me too when is day like 28 more days or something not like you don't have anything else to do yeah I said that's exactly what I said iting and hand gifts where Robert Robert is up in the corner he was a second ago oh okay you guys ready you ready one I'm still here I just shut off my video I'm having a bad hair day okay just make sure hair I thought that you I said it yes I don't know why put this front because I don't know better are we [Music] ready thank you I don't think so Hey where's Robert he's on he turned his video off because he's having bad ha oh I thought he look good okay you ready I am indeed ready GES July 2nd Town council meeting will now come to order we could all please stand for the pledge of aliance the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all have to acknowledge those the world who are suffering okay and if I can have a roll call pleas council member Shore presid via Zoom council member danowski here council member manilia she's present but just left the room so I don't know how you want to mark that vice mayor Herzog here mayor Kane present Town manager remilia here town tvia Public Works director Gant for the record missia just return to the room okay any additions deletions or modifications please none for me valer mayor uh we would like to pull off the consent agenda item number eight from the consent correct okay we're pulling eight from the consent can I have a motion to approve wait a minute with number eight pull from consent I want to pull four you want to pull four from consent don't we do consent when we get to consent yeah yeah I'm just ch I fig she what she was should we do the public comment section first and then we'll go back to pulling changing consent okay so we're going to pull items four and eight when we get to it four more you're sure okay all right so this is the section of the time of the meeting when um the public is able to make comments about non-agenda items and council is able to respond so do we have anybody who is wishing to speak Miss Jane come up that's okay that's what this is for this is the nothing that has nothing to do with anything Canal ditches ditch okay very lovely people I don't know what I can do or not doated but on the other side of his  all the treeses with all this last ra and wind are all falling down into my yard and breaking my vs so as that my my responsibility or his it's a Jung uh Mr Gant do you w to or Mr tvia legal legal legal question really a dispute between neighbors so that's a civil dispute the town doesn't really Town doesn't really get involved in that kind of a dispute it's a neighbor against neighbor dispute his trees do you have a good relationship I don't know I'm just asking because I didn't I know where I lived in Del if it was on their side and it fell over mine it was their problem but then in other places if it's on their side my yard my yard it's my problem so I just somebody shed some light on that and again that that's always the debate and usually and I don't I can't give you legal advice but usually if it's on your side you can trim it um it's on their side thinging from like 15 20 feet away over well that's that's really you needing to talk to your neighbor about that I can't stay for the AR it's not a question it's just I'm just asking to start somewhere this is going like the third or fourth year of this whole what do we do what do we do and I understand a lot of people's sides where it's really bad for them and then a lot of people where it's not really bad for them and they're doing right but all the right people are the ones showing up and all the ones that are doing the right things are getting thrown in with everything so I think that if we just start somewhere with with if you want three spots say that's what you agree on then and you have the intention of using them whether you use them or don't use them you pay your $400 per spot a year and just start somewhere just you know and you just can't punish those who follow the rules we have to find a middle ground you know it's like we have extreme get rid of them all and extreme no I want four just make it work for everybody especially those who are following the rules and then help those who are being tortured by the ones who are not following the rules that's all I have to say just got to start somewhere because it just leaves me in limbo every year and I don't know what to do and I am rule follower so therefore I end up doing nothing because God forbid I didn't know the rule properly and then it hurts me so that's all it you know just find a middle ground and just start and do something because I see some people that are doing things that are Beyond me and to have me lumped in with them is just atrocious so start somewhere please and start simple all right just start do something because I I'm sorry say something somebody said something oh okay all right so that's all I'm saying is just start somewhere and then go from there and then just feel it out as you go because we're nowhere as it is and we're in like the third year of doing this so you know and see who follows that $400 Spa then you're like okay we know who they are we can drive by they look great they're following the rules I mean I even gave you a sign letter who's picking up the septic tank you know everything and it's but I just think it gets a little too personal with driver's license and who's there and how many people it's like I I have celebrities sometime come to my farm they don't want you to know they're there so it's just find the middle ground and let's try to be fair for everybody and not lump everybody in on the bad side and then have everybody on the good side say well you're all the bad ones let's just find a simple happy medium and a little more proper application and so on and so forth and I appreciate it thank you thank you Valerie Mr Austin Robert Austin 746 hi Park Road some of what she's talking about I warned about when they first started trying to be nice bringing in the RVs here with the yearr round RV camping the 6 months 6 months I told you guys two three years ago that's not going to work if you're going to tailor it to people like her who are following the rules for equestrian season I personally have no issue with that as long as they're doing the right thing but when you have the six months and another six months now you have people in these little campers that are just moving around from spot to spot every six months in lockah hatchee who don't live here but you can go down collecting canel road right now there are 30 to 40 people campers with people living in them right now on collecting canal Road in the summertime most of those campers should not be there and if you put two cars there that's like what 60 to 80 cars running down collecting Canal you go up through all roads there's people living in RVs year round here and that's how you know unfortunately she gets lumped in with them following the rules because they're not following the rules because our code enforcement isn't enforcing anything I mean I don't know how the uh property behind the day property we got rid of it looked like they got rid of the uh light industrial was there now they have a whole another uh landscaping business there with trucks and people parking there is that a single family residential property how come they they're moving in offices they got a double wide they're putting on there for offices Twisted Spurs right down collecting Canal they have three travel trailers they put skirting around them they're not planning on those things going anywhere old crappy travel trailers were scurrying around them because and they put like an 80s single wide in the back they painted match their Barnes is this what we're allowing in our town no wonder if the lady I spoke to last week who spent $1.4 million her house is disgusting the people down my street who spent 1.2 million on their horse farm are living next to the apartment building on top of a barn which would never have gotten built in West Palm Beach or Royal Palm we're obviously missing something here with our legal team because you got to be able to use the county the state or something because that property should be taken away I don't care if it's Homestead or not they got to have a certain line that he's crossed years ago and he's just been sticking his thumb up to you guys the whole time you know and you say you can't go on this property well you know you can see right there they got like a 12 unit apartment building on top of his barn plus four travel trailers on his property the traffic on hide Park is atrocious I mean we're missing something somewhere in illegal or something that talk to somebody in West Palm see what they would do talk to somebody in Wellington what would they do with these same circumstances I mean you got to be able to take that property or what eminent domain or whatever because he is just flagrantly ignoring you guys and that's the problem with the RV stuff is there's so many people just ignore this town because they think they can get away with it and they're just moving these little crappy RVs around and from lot to lot ofy 600 some aren't even moving like the the Spurs aren't moving on collecting canel they've had them sitting there on F Road there's a guy who's been living at uh that travel trailer for three or four years now he's not building a house on that property they put a pad down but you know you get two years to build your house he's been there three or four years it's all over our town and it's an issue thank you can I say something yes um so franc in the current ordinance um in the current RV ordinance to be clear not the storage ordinance aren't all RVs in the town supposed to be roadworthy and tagged yes they are and is that enforcable now if we can see them from the street yes if you could see what the tag from the street no if we can see the RV from the street because in order to be able to see the RV we have to be able to see it from the street or there has to be a complaint about it with pictures and we're able to get onto the property and have someone testify for it with regard to the RV ordinance the reason it requires the registration is so then people would just voluntarily provide that information but they're not and the they're not and my other question is why it does seem like other towns you know I I I get nobody wants to air their dirty laundry and maybe they're hiding it I don't know but it seems like there are other towns that are very strict in their rules and that you see something one day it gets a violation and it's gone pretty quick and I don't understand why we are not able to do that with several of the most Greedious Cod defenders in our town that are just nothing seems to be happening and it it's frustrating for us up here as well as the residents that are living next to it watch them build it very frustrating for the staff as well but what do we need to do I'm going to turn to our attorney about that because we put violations on the properties if people don't move the RVs then we go ahead and lean the property property in question right now is on the way to a million dollars of leans well I'm talking about General code enforcement talking about the R General code enforcement is an noov for any more than four on the property no I'm I'm talking about not just RVs I'm talking about why can we not make things happen once they're in code that is the question we find them but what is going on that for instance we have a tractor trailer repair shop going on probably five years of operating in I hate to tell you this and I am going to also ask Mr tvi to jump in but every time this is asked I answer the same thing and that is that the fine is considered a cost of them doing the business number one number two we don't have the level of staff that can address everything number three most of these things ones that we can see from the street we do try to enforce but when we can't see it from the street then we need a complaint and we only have a handful of things that we're proactive on okay RVs are a proactive item I mean just in following what we have in the code and the direction we have been given by the council and the level of Staffing that we have we put violations on the property people still disregard us what we are going to bring forward is a citation and this and the citation has been written by Mr tvia office which means that we can go every single day and give them a citation and it's just like getting something from you know a speeding ticket you know eventually once you get enough citations you got to come in and comply that's that's the only latest option I can offer you you basically evict somebody in 30 days in Florida correct you could in three okay well you give them a three-day notice but I think it takes 30 to 60 days to actually event but I do appreciate the passion on this issue and the frustration because I live it so unless we wish to go ahead and start foreclosure and let people see that that's what we wish to do the fines keep running on that particular property and other ones as well and we brought this up I was not we brought this up we just need to establish the Threshold at which time we wish to do foreclosure and I would turn it over to our attorney to go ahead and take us through that as a last resort of course I I mean do I want to see a little old lady get foreclosed on but she's not going to cuz hopefully the state and the county and somebody can assist her but there's things just going on too long and we're the ones that can help you we're the teeth so and the teeth are 30 employees out of a town with 300 so I don't have 30 employees and additionally we have two part-time code officers so we try the best we can to get it covered we have 20 cases on the at this point it's legal it's at this point they should just be dealing with legal I'm okay with that I'm okay with it all right well we'll talk about it again and RV thing if you get rid of the six month six month make it just equestrian season could be a lot less you had more teeth because the people who were coming down here spending their Summers here that hopefully their questioning season they shouldn't be here they should be over at John PR some other Camp not but that doesn't address the people who have an agricultural business where they have a Liv so Madam mayor that guy I don't remember where he ISS he's had code enforcement okay if you need if you want to talk you do have to come up with the mic so it's on the record Glenn did you want to answer from a legal perspective sure so so code enforcement is got pros and cons and um you know people that own property have a lot of rights in the state of Florida so you can't for example as Francis said you can't go on their property without their permission or a warrant to go on there and take pictures for example of the violations that's why she talked about taking pictures from the road seeing it from the road legislature last year took one tool away and they said can't have Anonymous complaints so now you have to have a person that actually is going to put their name on the record and say I'm complaining about my neighbor Joe and here's my complaint and then we can go and enforce Francine talked about Staffing you know if code the cities that are more efficient in Code Enforcement have a lot more staff than we do do in COD enforcement but no matter how much staff you have no matter how much you site people at the end of the day all you're doing is finding them and they can keep racking up that fine until it gets to a million dollars or10 million and the only time you're going to collect is really one of two ways either they go to sell the property and when they sell the property your fine is a lean on their property so when they sell the property they will have to pay the lean doesn't fix is for closing uh is the ultimate option so as frine said if Council wants to go forward and have us be more aggressive with foreclosing the the decision always comes back to you we're never going to start a foreclosure without the you guys saying yes we want to foreclose on this property and that's how we talked about thresholds is it $100,000 fine is it $200,000 when's the level where do we stand with that discussion I know that we were we had come to some kind of a consensus where do we stand with that do we need to put that on the next agenda we can put it back on the next let's put on the next agenda and let's get a let's get a rule and let's let's do this on the 16 and bring us back the four longest running most grous properties yeah anything that's over like start with anything that's over six months we we we did a year because we did hand those out at the last meeting so you know who they are and we will hand them out in the querly report and it is four four or five thank you cannot foreclose on Homestead property so that's is a difficulty too you're not able to foreclose on someone's home that's true so can you bring us back some other tool if we can't I mean everybody's most not everybody I'm sorry most people are homestead so there has to be some tool available fine keeps running and when they sell their home you're going to there has to be some tool okay call around Glenn see what be some tool available to us every city has issues like similar to you it's not as it we're not the only ones that are dealing with with us right exactly and it's difficult for everybody for the same reason that our hands are somewhat Tied by the Florida laws you know I understand but let's let's find a way the most we can okay way to as we said I believe in our discussion before let's find a way to put some teeth into these right things that we have we have no teeth and that's the problem you know people are just like you know say bad words to our CL officers Laura Mr tvia in oh I'm sorry I didn't see you I had turned that's okay um in addition to not being able to foreclose a homesteaded property isn't there something about a 20e rule that after 20 years if the Fine's not dealt with it resets and goes away is that fact or fiction uh it's more fiction theoretically that's correct but you can it's like any judgment you can refile your judgment so and the 19th year you want to remember to refile your lean so that it continues to exist so it's 20 years and then you can reset it wow so in year 19 you have to reset it what I was about to say is at a place I worked previously we had arrangements with a mortgage holder because the mortgage holder does not want you know um oh that's a good idea well and the property being in code violation racking up that I wonder if there is a way that we could um look at that inform the mortgage holder that it's got a million dollars worth of leans on it I bet they wouldn't be happy about that just like they're not happy if you don't have insurance that sounds like a good idea Laura has Laura um I realize this is an on the spot question what is the hierarchy of who gets paid first taxes Town secondary lean second refinance I what's the there complicated question but code enforcement leans are above the middle of that list not at the very but we're not at the very bottom you know so think about an secured creditor is going to always be at the bottom a secured creditor a mortgage holder right they're going to have some priority unless your lean has been file before the mortgage which usually doesn't happen because usually they pay off the leans at a closing and so you take out a mortgage for $100,000 in your property on June 1 June 2nd you get a Cod leing so that Cod Ling is behind the mortgage because it got filed the day after the mortgage did okay thank you what about shutting off the power the property if it's Homestead good idea though um okay anybody else Valerie we can be to that any I'm sorry well I I'll tell you I feel so much better hearing you guys talk like this it makes me feel a lot better because now if we can just finally address starting with the actual problems that brought us all here on this and doing trying to put the teeth into that and then slowly moving towards some form of semblance makes me feel a lot better better and I thank you all valer anybody else no mayor okay this portion of the meeting is adjourned let's maybe take a two minute break or five minute break and then we'll be back for our 6:30 start you know that we have this same about you want me to start to do it yeah no let me see if I get Glen can you come back us two origal that start competion if we bring that will go after actual legal proceeding make go you got to look at it you have to it because they offer to let them but if they're still do that the new compan called soltions yeah yeah Tom um but Tom rest started a company doing the same thing the original approach start the same company um and I said I help contract to start talking us it's forclosure still like to see that l that company is back in another compy where he does it can I do the presentations before we do approve the agenda or do I just let the other electeds get out of here I don't know discussion it's it's in here 11 just right to be discussed okay yeah we got it working are we working now can can okay all right as long as he can see yeah don't break it don't break it tou remember the the people e e not recording we're not yes we are oh there you are okay there you are we're delayed the meetings now coming to order okay could I have a motion to approve the agenda I make a motion to approve the agenda second okay all in favor I I opposed I I'm in favor not oppose I'm sorry I am in favor I don't know if there's a delay when I say I five second okay all right thank you we we got it thank you Robert Robert Ved I as well okay uh we have are honored this evening to have commissioner Sarah Baxter here to give a presentation and a legislative update good evening everyone yes I'm SAR Baxter the commissioner for district 6 so thank you for having me um I actually um don't want to steal her Thunder but this is Casey Denny one of the people in our ledge Affairs team who does a much better job at covering all of the statutes and Appropriations and everything so I'm going to let her take over and then I will fill in some uh highlights that I would like to um discuss good evening mayor council members my name is Denny I'm Palm Beach County's legislative affairs director it's my job to Champion the priorities of the board of County Commissioners and be up until tasse during legislative session we handed you all each just a little cheat sheet of some of the things that I'll go over um and the commissioner will expand upon today and we'll start with um budget and taxes so before gubinatorial vetos the legislature passed 117.5 6 billion with a B dollar budget for the state's fiscal year 2425 budget after the legislature passed that budget it was sent to the governor who made a total of $949 Million worth of vetos bringing the final budget total to $116 billion um for the upcoming fiscal year some of that budget included projects that Palm Beach County specifically requested for programs and projects throughout this um throughout the county uh you'll see some of them listed there West Palm Beach signalization up upgrades for the downtown area to improve traffic flow Pina Island Historic restoration of the facilities on the island like the JFK bunker and the historic um boat house uh some funding for storm water and drainage in the central historic area of Palm Beach County for that infrastructure $1 million there and Palm Beach County restore re-entry program this is our re-entry program based um in district 6 uh out in the belglade South Bay pooki Area out in pooki um SEO Palm is the facility and essentially we partner with the Department of Corrections to provide re-entry and Case Management Services for non-violent offenders who are re-entering our community to come back into society and then um some funding for the Lakeworth Lagoon initiative seagrass restoration project we're super pleased with the funding that we've received and um actually lock AI Groves as I'm sure you're aware received $750,000 for um your storm water system Rehabilitation the second phase of that so congratulations uh one other aspect that I want to talk about on budget and taxes is everybody's favorite Bill the annual tax relief package this package is estimated to bring about $500 million in relief for Florida families and businesses some of those things that you may be familiar with are those sales tax holidays that are included almost every year this year there is a back to school sales tax holiday scheduled July 29th to August 11th for um exemptions on school supplies and certain clothing two disaster preparedness holidays one which is already behind us and in um one in August from the 24th to September 6th there is a freedom month holiday that took place um or is taking place right now in the month of July so you'll get uh sales tax exemptions on recreational items event tickets those sorts of things and then a tooltime sales tax holiday for some exemptions on skilled trade tools um that people need and that's September 1st through the 7th a few other things that bill um did that was important and notable there's onee relief from the residential insurance premium tax and flood insurance premium tax I know um property insurance is a hot topic for a lot of people here in our County and the State of Florida so that was something that will put um a little bit of money back into consumers pockets and then there was a temporary tax credit for corporations who employ individuals with disabilities a few of the bills that we wanted to highlight specifically for you all that impact local governments that are have been signed into law um House Bill 1301 the Department of Transportation I'm going to briefly describe what this does and I'm going to throw it over to the commissioner this was a a very large priority of hers to take care of um County Road 880 which we obviously no needs some repairs it's a critical Farm to Market link so this bill within it includes language that creates a new funding mechanism under the small County outreach program so certain agricultural areas those local governments can basically apply to the Florida Department of Transportation once this program is funded to receive dollars to make improvements to State and County count roads Um this can later be expanded to allow for other roads to be included in that program right now it's limited to State and County Road repair um for roads that are primarily used as agricultural farm- tomarket links to make sure that we're getting our products and our Goods to the distribution centers would you like to elaborate okay um another bill that I'm sure you've heard a lot about House Bill 1365 unauthorized public sleeping and camping this bill prohibits cities and counties from allowing regular overnight sleeping or camping on their public property um and public is the key word there public property um if there is no permit to do so so this doesn't capture you know your recreational campers who have a permit to go to a specific spot in a park um this would cover people who are sleeping on public property who are not supposed to be there this also allows counties to designate a site where um this type of camping and sleeping could take place there were a lot of uh Provisions in the bill that provided some guidelines that are pretty stringent and hard to comply with in a lot of circumstances so I'm not sure how many counties you'll see actually pursue this as a method for compliance um but it is an option that was provided in the bill and notably uh the bill established a civil cause of action beginning January 1st 2025 so October 1st 2024 this year is when this bill goes into effect and then um January 1st 2025 is when the Florida Attorney General a resident of um the local government or a business owner located in the county can actually sue the government to require them to comply with this law House Bill 479 is related to Alternative Mobility funding systems this basically defined what a Mobility fee and plan is that's a new fee that um you see some local governments implementing across the State of Florida and it requires cities and counties that both charge the developer for impacts to their transportation facilities to enter into an interlocal