annexation okay so this map is really important everything in purple and orange all of those colors that that is considered our LPR but we have two slightly different standards for the purple areas and the orange areas I'll categorize those pinkish areas with the purple too because it says the lp outside of the developed historic town area so on this map the developed historic town area is brown outside of the brown areas so the pink and the purple shall be guided by density policies allowing for a maximum of three dwelling units per gross acre by encouraging clusters with net densities not to exceed 12 units per acre and what that means is say you have a 50 acre lot and you want to put all of the homes closer to each other cluster them on smaller lots and cluster them to be a little bit smaller you could get up to 12 dwelling units per acre in that area as long as the overall parcel including all the open space and all the other lands on that 50 acre parcel does not exceed three dwelling units per acre for the total calculation but you can make them so small that in that little area if you did the math on that little area where the lots are it could get up to 12 dwelling units per acre and that's a lot of the intent of the LPR you'll see throughout the LPR regulations we want our Green Space we want our open space now I couldn't get into everything here with the LPR because it's really dispersed all throughout our code but an area where a lot of the regulations intended for the LPR are centered is the PD District because a PD is triggered by almost almost anything you do in the LPR if you have a piece of land a 50 acre piece of land and it already has future land use for commercial you can go ahead and develop commercial no PD required if it has the future land use and the zoning everything's consistent I cannot require a PD for you to develop with the existing entitlements in place you already have that in place but say you want to subdivide that land then you have to go for a PD zoning change um in the purple areas our signage requirements are a little bit more stringent but this is a coordinated area so all those purple areas aren't currently annexed in town some of that or a lot of that most of those purple areas are in the unincorporated Highlands County and that is why our LPR requires a lot of intergovernmental coordination that is why you get those emails from me that say hey we have this Development coming with the 300 ft of our LPR boundary or inside the LPR boundary so if you have a comment please provide a comment and I'll forward that on to the planning and zoning office who will incorporate it as part of their staff report and let the applicant know that we've made a request or a comment we also have to do the same thing so if there's any development within 300 ft inside town limits within 300 feet of the unincorporated County we have to notify them as well oh boy now I'm starting to okay speed back up so in 2006 oh we have to talk about process oh no I only have eight minutes to do this we have to talk about the process of commercial site plan review zoning future land use um all of these things right but it's really important to know that in 2006 we adopted a big chunk of Highlands Count's Land Development regulations 13 different areas including you see number three plats site plans and Improvement plans number four Transportation the county runs our transportation concurrency for us we here in town we don't determine if the traffic's going to be too much or too little we leave that to the county everything else we've adopted their rules but we regulate it we are the ones who administer it so I'm still the one even though we take a section of their code and we say we're going to use that as our guideline and our tool usually I'm the one who will do the crosschecking and say okay well um we regulate this using that code but come through me call me come through me so we use Highland County fire code so we adopted their their portion of the code the building code we use the highlands County's uh building official so to make it a little bit more maybe seamless I hope this is an example of a residential building permit it is is literally like a checklist you see I highlighted each department that everyone has to go to the first Department that anyone goes to say they're building a new house is going to be zoning I'm going to check the zoning and make sure it's okay so I go ahead and check that off I'm also doing planning so the Highlands County Building Permit doesn't necessarily follow what we might need for a town for planning but I go ahead and I check everything for planning too and then internal to us looks like I forgot to highlight it the engineering department that is our driveway approval it's a totally separate process there's a totally separate permit for it our town engineer is in charge of administering that permit application process and um working with our team to carry out those inspections but when I'm signing or the town engineer is signing this building permit application they're saying that they have gotten a driveway permit they're good to go so those are areas we look at but then we say all right thank you very much um for checking with us all of this is good to go here's your permit back take it a Highlands County addressing make sure that's okay for 911 then take it to the building department they're going to review their your building plans and you also have to go to the health department in case you're using well or septic say someone only wants a fence in that case I'm only doing zoning department none of the other departments will be looked into and they take that permit after I sign it up to the Highlands County building department I try to be really user friendly if people are um technology friendly I will email it for them and copy them on it I try to scan the documents so that people take less trips so I'm