agreement to determine how to mitigate those impacts um it also prohibits charging a developer twice for the impacts to the same Transportation facilities and the last bill that I'll cover before I turn it over to the commissioner is Senate Bill 1628 local government actions you may remember in 2023 Senate Bill 170 was passed it required a local government to complete a business impact estimate before passing most ordinances there were a few exeptions included in that bill this year the legislature came back and they said we're removing the exemption for uh comprehensive plan amendments and amendments to Land Development regulations unless they are initiated by a private party so if there are comp plan amendments or amendments to your Land Development regulations you would now be required to complete a business impact estimate before um adopting and implementing those and that's what I have on my report and I'll hand it over to commissioner back thank you good evening again so uh briefly I wanted to touch on the fact that you were very very fortunate to be able to get the $750,000 um phase two for your project and I have to tell you whoever you have fighting for that did a fantastic job because there was a lot of vetos throughout the entire County that's first and foremost secondly I want to say that the yes the bill to be able to provide um roads if anyone in here has driven down County Road 80 it's kind of like driving down um a solid ocean right so it's a lot of waves it's a lot of bumps I mean people have driven into the canals we've lost a fir truck into the canal even um a mother and a child it is very very dangerous and so we really had no mechanism to provide for correcting these because if you don't know we have a huge issue with demucking out west so any roads that need to be done any houses that need to be built has to be demed first and that is an astronomical cost before you can do anything so we're talking about an 18 m Road we're talking about probably close to $150 million so the idea that the county would have to pay $150 million to correct a road isn't a uh easy pill to swallow let's say that's that's tough so the fact that the state went and did this program is going to be huge it's going to save us a lot of uh local dollars because as we know Palm Beach county is a donor County we bring money back from the state and this allows us one more way to bring more money back to Palm Beach County which means less dollars that our taxpayers have to pay so that's why that is huge we are hoping to see funding in increments over the next few years um working with the legislature so please let's I'd love to keep an eye on that um the housing and the camping act um if anybody is camping on public ground outside of a business so on um in a park where they shouldn't be you can literally get sued now so we even at the county are trying to come up with um ways to address this before it becomes an Avenue for lawsuits so I I um heard some residents earlier that kind of fit into this conversation and if you create a part somewhere for people that can't afford a house before they get to the point of camping in a tent I believe even somebody had said you guys were looking at some RV park somewhere or something where they could all go that would be a great solution because if you they have no place to go listen and I know this is controversial but you will start getting sued so it's kind of like if they can't live anywhere and they end up homeless then you're stuck on the other side of this so I understand that there's a balance to be thought of here but if you don't provide an area for them to go it'll be an even bigger problem for us and even at the county we're looking at programs partnering with private Public Partnerships we are looking at different ways because now we too have to address the homeless situation in pom County um and we're trying to take a multi- approach to that um but it will on some level impact lahache Groves so just keep that in mind when you're you know starting to put these things together also uh the mobility so we were tasked from the state if unless we want to take a the Builder study for traffic impacts we have to come up with interlocal agreements the county to 39 municipalities we at the board of County Commissioners have given direction for our Administration to start reaching out to everyone and we want to put together a large Symposium of all 39 County or excuse me cities with the county potentially at the convention center one day so I just put that on your radar as something we' like to all come together and talk about when we start moving forward and what we're going to do about Mobility because if you do not have a local an interlocal agreement in place the Builder gets to use their traffic study just keep that in mind so if you want any say in those fees um I think it'll be great for all of us to come together work together but it will be publicly noticed so that we can then all speak and talk and come up with a really good way to address this as an entire County not just individual cities or the county individually but so I'm looking forward to all of us being able to work together and the last yeah the business business impact estimate is huge you know sometimes even um at the county level we get a lot of complaints about different things but we just have to be cognizant of the things we do the regulations that we pass um we have some uh drainage things that'll be coming on an agenda coming up that I'm concerned because they're talking about limiting the amount of fill somebody can bring on to their property and that means you have to find alternate ways to drain properly all it's going to do is increase the cost for everyone to find alternate ways but they're saying if we don't do it we might risk our insurance rates going up our flood plane our flood insurance so I'm keeping an eye on this I will keep you updated but it's something for you to also keep your eye on because with five 10 acre lots so on Phil's a big deal and people need to be able to bring dirt onto their property um and I'm going to be asking a lot of questions because I still haven't had them all answered but I just wanted to put it on your radar thank you thank you very much for being here wow all right we have another presentation item number two Valerie uh we have a presentation on volunteer opportunities within the Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches and treasure Coast by Caitlyn Bates director of 3de and volunteer engagement hello my name is Caitlyn Bates and I'm the director of volunteer and program operations with Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast I have with me Ashley schroth our newest director of Community Partnerships and programs that was as of today so sorry for the new title um so thank you for having us here this evening to show our appreciation for Laura danowski uh for her dedicated service to volunteering with Junior Achievement she was part of many programs throughout the year including various Elementary and Middle School Career Fairs which um allowed her to share a bit about the responsibilities of owning her own horse farm so entrepreneurship um as well as the importance of agricultural and Agriculture and the careers available within that industry Junior achievements focus is on three main pillars including financial literacy Workforce Readiness and Entrepreneurship so she covered two of those when speaking with kids um we appreciate um her helping us to further our mission by reaching young minds across Palm Beach County with the help of not only Laura but 1,037 other volunteers as well we were able to deliver 16375 programs across our five count territory um as we look to next school year we plan to host an even larger array of programs meaning even more opportunities to get involved with students in the community we're excited to continue to collaborate with Laura and if anybody body else in the lockah Hatchi Groves Community would like to participate please let me know and thank you again for your efforts this year we have a a small thing for you thank you can do that now or after sure go right ahead I would want to stop a opportunity can we get the seal back is that you want not a problem do we need to move you stand up to you we'll all be in the house that block the seal yeah okay Valerie moving on to our third presentation we have a presentation on the my government online MGO program by Gina Lawrence Helper and software specialist hello good evening mayor and council member members my name is Gina Halburn I'm with MGO which stands for my government online and we are the building permitting software and we've been working with Jack and Francine and team over the last few weeks um so just to give it we're going to give a quick overview of course if any of you would like a more in-depth demo I'm happy to come in or set some time with you to go into that a little more in depth and answer those questions but as shown on the screen we do offer everything from permits and Licensing Planning and Zoning the code enforcement public work solution Center um next slide you want me to every might I interrupt you Gina for a moment we had a council member pull item four off the agenda which is your contract and the contract that we are proposing uses all of those services to replace our existing software so in that context I thought it would help you on your presentation um so as you see here the framework is not a singular module what that means is that we customize it for the lockah Hatchi Groves Town specifically as we know you have a lot of Need for code enforcement and the public being able to access and Report those so we work hard with the team and staff to ensure that your module and everything around it would be specific to you next slide um and we are it's we're through the South Central Planning Development Commission because we are a government entity we will never sell nothing will occur in the next few years we'll get passed on to another program and I do actually also live in lockah hatchee so as your software specialist I would be the one training your staff and coming here all the time as well as working with you even afterwards and with the contractor so I am also a local resident in the gr or uh unincorporated I'm off seminal pra but I still love the area um about our software we're in many many states um we've been in business over 18 years my personal background I started as a permit Tech about 13 years ago I moved on I was a city planner so I do feel for the staff which helps me want to perfect that and make your process a lot easier and smoother because I really truly do know both sides of the counter with it next slide um we have Builders and residents experiencing and have them praise the system we have 24-hour customer portal and we'll get through these with the next few slides but we really boast on the fact that a lot of our software could be done mobile for your public works department and your code enforcement department as as well as your residence there's a very handy app which we'll get to as well as it all is computer webbased so anybody could log on the internet even your staff from home should you allow them to work from home and it's not just a downloadable software it's easily acceptable or accessible for anyone from anywhere next slide um this is a vision of our customer portal what we like to do is customize it again for your town so we'll work with you we'll take what the town logo is your logo will be on the side pictures of lockah hatche groves so this way when you do have people who want to apply on the portal go from your website to ours it does all fluidly work together and they believe that it's still part of your program and your website as well to keep that whole concurrency going next slide this is a view of our app it could be used by any kind of residents who want to report anything in terms of the code enforcement violations that we've touched on before as well as there's different app accessibility for your public works and your inspectors to go out in the field and utilize those functions as well next slide uh this is a view of our mobile work orders and inspections this is an example of what one of your inspectors would view um volume wise it's easy to just click in any kind of permit view the details of it upload any photos and it doesn't have to have internet access should they be in a random area they could put all their notes upload their photos whether it's for an inspection or a violation and once they do get back into internet that does capture and resave and nothing has to be redone by anybody next slide this is a view of the work order list Q um again this is just something it's it's easily visible it's easily understandable so when we are training it's not that intricate everybody can truly understand and then as stated I'm always here for additional help but this is a great way to just see what your inspections are for the day and you could modify different time frames dates as well as if management wants to see all of the inspections for all inspectors you could even toggle those functions too um this is a little bit more you could see signatures you could um look at the project checklist sections you're able to view the project within the app or a tablet or even on the desktop should there be any confusion or questions about prior inspections everything is very easily viewable without it having to be expanded or um researched entirely next and we also have a work order list routing so what we are able to do is take all of the inspections for the day and it'll provide either the inspector or again if you're just going around looking at violations the best routes or they're not driving back and forth you could modify that should there be a certain time frame like FPL power releases and it'll still be able to give you the best and easiest route accessible without you having to do all that work yourself and that's all within the program next slide um same here with the map feature again it's just another way it shows an a num uh numbering order what everybody has to do for the day so there's really no confusion with it and that could always be dragged and dropped should somebody call a need the inspection earlier or later everything could be modified on site and then the system itself will reorganize that for you again just trying to save time for your staff and the public um and this is just continued it show another map we could go to the next slide this is a view inside of our app this would be an inspection that somebody performed we do call them work orders in this example everything can be customized but it's very easy to just take your phone or tablet upload a photo add additional notes um make a checklist advise the contractors if they need more items and we could always update again accordingly for you next slide we also have a digital plan review and we integrate with blue beam and Adobe as well as e-l soft so everything that comes in digitally online the plan reviewers can open it up they don't have to save anything to their desktop they're able to mark up can you go to the next slide they're able to mark up those projects make any kind of stamp signatures and then when they hit save it integrates right back into the MGO program and this reduces the errors of having to save to the desktop accidentally uploading the wrong PR plan and the contractor is notified right away way once your permit is approved they're able to print all of these plans on their end and provide them on site so nobody really ever has to come into the office if you don't want them to next site or we also have automated comment letters this is great for if you do have a regular plan review comment letter a lot of our jurisdiction use these for the expiration dates they'll automatically get sent out depending on how we set that as well as for all of your code violations if you have to continually email them or advise them or send these letters it will prepare the letters and send them digitally to those kinds of customers um as well as that could be modified for any time frame you want but we do have massive comment letter templates and that could automatically be sent out at any time next slide we also have automatic workflow resolutions and what this allows is the system to do all of the work for you so after your permit Tech intake those projects and everything is paid once the plan review is done everything could be checked off and then the permit could automatically be issued inspections could be called in by the contractor and as they continue to pass and the project is finaled then we can just close the permit send out cosos automatically again it doesn't have to be automatic but as you get more comfortable with the program and the process we really do everything for you which will help reduce a lot of work for your internal staff and allow them to do other functions next side this is just another view of the tasks again this is our mobile app this helps Public Works and code enforcement greatly when they're out in the field they're able to view anything within a project or any kind of customer complaints right away should somebody submit a complaint online and upload those photos that we've spoken of they're able to view them right away and get real time notifications as well as if the tablets or the phones are able to make those phone calls they could just click the phone button call inspectors and call those residents if needed as well than um right here same thing phone text and email alerts will automatically provide the phone numbers by the customer if you don't want them calling the inspectors directly that phone number could be registered to the town but it does help alleviate those phone calls by those contractors asking for different kinds of time frames or when is my contractor going to be out here he could see everything through the mobile app and get those notifications real time and we also provide many customized reports the sky is truly the limit with them um should you want to know your monthly totals of something or your permit data or your Finance reports there's absolutely no additional charge we have some jurisdictions that I think have over 200 reports and they genuinely use them depending on the department so we're happy to build those and it's usually pretty quick turn time next slide this is our work order management it's more of a drag and drop and it makes life a little easier in the morning when the building official or whomever organizes the inspections um if somebody is out sick it's just so easy to move it over to the next person and then their routing would be updated accordingly should they already have it routed next um and the reporting capabilities not only is the data but we use graphs we use pie charts and again anything that you desire we could build for you and we do have free support not only my down the block but should I take a vacation uh we do have a great 800 number everybody's happy to to help you as well as there's a lot of staff that even our chief technology officer is happy to call at any time and provide that support to you and there are zero upfront costs so while we're working with the staff while we're implementing this figuring out the best way to build this program for you as well as my training there's zero upfront cost and the monthly fee is based on the permit volume the town Al Loach Groves did estimate the annual total to be about 500 permits per year and then what I ALS Al like to do is provide a contractor training so before you would go live with the program I invite all the contractors in here we show them how to set up their portal walk them through submitting one and then they have my direct number to help them going forward again to reduce those phone calls to your front desk staff um and I believe lock stachi Groves especially would be utilizing this for permitting in public works as well as the full Solution Center for the code enforcement and then planning and Zoning but we have many modules business tax receipts contractor registration that we could offer and business tax as well next slide and that's about it we're here to help and I'm here to answer any questions you may have Jack M I let Council ask put their questions now or do we bring her back up when we do the item so we do the consent agenda first or how you wish to do it I'd like to ask okay go ahead ask a question hi hi okay can the public go online and have this app and see current code enforcement or be able to see open um permit cases and things like that is that for public view absolutely and we're able to modify how much they're able to view so if you just want them to be able to see okay this has an open permit it's a fence permit here's the address here's the information great if you want them to be able to view the whole thing contractor who pulled that record we could allow that as well so yes all the permit data is available it's available to be searched we do have other jurisdictions that even just post or have manual reports through MGO post on the customer portal as well so they could pull down their own reports who applied for permits per month Etc again that's up to you how much access you want them to have are you uh currently working with government in the local area sure uh MGO is in Juno Beach um Lake Clark Shores Manalapan town of South Palm Gulf Stream um Parkland is Broward County yes Highland Beach Jupiter Inlet Colony ocean uh ocean North Palm Beach I think that's it and North Palm okay because North Palm just went live we know Scott very well are you done um and will we okay so currently our program doesn't work well for the town um or for folks trying to um navigate it sure so why is your program better and why will we not be changing you out in the next three years I feel we're very easy to use I think a lot of programs you have to click a lot nowadays people just want to do things now they want to be done with it quickly we answer you just have to answer very basic questions even as a contractor again we do set it up for what the staff requires but it's very click it's very easy and it's very quick to do as well as not many programs offer the mobile app uh that we do and it it functions phenomenally again I'm happy to show you a demo a different time um but it's just so easy to use and if you ask any of those other jurisdictions they'll say the same thank you you're welcome um I had a question so we about five years ago now um implemented oh I'm sorry Laur I didn't see you we implemented blackbot as our new finance and it took really close to two years to get it set up and to get staff even remotely trained to use it and I wouldn't even say that we're still 100% trained to use it I do recognize that blackbot is a powerful and wonderful program but I still wouldn't say that we're at 100% with that so with that being said what's the learning curve like you know on the average of how long it takes to get it set up and modified for us which is something that took almost a year before we could even use the blackb and then what's what's in your experience the staff training time and when can that begin so from kickoff till the ending we say about six to eight months and that is indicative of you if there's something I need of you obviously it depends on the turn time of us working together it does help that I'm very very close I learned differently than everybody else so whereas yes before we would go live there would be a large staff training prior to that when we're building the system I'm working one-on-one with everybody to make sure that I'm building it appropriately so after kickoff I do come in you show me how you do it now what you hate about the system and then I make my system better for you and then I'm working with everybody and testing the data that you provided that we're setting up that this is the actual flow of each type of permit so when we do get to training everybody is very familiar with the program so not only do we do a week of training with the entire staff but then there's an extra week prior to go live where I like to sit oneon-one I put test permits in we're sitting together not to where it's uncomfortable I hate when somebody's over my shoulder as well but I just help you learn in your speed um we had this city of Parkland go live about two months ago there are one or two employees it some things just don't click and I'm happy to go there a few times a week or even meet virtually they are a little far to walk them through that and again I'm always available to just answer a quick question there's always going to be a different scenario but having that permit Tech experience I get it and I don't want anybody to be there so a six to eight months is to have it fully set up implemented we're ready to go okay sorry Laura go ahead that's okay um what is our old system or the system that we use now called system Now isem microphone it sounds like it lies it's a system that was provided by uh by the uh contract who who Who provided Services of inspections and plan review right they provided the service is U the system does not work currently uh the biggest frustration with it is that customers cannot apply online uh we me and Sandra we dealing with this daily uh the customers just can't upload plans they upload plans and plans disappear they cannot correct them they cannot do anything else so creates tons of amount of phone calls um me doing plan review of the system it's it's it's really not sufficient you can't do nothing within the system you have to export all the plans out of the system to PDF mark up the plans do the comments and upload them back to the system which is complete waste of time uh so so it's it's either absolute support is really not working for us we uh we have to make several attempts to to get support to add users to remove users to add different functions of the system is really it's really insufficient um so we the plan is really rapid and and we hoping that it's going to take less than 8 months we hoping that for at least building in Code Enforcement we're going to be able to do this within Implement completely before Thanksgiving because our current software uh contract expires in November and we were going to do everything possible to get at least those two modules running so we don't have to extend the contract with with the old is that possible absolutely for the two modules when I was speaking but I was talking about the whole package so all the all the different and you just LED right into the next question so as we're going bigger better faster stronger we'll be running parallel with the old system we're hoping that we're going to transfer uh all the data from the old system to the new system at least for permits and Code Enforcement cases so we will be doing a lot of work of cleaning up the files in the old system so we can transfer them to the new system and and start using completely new system without relying on the old one and that was the next question the the archiving of data you know it does your program provide the archive do we have our our own archive because there's so much important historical information that if it was lost we would be it it would be miserable to try and muddle through so absolutely as long as we import it we'll hold it and we hold it forever especially being a government entity this isn't something where it disapp peers or you know you can't obtain it and to touch on something else that Jack mentioned part of the training it will be an admin training so all of management will have their own admin tool is what we call it to where they'll easily be able to modify add users and do a lot without having to reach out to support and again if I showed you that screen it's very very simple and self-explanatory to do so we give you the power that certain support normally has to do with other programs to do in-house to just do it more efficiently quickly quickly and then last question is and if I misunderstood I apologize so contractor X comes in do they become a user in our system is it a it depends they're applying online we have a lot of people it kind of depends on how their job works if they have permit Runners do it instead they have their permit Runners