really cognizant of that so what is concurrency concurrency is the first step in the commercial review or subdivision process concurrency means to provide the means of evaluating proposed development orders to ensure that level of service standards adopted in the County's comprehensive plan are maintained and that public facilities and services needed to support development are available concurrently at the time with the impacts of such development so each concurrency application I check it off the town engineer has final say an approval over it but I will review it and I look at the project overview they tell us what they're building how big it is they provide us a concept plan and then again it's just like a checklist they they have to give us a letter from utilities saying they have potable water or waste water the electric provider that they will be able to serve the site telephone provider can serve the site traffic that means they have gone to the county they got traffic concurrency that means approval stating that they will meet the standards for traffic as established by The Highlands County Land Development regulations um drainage and storm water that's really hard we basically in any application just ask them to say yes they are going to comply with storm water and drainage because it's regulated by the southwest Florida Water Management District and we don't really get into the nitty-gritty of drainage and storm water until we go through the actual site plan review so at this point they're just saying yeah we're aware that we're going to have to get a permit through the Water Management District and we will do that as soon as you know you tell us it's okay to go parks and Recreation if this is a residential development is there enough Parks as established and determined by our comprehensive plan are there enough Parks outside of your development are there enough Parks inside of your development that is supposed to say solid waste not waster but um you know do we have enough capacity at the landfill and does our P our public works department will they be able to get enough trash cans or I've run into issues where someone's like yeah I'm going to use a trash compactor and they've been like wait no we don't have garbage truck for that so you know these are the kinds of things we look at before you even submit plans to us and also if it's a residential development does our schools do our schools have enough room so they get us a letter from the schools saying yes we have enough room if not they have to build a school site or do something I haven't come into that problem yet okay plan review see this flow chart it is from the Highlands County Technical standards manual which is a part of the Highlands County Land Development regulations it is kind of built in a circle that is because someone submits an application within 10 days of that application I send them a letter telling them whether or not it's complete once it's complete that means did they send me all the forms people like to send me things all the time with just like a set of plans but without any of the backup information so I check it I say okay this is not complete send it back they send it back to me finally I have all the documents I need we are going to determine this is complete okay so then after I send that letter we have 15 days with our development Review Committee that is other agencies like fire Highlands County um engineering I we check with public works I should have put the list up there but basically anyone who has skin in the game at the public sector level and we say do you have any issues with this particular development and almost every time someone comes back with a comment including myself as Town planner I usually say Hey you sent me the document but you didn't even provide setback so I don't even know how far away the building is from the lot line or something like that right so once they uh it goes through development Review Committee either we say yes this is beautiful this is everything we needed and everything we asked for according to our Land Development regulations you can go ahead and build so in an Ideal World you see that would be a total of 25 days or we send it back and say actually we have these comments you know natural resources says you are building in a wetland please show environmental uh report and provide these other these other things that are lacking a lot of times a lot of times in Town Lake plasted we have issues with Landscaping because we have very really intense Landscaping requirements and if um someone submits a plan anyone that's local usually puts together a really good plan but if someone submits a plan that isn't familiar with our Land Development regulations for landscaping we have to go back a couple times and say check this out check this out what about this so in an ideal world it would be 25 days that almost never happens usually we are looking at six to nine months because after I send that first request for additional information the engineer that's running the um submitting the plans they take they take some time they're really busy they have a lot on their plate too and they got a lot going on so sometimes it takes a couple months to even get it back from them then it goes through another 30-day review process with us so it kind of goes in a circle over and over and over again until everything is addressed all the comments are addressed and we are able to issue what's called a final development order same for subdivision plotting so everything I just told you about is what we do for the preliminary plat process once preliminary plat just for confusion sake uh okay I see um preliminary plat it a plat is for subdivision if you create three Parcels or more with whatever you're doing you need to subdivide your property it's like a formal recording showing exactly where the lot lines are supposed to be and exactly what you're