set it all up in the portal and they do it for them contractors can set it up owner Builders as long as you have a username and password any body could set it up of course there's implementations to ensure people aren't just throwing stuff against the wall and submitting it just to say they got it in there of course but truly anybody could be a user for it okay thank you that also includes the contractor registration so you know contractor will have to register first we verify their license insurance general liability workers comp that is required to issue permits so but they they will be registered so as they register they can create a login and and then apply the for the permits okay great thank Robert did you have a question is that why you came into the picture yes Madam chair thank you very much yeah there's no hand raising ability here so if I that's I figured since I could see hair and here I am but uh thank you thank you madam chair my question is on the 500 units how is that defined is that just a permit that somebody applied for like when you build a house you get a general permit you get a mechanical electrical Plumbing you get an FDA is that five five of the 500 right there we see them as projects so when you submit a project they'll be a master and there could be 10 five two subs but will it'll all be under the project okay so it is not actually no it's not technically per permit right it would be per project yes thank you and then how does Code Enforcement weigh in on the quantity of cases is there a threshold there or how does that work Jack do you based on based on what what is in the contract it doesn't matter really because uh we we picking up to level of $ 2642 for 0 to 500 permits so uh that level dictates uh the cost of the of the contract and and the number of Code Enforcement cases or or anything else does not affect the price okay so that the code cost which is a different module There's No Limit hey that's a 100 or 500 that's just includes everything because those cases get pretty big pretty in depth a lot of storage and trying to understand the cost breakdown all I saw was the 500 permits correct it's it's very difficult to charge by costs because so many people could put in a code case and it really truly be nothing whereas when you submit a permit we know it's most likely going to turn into a project at some point um so there are no costs for code Pro or code cases it's just too hard to manage okay thank thank you very much thank you madam you're done okay yes March did you have questions because you were going to pull this maybe we can answer it and not pull it well my my concern was only uh uh according to the Charter our um our man is um no no stronger than any of us other Town Council people but yet here in the um the wording the mayor is authorized uh to execute an agreement and I I have concerns about that that's in violation of our Charter can you explain it please I'm going to give it a stab and let the attorneys come in okay the council is authorizing the resolution that allows the mayor to sign as the official signer representative you're not it doesn't give the mayor any power the resolution is what authorizes the contract the mayor is just the single signature we have on numerous contracts done this very same thing sometimes you've actually authorized the manager to do it with legals concurrence so you're all approving a resolution that approves the contract the mayor is just a signer all right and that was my uh concern for number six also it's the same wording but it's the same once you're you're approving the contract she's simply signing really on behalf of the council once you approve it okay it doesn't give the authori sign a blank contract only the ones you're approving four or six all right so then I I do want to clarify though in this particular case I am the signer so and it says in the resolution that I am the signer because you all approve the contract I on four is what it says it says authorization to execute section two the town manager of the town is here by authorized to execute the intergovernmental agreement on behalf of the town and to take all necessary steps the consent agenda item says authorizing the mayor to do it so okay scri typ or scrier error there Valerie all right the other part of number four that I had concern with is um how many btrs does our town issue a year 300 to 500 okay and we're being charged $150 uh for that number is that correct I don't it's a flat fee yeah it's a flat fee for everything it's it's a flat fee so the if the number of btrs we process or issue increases the fee Remains the Same 150 yeah that's a cost of the of the software it's not a cost of our work uh or or what we do is just the cost of the software okay I I just thought that we didn't write that many btrs that's why I questioning it yeah the will be the same if we write two or 350 so okay okay thank you all right so we're back to I need a we have an item to pull from at least one item to pull from the consent agenda so um valer think that's your item to pull item number eight okay so can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda with item number eight to be discussed after number nine so I'll make a motion to approve the s agenda with number eight to what be um after discussed after n discussed after nine not to be noi were there any public comments that need to be we had a public comment for item number four we do have a public comment for item number four okay great thank you for being there you're welcome I wouldn't want to not have somebody's public do you want to votee did we go ahead Cass no wa well we can approve it first and then let's let's take the vote on approving the agenda and then we'll listen to the comment all in favor of approving it with pulling of number eight I I Cassie sui um it was a nice presentation it's exciting to see something brand new shiny um but I I'm a numbers person and we have budgeting coming up and some of the numbers that I've seen are concerning to me in the direction of our money abilities that we may have to tighten our belt we haven't had that discussion yet so I would suggest before we approve something where we maybe don't know the exact dollar amount or if we can afford that shiny new car without encumbering the taxpayers with higher taxes that we maybe put a hold on it because he said we have till November get through our budgeting to see what we have coming up before we start spending money that we may not have so that would be my suggestion um with this it it looks nice I I think it's great to move forward in technology I would also um encourage you to make sure that we don't have other vendors that might be duplicating what this person can do maybe not to the extent but maybe we have a current vendor that can do a similar thing I don't know um the IT people I don't know if they're capable of it it might be something to look into that I don't I don't know I'm just saying but I would suggest that before we start issuing a contract and if we issue this and approve it is this binding or can we you know cancel it if for some reason after our budgeting we determine that maybe we can't buy that shiny new item right now because we have to tighten our belts so I would just except encourage you to make sure that we can afford all this without encumbering the taxpayer and burdening them thanks so correct me if I'm wrong we're not buying a shiny new something we're replacing something that already exists that's broken that we already have in the budget that we're already paying for yes and we're paying less money foray less money for this and we're getting rid of some of the software that we currently have that doesn't speak to itself I do wish that in the presentation perhaps there would have been more conversation about how this software is actually integrated and one of our big problems right now is the lack of ability to have the same information in public works and code enforcement and building this software does it and it was also as Miss lawence said developed by another government for governments and for residents that government serves so the savings that will be experienced by our residents in frustration and by our consultants in ours build will be far greater than um we experience right now and in addition to that the annual costs or less the only reason that this was brought to the council agenda is because while I can sign a contract under 25,000 and I could have signed this contract we would have had to bring it forward to you next year after we implemented it to get the rest of the contract signed so with you know an ounce of prevention we brought it Forward before we move forward because it's going to be good for you to see how we're improving the service to our customers and fixing the inefficiency that we currently face thank you thank you all right are we good we we already had the vote we already voted to do it so it's already done all right item eight was pulled by you Valerie so would you like to address item eight I believe we have a sheet of paper from you so we received um a comment from a resident with regards to um item 7.1 in the policies and procedures for the Town Council um with regards to previous Town Council discussion over several meetings council's had multiple discussions on this item um where one of the main focal points was um whether or not we would be reading public comments into the record um would it be done by the clerk would it be done um would it not be read in could some could a proxy come in and read it um I believe that from that comment we need more clarification I did meet with the mayor who kind of explained a little bit more um what she felt the intent of what um the procedure should be so we went ahead went back edit it I provided that to you all um for your review and further discussion so the concern that was presented to me was that the one that was that's in our agenda packet limited the proxy to only or appeared to it wasn't intentional but it appeared to limit the proxy to only reading one person's comment into the record um and not being able to read multiple people's comments into the record so we tried to go back and correct that error of perception and make this so that I believe it it represents the spirit of what we all said in our discussions but please feel free to Mayor would you mind if I read this into the record yes okay persons Desiring to speak on a topic shall submit a comment card to the town clerk in the alternative public comments may be sent in writing to the town clerk written public comments received by the town clerk by noon the day of the meeting will be made part of the record of the meeting written public comments received by the town clerk will not be read aloud during the meeting written public comments may be read aloud by another member of the public and may not exceed the length of the comment but in no CA in no case longer than 3 minutes and the written public comments must be provided to the town clerk by the day of the meeting by noon the day of the meeting which must list the proxy to become part of the record of the meeting all public comments must be directed to the mayor the mayor reserves the right to stop com comments aimed at individual council members and or staff as well as inflammatory comments and or repetitive comments from the public and or council members the mayor will invite a staff member or others including council members to respond if necessary at his or her sole discretion it was a mouthful took us a while to put it together but I think we got everything covered do we have any comments on this before we start our discussion Miss sui okay great Laura okay um thank you for clearing this up makes things a whole lot better but I I'm stumbling on when we get written comment other comments submitted from other people and they're put on the day here as public comment does this fall into the category of hey somebody submitted a public comment for this topic it's available in the record are we allowed to refer to it can we discuss it can we bring it up that's where because if the public doesn't know that this thing is sitting on my desk the desk de am I allowed to talk about it so I typically announce I think you guys have kind of noticed from past meetings that whenever I do receive something in writing I do announce when I received it and who I received it from um now whether or not you want to bring it up and continue to discuss it I think that's something that that's a conversation you need to have um but in terms of what my practice has been and what I will continue to do if this is implemented is to be sure to announce you know who I received the email from so you're saying so you're saying that as we go by topic one of the many things you do is you keep a list next to you and saying oh section nine there's a public comment from someone correct so for example I think at one of our past meetings we received um quite a few emails from uh attorney Katy Edwards so for each item I would announce attorney Katie Edwards I received an email from her this date regarding this item and for the record we are attaching it to the minutes and I do okay thank you and so then you would be able to refer to it if you wanted to refer to it if there was something in there that you thought was pertinent to the discussion when you had your discussion it it's part of the record now great thank you anybody else on this okay then I need a motion to approve item number eight motion to approve item Eight Second all in favor I I I Robert are you and I yes I okay all right didn't hear you sorry okay moving on to item number 10 big hello hello where's where's Chris um Chris will be back in in a second can everybody hear me no yeah you're you are recording all right let see Robert can you hear him I'll I'll assume so yes Madam chair I can hear him thank you thank you all right um item 10 is an overview of uh our budget situation challenges that we uh are going to face this year um and it Rel it relates to um the next three items which is what you're actually doing tonight and that is setting the preliminary trim rate um for uh the Water Control District the the assessment there um the solid waste fund and uh the general fund millage rate the important thing you all to remember is this is preliminary it doesn't actually enact anything what it does is it sets the highest rate that can potentially be assessed through the budgetary process those assessment hearings will actually occur in September um so nothing today is after we have several workshops yes I'll go but we cannot go up after tonight just to be clear tonight we want to set it at the highest thres and that gives you flexibility um so the proposed schedule is that uh we'll begin discussing uh the budget in some detail on July 16th um there is an August 13th um budget Workshop an August 20th budget workshop and if necessary an August 24th budget workshop with this Council we have also scheduled a fa meeting for August 14th um where they will go over the budget and provide input you do not begin the adoption hearings until September 3D um that would be when you would uh adopt your assessment rates uh for the water Control District and um the solid waste fund that would also be first hearing on uh the millage rate and second hearing and adoption I believe is scheduled for September 18th uh remember that um those hearings on the millage rate um and the adoption hearings cannot be held at the same time um that the county where the school board is adopting um their budgets so what we are here today uh to do is to adopt preliminary rates what we have identified for you is and this has been discussed in past meetings um at this point in time we do not have reserves which we can rely on to fund um projects as we have in the past we do not have arpa monies to fund um projects as we have in the past at this point in time we are asking you to utilize revenues that will be produced in the next fiscal year to pay for um projects and uh the services that the town and water district provide um next year so it's not going to be using prior year funds uh to any great extent um in the general fund what we are projecting is that there will be $750,000 that can be transferred to another fund um currently we are suggesting that that be uh transferred to Capital Fund in your road and drainage fund what we have is a projected shortfall of $600,000 um that sounds like a a lot and a big increase from years past what you have to remember last year is that from an operational standpoint you had a $400,000 shortfall um that was covered by um $900,000 taken from previous year's um reserves and that um that fund also trans uh transferred five $500,000 to the capital um fund that last year but you did have from an operational standpoint revenues generated last year versus operational um revenues of $400,000 shortfall um we the fact last year had suggested an increase in um the uh assessment rate the assessment rate has remained at $200 for a number of years the council decided not to take the fax advice and um kept the assessment rate at the same level that it was at what we are suggesting with respect to that fund is that um the assessment rate on a preliminary basis be raised to um $280 which represents an $80 increase that $80 increase would match uh the fund shortfall of $600,000 um about a $20 increase in the assessment rate produces about $150,000 in Revenue um with respect back to the the capital fund we have a um preliminary uh budget that is um attached um that shows about $2.25 million um being uh being needed um we are suggesting that uh a shortfall in that fund of about 300 ,000 um be covered by a reallocation from this year's uh Capital Improvement program because uh the Public Works director is recommending that four roads West C West D Global Trail and kry Lane um not be paved this year uh my understanding of the reason he's making that recommendation is because all of those roads um have adjacent roads or fingers if you will neighborhood roads associated with them um that are not planned on being paved at this point in time um so he doesn't see the value in Paving them now because he's still going to have to send the greater over to to do the adjacent roads um so we are suggesting that those projects be deferred to to Future years um and that the anticipated shortfall in that $2.2 million um Capital fund next year uh be covered by that I should note that there has been a a suggestion that an alternative way of raising uh $600,000 it's more like $580,000 but close enough um is to raise the millage rate um by one Mill um and raising the millage rate or keeping the millage rate at three is going to require a uh unanimous decision by this Council um so what we are suggesting with respect to the millage rate is that you do keep that option available um to you and um raise the preliminary um rate to four Mills so what you have is flexibility as to how you end up determining if there is a a shortfall the best way the most Equitable way for the citizens um to have uh those revenues um that Revenue need met um so that's the overview um if you want to if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them um I do have a question real quick so and Chris is here so just to be clear for us so the impact to a landowner okay of raising the assessment from 400 to $480 per acre is obviously $80 times five right for their five acres so an average five acre yeah I'm just I'm just using going to use a five acre because that's yeah as as my example okay so we know what that numbers what is the impact C can you because I know they're all at different values can you give me an average of What the impact would be of raise on that same five acre property of raising it from three Ms to four Ms what the impact would be out of their pocket um what I can tell you is that the break even point between the 1 mil increase and an $80 increase on a five acre piece of property has to do whether or not with the municipal taxing value taxable value of the particular piece of property that break even point is $400,000 in Municipal taxable value um because one mill uh yeah but I'm worried about the impact on the on the resident I'm not necessarily yes that's what that's what I'm saying if you have it all depends if you have a property that is five acres and has a taxable value of more than $400,000 then um the assessment would benefit you um if it is less than $400,000 the um uh the uh millage rate increase would would benefit you mayor look at your chart here you might see the answer I just wanted to on the record just on our record what I can tell you is that there is about 1590 um residential um properties some of them vacant um but there's about 1590 um the number that I think is worth over $400,000 in taxable value is 478 um so if you just looked at that very quick analysis um and it's not a complete or totally accurate analysis because not all of those properties are five acres and so forth um uh that gives you an approximation of the benefit before or during the budget process what we would intend to do is to provide you very specific information with respect to the entirety of the tax role I can tell you um that when we look at our commercial properties uh um the commercial properties are um more affected in other words it costs them more if you raise the millage rate um versus if you raise the uh assessment R okay thank you do we have any public comment before we have councel yes we do miss sui um Cassie sui I just lost my place on my phone um I'd like to refer to an an error on page 119 third paragraph third sentence the members of the fat committee did not vote on raising the assessment yes we did last year no I is this for this year this said last year the members of so that's refers to last year okay no no I what I think what she's referring to um I said that at the fact meeting two members of the committee supported increasing the assessment and three members did not um are you referring to that or is this that's the that's from the other the other night we did not my recollection was that there was and I and I didn't frame it as a a vote I think those were my interpretations of individuals comments okay because we did not actually discuss it for a vote I just wanted to clarify that yeah it doesn't say you did Mr s hello mayor Town Council um simple comment please do not increase the taxes I think I spoke to many residents and uh Neighbors in the town we are getting hit by inflation we are getting hit by economy uh the season equestrian season has not been very strong so this is the worst time to increase taxes thank you thank you and yes we did not uh do anything in fact in fact we said do not increase taxes at of our fact meeting thank you you said that yeah yes you said that yes any more public comments no ma'am okay anybody have any we're gonna get to each individual vote on the next items this is just basically overview questions okay go ahead phis Laur oh Laura was first I'm sorry goad Laura thank you just say no I feel like if we set a threshold at what we maximum can can raise taxes to we're going to go through our budgeting process and be like this isn't so bad I I would rather keep everything at 3.0 200 an acre and whatever the other charge is and learn how to tighten our belts period you know are there things we need uhhuh are there things we want double uhhuh um there are so many projects that we haven't even gotten to um uh Jeff early in your discussion you said and I just want to make sure I understand which f Year we're referring to says use next fiscal year money to pay for now did you mean 2425 or did you mean 2526 I just want to make sure we're not even thinking about borrowing what a year in advance um if you get the page number maybe I could see the the context of that what I think I was talking about then what I am talking about tonight um is there is from this year's Capital Improvement plan uh there are those four roads that I mentioned that Mr Galant is recommending we not go forward with paving at this point in time um and therefore what I would suggest is a carryover to next year's Capital Improvement plan of those funds it's approximately $420,000 um that that would uh potentially eliminate the shortfall um that we are presently projecting with respect to the um Capital fund remembering that the capital fund for next year the 25 Capital fund um includes $750,000 transferred from next year's general fund um revenues Okay so I see this as a remodeling of a house I have a pot of money and I want to do ABC d& well my pot of money only got me through to C okay so we can rearrange our Capital plan for you know roads that may have provided easements we can move things I just can't even fathom burdening the residents right now this year with an increase I just I can't so simply stated that's it thank you okay phis interesting so this is not about raising taxes today this is about the ability if we need to at the final um meeting in September October September in September so this is not about raising taxes today however we may get a freaking hurricane we may our roads are falling in so something yall aren't remembering that we P prioritized roads we didn't pay okay we prioritized main roads that are still not paved we paved a bunch of little roads without drainage we put in C we put in Saving on top of failing coverts okay the covert on frro which got paved y'all saw it on YouTube and on Facebook when it was getting paved that covert is disintegrating okay so we did a punch of Paving we shouldn't have our canals are falling in that cost $500,000 you don't remember that we because we do we have to vote on this stuff we have to make sure it got done then BAU just failed another 250,000 in repairs why because we did not have a public works director that was doing things correctly okay he they were Paving trying not to say it so we're paying for it now okay do I want to raise taxes I have never voted to raise taxes I was against so but we're in Dire Straits when was the last time this town was in deficit for two years in a row but you didn't hear it last year because we were all stifled okay I was stifled for the past couple of years okay but I am no longer stifled we have to pay for the infrastructure we have been ignoring and neglecting to make pretty Our Town pretty for votes okay well it's failing now and we're paying for it so I'm not saying that we're going to raise taxes but I think we need to raise the assessments and then come September hopefully we're going to stay at two and great but I will say one other thing if the millage gets increased it's the commercial that's going to get hammered and I'm sorry commercial came to this town and we're it's not paying for itself commercial came to this town and we got almost a three4 of a million dollar Sheriff's bill so the commercial is still not paying for itself and our garbage is not being paid for itself the town is still subsidizing the garbage so you're right we needed to tighten our belts a long time ago a long time ago we need to tighten our belts we needed to not pave roads that didn't need to be paved and we had a 5050 assessment for the roads that the entire town voted for and was ignored so now we're in a deficit so I'm not saying raising the tax rate the taxes but I am saying at least put the numbers out there that if we need them in the next two months we can use them if not we don't Marge anything to say yeah I I agree with what Phyllis just said I I think that it's very important that uh you know we um we allow ourself the ability to negotiate by uh raising these uh millage rates and uh any other thing that uh was suggested this evening uh knowing that we can come down you know it's it's very clear that it's been that way uh you know forever and we've done it many times we've come down so I I agree let's let's keep things where they are let's work on uh where we can do whatever we can do we've got plenty of time September is quite a few months away so crack the books get the job done okay Robert I see you up there you must have something to say yes Madam chair thank you yeah a couple things um Jeff thank you for that that spreadsheet I don't know if everybody got that if they have it printed in front of them um that uh tells you the one mill impact on Commercial versus Homestead you know versus investment property which I think is just a non-homesteaded property that's not commercial I guess for for calling it investment and I guess that point is you know 500,000 I'm looking at a property you know it's it's the per acre is going to hurt the long-term residents because you know they're capped the long-term homesteaders you know it only goes up 3% a year so even though their property's worth a million dollars today they're only paying taxes on 250,000 and so you know a one mil increase on that is about $250 you know versus you know a 10 acre property you're talking about a $800 increase to a homesteaded person and and obviously a 5 acre or 400 increase um I don't you want to see the per acre increased I want to see some of this burden shifted to commercial now uh there's one commercial property paying uh 40,000 ,000 at three Mills if you bumped it to four Mills it goes up to 53,000 that's a $113,000 increase on one property another one increases 5,000 another one 5,000 and we haven't even seen you know Wawa AutoZone the new Orthopedic Center you know that stuff hasn't even come on the tax roll yet so um I I wish we could you know all agree to start converting some of this per acre to the to the millage but I do realize it takes five votes on the millage increase it only takes three votes on the per acre and the garbage increase so those are the numbers that we have to deal with um on this tonight's vote does it take five votes to go up one mill uh no to set the preliminary trim it's three votes for all all three of the three for everything to set I mean I would support the one mil um at least have that option um the garbage I don't think we should touch it because that hits all our homesteaded residents and we pay for the difference with the franchise fee we increased the franchise fee to 25% and now there's more commercial that's paying franchise fee so that Revenue stream will go up proportional to what our garbage collection fee goes up so that should still be Net Zero at 400 um you know so that that that is my feeling increase one mil um leave the garbage the same and and leave the paracer the same and uh then you know I I mean I could be flexible on the parer just to give us some flexibility as we start really looking at the budget I looked at the budget briefly and there are a few hundred, right off the top of the bat that I think can be um not in there and that's without looking at operating budget what's going to be nice is come Workshop time we'll have a lot more information on the operating budget year-to dat expenses and be able to project um what does it really cost Public Works and uh town hall to run our town because we had a huge you know change in and Staffing and everything last year so it's going to be important that we're able to analyze that data and and determine what it's going to take if we don't do anything remember all our property values increased by what was it 13 16% I forgot the number almost 14 yeah yeah 14% so our tax roll goes up 14% just based on that um which isn't huge but but it's still you know a decent increase to offset um possibly employee raises and things when we start looking at Administration costs and that kind of stuff so that's kind of where I am I would love to see a a shift to millage and and eventually do away with the parre because I think that's just uh not a fair way to Levy attacks now that everything is under the town because there's so many people that have a larger impact on that you know and that have zero impact you know if I have a property my driveways on okobe you know you don't do anything that the county maintains my Canal I drive on the county road so you know little things like that and I know those are very very few and far between but uh I hate to bump up that parer and and stir the stir the people that um you know so far have been silent on that issue thank you madam chair oh and the other thing is on this Paving um I believe Anita you were on Council when we uh purchased the box blade the John Deere with the front end loader in the box blade and its job was to grade dead end roads and that was in the schedule that's what we did we the guy would grab a load of minus one he'd take it out there drop it start grading dead end roads and it worked great you take this greater on these small dead end roads and I see it happening now and I hear about it and it creates the wind row as that grater pushes that dirt to the side and now people have a speed bump as they go in their driveway now the wind Ro holds back water so the philosophy was and I mentioned this a couple meetings ago I think that we get to the point where we didn't need a grer now we've got one more payment this year then next year's the lease payment and you know if we did grade these roads that you know are frequent on the grading schedule that we wouldn't need a greater if you needed one you contracted one out every month or two months or in the rainy season or whenever you need it and we would box blade the dead end roads I I heard no complaints when we were box blading dead end roads because essentially it's a driveway for you know four to six residents and uh I think running a greater down those roads is a waste of money in my opinion thank you mam Jer thank you fellis um so I wan to consider um two other items while we're talking about the budget so um it's now the time for me to talk about those items number 10 that's what it's up to you and Council if you want to talk about specific areas you wish to look in the budget but since I am talking in the mic I do want to mention that Mr Wallace is here and he has taken our tax role and I believe that if he hasn't finished he's in process of running the tax RO with the four Ms versus the 280 and so on so we would be able to be able to tell of the exact specific impact on the average homeowner and I think it's likely that he knows where the midpoint of our tax rle is of who has more and who has less of an increase so before you talk about areas of the budget you might want to hear that I don't know yeah have something I'd like to add too before we start talking about specific areas of the budget I just that came up as a question so I didn't want to neglect that he has done that calculation yeah we have uh thank you manager we have uh got the tax roll from the property appraiser this morning and we did some initial analysis I've shared it with Jeff uh I think we can finish that up tomorrow as far as giving you like a per parcel uh grouping of where that break even would be speak sorry I keep you have to love the mic you're not done yet is what you're saying but by tomorrow you'll be able to send us more detailed information for our first budget yeah I think no definitely for sure okay all right um so the things that that I wanted to add is first well my I know but you said you wanted to talk about budget specific thing I want to talk about assessments if you don't mind my comment in and then I'll let you start talking about your specific things okay um first of all I want to say that I think this entire process is so messed up and I realize you guys didn't create this problem but the fact that we have to make a decision tonight that looks like something that's going to be um you know have such a huge impact the fact that we can't raise it at the end or set it where it needs to be at the end that we have to like set it at some artificial High number tonight and then come back down is I think a messed up process so I know there's probably nothing we can do about it but I wanted that on the record um the other thing that I wanted to point out is is that um what surrounding municipalities are paying in their maintenance assessments this is something that um that when I was on the fact last year and we made the recommendation to raise the per acreage assessment um it was largely because we took a look at what our our neighbors and similar municipalities were doing and they all had in some cases alarming increases in the last two to three years probably largely due to of course the increase in the cost of fuel the increase in the cost of well pretty much everything um so I have that spreadsheet that I asked for prepared so I have a copy for you all Robert maybe I'll get them to email it to you so you can have that just to have it yeah just to have it in your and I just want to make it clear that um this is based on averages right okay this isn't like exactly the assessment that each person pays and can can we get this email to Robert um Can Valerie just take a picture of it and text it to me please okay Valerie thank you take a picture of it and text it to them okay um just for your consideration just to see what neighboring municipalities are doing um you know for the most part they are well we're the lowest B bottom line is we're the lowest by a lot so um on average so I just want to put that out there for everybody to take a look at okay Phyllis you want to talk about specific things okay so um I've been I'm gonna bring up two two items tonight and then I'm gonna try to find more places to be able to trim the budget but I feel that our attorneys have gone well over budget in the past couple of years um and I would like Council to consider um possibly finding an in-house attorney and that's number one and number two is I would also like Council to consider um enacting proactive code enforcement I mean I think it's time to rip the Band-Aid off and we can direct code enforcement that they are not not to go out and beat up our residents and our taxpayers that it needs to be health and safety and Commercial I believe I believe we already have proactive cod cod en we do not currently have proactive it's um currently it is um you have to make a complaint driven so proactive for health and safety all right but I think we need to just pull the Band-Aid off and make it proactive code enforcement I think that's what the folks in this town want nothing's getting nothing's getting done with code I mean they're there're so anyway those are my two things okay anybody else have anything to say on General stuff okay then we're going to recess this meeting and then call to order the water Control District meeting so we can talk about the assessment rate and take a vote on it do we have any public comment on item 11 no mayor okay would you like to please read it approval on resolution number 2024 dd4 a resolution of the Board of Supervisors of the lahache Groves water Control District a dependent District of the town of lahache Groves Florida relating to the provision of District services including water control maintenance and repair of drainage and roadways within the geographical boundaries of the district establishing the estimated assessment rate for district special assessments for the fiscal year be beginning October 1st 2024 directing the preparation of an assessment role authorizing a public hearing and directing the provision of notice thereof providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing for an effective date okay do we have any further discussion of this or would someone like to make a Motion Set uh what does the resolution say uh the the resolution the recommended rate is $280 um at this time as a preliminary trim rate would someone like to make a motion to set it at 280 at this time or a a different motion I make a motion to set uh our um trim rate for the water Control District at $280 do I have a second Robert you want to second that are you there still no he's still there he's got two participants he's not seconding he's not seconding okay would somebody like to make another motion I'll make a [Music] motion okay [Music] um I'm going to make make a motion to approve resolution 2024 ddd4 establishing the district preliminary Road and drainage non adalum it says no adalum uh assessment rate I'm going to make it 200 per unit for truth of millage trim proposed for the fiscal year of 2025 beginning October 1 2024 you know we cannot go up from there if we need to fine we need to go up later we can't go up from there I'll second that okay we have a motion in a second all in favor I I I oppos okay so three to two passes three to two I was not on board with raising the assessment whatever sorry it is what it is okay on to item number 12 the trim do we need further discussion or oh wait just a reminder that the oh I'm sorry I need to adjourn this yeah sorry I didn't realize I was a different person right then okay so I need to now adjourn the water Control District meeting and reconvene the town council meeting okay we're on to item 12 item 12 is to set the uh Solid Waste Services do we need some discussion on this or I I have something to discuss okay discuss way um I was excuse me mayor would you like me to read the title into the record yes please resolution number 202443 a resolution of the Town Council of the town of lahache Groves Florida relating to the provision of residential solid waste collection services and facilities and programs solid waste collection services and the town of lahache Groves Florida providing for purpose and definitions providing for legislative determinations establishing the estimated rate for the solid waste collection Services assessment for the fiscal year beginning October 1st 2024 directing the preparation of an assessment role authorizing a public hearing and directing the provision of notice thereof providing for conflict severability and an effective dat okay do we have any public comment on this no okay go ahead Phils okay um I want to know uh what the Fran what does the franchise be in this did it increase we talked about it I want to see it at least 30% it is not through this resolution it's not part of this right that is a separate action that we okay because I would like like to see that increased at minimally to 30% so I'm going to make everybody else's comments of course just to remind you the staff's recommendation is that um this uh be at $450 which is a $50 increase thank you and we we don't know what the um company is going to come well we know that we supplemented it by $118,000 this year yes yes and we're suggesting that and it was at 450 450 the year before and we're suggesting that the um we begin getting away from uh supplementing that and eliminate that $118,000 contribution um what you would have is the $50 increase raises about um $770,000 and the other 48 or $50,000 that would be needed would come from uh the existing uh fund balance which is at about 36% I think so is is it conceivable that uh Coastal will come forward with more than 450 then we would wind up paying even more Coastal coastal's rate is due to increase um I think it's on in January of 2025 and January of 2026 uh my recollection is it's about a 3% increase is that correct yeah um so and overall that represents a um an increase I think of about $20,000 to um their contract Robert can't hear you are you muted sorry thank you thank you madam chair um yeah like I said before uh that franchise fee what we are doing is allowing the commercial users to supplement the residents fees for garbage and that hits all our our our homesteaded people people are long long-term residents and um our equestrian facilities like mine I have a dumpster um and I think they hit me up for like six bucks a month they charge you no matter what whether they dump it or not and the franchise fees I think on my two yard dumpster is like $6 a month um I agree with Phyllis we can bump that up a little bit and um there's more than enough in there if you looked at that line item budget last year to fill the Gap and like I say it's only going to increase um waah you imagine what their you know dumpster fees are I I don't know how often you know some of these larger facilities that are coming online it it's only going up the commercial um and our residential units are going up a little bit as people build houses so we're obtaining a few more residential units so um I would strongly recommend we keep it at at 400 thank you madam chair okay bis I'm gonna wait for Laura because well you were next but I will take Laura then go ahead Laura um I wasn't writing fast enough so if you could please repeat so we supplement the trash contract by 118,000 a year if we increase it from $400 per to 450 that was a net of what 7 70,000 so you have about a $50,000 deficit that we're suggesting would be um funded by the existing um budget Circle or but really would it be a $770,000 deficit because the contract with Coastal goes up again in January that's taking that into consideration oh so that that 20 is already in there okay okay and one more question what were the franchise fees again last year 170 something like that one do you remember that off the I think they were 174 or something like that okay Sor go ahead Phillips I'm G to make a motion Mar isn't GNA say if you guys have nothing to say we're I'm going to make a motion to go with staff's recommendation to approve resolution number 224 d43 at going back to the 450 per unit rate second okay all in favor I I opposed I okay to oppos three council member short was that a y or an A he was he was opposed yeah that was an a thank 3 to two uh all right and now we're on to item number 13 13 which is setting the millage rate I have a question I think that there's a error maybe okay ask your question um in the recommendation did you guys mean to put three Mills um the I think that the our recommendation of four Mills came after this is printed and goes to the supplement that we sent you um the resolution in the book has not been amended but our recommendation is at War Mills to provide us that flexibility um but in all honesty when you're at 200 that you established now as your your highest rate um and the fact that uh bo requires um a a uh a unanimous vote um we want you to put it at at four to provide some flexibility but I'm not hopeful on the outcome of that flexibility okay any public comments no did you want me to read the title please just change the to absolutely resolution number 2024 44 a resolution of the Town Council of the town of lahache Groves Florida adopting a proposed operating millage rate of 4.0 for General operating budget purposes for fiscal year 2024 2025 recognizing the roll back rate millage rate for fiscal year 20204 2025 approving and authorizing transmittal of the form dr420 to the property appraiser providing for the establishment of and setting forth the date time and place of the public hearing to consider the fiscal year 2024 2025 proposed millit rate and tenative budget providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing for an effective date okay phis all right so I agreed with you guys not to raise the assessment I agree with that I think that just I think that does personally hits people's pockets so I'm hoping though that you guys um I'm um would consider the four Ms which is not written in stone and we could always change it up the road but I think we made staff nervous by not approving the assessment but they can't have everything so um that's I'm I if no one else I would like to make a motion go ahead okay I'm goingon to make a motion to go that with staff's recommend sorry Stop Robert had something to say thank you for waving I thought you were just waiting sorry sorry yeah thank you no I I support for Mills I just want to say um we have some flexibility I think when we get deeper into the budget uh we may not need it we may find out that uh you know we can we can um you know we can we can find some monies some places and and and set our priorities but uh you know tonight I definitely support the Phil four Mill I would love to see this burden shift um from the farmers and the you know long-term homesteaded residents you know to the commercial and you know to the people that just came in town and bought a million and a half dollar house they don't care if the adal arm goes up one mil my that's my opinion I mean everybody cares it's their money but uh thank you madam chair Phyllis I do support your your theory there okay Phyllis want to make a motion yes I'll make a motion to uh follow staff's recommendation that count Town Council approves resolution 2024-25 establishing the town's preliminary ADV valorum millage rate of four Mills for truth in millage trim proposed for the fiscal year of 2024 beginning on o wait is that supposed to be 2025 no no4 is when it begins beginning okay fiscal year 2024 on October 1 2024 second all in favor I I I okay one opposed Mr danowski is opposed everybody else isn't I okay on to item number 14 Prine so I'm confused was that a was that supposed to be it to do it in the end it has to be it passes for tonight as preliminary number okay to do it all right got it officially it has to be unanimous okay got it got it got I just wish to say that I am aware of an obscure rule that does allow the assessment to increase it's been a very long time since I know anybody having ever done it but I've asked Mr tvia to look and see if it's there in case that ends up being an issue okay I don't just letting you know that I don't it is the millage that cannot go up okay the assessment rate has been oh yeah and I would say that I can't give you the answer right now whether we can or not if you want to be safe you can always make a motion to reconsider that vote and go with the higher number in case you can't go up because I know staff's concerns about 200 is going to lead to a deficit so if you want to so do I need to retract my motion if you if you'd like to give that flexibility then it would be a two-step process you'd make a motion to rec considerer that vote someone on the prevailing side that would be you'd be one of those three people and if the council voted to reconsider then you would make another motion at 210 290 260 whatever number you thought would be good okay considering that we all of council is not on board with the millage that that I will reconsider my vote so you're making a moot to reconsider to reconsider item number 11 Sor you're going to have to in order to do that you would first have to um adjourn and get into your District mode Journey the council meeting recessing recessing the council meeting not a journey thank you okay opening up water Control District meeting okay so now I'm going to you're making a motion to reconsider the $200 per acre vote on item number 11 okay I am making motion to reconsider my vote for the acreage assessment from 200 to two well just right you're just reconsidering so now if you get if you get three votes to reconsider then there one more motion who second who seconded I okay thank you make your new motion all right so so that motion is passed so now if you you would like to make another Motion Set a rate at whatever number you're comfortable with all right so I'll make a motion staff recommends the Board of Supervisors approve resolution 2024 ddd4 establishing District preliminary Road Dage non no avum ass assessment rate of 250 per unit for truth and millage purpose of fiscal 202 beginning on October 1 2024 second all in favor I I oppose oppos oppose okay passes three to two thank then you have to end this meeting now we have to go back I got it thanks okay we're now ending the water Control District meeting and we're now be convening the council meeting we're on to item number 14 I don't know if you want Valerie to read the resolution thank you Mr Ballas resolution number 202 2447 a resolution of the Town Council of the town of lahache grov Florida nominating a town council member for and supporting his or her appointment as the Florida League of cities voting delegate and providing for an effective date this item is on here because the Florida Lega City's annual conference is next month and I believe four of the five of you are currently registered to go we're waiting on confirmation um for the last council member whether all five of you will be going um I am actually scheduled out of town I did that ahead of time I do apologize um Miss Valerie Oaks will be attending with you and um I hope you bring us back a lot of good information at that meeting there is a voting delegate required to vote on the legislative policies and other matters before the league and so this Council and all other cities need to appoint a voting delegate so um I think you have the full Reign to um pick across all five unless um there's anybody not going will not be going he'll be out of town I make a motion to appoint the mayor as the voting delegate second okay no discussion discussion Madam chair um in the past it's always gone in Council order mayor vice mayor then Senior council member with whoever uh my question to staff can we put that can we put mayor vice mayor in the event that for some reason the mayor can't show up scheduled to be there what's that I'm scheduled to be there I mean unless it was an emergency and then I'm sure but I'm already scheduled to be there yeah well this is the first time that I've seen this commitment for one person because we've always done it in in order of seniority on Council mayor vice mayor so I just wanted if if there's any possibility to put the mayor and then the vice mayor is a second in the event she doesn't show up we still get to vote I mean ha for you know God forbid something happen going yes yes everybody's going so mayor vice mayor should something same way the council meetings run yeah okay Robert are you going he's not he's out of town no I'm out of town us four girls yeah watch out watch out Hollywood is leading the path Robert if you're in Orlando we'll do something fun okay anyway all right so the motion made to appoint the mayor and the vice mayor in the if there's an emergency or her absence all in favor I I oppose in the house while we're away Robert you said I did you not yes in favor thank you okay all right pass La you said I didn't hear you y 5 Z this item also reflects information requested previously by Council of what um committee and board assignments that sitting council member have um pretty much all of these are um appointees outside of the council except for the municipal Investment Trust and the municipal Insurance trust thank you you're welcome okay on to item 15 would you like to open the public hearing may I need to open the public hear do do I need to adjourn the council meeting no you just state that you're opening the public hearing we're opening the public hearing portion of the meeting ordinance number 20246 an ordinance of the Town Council of the town of lahache girls Florida adopting chapter 2 Administration article 7 Town advisory boards to provide for applicability composition Quorum eligibility qualifications appointment terms removal vacancies officers compensation and procedures regarding Town advisory boards reorganization and revisions to chapter 34 Planning and Development to ensure compliance with new town Advisory Board article and for other purposes providing for conflict severability codification and an effective date okay any public comment on this item no mayor okay any discussion no I'll make a motion okay Robert no discussion I don't just want to make sure we're not leaving him out make a motion okay go ahead uh that Council adopts ordinance 2024 d06 on second reading second the motion seconded by Robert motion made by philis seconded by Robert all in favor I I iOS passes five to zero on to item number 16 ordinance number 20244 an ordinance of the Town Council of the town of lahi gr Florida amending the unified Land Development code section 10-15 definitions to amend the definition of essential services and section 20-15 residential zoning districts permitted uses to clarify the special exception category for essential services and to add debris management sites as a separate essential service use subject to specific approval criteria providing for conflicts severability codification and in effective date any public comment on this yes okay we have a public comment did you give a sheet to yes I already emailed the comment to you in the past uh before 6 PM my email to you I'll resend it over to you I have it already Okay you just need to fill out a a comment card for her if you're person do it Miss Mr suit is it for the RVs I no this is because we did get an email from Mr Su on our VI yes I had three issues listed in there this is issue