proposing so I happen to have this one of Lake June point because I accidentally saved it as my background that's how you really know your planner when you just like shut down your computer one day and all of a sudden you have like a plat as your background because you accidentally saved it when you were working on something yeah anyway so then you come back and you have to do your improvement plan showing this is how we're going to build the roads this is how we're going to do the storm water this is where we're going to insert the water and wastewater connection points and after that's all done internally and administratively by our staff in here and then they've already done the work they've already done the construction but they have to come back and say all right this is exactly how we built it we ran into this issue so we shifted this lot line a little bit and this is our final plat and this is everybody's uh name on it who reviewed it and everyone's okay with it so we're going to bring it to the Town Council for final approval Town Council does get final approval of the final plot all right and then there's me so let me know if you want can you can you back up to the overlay chart real quick I just had a question what's the so the white area where were not responsible for pled Lakes were not responsible for is at Sun and lakes South correct all the large subdivisions no sun and Lake South silven Shores Highlands Park Placid Lakes Leisure Lakes uh any of those are so the white I can just by your color quote here the white we're not that's all County correct and then um you were going to talk about the pink areas so those are considered developed historic town area unfortunately the LPR doesn't really I'm sorry undeveloped historic town area um the LPR doesn't really do the greatest job of addressing that in text it only talks about the developed historic town area in brown and then everything else it just kind of classifies it as everything else so the pink and the purple are subject to the same regulations and those are under our decisions C the pink is definitely uh the purple some of the purple areas are in our jurisdiction okay since annexation this map is a little bit old it's part of our comprehensive plan and we've annexed a lot of lands since then any question okay so all of this just kind of leads to and I won't go in we have current projects we have a long list of those most of those you see in our director's reports get through them just real quick but uh and some of them you're going to have part of the workshop is you're going to make decisions on a lot of these tonight so we have new police station pickle ball courts by Centennial Park acquisition which was 151 down hall we're working with the county on pedestrian crosswalk at Main and D Hall um been working with them on a sidewalk on Inter Lake and tangerine to cat to catfish Creek where you're going to see a technical assistance grant for the historic area in us27 overlay we're working on public records and adg financials and moving them into the cloud to provide better security for ourselves Police Department's working on an accreditation uh project we've issued purchase orders to pave service alley and overlay part of South Oak and Jackson Street and then you get into the all the uh utility projects the pipe bursting on airlake we're going to talk about that later in the meeting um the lake plastic camp and Conference Center the Wastewater line that's under way for construction the water line that we're working on the loan application with them the wastewater treatment plant where we're negotiating trying to get a contract signed we got water and wastewater line extensions um cell phone radio read meters that we were underway got 150 installed but we've got 3200 total so we got a long way to go it's a five to six year project skate a system for water plants and lift stations these are all and then chlorine gas conversion these are all current projects that we're working on we're very busy a lot of stuff happening inside the town and but um if there's any other questions but as we move forward if there's um goals or visioning that you want to look at how you your comp plan is what they decided years ago that they wanted the town to look like how do you tighten those up how do you make those meet with your current vision and as to council changes and you have new members you have a little bit slightly different Vision necessarily than they did 20 years ago so you might want to change some of those uh what projects do you want us to work on so we're the staff we're work for the council and the mayor and so the goal is to trying to figure out where what the direction is for us and so that was kind of the purpose for this if there's anything specific or any other questions we can go ahead and address those now we can address them at the meeting later we can address them any month moving into the into um moving forward but that's kind of it just just real quick um I have some question is just the format of the agenda so when an agenda comes out um and we have the number one consent area right the first group is a consent area the agenda the meetings and that and then and maybe I was confused because last month it had um the smoke Foundation the run for pancakes these other things but we didn't discuss it it was in the package so I I was thinking we were supposed to discuss them and then that's how you approve it or is everything under consent just what's in the package we take a look at it and then we make a motion based on that information to approve it or not consent is and the attorney will correct me if I'm wrong consent is just that they if you have a question on it you make a motion to remove it from the consent and you move it down into an action item otherwise if there's no questions it's consent there's no discussion on those items so it's a motion to approve the whole agenda so if