number two uh Madame mayor the council I would uh strongly request you to say no to building a disaster garbage disposal site in our town for the residents who are listening uh as for my understanding the town may be considering a deis collection site at 248c road that is the end of your property um values uh market value valuations and that is the end of the town as we know it our town is in a unique geographical setting as you know uh we have close proximity to the water bodies uh we have people farm animal sensitive conservation sites and horse trails during the declared emergency the vendor who is very controversial vendor I have pointed that in my past comments this vendor has multiple lawsuit spending their legal budget is uh more than the budget of this town um and that vendor under these rules have the right to dump under an emergency polluted garbage meaning vegetation but during the emergency they don't have the luxury to just pick the vegetation they'll pick whatever is mixed with the vegetation after a hurricane or something so that has the potential to bring spill chemicals Building Material Asos you can imagine what will come to our town it will will pollute our water table it will pollute our air and it will pollute our soil so please do consider this aspect as you are looking into this regulation thank you any more comments no mayor okay phis um so I um spoke to somebody that actually was on one of these sites after a hurricane and it didn't go away quickly and as it sat there it got molded it got it it it this is going to be they're going to dump in our town they're dumping in our town okay we're not a trash pile I get that some of our vegetation is going to end up in there but everybody else is vegetation and and I I feel Manisha is correct that it's not only going to be vegetation either so um I I don't think this ordinance approves a specific site just to be clear on that this is not an approval of a site not an approval of a specific site it's just an approval of it as a possibility and I just want to be clear on that I'm not defending it I'm just saying it's just saying that it's a possibility Council would still have the right to reject a particular site that applied for this so I have one other question why our town why our town for this so we've been talking about this for the last I know that and I'm answering it for the public record and it will include the answer that you would like we have been talking about this for the last two years our town is probably if there is a serious wind and rain damage storm going to be a place where first response is going to be very important we currently contract following the Solid Waste Authority with a number of debris management providers and with a consulting firm that oversees what they do they have to comply with FEMA the name of the company is ashrit ashpit doesn't have any more or any less lawsuits than any of the other International firms that do this work they did lose a site the County lost a sight that our debris was taken to and they came out here and they asked us if we were willing to help them identify a site in Council we talked about six to eight different sites outside of council we talked about various other sites we along we staff went along with the contractor and identified sites that would have the least impact on the town and the greatest benefit the essential service is not approval of the site as the mayor said the essential service is just recognizing that debris management is essential to the town for storm recovery and an appropriate site that follows the appropriate site plan requirements including access traffic buffering noise and return to the original shape that it was in is required and additionally the applicant has already gone through Solid Waste Authority approval n fde approval so the town benefits because the traffic is not on our roads anymore than it would be to pick up our veg and to clean up our town and we would be given the right of the first response and in addition the site has to be returned to its existing state all this particular ordinance is that part of the statute that is part of the it is and what what are the consequen if it's not um it has to be feemale and what are the consequences if it's not because we know that people don't follow the rules in our town so what are the consequences are we just there going please please please we have put language in site plans before that put a consequence for not returning to the town we can ask them if they'll put up a bond we currently right now have a bond for return of a site to its existing condition so that wouldn't be an inappropriate thing for us to do but in the meantime FEMA has to actually sign off on this site that all the debris is gone and the debris can't be a mix of all kinds of materials can I yeah so our town has been The Dumping Ground for Palm Beach County since I can remember I have lived in this town for over 35 years I've been through many many hurricanes okay the debris we have large acreage too where the debris our own debris gets sit on our properties and be put out we're not Royal Palm okay so I I'm tired of being The Dumping Ground finally we got the cut through closed off and if you guys are noticing we don't have all the garbage being dumped in our town we don't have the speeding going up and down through d& Road anymore so I I I'm I am against I feel this we're trying to clean our town up and improve it and I just think this is awful and I am I'm against it and in my best professional opinion I will tell you always that debris management is an essential service and this ordinance simply identifies debris man you're going to make me start saying stuff that I feel like you're selling it I'm not I'm simply clarifying we have a place in this town that's been operating forever that does mulch removal so it's not like and would welcome the debris from his neighbors so I would suggest the town go more in that direction and we are not a Dumping Ground so I am highly against this I would like to make a motion um but does anybody else have any other questions they want to ask Laura Robert any questions okay make a motion sure I'm GNA make a motion not to approve ordinance 20 24-4 on second reading do I have a second of that okay would anybody else like to make a motion I make a motion to pass ordinance 20244 on second reading do I have think of that second Robert motion made by Laura seconded by Robert all in favor I opposed opposed opposed did you guys just oppose yeah okay on to item 17 thank you uh [Music] Valerie okay okay approval on resolution number 20 2445 a resolution of the Town Council do you mind closing the door please thank you I'm sorry Valerie I'm sorry Valerie again yes uh resolution number 22445 a resolution of the Town Council of the town of lat girls Florida approving the comprehensive plan evaluation appraisal amendments 2024 data and Analysis and providing for an effective date and we do have um public comment uh Mr Lavine hi good evening we purchased uh the property at 670 um B Road red clover Nursery um in February 23rd um February of 23 is when we Bo we've G it for a little bit more in the year um we spent about 10 months cleaning up this proper property it was a nightmare um and when I purchased a property um with the existing comp plan allowing me to make an application for future land use Amendment for non-residential uses so um we have a reasonable explanation backed investment that you'd be able to have the property um for future land use uh uh changed now that the uh Council uh for future land use is changing it uh it's voting to delete language in the existing comp plan um what I'd like to know is where's the data findings or fact studies Etc to support its removal the area south of uh collecting Canal Road and fronting B- road is surrounded by non-residential uses and you guys are want to change the uh the zoning um so what I'd like to read into the record is that um please accept the written comment and attachment of the record for the agenda item 1718 submitted on behalf of the following property which is red clover Farm 670 B Road laah hatchee Groves that we urge the council to reconsider the removal of the special policy 1.5.7 the comprehensive plan was previously amended after public hearings allowed out Parcels in a certain geographic area to make an application to the town for future land use change to a non-residential use uh the rationale for the amendment to the comprehensive plan was evidenced by the findings contained in section two ordinance number 26- 09 respectfully uh we believe that the council voted to remove the policy without consideration of the procedural history and prior findings concerning uh compatibility with the surrounding area and comprehensive plan that's pretty much what I wanted to say we disagree with you guys thank you and for the record we did receive an email um today from Miss Katie Edwards for this item which will be attached to the minutes Madame mayor if I may just a a point of clarification please um that particular comment may be better suited for item um 18 whereas number 17 um is the DIA whereas uh the the gentleman that just spoke was speaking on item 18 with the goals objectives and policies just as a point of clarification correct thank you okay so do I have a motion I'll make a motion for item number 17 this has been beaten to death this I'll make uh a motion to approve resolution 202 4- 45 and ordinance 202 24-1 and second reading second okay we have a motion by phis and a second by Laura all in favor I I oppose Robert were you an i there yes ma'am I say 5 to zero okay she T we have a clear Rec that was for resolution 202 445 right correct okay yes we have to do the other one separately you did both of them but I I read what was here I you did and it's incorrect that's I want to clarify that was just for the resolution and now you're going to consider the or now now now you can make a motion for the next one unless we have well we just had a public comment on the next one does anybody want to have any discussion after that public comment Mr LaVine did you want to add to item number 18 I know you had it on your comment card so did you want to add additional commentary or no um I I don't think it's right I think I Mr if if you're gonna speak can you please come to the mic thank you just is a point of a of uh clarification again uh the motion that was for approval was just on the DIA the data inventory and Analysis there hasn't been a vote on the goals objectives and policies which is the item that I believe you were concerned about right so that would be number 18 correct that's correct okay um we we've spent a lot of money uh on the premise before we purchased the property we we uh investigated and we checked the zoning and uh what we thought we could do and we can't do and uh it just appears that you're changing in Midstream I mean there's a lot of things going on over here that uh uh I'd rather not say I mean listen I object to it um I mean there's going to be a hotel in my backyard 125 unit Hotel how come nobody knows about this it's approved already I mean this is something you guys want to talk about or you just make up look I'm not going to say anymore I think I've said enough we disapprove of it and um we're going to challenge it thank you thank you for your com and again um that email that was received from attorney um Edwards also referenced item number 18 for the record okay so I'm confused Laura had her light on I don't even know how to spit this out can you clarify what is the the conflict here I don't think there is a conflict because you have a special policy that's as part of this ordinance will be eliminated that special policy only said to people that they may apply to have commercial there's never been a right to have commercial in this area it's only been they may apply after you if you pass this the way it is and that section goes away they still can apply you know that may be a slightly different um process to go through but they still can apply so um they never had a right to it that policy didn't give them a right all it gave them was the May apply and they there's this is not prohibiting somebody from applying in the future they'll just have to go through a different process and we've made that very clear both Caitlyn and our office to um you know the applicant and their attorneys thank you but why are we changing it I don't understand okay so do I have a motion yeah I'm a little confused because I made the motion right on 17 to be separate all right so ordinance 20 oh Robert go ahead I'm sorry sorry Robert we can't hear you again you're muted again thank you madam chair okay go just want to note you know the property between this property and Southern Boulevard has I believe three houses on it it's residential um the property to the west of this is a 300 foot buffer a trail a pond an incredible Conservation Area um my opinion to keep this item in there and mislead anybody into thinking to stick a commercial property right next to a trail and next to houses to the South I think is deceiving and this man sounds smart like he did his research and and like the attorney said all it says is you can ask and in the future you can still ask there's nothing to stop anybody anywhere in this town from asking for zoning change to commercial conservation institutional anything that you want to dream up you can ask thank you madam chair thank you anybody else pleas okay okay now I see it so I'm gonna make a motion to approve I'm going to say ordinance 20241 mayor I'm sorry before we do that may I read the title into the records because we didn't do that thank you don't mind I I I um I know you're saying I can apply but you're changing you're changing the documents that I have a limitation that there's no new commercial north of citrus that wasn't on there you you can still apply I think your question's been asked and answered okay anybody can apply for anything within the town at any time you're changing the law anybody can apply for any this involved with a judge who already ruled on this sir so you you've made your point Thank you go ahead ordinance number 20241 on second reading an ordinance of the Town Council of the town of lahache Groves Florida adopting the comprehensive plan evaluation and Appraisal amendments 2024 goals objectives and policies document including the following goals objectives and policies amendments to the lahache grov comprehensive plan addition of introduction and property rights elements dele of the public school facilities element and amendments to the Future land use Transportation infrastructure conservation Recreation and open space housing inter intergovernmental coordination and capital Improvement elements amendments are made to incorporate revisions required by the town's periodic evaluation and appraisal report providing for submitt providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing for an effective date okay making a motion to approve ordinance 20 24-1 on second reading second any second second I thought Robert last time he did but Laura beat him to it this time okay um I'll a discussion we just had discussion all in favor I I okay passes 5 to zero we're on to item discussion items item 19 the RV ordinance I believe that to you you stayed Mr Austin speak you you may speak would you like to speak before the presentation or after would you like to hear what staff has to say it's up to you might want to hear what's been done so far before you it may change your comments okay and you'll click for me back there okay I left a couple slides in here um to continue our discussion um I think we started off with some good direction for staff on how to bring this ordinance forward uh for you later this summer um but I did leave this slide in so we can revisit it if needed and if you don't mind going through the next slide or two please and we talked about the revision history and started to talk about some of the um questions that we uh found would be helpful as we go through this um new process and move into the drafting process and if we go to the next slide um so at our last meeting just the other week um we took copious notes here and I think this summarizes you know where uh we left off and then um on the next slide that we'll go to in just a minute we'll um kind of bring up the pending questions that we would still like to continue to flush out uh with Council to get some more guidance as we again continue the drafting process before we move on everybody look at this slide all council members does everybody agree that this was our consensus at the last meeting and just to summarize for the record the um the slide reads that uh we would essentially combine the two existing sections of the code that regulate RVs into one section so that it's condensed and Consolidated um that the town would not uh distinguish between occupied and non-occupied RVs as it relates to the allowance um that we would attempt to craft easy to follow regulations hopefully enticing compliance um with the revised regulations that all properties regardless of size would be allowed um or eligible for one RV on their property two to five Acre Properties would be eligible to have two RVs five and above um five acres and above would be eligible for three RVs again no distinction between occupied and non-occupied and there was some discussion about removing uh language relating to the time limitations currently it's 179 or 80 Days um we would like to continue that discussion with Council and if we go to the next slide can I ask a question where is the SL a allow continuous occupation by like a caregiver on on one on in an RV on your property I think there is clarification to be had regarding the usability of RVs as another a caretaker's course a caretaker as a that's right and that was something that we were looking to clarify um in the fall of 23 ordinance and clarified that's one of our questions actually on the next slide okay because if you're if you're you know you can't put a restriction on something that's a state law that that you can allow somebody to live in there full-time then we can't we can't circumvent that and it would be very difficult to distinguish between I mean everybody would just say that that's their caretaker right I mean that's it would just be that simple so it would it would make regulation be very difficult the other um thing that I would like to distinguish and I'm not I I read your but I have them memorized I'd like to distinguish um when it's rentable like at what point you're allowed to rent okay slide as well and Madam cler if you don't mind clicking to the next okay Laura did you have a question on that one yeah we don't have that last slide in our packet the PowerPoint is included as the agenda or not it well that's kind of distracting you're right it's not it is not okay go ahead all right so we can't answer your question no okay moving on moving right along yeah so the the pending questions that we had are shown on the slide here um relating to how we address properties of less than one acre to to your point um are those properties less than one acre that now have um or all properties uh are those allowed to be rented or are those personal or storage only um we did want to incorporate some discussion relating to the allowances for Bonafide a properties property that may not have a principal single family residence um and if you would want to see any sort of requirement for homesteading again um to the mayor's Point earlier of the ability to use an RV as a Grom quarter or a caretaker quarter um this compounding allowance where um potentially someone could or couldn't have a combination of RVs gr quarters and caretakers which obviously starts to have a snowball effect on the property impacts um if possible uh if we can get to discussion about the location and screening the previous ordinance did have language as does the current ordinance in terms of um location setbacks things like that um and then the permitting and application process including fees and then the inspection and enforcement so there's quite a bit to get to here hopefully we can get through a good amount of it I'll um maybe look to you may or to um start the discussion maybe on the first B and we can work our way through okay hold on a second because I know we do have Mr Austin been waiting to make a public comment do you want to make I'm sorry it this is staff's presentation this is when you would make a public comment and then we have Council discussion that's what I'm saying there's no more well Robert Austin High Park I definitely disagree with no time limit because the no time limit is the issue we have with the people who are living year round in campus um I don't think somebody with one acre should be having a rental trailer on their property they could have their personal camper stored a caretaker is not paying rent whether it's for equestri or Nursery that could be defined there because if you you know one of the horse farms needs a caretaker that caretaker shouldn't be paying rent there's a difference there between the people are making money off of this um I don't know it's a difficult issue because a lady who's trying to do things right and it's messing up her but then you have the people who are just totally taking advantage of it and as Francine said we have two part-time people I mean this town is Cash strapped which it's hard to enforce things like that when you don't have full-time employees which kind of seems weird we have a somebody trying to put an RV park over here that's going to actually make a tax revenue for us although I think it's a little too big they need to pair it down put bigger buffers and stuff but we shouldn't be kicking that out because as Marge correctly said last time until that property is taken we don't know what could end up there and and Sarah Baxter just said the County's looking at other stuff so they County can move in there and say hey we want this land right here we're going to put Workforce housing which means Section 8 housing eventually is what it comes to they could put 400 Town Homes four five three story Department buildings there until that property is taken up so it's something might want to consider with that but um we might have to just knocked down the RV thing Al together and and pause and restart it because it's out of control 30 40 campers right along collecting Canal people living in campers one to two cars each one of those 60 80 cars on collecting Canal only that's not even in season season it's more than that so this RV thing is getting out of control thank you thank you com Robert thank you Robert uh I fully agree with Robert and I already uh sent my comments before but here is the fundamental issue we have it's not fair to those people who work hard those far fers who are working day and night who are putting off their kids going to Vacations or who are you know saving money every single day to have these people who have these 100K 200k 500k RVs come in and expand their housing and pay no taxes so here is the problem people who pay taxes and people who don't pay taxes and what you are going to do with if this policy goes ahead with full-time RV living all year round are we living what's going to happen is that people are going to open airbnbs and it's not fair to someone who expanded their home and is paying taxes to the county on the assessment on the real estate or who expanded their bonds or expanded their guest rooms etc etc fixed property and people who are suddenly having another, square fet or 500 square ft luxury real estate just because they have an RV and they're paying zero taxes 400 fee is peanuts that's nothing I pay you know more than $115,000 in taxes and I don't understand how we allow uh this abuse of allowing extra residential space to people under the pretext of you know having whoever living there yes you know you um we fully support seasonal RVs there is a reason there's a business reason it brings Revenue to the town absolutely equestrian uh for nurseries to have their staff as an office 100% but people living in RVs I want to ask you how many other counties or towns in Florida I'm not talking about absolute rural you know people I'm saying people in this area please tell me who has been who has successfully adopted all year RV living and still collecting taxes we will have a nightmare of Public Safety traffic schooling crime people existing taxes existing properties being destroyed so please know to fure and do not please do not mix these issues last year we did the same thing we combined full year RV living with seasonal or equestrian RV use and nothing got you know it got worse so please don't mix these two things thank you thank you Miss miles good evening Council maryan miles we've been kicking this can down the road for years plain and simple everybody in this town has different needs to satisfy what they need to do whether it's for their livelihood or whether it's for a family member whatever the case may be when I sat on Council we had several different workshops people came in and expressed what they needed there were several people within those workshops that said you know I I use the Expression Uncle Charlie uh if you have somebody on your property or not on your property at this present time that can't afford where they're living the bottom line of all the rules are it comes down to the property owner and don't forget that it's not the renter it's the property owner property owner is responsible for picking up trash and making their property not look like a dump heap okay um some people build large extravagant homes I would ask the question why well because they want to that was their dream that was their goal whatever the case may be if they want to build a a $2 million house and we're allowed to do that then you do that how doesn't say well you know what the houses that are around you are only worth $450 $500,000 you can't build your big house there are some places if they have an HOA that sometimes they say that you can't build what you want not here thank God so I caution in lockah groves has a need we're different we should be we're not Wellington we're not Royal Palm we're lockah hatche Groves we became a town to service the needs of the residents within reason and again it comes down to the property owners responsibility of what they do on their land and not somebody that is 2 miles away 5 miles away the people have spoken many times for the need of equestrian and other uses in lahi groves when you set down a common set of rules it's up to us to enforce the rules make them clean make them simple to understand and we shouldn't have a problem thank you we became a town so we were not cannibalized by the surrounding municipalities that's why we became a town but um how I would like to ask staff we had a pilot program and it was well advertised how many people because right now the people that would have been in that pilot program would have put in shown that they did the plumbing shown they did the septic shown they did the water filed for a permit and they would have been grandfather dead so how many people did it the pilot program very few I would have to go back and pull the research up cuz that was 20 yes way less 10 I think it was less than 10 okay so we did a pilot program come on in and I don't think we charged very much I $50 yeah it was $50 and guess what less than 10 people showed up to do it if they today if they had four RVs they would have been grandfathered in because I think at that time you could have had four we were saying no more than four because that's what the town said I I think it was two storage and two um yeah it was storage and two right I do want to say that Miss Harding who comes all the time she was a participant so we should be fair and say she was and she's always had for perfect so but that's what I'm saying so those folks didn't participate you do we expect them to participate now and I think and I'm sorry you know I don't have the acreage you guys have but I sell property and I see what happens when RV people move into a property because I've had to clean them you know and so I think two should be the limit absolutely should be the limit the people that went and got the permits their grandfathered in they went through it then whatever they grandfathered in they could have but I think two should absolutely be the limit and I do not think that um we should have year round unless it is for a caretaker situation only so I now the other thing is can we regulate exactly when they come in and when they leave I don't don't know that we could do that but um at least if we made it two um then I'm thinking that that would relieve a lot of the burden on our roads on our water on our infrastructure and uh on everybody else's taxes who's going to pay for this so that's my suggestion Mar was trying to get I saw I got you okay when Sarah Baxter was here this evening what did she say about RVs it was scary wasn't it I was like you should have RVs because we need to House people in your town right we need what I heard we need a space to send them we need a referral area we're not a dumping zone for Palm Beach County you just said it with the debris site that we don't want to be a dumping Zone all right so we do have needs you know we do have caretaker needs we do have groom quarter needs we need to attract high-end people we don't need yearr round people that are going to trash our area we we see it all over the place you know we don't need to have have that issue I don't think we need to have more than two campers per site I personally have one I have a caretaker one on my property and that's more than enough I don't want anymore and I have 10 acres I want one and it's for my own need not for anybody else's need I'm not a caretaker for Palm Beach County okay let Palm Beach County use some of their Reserve Land we don't have much I mean the town doesn't have Reserve Land where we could put them no so let's let's be fair let's keep luxat you Groves Rural and and beautiful the way it is thank you mayor quickly um we are live we're just having an issue connecting with our screens here um council member sh does have a comment so I am communicating with him via text so he's letting me know when he has a comment to so that way you could call on him okay and he has a comment right he does please can you make it for him no I can make it can you hear me oh yeah we can hear you yeah I couldn't see you though you're you're Turtle yes yes all right thank you madam chair um you know I know our last meeting we were talking about efficiency and ease of enforcement and you know going down that road and and it seemed like a good idea until I left the meeting and talked to some people and started thinking of the the quantity the impact it could make year round would just be huge I mean you know and um I think we were going down the road previously of one year round based on State Statute but we also had a caveat of if you were homesteaded you could have a year round for a a family member so I don't know you know how people feel about that and then remember the kind of the main reason this evolved was the equestrian Community with a need a lot of them come down so um you know I I think we need to step back and and just look it you know one year round and then uh you know part-time whatever the numbers are if it's two or three I I really don't support like I said before one RV less than five acres that's just my opinion um those streets that have multiple houses I'm just going to Ballpark 90% of them are just single family homes you know there's not a whole lot of equest I know there's an exception there's some some nice you know 2 and a half acre equestrian farms and stuff like that but as far as numbers go um you know less than 51 five to 10 two uh if if you want to go three greater than t 10 or just keep it at Max two but I think they need to allow two during the season even if you had a caretaker year around I think the seasonal impact on a a five Acre Farm by the way what's that you're back on screen so I didn't want you to do anything inappropriate would I do that any anyhow I I appreciate the government efficiency you know make it easy um you know the previous language said we can come on your property anytime we want and I think that deterred a lot of people from applying for the permit you know they didn't want that you know the new language we talked about was you get inspection in the beginning and at the and when they leave or if it's an annual you're still every six months coming out and just verifying the conditions are you know what they were in the beginning and and you know it's all about safety but the impact on the numbers on on the smaller properties could just be huge I mean I I just uh you know that that's my opinion is you know year round per state statute on the Bonafide EG and also homesteaded you know five acres or greater and uh then the temporary be uh you know one less than five two greater than five on a temporary six months limit thank you madam chair you're saying excuse me I'm sorry I just want to clarify what he's saying so what you're saying is everybody gets one which is what we kind of agreed to last time no matter the size of the property so the people who own one can have one in their driveway but once you get to five acres you can have two the one that you maybe own or whatever and one that you rent out perhaps or use for a caretaker's quarters or whatever well what I'm that what you is that what I'm hearing or no I'm I'm saying everybody Bonafide a or homesteaded can have one I I don't think think a investment property I'll call it you know where there's people living at a house that somebody rents it to them my opinion is I I don't think they should have one that's my opinion and Bonafide egg or Homestead get and that one carries through all the acreage whether you got you know one 10 20 and then the seasonal I think you should have an additional two if you got five acres or greater okay thank you go ahead um so I found it interesting that you know Robert's comment that people didn't want code on their property but they had strangers on their property living there in most cases they were strangers so I think you know if they did the RVs right and they were licensed and they were roadworthy that they shouldn't had any problem having code now when we had Barry on code Robert agreed that was a problem nobody wanted him on the property but um I think at this point now you know they're they're gonna have to they're gonna have to let Council if they want to make the money to to rent these uh trailers then they're going to have to let count um Co at least on or the building department at least once a year to inspect or um or figure something else out um and then we have to set a a feat for the town but you know um I'm I'm fine with two I I don't think Robert's saying two though I think Robert's saying more like three over five AC he's saying everybody gets one and if if you're over five acres you can have two that you run out okay they say there's a lot of horse farms that are under five acres so I I think you should allow anybody at least over an acre to um or two acres what you have here you have over two acres they could have two no no he said one okay yeah go ahead [Music] Laura yes the town need to be able to come on the property and check it out and of course it will be done courteously you know with notification you know and not in I'm going to get you sort of way um got a lot of calls from people on this a lot of great points and I took a drive around and um I'm landing in the same bucket that Robert just said statute says you can have one RV year round and then as far as b a second I just want to if you don't mind because we're we're talking about charging a fee too so this is something that I think is tied to that which is why I want to bring it up right now so and I think we need to think about it does the person who has their one RV parked in their driveway have to pay the same $400 per year permit fee so so so we have to think about when does the permit fee come into place okay all right okay yeah and ponying on that the permit fee comes into place once you rent it so Laura danowski has her RV it sits in her driveway there's nothing in it except dishes and clothes and that's it it sits there um but as soon as I put a body in it then it then it needs to have a fee attached to it you know and like um the gentleman said a body or a body that's paying rent so it's caraker in it or body that's paying rent a body that's paying rent okay so there's there's a lot of distinctions that we need to find absolutely um you know and again like we're talking about keeping it simple and this isn't forever I mean if we for God's sakes can just get something on the books give it a whir so anybody can have one as long as you have um your home instead then you can rent your one is that what you said Robert yeah that's what he said okay yeah yeah the ones a year round whether it's rented or somebody lives for free a family member in my opinion is I think you got to charge the same fee for everything whether it's AEG whatever that's my opinion okay so then between five and 10 two RVs and then 10 10 acres four it's a place to to start I I can get on board with that I could get on board if you put the 10 down to three done that's it five to 10 yep so anybody under five you guys that all have five acres and 10 acres you're not GNA allow anybody under five acres to have more than one RV correct I mean we gotta have a place to start well I would like you guys to make it to RVS so I represent the people that have under five acres and there's friends out there that are four acres three acres two acres in fact I happen to know Olympic Rider that lives right on collecting Canal that has a covered Arena and two acres and I'm pretty sure she's got some RVs in there so I I have a problem with you guys not wanting any RVs for anybody under five and then you're going to allow three for over five to 10 two on five to 10 well then what's the whole idea about allowing three so make it two Robert I thought was agreeable to two Marge I thought was agreeable to two five and above period why don't you make it two on two and above I don't like the idea of having two on smaller Farms I don't because so many of these two acre Parcels that are near each other it's going to be so super congested and I just it's a place to start with you guys but I'm I'm with Anita well I would like it to stay too I think any going three and four is just people are going to take advantage and remember this started because equestrian Community was here and we had land owners that did not live in our town that had 20 okay this is how it started and they're still here and they're in our town and they have 20 and 10 and 16 so I'll I'll go with it what do you have a question has been posed To Me by a resident this week actually twice if you have an RV and it's in your barn and no one sees it is it on RV pretty much pretty much I mean I an RV I think it's an RV with a hole in the roof you see the point how do we know I mean if it's inside a barn and there's one outside the barn nobody's we're never we're never going to know a question was raised so I just wanted to point that out so if somebody does put their RV that they're storing in their Barn that you're what you're saying is you can only have one RV visible or one RV outside I don't know what the right wording is period well that's why I'm clarifying so somebody under four well you hear the question I hear the question so I just wanted to make the point it was asked of me twice this week thank you okay Lord do you have something you look like you were about to say something no mam mayor if we can just have a a final discussion and a hopefully consensus on the ratio and then some of the stipulations about being Bon or homesteaded just for our summary purposes this what it sounds like to me it sounds like what we're saying is everybody gets one that's what we've said from the beginning okay and that in order to have two you have to have five acres or more of land and you have to be homesteaded or Bonafide act or already signed up for the program or already or grandfathered in by previously being permitted no if I can direct a question to the town manager do we have a good a good record of those who fil I SP a bunch of money getting my two RVs permitted but I have to go back and double check that we have good records from the original pilot program I I do know Miss manilia and Miss Harding were definitely part of it and Ed on collecting he was one of the first people actually probably to um buo that was the problem with if you want to make a comment first of all you have to come to the podium and second of all we're not doing public comment right now so thank you um we're trying to trying to get through something here so let's get through it okay so then let me try to clarify it again and see if we can get some consensus on this everybody gets what five acres AB above that's homesteaded or Bonafide a meaning it can't be on unoccupied land gets to okay do I hear objections to that Robert Madam chair the one you still have to be homesteaded or Bonafide to get the first one I don't think say that a rent somebody who rents a home and owns an RV can't bring his RV with him to the home I I think they can yeah they can still store it but right well that's what we're talking about we're talking about everybody gets one everybody gets one you can have one part in your driveway everybody gets what to and to rent it you have to be homesteaded our Bonafide act yes yes thank you yes okay and that those people who did participate the four people that participated in the pilot program by virtue of the fact that they voluntarily came in and participated our grandfathered in at whatever level they they went into the program at everybody okay with that because they followed the rules they did what they were asked yes okay with that four people we're talking about okay good we've got to start on that okay let's move on to the next item I'm not just record okay but four people are so we're going to let it go okay go ahead and just to clarify um for properties less than five acres who would get one RV and were grandfather didn't that one can or cannot be rented can be it cannot be rented it can if if they're Bonafide EG that's correct or homesteaded did you agree mark in other words it can't be on a vacant property okay and um discussion or thoughts on the use of RVs as the as a Grooms quarter and our caretakers quarter I know we had some initial discussion regarding carers quarters if they want to use their one or two depending on where they're at for their care Aker they can if they if not they can rent it out I think that was the consensus on that correct me if I'm wrong that was the consensus on this was just during season correct caretakers is a year round right season is rental rental is only during season I think we've all changed our mind on that that rental can only occur during season yes yeah November 1st to April 1 let's say what caretakers could would be a caretaker you wouldn't if you need a caretaker you need them there all the time whether it's vegetables or horses or pigs or whatever it is and um the compounding allowance um where you could have if you used your RV for Grooms or caretakers or if you didn't thoughts on allowing RVs on top of another caretaker rooms quarter that's maybe a traditional structure so if you had a traditional structure whether they have traditional structures that doesn't affect the RV ordinance in my opinion everybody okay with that if they've got a GS apartment in the barn I don't know how many family are not mix oranges kind say that again okay so if they have a Grims quarters in their Barn let's say they've built one or even two apartments in their Barn as gims quarters she wants to know if that would affect the number of RVs you're allowed to have and I'm saying no let's make the RVs a separate issue like land is land right I mean if it's within your barn it's kind of the same as if somebody hides an RV inside of their barn and we don't even know it's there it's it's still it's kind of like having an apartment inside the barn and the chances that it's homesteaded are slim to none right so you're down to one right so let's just let's just make that let's it's kind of like mixing apples and oranges that's something to address with code whether they can have the separate structures or whatever okay and permitting and application fees let you okay well I don't think that somebody who's storing an RV should have to pay a permit fee for it um but I I think that the permit fee should only apply if you are if you're certainly if you're renting it but I think even if it's occupied by Uncle Charlie I think you should pay a permit fee if you've got a family member or or a caretaker living there I think you should pay a permit fee because that's that offsets some of the garbage costs and some of the infrastructure costs they have to get it can can we talk about on the fee how do we make it $400 what the the garbage rate is 450 450 what the garbage rate is but the the first one the stored one is is you know whatever you can have in your driveway your stored one and this is per RV 450 well you only get two so the one is free the other one is 450 if you rent both of them out they're both 450 so then when you go up in acreage it's per RV that's what I was driving at okay yeah unless one of the RVs is your personal one and the other one you rent out then it's not Madam chair I think it should be 500 I don't want it tied to the garbage fee not tied to it yeah but the garbage fee is not going to be 450 at the end of the day Robert but okay I I'm okay with 500 is everybody okay with 500 fine with 500 500 Mar you okay with that I I don't like uh caregivers having to the caregiver doesn't have to pay for it the owner of the property who has a need for a caregiver has to pay for the impact put a little impact into having another body on their property okay okay we got that one settled all right making Headway um the permitting and inspection process there's been discussion about um requiring inspections a certain number of times a year at beginning and close out of the I think an annual inspection is sufficient and before you rent it at the beginning of season you have to have it when you and that should be when the permits are du what did you say November 1 November 1 October 1 April 1 six months okay October 1 well I gotta tell you usually they come in November one through the end of April if I'm just saying it would be November one through April 30 would be okay so November 1 so the week the last week of October basically our building department has to be Andor code enforcement has to be going around doing RB inspections well okay so the RVs are not going to be in until November December so they have to come in apply for the permit and then if you actually want the RV inspected that's when you should go inspect the site and the unit because they are supposed to be licensed Road worthy and tagged and in does a stored one have to be tagged yes like if somebody has one stored in the for like I mean I have one that I'm reconditioning and it's not tagged I mean my other one my newer one is but the one that like is a pipe dream that someday I may get it usable it's just it's just it's just sitting there so well we made that rle so there was Robert yeah Madam chair we discussed a site inspection which could occur at any time the building official could go out and pre-approve the site that relieves that burden of all of a sudden you know all this workload and and I think it's critical that you have that so people are know oh yeah my site's been approved now I can call the people and say yeah come on down and then once they come down it's just a quick check to make sure it hooked up you know the way that the building official already looked at the site so I I think that could happen at any time and um have to be done then yeah yeah then your you know your fees kick in when you call them out say okay I got one hooked up come verify it's okay it's my opinion try to spread out the the burden on the building official maybe even a picture um maybe even a timelapse picture of the site like the building official would take a picture of the empty site and then you could take a picture of the site with the unit in to show the pl to confir it whatever yeah to show the plate and that they're there and the inin number sounds good to me and maybe the official doesn't even have to come out the second ey I just I I just sign I just don't want to prohibit somebody who has an RV that like I said like the Airstream that I have that I'm refurbishing in My Rainy daytime um to have to go out and get it tagged and everything but I guess if I do I do I mean it is what it is well you can buy a tag for it if you're getting it refurbished that well that's you know that might be 20 years from now so that's what my point is I didn't want to tag it every year from now till 20 years from now and it may never happen but the reason why that was brought up is because there's a lot of people living in deplorable well maybe maybe we can make the distinction that it has to be roadworthy or something like that I don't know we'll see we can go with the tag and then um on the permitting side with the application I know when we first started having this conversation there was discussion about amending the application form itself perhaps there was some information that wasn't really necessary that the application was asking for so I think as part of this process we would um go ahead and update that form and remove some of the unnecessary information if the council's comfortable with that and illegal stuff they were asking that I don't think they can ask that's all go 246 346 so me 47 48 also I think it's been oh okay so I'm wondering may I I'm sorry go ahead um Glenn sex and race and sex and race they're on the application your tenant identifying the tenant I think right well usually I ask for a driver's license and I've got I I get a picture of their driving's license in case right later I have to have some kind of interaction with them but I don't know what sex and race needs to be how about you've got driver's license ID are is the town allowed to ask for a picture you can because that's I turned mine in you can I mean obviously with everybody has a cell phone now everybody can pick a picture easily yeah and and so do you think some people might be more out of the application trly your discretion either way I some people might be reluctant to give their driver's license uh but if yeah but they're renting your R right they're renting youry who they are yeah if you are renting and you're asking for sex and race isn't that a violation of the fair housing act that's what I'm that's what I'm and and date of birth yeah but I just think driver's license required that's all the driver's license is going to have all that information on it anyway exactly exactly why why call it out especially all right what else um the last major component would be the enforcement um or penalties discussion there's non-compliance Direction that's Council would like to take in terms of enforcement action well I I what I would love is for somebody to go around and identify these properties I have 20 or 30 rotting RVs sitting on them and get them ped off that's what I love that's that's the Crux of the problem because they're lived in by whatever go ahead F so um I think the fine should be the the fine I think the fine should be what we're charging for the permit if you don't come in and get the permit and that and the town goes out and discovers you have three RV on your property that you're renting and 500 bucks a piece double it double it why is that well I say first time that's $1,500 if you got and then double it you know if I I think that's a hefty fine and it's saying you could have come in and had your RV legally for 500 but now you're going to pay the the fine and then if they wantan to no now you're going to pay double it I agree with Laura you didn't come in and do what you were supposed to do now you're gonna pay double just wanted to point out that for all other after the fact permits it's four times the fee per our fee resolution and the state law allows us to go to four times good so you get bed $1,000 and then you pay 2,000 for your permit okay I just wanted to share yeah if the state law then let's follow okay I'm good with it well there there has to be some incen some incentive to follow the rules because we live in a town where people don't follow the rules that's the incentive they want to trouble it that's the incentive to do it now what about the by when okay so now we're we're implementing this whole thing right four times how long do people have to come into compliance now how long does somebody like me who's been waiting for us to come up with a policy so I can come in and do it do I have 30 days do I have 60 days how long do I have here and get my RV thing filled out you know at least the application and then October one year FAL Year yes October one October one the fisc till October one to come into compliance and would the town want to consider any sort of um fee reduction or fee waiver for a shorter period of time to incentivize folks to come in earlier or you just everyone pays the the permit fee a discounted fee you come in before then no okay so October one not taking discussion right now I have one sure as you guys have discussed it and happened my neighbor cross the street from me they made it into a KOA they'd have a camper one weekend somebody else would come for two weeks and another one come for three weeks I'm you know while we're doing this right you might want to make it where that same camper that comes and gets inspected they're there for the whole season they're not changing every weekend with different campers coming and going because they did that before across the street for me that's single registration was in the last round that it would have to be the same one and the argument was if after six months they moved out and somebody else came in um that's where we had the yes but we're doing a season we're doing November 1 so we're not doing a you know we're not doing 180 days and then a new 180 days starts for the next thing we're saying that those additional ones can only be the same one week and this is where the neighbors are going to come in if you see that AC you're G to have to say something and basically a Prohibition on short-term rentals of the RV sites don't know yeah well I and I don't know how you're going to regulate that if you have somebody an equestrian Farm owner who has an RV on their property and they rent it out to four different clients that are coming in during season I don't see any way that we're going to be I mean we can put it in there but I don't see any way that you're going to be able to regulate that they have a change of of dweller during as long as within the 180 day period you know what I mean it's just that if I think you can regulate if an RV comes in and another one moves out you can regulate but I don't think you can regulate that you're going to have your RV and rent it to person a for the first three weeks of season and person B for the next five weeks of season and person C for the next I I don't see how you could possibly regulate that but it would have to be within the same RV and you still have one person in one vehicle hopefully right so it's not going to change the impact it's not going to change the impact and I'm not sure if the concern was the difference in vehicles or the difference in occupants within the same vehicle I think it's the difference in vehicles it's the traffic impact ends in and out in and out so final consensus you want if you want to rent that spot out twice during season because you have your first client who's coming in for four weeks and then they're pulling out and leaving you have to get another $500 permit for the person who's going to pull in for the next five weeks or whatever vehicle itself Chang the RV itself changes you have to apply for a new permit and only within the the designated time period what going to be the fine when the neighbor says hey this RV left there's another one in there code shows up and they see the picture or whatever is not the same RV $500 and then four times the fee to apply for it we'd already said that okay I think