you want to Pro pull item D on the uh the monthly bills you want to pull those you're going to say I make a motion to pull item D out of the consent agenda we'll move it into and and the mayor will make it 1 a or or uh not won't it won't be 1A but it'll be an item so it may be 3A it may be 2A whatever wherever he decides to put it in the agenda and it'll go in that as an action item as opposed to the whole consent so and then you used to see consent one consent two because if there were any bills to Roy Supply that was a conflict so then that prevented councilman Roy from voting on consent one so it was always a separate consent two item um we don't have consent two because we don't have that same issue today that scenario today so it's all under consent Agenda One um so there's no items under consent agenda two and then you roll through okay thank you any comments or concerns from the public if not we're going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting if you have a comment you need to come to Podium state your name and address for the record and please sir when you're in chamber I'd ask you to remove your sorry thank you Bill Rios 91 Grand View uh Boulevard uh I'm here to inquiring on the police station I understand that you were talking about came to my attention that you were saying that you want to take a building and reconstruct it inside and make it into a police station police stations aren't that easy to make and if they don't have the proper uh uh construction or facilities inside it's not going to be a police station you need I'm I'm in in law enforcement for 45 years I did 20 some OD years with New York City and another 20 some OD years with US Marshals I've been in a lot of police stations and I've been all over the United States for them and a police station first of all needs the proper rooms the proper proc uh facilities for holding pen for proper rooms for uh interrogation and most of all the heart of it is the uh evidence room that evidence room cannot be near any exterior walls to that precin it has to be Central it has to have the proper air uh uh condensation to control the humidity AC the whole N9 yards and there only has to be one entrance and it has to have at least a camera audio just like in the interrogation rooms you have to have cameras audio uh the it has to have at least two male uh cells two female cells reason for that you can't just put guys that are fighting in the street together in one room then you're going to have a suicide in there so they have to be separated females the same thing unless you want to have a cat and dog fight a precent has to be properly made and and and the entrance the exits have to be properly controlled electrically you just can't take a building and say oh we'll we'll construct the inside and do all the layouts and all it's not going to work you have a precin I understand you have a a paperwork already made up for a new precin and if you have if you're going to make it you have to make it so that it meets the criterias that you have nowadays the old days are gone you have to have the proper stuff and you have to have the proper rooms for computers for printing for photoing Photograph the whole nine yards you just can't take a building and say oh we go construct a Precinct in this building it's not going to work you can't do it if you have the precin already laid out and you have the area and you have the funds for it do it give the community a proper Precinct okay thank you yeah thank you I think most of those issues have been addressed or being addressed as we talk so okay thank you any other comments if none we'll adjourn this meeting next meeting starts at 5:30 yeah yeah did you take your I did I did I'm sorry thank you sorry some sandwiches and stuff in the back oh thank you thank you very much that's matter on that keto thought about just started today I can't really tell you and I don't know I think the blueberries and that kind of stuff you can have blueberri strawberries raspberries to stay away from oranges and bananas and that not easy I just eating and stuff like that and then then there's Pizza you know I can eat pizza I just e the cheese youas I give you really good really freshh sugar free right yes St just all keto friendly and put put your wash them up put a little tap like a there of that in there it around flat and bagg freeze them little cool up on top man they're good cool cool I to try yes and they're refreshing yeah so try that my most huh oh did you them now like announ I didn't know if that was okay is okay huh Miss was okay she came back and looked oh she came back and looked who else did we looking him for I think Mr May's already back there there in my office I was thinking [Music] I went down lat was picture that's Maybe [Music] they all put your yes and I don't I said all right we'll see spe for e e spe s all three care [Music] e e than [Music] spe spe for I know how are you dear and you're walking around so much better I'm getting there I still have spinal synos that's what got to taken care of next but Susan's having her knee replaced July 17th that's to get back to vacation I'm not going to get my back that's why my legs that's why I need to change of slow guess I'm trying to get get we don't get called out as often as I think we should get called out SC so Scotty and he has a different perspective he said I'm going to do this about back here God I'm gonna go see if I brought the jacket e good how are see you still hanging around town I see I could take my money and run but I'm to stay hey John how you doing kid good how are you I do not but if you want talk to Dana she's got it she just had it up on the screen a few minutes ago that's the map but then there's a whole bunch of documents that go with it um it's pretty cool that's the plan it was approved by the county and the town it goes to PL well that's probably part of it because when you add up