there should be a security deposit that's okay so when you're R town when you're now they just said it yeah oh well we talked about that before you do get something back when you say my RV is gone I think we so I I rent out my RV spot to the red RV for five weeks pay the $500 application fee whatever that is I should have to Laura danowski pay a $300 security deposit because I know deep down in my wee little heart that this red RV is going to leave in five weeks so now I'm going to rent it to the blue RV if I want my $300 back I've got to say hey town I switched out one for the other you know I'm being a good citizen just roll my $300 over as a security deposit instead of losing it does that make sense yeah I think it's hard to regulate but it makes absolutely I I mean you can have do not keep it simple yeah no it's not but do not keep it simple that's all I'm saying but it's not simple it's not a simple issue I'm just saying it's not keep it simple I mean because you're going to neighbor V neighbor oh my God she had the red RV last week now she has a blue RV let's penalize her I mean that's just kind of yeah but you won't be able to be penalized if you come in and get your permit if you do the right thing if you say I know I'm switching out the red RV for the blue RV so I'm gonna I'm gonna go in I mean you could go even in at the beginning because let's face it when you're running stuff out for circuit you know who's going to be there portions of the time you could go in and get them all in one Fell Swoop at the beginning for the whole time you know I mean have get you know and and charge it to the person who's rented you know whatever y so okay so we have to implement this and if you're renting the space the one RV space for the year it's a $300 deposit and it's a permit fee and it's $450 for the garbage and no it's just 450 no 500 500 okay it's just 500 for registering it the new recommendation is you can change it out as long as you keep the 300 on deposit and you change the information that goes with the 500 because we talked about getting a driver's license yeah okay so it's a $300 deposit and a $500 annual fee and anytime somebody comes in and out you've got to change the information on the driver's license yeah and the RV I mean I'm super trying to be super yeah simp the RV if they're pulling in in an RV yes so the way she's going to write it is they're renting an RV space it's a $300 deposit a $500 annual registration and any tenant you can either say here's my list of tenants and their information at the front end or each time they change out you need to be able to tell us they changed out and each time they change out requires another inspect well no I guess it doesn't require another inspection spot do you want it to have another inspection the hookups hook as long as we have the driver's I even see why the hookups need to be inspected annually to be honest with you if you once once the guy goes out one time and inspects it if if you've got the proper electric you've got the proper electric if you've got a contract with a sewage company you've got a contract with a I think the sewage contract you need to get annually yeah okay the septic the septic the septic is the big thing the electric if it's done right should be fine right it's the septic and all out inspection really you make sure they're to People Too once your Electric's been approved it's it's approved okay so everybody agrees on that for assignment how long is that um switch out good for I mean we we were talking six months you have to do it within that that six months October till April so so one could be there for two months and the other for four correct as long as you tell the town and so if you don't tell the town that means there's a fine correct so may may I okay so I think that they should sign an affidavit with the rules that they know what the rules are they know what the finds are going to be and that they're going to follow the rule and that their information is accurate and correct I think everybody you know along with the application sign all right and my feeling is that if you have a um trailer that you're just storing not using at all you should not have to pay a deposit or a garbage but you sign an affidavit that is just store I agree that's fine yes I agree with that I mean if you've got somebody storing in the barn you know sign the affidavit I totally agree because it's the same theory of exemption right you know on the tree taking down and when we come back on fdas hopefully we'll find a way to do some exemptions and the main thing is to get people to file the exemption so when a neighbor says uh oh you've got an exemption and we say we got this that's a great idea y okay everybody in agreement okay perfect I think you have an RV ordinance easy peasy thank you very much for the what about buffers so there was uh there's some existing language in terms of um setbacks and Landscape I'm not sure if the town is comfortable with that existing language or if you'd like to revisit it I know we did revisit it in the fall of 2023 ordinance and required I believe additional landscaping and screening um happy to have further discussion or if you're comfortable with the existing language then we can maintain that same language I don't think that people should have to pay I mean if if the RV's coming in and going out I don't see requiring landscaping and well maybe just apply the same setback as far as um alternate dwelling unit or a structure or it's being stored it can be stored right wherever but if it's being lived in it needs to have the same set packs as any other dwelling the current wording does need to change though and the reason why the current wording needs to change is because we have had residents read it that they can have two RVs that are not shielded you know we can only see two RVs that's the way it's written right now so it actually has to be cleaned up a little bit right well I think it should be the same thing with the trucks right now it says you can only see two trucks that's not the way we want it to wrot that I have no idea wasn't me did we pay for that of course you did that's why we're fixing it now that's why I brought that up light on my light is on I want to know what um what these charges have to do with being in conflict with Right to Farm Act because I have an A exemption you know do I have to pay a $300 deposit for my caretaker no and caretakers is just the $500 okay $500 so every year I've got to pay $500 to caraker courtesy of having a caretaker correct but it's an impact so it's to allow for the impact okay okay Robert's waving his hand vigorously yeah I gotta question on determination of acreage because there's a thing in there that says only your bonified acreage so you may live on five acres but only three and a half is classified agricultural um just want to clarify that if you're homesteaded you get credit for all five that's what we're talking about but if you rent out that house and that house is taking up an acre an acre and a half and the agricultural classification is only three and a half are we gonna still allow that person let's do it with physical land and not get complicated like that okay well she asked to change the language then because I know the language did say only calculating your Bonafide EG acre so we'll go by property appraiser website yeah I think we've completely restructured beyond what where we are at in Fall of 2023 so I think uh I think we're going a completely different route here it'll be a little bit more simplified we discussed this point at our last meeting um because I said let's pick nits you know if you live on five and only four is you know giving B egg and then the other thing we brought up was you know all of these Parcels that are 4.9 4.8 4.99 that's the same vested right as five acres yes no I I agree okay especially since a lot of times it's for land that was shaved Away by whatever yeah can can you we just clarify because we will need to draw a line in a table within the chart for the allowances so we had talked about um having that five acre threshold so we're going to have a five acre threshold but when the building guy goes out to an inspection if somebody has 4.8 because they've given an easement for the road or they've given an you know something like that then the building whoever is doing the inspection can make the determination of that whether it qualifies as a five acre at that's part of the permitting process I think we did it do you have any more questions for us I think this gets us um to our next step and then once it's in ordinance form we can go back there and make we captured everything yes thank you for the discussion all right we're on to item 20 Valery this item is actually um from the town attorney over to you it's your item we were just talking about uh citations for the RVs so we'll bring that back we come back with the idea of citations whether that's something you'd want instead of Code Enforcement so um this doesn't have to go to the magistrate if it's a citation boom okay but that's a different conversation yeah um so this is the reimbursement of attorneys be issues when there's an Ethics complaint love your mind get in there okay so um I set forth in the letter you can have an Ethics complaint against you I'm sorry you're not okay this is about does the town want to change its policy on reimbursement of attorney's fees for council members who accused of Ethics complaints and the case is dismissed and what's the current so the current policy is you're basically not paying because it's um the the word dismissal has a meaning in law and the palmach County Commission ethics for example they will dismiss what I'll call for convenience or for the public purpose but it's not an adjudication they're not saying you're not guilty they're just saying we're not going to pursue this so the way the current state of the law is based on your current policy people don't get reimbursed if you want to keep that that's fine if you want to change that then we've got a proposed change that would allow for council members who are accused use of an Ethics violation in the case of dismiss for any reason whether it's an actual adjudication on the merits or whether it's just simply a we're too busy we're not going to deal with this it's too small for us whatever the reason is they' be eligible to get their fees reimbursed and you know there's a couple of decision points in the draft policy which is exhibit a as to whether if first question is do you want to go down that path do you want to go down that path then okay so no no okay um I have a question for you sure who wrote this you did so I have been in front of in had ethics I've been a council member since 2018 okay March of 2018 I have had The Usual Suspects but code enforcement complaints not code ethics complaints on me usually in an election period okay however I have never lawyered up never I never felt the need to and I never had an issue so I feel the people that lawyer up yes that's what you do you pay lawyers they get you out of trouble so I never felt the need to lawyer up I don't think any council member in the past I don't remember ever paying fees for anybody and I don't think the majority of council lawyers ERS up so can we take we have a public comment can we take our public comment prior to good evening again Council I'm going to keep this short and sweet everybody on that day has a responsibility but if in the event that somebody had an issue their fees if they felt they had to go to an attorney should be paid for because we're all people number one and if somebody attacks somebody else whether it has Merit or not if that person felt that they had to defend themselves that should be covered you know any one of you including myself when I was up there at any time has discussed individual roads and individual other things and just because you didn't have somebody in the audience or somewhere else that wrote up a complaint doesn't mean that if it did happen a person shouldn't recover what they felt they were being attacked for so I don't know why it went to Glenn but if there was an instance where somebody needed to get paid or should get paid regardless of how it was dismissed or not you take that position up there to serve the people if you got wrongfully attacked and you felt you had to defend yourself I feel that those issues should be resolved because I don't think the town attorney was going to take on issues when somebody up there says they recuse themselves and then if they have to go further does the town attorney represent the people that are sitting up there did they go to bat for them if they do it's Town money it's public money so reimbursement right so you sit in that seat so my point is whether you got an outside Council or whether you had Council sitting there representing it's still the money that the town I feel should pay for thank you thank you for your comment um before we go further and before I call him Mr Nai I understand that there are three council members that are one former council member and two sitting council members that have put in for reimbursement do they need to recuse themselves from this conversation before we go further no because any decision you make would be in the future it wouldn't apply to anybody in the past that may have submitted a request so you're saying that the reimbursements that are currently in are automatically NOS yeah they were knows because your your current policy at the time that those council members sought reimbursement that was your policy and your policy says they're not eligible basically so the three three reimbursements that are in three reimbursement requests that have been submitted to the town by President and past council members have been denied yes regardless of the decision we make here tonight unless unless your decision tonight is to change the policy and apply it retroactively okay thank you would you have that right to do we did receive one more sorry go ahead and I'll just clarify one if I could clarify one thing our office does not represent any council member in an Ethics complaint so every person got to get their own attorney that's why this issue comes up because we're not allowed to represent people whether Council not allowed to represent a council member for an Ethics complaint the town attorney not allowed no because it's it's really a private matter it's a private matter matter it's a civil matter outside of the scope of representing the town itself that's not representing the town that's representing an individual on an individual dispute that's why people get individual attorneys Laura I'm sorry didn't let me take this public comment I'll come back to you go ahead uh Cassie sui so I was kind of listening to Glenn and I did some research on um it appears that this kind of circles around ethics complaints and there's different types of complaints there's criminal complaints there's State Attorney um uh Corruptions complaints there's office of Inspector General complaints and each one carries a different um type of magnitude that they do um the research that I did on just cursory looking at different ethics complaints in Palm Beach County um seem to be more ad administrative complaints not nobody in our town I was just looking at complaints from ethics and I was just trying to read and acquaint myself so it appears that most of the complaints most that I read were more administrative type things uh reading some of the ethics stuff and they didn't have the magnitude of like a state attorney Corruptions complaint that would possibly have jail time or have other type of things at least the ones that I were reading um so I don't know like I said I don't know if we have to have a policy because it seemed like most of them were minor they had uh they didn't really go much further and if they did I only came across one CU I was just doing a precursory and that actually was referred to the public Corruptions unit so it then escalated to something more criminal so I don't know if I'm reading it right but I think this is more of an administrative thing and I don't know if even lawyers fees would even need to be because they seem to be self-correcting and autocorrecting on a lot of them letters um dismissals a lot of dismissals and I think there was only one or two and when there was something that they found different they were referred it to another agency who referred it over and then it turned into something much more criminal so I think this is more of an administrative if this policy is what's covering um and if you guys are doing something illegal like criminal you know I don't know if insurance covers that way so I don't know how that works but I would say like administrative stuff or minor things that seem to be on the on the surface autoc correcting doesn't need reimbursement from the taxpayer just from my precursory search thank you okay Laura now it's your read me our policy not what you wrote you keep referring to the town's policy let me uh pull that out again I thought I attach it to the opinion but I did not you're to it's good section I know it's go Section 2. Robert we lost you visually again so if you're wanting to weigh in you have to text Val and let her know no you're back oh you're back I don't see he's turning his camera off oh okay come on back Robert okay I'm waiting for Glenn yeah I'm looking for two- 54 put your glasses on GL yeah problem I've got to take them off to read now me too this is section 2-54 is what you're looking for correct yes if you have it that would be I most certainly do and this is in our Town's Municipal Code correct yes okay um the very first sentence says indemnification of municipal offices should be officers for losses and expenses incurred in defense of litigation instituted against official for actions in discharging Municipal duties and then it goes on for eight more pages It also says in our Charter that what what what was the term that we used to use for the charter the aspirational document yes the aspirational document the phrase in our Charter which clearly doesn't seem to mean anything to some of you if the council member is subsequently found not guilty of the charge or if the charge is otherwise dismissed reduced or altered in such a manner that suspension would no longer be required as provided herein the suspension shall be lifted and the council member shall be entitled to receive full back pay and other emoluments or allowances as he or she would have been entitled to had the suspension not occurred so it's disheartening that you don't even want to consider this going forward um I've been before ethics three times now didn't me an attorney the first two times this time I did it was fake news it took legal help to sort through the fake news and it's sickening that people resort to that to attack each other on the day or you know for whatever reason and it also says somewhere in our town code that council members should hold themselves to a high standard and not attack one another or provide false information finished give a little bit maybe give a context for this all all this reimbursement say something go ahead I'm sure I'm sorry um so it has been said from the day and since um council member danowski wants to talk about attacking council members she has said from the de on several times that I turned her into ethics okay so I have called ethics many times I have called ethics busted Laura danowski ethics busted Marian miles ethics not a fellow council member call Gina and she'll be happy to tell you or anybody else that works in ethics ethics found you ethics is the one that brought the charges on you not me if I turned in now perhaps I was definitely involved to Mr sh's ethics and I'm happy to say that okay and if you got caught in the middle of that that's on you okay because he was not innocent and in anyway he he was found by ethics they felt that they needed to write him up and you all lawyered up so that's on you keep your nose clean and you won't need a lawyer okay anybody else have any comments Glen can I do Madam chair I I don't think you can see me no we can't okay yeah um I think a week ago Friday the governor signed a bill that said no ethics commission can do a self-initiated complaint which is what happened phis complained and then they took the ball and ran with it which you know they have nothing better to do so they do it right they had justify their existence so that has changed because people were weaponizing ethics and the governor recognized that and said no you all follow the state ethics guidelines which you know that was my attorney's knee-jerk reaction hey you didn't follow the state ethics and pich County attorney said hey we're pich County we do whatever we want and so you know that has changed since but uh I want to get to you're performing your duties as councel you're required to vote or recuse yourself that's your duty and if you vote thinking that you're part of a larger audience and then they come back and they create numbers that says you're not well now you got caught in what they deem an Ethics violation but you were performing your duties as councel so I think that is the line now the other one overstep my bounds by volunteering to sit in on a meeting and share a gas tax M that's what I said they said well you overstepped your bounds by volunteering quit doing it back off narrow your lane and so I did was that in my duties as council member no I could have been just a resident volunteering so that's where I see the apples and oranges where I think that um anybody in the future that's sitting on Council thinking you're doing your job up there on Council and then somebody finding you know a 550 page complaint I mean that's a team that puts that together now you're an individual going against this team of people with a lot of time on their hands and uh if you care about your person and your reputation you're going to lawyer up whenever you get that letter that says hey we're taking the next step um in hindsight I wouldn't lawyer up I'd go to the end and then lawyer up just what I've gone through but without going through it you wouldn't have a clue of that as somebody that's like what the heck is this um anyhow I would uh you know whether you made it Rector active or not that's up to council but I would look at um future council members doing their job and not being afraid to do their job it was ridiculous that Maryanne couldn't say the letter B Laura and I can't say the letter e and today I get a email from the attorney asking for a determination on the RV park and she said is it a controversial issue how far away do you own properties and I'm like where did that come from who cares if it's controversial or not that's got nothing to do with being a voting member on Council and how far do I live away are they drawing circles now no matter what road you live on you're a certain distance away from the project so now you're in the cone of influence so it's a moving Target and this ordinance will help people in the future you know I'm not so worried about it helping me in the past but you know in in the future people are up there doing their job and you got a commission that's trying to justify its existence and the governor stepped in and said uh uh you're not doing this anymore so I I would strongly recommend you consider it like I say you know doesn't matter one way or another to me it's about future council members because you can think you're doing the right thing and what if all of a sudden oh you don't I don't live on uh you know the properties on F Road I live on eoad but it touches the back of my property so now I'm in the diameter of this cone of influence that they're creating now so it's a moving Target it's not you know cut and dry and I think this provides protection in the future of somebody sitting up there we are aren't professionals we don't know every rules this isn't what we were raised and go to school doing and there's a whole team out there looking for one word I mean it was amazing the sentences that they pull out and ethics was doing their job those sentences they pulled out it looked like there was something going on but when you got an independent third party when I got in front of an administrative judge she's like what the heck is going on here you know she was able to see because they're focused on Prosecuting that's that's what they feel their job is they're not focused on letting you go they don't even interview the people that don't support their case you have to go tell them hey what about this person this person this person then they'll call him up and interview him so it's really a a tough situation and uh I I would just uh recommend considering this for those reasons it's not about me I don't feel I don't think it's about Laura I don't think it's about Maryann it's about future council members and uh thinking they're doing the right thing and you know moving forward or being afraid you know is Marge is I bet you Marge is afraid to say the letter A because somebody will file an Ethics complaint and say Marge said a road and she lives on a road I mean it it is ridiculous where it's gone thank you I have one final thing so umre ction council members doing the right thing so it was you took it upon yourself Robert to be the supervisor for the B- road paving that is why you were in ethics and ethics said that and and at no time did you call your Council for a special meeting at no time you took it upon yourself you're an AC guy to supervise the paving of the roads and now we're paying for it okay it's the roads are failing we're paying for it so you didn't just get a little SLA for being a good neighbor robt point of has nothing to do with this speaking point of order I stop stop We're not gonna make personal attacks at each other either way statement done done thank you we all know where you were um so here's what I have to say um I also was accused of criminal activity by uh during an election coincidentally um which not only did I not do but it was actually completely impossible for me to have done and two council members colluded in that um accusation interestingly enough one of them came to the meetings with the FDLE with a lawyer the one who was supposedly had the documents of the accusation um and then the other council member who made the accusation did not bring a lawyer to that I never got a lawyer because not only did I not do anything wrong it was actually impossible for me to have done what I was accused of doing so I think there's a a certain amount of keeping your nose clean I think there's a huge amount of asking if you have any concern at all um I also think that if we are to approve any legal fees um there has to be a ceiling first of all I don't think we should approve retroactive at all period I I I I just don't think we should I think that we should follow what was in place at then which is we don't reimburse them period end of story um but I think if we want to set a policy moving forward I think that a there should be a threshold for the amount that's approved um and B there should be a threshold for the rate in other words what perhaps the rate that the town attorney charges per hour and if that's $125 I'm just throwing numbers out there but if the town attorney charges $125 per hour and you CH and you choose to go out and spend 175 or 250 they get eple Bailey to represent you and pay for a higher price lawyer then then that Parts on you that's not possible for reimbursements so I think if we do have a policy moving forward there should be parameters to it um there should be a ceiling to it a threshold to it um and that there should be par parameters for the amount that could be paid and I think it has to follow certain rules um like that you uh I I noted in your letter that you had to notify within 10 days of getting the lawyer that you were doing that right um I also noted in your letter that um individuals could sue the town and civil court for their legal fees if they wanted to do that and see if it withheld the threshold of that so there is recourse open to the people who have applied for it and and be denied by our policy in place in other words the three people who have applied at this time for legal fees could sue the town and civil court for those legal fees um and then see if they withstand the that interpretation of the law am I correct on all that you're correct so the question I have is do we need to take two votes so we don't need to vote it all on the three we don't need to say anything about the ones that are that are already in place now they're already denied unless we have unless we vote in a retroactive policy correct what okay so but we could set a policy moving forward that have no effect on the retroactive as long as we don't make a retroactive policy right okay would someone like to make a motion moving forward for a legal fee reimbursement policy for Council when performing their no I think we give the attorney enough money right stuff we don't yeah I'll make a motion to move forward for the policy what policy are you recommending Robert I I like everything you just said I mean the state has a ethics policy they set the limitation I'm not we're not talking about an Ethics policy I'm St we're stating an attorney fee reimbursement policy yes so you're what you're saying that is you're making a motion that moving forward no retroactive payments to be made but moving forward that attorneys Fe that the council will consider on an IND idual basis whether to reimburse attorney fees under the following stipulations that the fees do not exceed what our town attorney charges that they do not exceed a threshold of $10,000 and that they were applied for or the town attorney was notified within 10 days that you would that you have gotten an attorney to represent you for XYZ does that does that sound good to everybody yes I support that but I didn't know if we were ready for the resolution if we just voting on moving forward to assemble a resolution but that makes sense but that's direction for him to start assembling a resolution we might add to it but okay yes Mak sense to everybody as moving forward that we're considering a resolution we're not making it we're considering so what's the qualifier the attorney rate or the cap of 10 so toria's fee to us is 205 an hour so 10 hours would be 2,000 there yeah 2,000 and some odd but what happens if their rate is $400 an hour but it only took them three hours you're still under $10,000 it doesn't matter we will not pay legal fees exceeding the amount of legal fees that we pay our Town's attorney okay so all right so I'm hearing so clear there's two real qualifiers well couple one notify within 10 days and I'll come back with the policy there was a draft there so I'll tweak that a little bit but what I'm hearing is no more than whatever the hourly rate is at that time for the town attorney plus a cap of $10,000 excuse me a second you can have F Le Bailey if you want to but you would pay the difference regardless right so so the town would let's make believe it's 250 and the and the private lawyer is 400 the town would reimburse 250 an hour the person would be responsible for provide the bill and for whatever hours worked it was 250 but the overall cap would be 10,000 regardless regard or 5,000 or 15 whatever number but right now we're talking 10 correct is at this moment it could go down at this moment that's what we're talking and this just so that's really the question on the table do with something just like she did right do you want to pursue this policy change or not and that's that's really the motion on the table do you want to pursue this policy change and then come back with the policy and you've given some parameters that's how I'm hearing it yes I need a motion to pursue a policy change robt make a motion to pursue a policy change do I have a second I do not okay then I guess we just stick with our current policy which is legal fees will not be reimbursed and move along okay well the next item is actually my report but before we go on I wanted to allow Glenn to continue his a little bit because I believe it was yesterday he shared with everybody a letter recommending some options that we can consider for the EXP parte community Communications which we are supposed to bring back on our next agenda and so if we could perhaps um do a little planning for our next agenda and talk about that exp parte ordinance and get a little consensus and direction for Mr tvia myself and Miss Forbes um in the past we had a practice erroneously or or properly that we um allowed individual meetings with council with applicants before their application in the more thorough reading of our code there is a conflicting area in the ulc that says all X parte communication is prohibited and by the way I'm being simple and quick you can get into the legal with Glenn not me um and I believe that and I believe that Miss Forbes believes that it would be um a much more efficient process in making decisions if there were some exp parte Communications allowed particularly prior to application because we have some bless you we have some applicants that we don't feel it's fair for them to spend the time and money grinding through the process when it doesn't appear to be something that would be readily accepted um because in a quasi judicial environment you can't express any kind of opinion that might look like it's prejudicial you know so the sex part communication would allow you to get better information on what the project is allow you to ask questions before they put it in an application and let them decide not to put in the application or to take a run at it but I think it would let everybody have a better exchange at the front end I can give some examples but I prefer not to and the this is unusual that we do not allow exp parte communication everybody else does and it's allowed prior to application and it's even allowed during application as long as we follow the state statutes and disclose it so I'll let our attorney go over all of those details and when Francine and I spoke about this exactly did a great job my junior lawyer now so funny um but really that there's two questions do you want to allow expart Communications and then if so what are the guidelines and there's some draft potential guidelines and secondly do you want to keep the current process where you have this pre-application quas judicial meeting and frankly to me if you're going to allow the expar then what's the point of that you know they're getting individual but that's up to you my understanding is at one point in time it was felt that that was a good way for an applicant to know whether they were getting any traction um there's always that concern when you go through that process and you've all been through it and you see people are complain some people complain about it and they feel why didn't I get notice why did I get notice so if you want to keep that process that's fine but that process has been the point of some conversations let's say yeah just real quick on the Quai judicial we don't send a notice to everybody in town for qua judicial hearing we do notice to surrounding properties within a certain parameter and we also put a notice on the property um but we don't need to nor would it be appropriate to send a note to everyone in town because the effort and the expense for something that may not occur is unreasonable okay do we have any public comment on this item yes we do miss suuchi this is 21 right yes Cassie sui um I was looking at a date um for July 16th they have a workshop discussion and I was looking at our meetings and there is a code meeting magistrate meeting the next day with five pages code assessments and fines and payments that these people have to pay to come to the meeting I guess it's like 2:32 or whatever and a lot of them I didn't pull them all up but a lot of them seem to have Ty FDA type complaints now if we are having a workshop to go over our require ments and revisions which is going to take longer than one Workshop because I didn't I've never known you guys to move that fast on anything we just did the RV and how long did that take um I would suggest or I would like would suggest that maybe possibly you guys suspend any code cases regarding fdas on agricultural land till we can at least get a definition of our town expressed in our ordin by FEMA because based on the manual we're in between two until we can address some of the the issues that I found and maybe you know help some of these people out um I just thought it was extensive to see five pages of code cases coming up and we have a workshop the night before and I don't think we're going to address anything in one Workshop so to give these people some relief the ones that have agricultural Bonafide agricultural lands that may act actually under the new ordinance or if we do come up with a new ordinance may be exempt from a lot of it so maybe perhaps you can do that I know we've had code enforcement moratoriums in the past or stop stoppages or whatever but I would suggest or ask you guys to consider that thank you I'm wondering if we can get back to the expar and get some direction right yeah um so so I think philis wants to say something about the um so my concern um a while back we've had a few different lawyers here and we only recently had this issue with our recent lawyer um our previous lawyers also work for tvia Law and they did not read this the same we did not do this in the past my problem was with council members um meeting with people outside the building okay I I get sometimes invited for coffee or whatever and I am very uncomfortable about that I won't meet with anybody outside the town hall if they want to meet with me to discuss a a project in town then and I've discussed this with staff for a while that they would set something up in Chambers and there would be a staff person here to monitor the conversation okay I feel that we have a lot of projects in town such as the Public's Plaza and there were a lot of things done behind the scenes I think by council members and I don't think that's right so my only thing was that if you're going to meet with a developer make sure you do it at town hall and then how this turned into something else I have no idea Robert did you have something yeah uh meeting alone with the developer no matter where is experte communication so you're either pregnant or you're not um I understand the the thought but uh any expart communication you have to divulge um at a meeting if that client comes before Council you have to say hey I sat down I had coffee with that person and we talked about building widgets in their store or whatever um you know to allow it or or not to allow it I I don't know what I can see some cost savings for us as a town because we pay a lot of people to sit in these meetings and and come before Council it it it's a pretty big cost I don't know if that's all recovered in cost recovery Francine Could you um actually that's one of the very specific reasons that we'd like to do it because I'll give you an example without saying what the project is they have gone down a path a couple of different times and had to Rego down the path as they watch Council meetings because as we talk about topics our position changes a little bit and so um if let's say an applicant was able to come in and say um I want to put this project on Southern Boulevard it's going to make me modify something in your code I want to do it under conditional use here's the five or six basic things about this project um do you feel like it's worth my time to proceed or is this a a flat out no can't see this in town they can have that conversation with you and if you say flat out no they get to decide to walk away but without doing it right now as you're saying sir um they grind a lot of time with staff before that application and then when they put the application in then they pay a lot for staff that we have to bill a lot um and they might get a know and you know I mean it's more fair for everybody not to go down a process that has no chance of of either finishing or or you know being the right fit for the town and again we're not asking to be non-transparent because as as council member Shore says all has to be disclosed can we make a a a condition of exp parte that it has to happen in town hall that it can't happen over a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or something like that that it has to happen in town hall and be signed in so that there's a so it is transparent that this meeting happened inclin letter he says that we can have a signin on the policy for it that we can have a signin sheet and that it can be here and at least one member of staff can be present and you do not have to have professionals there if you don't want that's up you know to the policy you get to set your rules if if you're going to allow expart Communications and you could still have that qu judicial process that seems redundant at that point um and we've consistently Brian shut I spoke with him last week and he says that was his position the same as Elizabeth's and the same as mine we've not changed our position over the years you haven't had many of them in the past but we've had more of these in the last couple of years but either way if you're going to allow exp parte we gave you a template of potential options you know and as council member m Lia mentioned you know required discussions take place at me and Town Hall that directly was her suggestion so we included that as a suggestion and you could decide do you want to have St I years ago when I was an assistant County attorney if someone wanted to meet with a county commissioner that some Commissioners wanted an attorney there all the time some wanted a staff member there some wanted to meet on their own one second I need to make a to extend the meeting make a motion to extend second so again I think this another two-part question do you want to allow expart communication if that's yes then we can develop some rules based on what we've got here and bring back a resolution that says this will be the rules or if you say no no expart communication need some consensus do you want him to develop aarte policy yeah I support having the meetings in the conference room like we used to yeah number of years ago and as long as you can you know write that in the policy and then you whatever you say in that meeting if you say it's a great project doesn't mean you're going to vote for it when it comes before you I mean a lot of information is learned you know meeting to meeting and talking to constituents and stuff so yeah I would support if if we could you know have that policy so Glenn if we met with somebody in the conference room and they come before us for a a development order then what do we say to divulge our meeting what you you would disclose that I met with you know U Mr Jones in the council conference room on we discussed the potential project you know the same thing that you would do now you you would give a little bit of summary of what you discussed and that would be it um now again that's part of some of the suggestion options here and it sounds like there's almost a consensus that yes it happens on Town Hall Laura yes yeah yes okay you need to talk Us in devel we I will bring it I know that you just made two at least two people in this room very happy and part of that is going to be I can't think of a better word of saying this steep sixing the quasa judicial pre-application process yeah okay okay I hear a lot of strong yeses for that lot of all right I said more than enough of tonight okay all right closing comments council member I need to do my item and I want to address the FDA public comment our Engineers have been working um like Gang Busters to try to find okay are trying to find some ways that we can provide some exemptions and that we can do some next bit Ed permitting process I have had them asking all of the outside Engineers we work with we have compared our codes to the state law to FEMA to the surrounding areas codes there are very limited changes that we can make because what we have to do as you mentioned for health safety and Welfare is comply with c-51 however I'll give you a little early hint we're looking at maybe there being able to be a certain amount of fill that you can bring on your property and have an exemption as long as somebody goes out and does a quick inspection again taking the same approach that we take with invasive trees just let us know and that way we can do an exemption the other things that we've talked about um you know they'll go over on the 16th but they would not be things um that could affect really what's in Code Enforcement if the town wishes to have us stop doing code enforcement on fdas unfortunately we will also be stopping building permits because you cannot be permitted without an FDA and that's not me who makes that rule in some cases it's the state in some cases it's South Florida water management and I would also tell you any property that's over 10 acres or more here has to go through more arduous process um than we put them through and so some of the ways to try to simplify things is to be able to either be um more similar than we are to other codes that are out there and also there's a balance between um how we manage drainage for instance um if we did want to go ahead and allow uh flood prone materials on certain agricult cultural structures and buildings and properties then um that may increase the burden on the town um in terms of providing drainage which is really okay because we're doing the resilient Florida study and that rilian Florida study which should be done this year because we expect it's going to be done a little earlier is going to take advantage of the natural watersheds and basins in town so we're not looking at simply individ ual properties the way we are right now they're also putting into the code specific statements on how existing drainage has to be taken into consideration before any um design or improvements on an existing property I.E if there's a ditch in fact one of the things Richard's trying to do is go back and identify ditches that need to be um cleaned out so that they work the way they're supposed to but anyway I don't want to steal any of the um um Engineers Thunder we are trying to come up with some real lwh hanging fruit to make the process better faster and cheaper now um but it will not change what's in the code inforcement and I don't believe that we can put a moratorium on the FDA um but again we'll all do a little extra research and talk about it on the 16th if you don't mind and we do do have 20 items not all FDA but we do have 20 items the next day on the magistrate how many of those 20 or FDA I'd have to go back and double check but a good bit of them um but a lot of our FD are very longstanding fdaas one of the things that we're trying to do is we're trying um and again I don't want to take away from the 16th but we're trying to do the zoning review up front meaning that Caitlyn looks at it and she tries to catch stuff before it hits the engineers second thing that we're trying to do is um we're trying to make sure that the engineers take a look at the existing properties around if there's already been an FDA if there's already a pond we all know circumstances where there's ditches and ponds um so we're trying to write that stuff into the code so it makes it easier to comply but I have to get you the detailed list to tell you the split okay thank you phis all right so um I want to add to that so Francine um unfortunately I know of people that are just starting their projects and they are told to fill in their ditches and it is massive property so we're going to lose all that water storage I'm gonna would just wait I I will let me finish my thought please want to keep Richard to wait one second okay so what with that said I would appreciate it if we these if we could go back and if you guys would take a look at the fdas we are and I know you are and I know you are but I think I would like you to offer the owners of these properties that are involved in FDA h which is the only thing you could call it okay and give them the option if they want to Halt at the moment which would stop their project okay until the engineers got this settled because right now we have historic ditches being filled in why because that's what the code says so would could we consider giving those people that option to see what the outcome is going to be in on the 16th so as you saw in the information I provided you about that one case that was you know um shared I absolutely do not think it's a problem to put something in a continuance especially if they don't have their stuff ready right now um couple quick things before I let Richard jump in what we have Caitlyn doing is going back and looking at FD that have been issued and we have Tara going back and looking at all of her fdas so if we want if somebody wants to if they're at the early part of the process they can come in and do a preapp meeting with us what we're trying to do is set two standing days each month that we just do preapps for people because you come in you meet with somebody on the front end in fact Mr Shore's doing it I think like sometime the second week of um July we're going to meet with applicants before they actually put in anything and talk to them about the best way that we can to help them utilize existing drainage now I've exceeded my technical knowledge I have to turn it to Richard so on the historical ditches I know you keep saying that we keep making them fill them in we aren't making them do anything we the town of lock atche Groves Ingenuity and kesars cannot dictate means and methods it that's exactly what is happening in the in this please okay Finish we cannot dictate means and methods if their engineer tells the owner it would be better for you to fill this in because I talked to Tara about this and Tara says I've never told anybody to fill a ditch in they present the drawing she reviews it and says yes or no if their engineer proposes to fill this ditch in we can't as long as they comply with our flood plane ordinances section 130 section 70 and I forget what the other ones are and the state law and all the South water water measure District uh things then fine one of the ideas I had was literally building a boat around their properties if they don't want to build a burm or if they want to leave the ditches that are on the edges of their properties with a control structure we the town cannot say you have to do that but this is how their Engineers okay are this is I I don't know why okay because it's super expensive and I think maybe the town needs to protect its ditches and say no because on the 16th of June you said the town needs water storage we there's our ditches so let's stop allowing these Engineers because first of all it's costing their customers crazy money okay and then also it's causing a lot of back and forth with the engineers in the town so let's stop that if we could possibly stop that let's try to keep our historic ditches we may have to modify them and to accommodate Neighbors in the back or Neighbors in the front but we we need to stop this because the engineers are telling these folks because this is what they do $7,000 thank you you know I mean they're not out there doing you know they're calculating the work according to what the town code says and that is what Tara said I was like why are we filling in the ditches and she said in that meeting because that's what the code says so excuse me for my fusion and we could go back and watch that meeting together she did say that so I will say that got pay attention when she said that on the historic ditches I have two properties right now in this town that are having neighbor disputes because of these historical ditches they chose to leave the historical ditches the neighbor on this side owns 10 acres these are two five acre Parcels this person pulled an FDA the all three properties pulled an FDA and they maintained the original ditch which share property lines goes across property lines now this lady has been in my office twice I know she's been to Cod at least once and telling me how this property is flooding her yard because of this ditch well that's why we have Town Engineers figure it out we're trying to do Phyllis excuse me for calling you by your first name council member Melia anyway we're trying toig figed out we are asking that our engineers and our attorneys will put two very simple statements into our code so that it is clear to Engineers that they have to take advantage and consider existing drainage and surrounding property drainage that's not means and methods okay and as we finish the vulnerability assessment we'll be able to look at the town in larger swaths that we take advantage of the natural Watershed the other thing I'd also like to say is people that own multiple properties we are inviting them to come in we actually have somebody who's a great guinea pig for this coming in for two properties and even went to South Florida and it's going to look at those two properties as one that's a great thing to do that helps us take care natural Watershed okay so anyway on the 16th I think that where we are HR man you have all been given a hard copy we are sending out an electronic copy and I believe that we are having individual one-on-one meetings with you as your schedule permits um and I don't remember the dates of those but they're getting scheduled okay we have had it reviewed by the attorneys half a dozen times we actually sat down with Glenn a couple weeks ago we went through the very final comments there's two things that we did did not change but of course we can change them back we we wanted to discuss them again um one is paying for jury duty as a civic duty maybe two days maybe five days you pick the days but it is a civic duty and we do encourage people to do it and the second thing is we found that bereavement leave if you do have out ofate you know um losses it may take you up to five days we wouldn't just give you five days but you know if you needed it we could extend it so those are the two things that we need to come back and talk to you about it is my belief and I believe the attorney's review indicates that we've changed everything in there and I'm not going to say another thing because it's been a long night we got a lot to do um and the 16th is going to be very informative okay council member d find closing comments okay I was thrilled to be honored by the ladies who attended from Junior Achievement um I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I went in for my first adventure and it was with um I went to four different classrooms of third and fourth graders and I spoke about being the mayor and what that entails but I also spoke about being a Horseman and I brought horse shoes and I brought horse teeth and I brought horse food and some of the food that I brought was compressed alfalfa cubes you know and they're maybe like three inches by one inch by one inch so as these kids came up to the table and looked at this stuff more than one more than two more than six of them they're like is that marijuana [Laughter] no pumpkin it's not moving on but um what what an eye opener cuz some days when I walk out the back door and it's raining and it's muddy and one horse is loose and the dog is bolting down the driveway I'm like Mother of God I really signed up for this and there are so many people you know and especially youngsters they're like horses wear shoes horses teeth come out you cremated a horse you know I mean there there's just no it it's amazing to me that my lifestyle is just like this big wow to so many so I will keep doing Junior Achievement for as long as I can thank you ladies it was a great honor D bis okay I think I said a lot today so I would like everybody to follow up on the FDA it's super important I really do feel that staff has kicked it into high gear for sure and um we don't usually get things back in 30day turnaround and uh we're getting this back and I think it's going to be great changes for the town and I would like to see proactive code enforcement enacted at the last next vote meeting hopefully you guys will all consider that and we'll get it on the agenda I think that is what the folks of this town wants it wipes our hands of it and it gives them the the tool maybe we could get things enforcement on there and it also address the sanctions that we didn't finish addressing and get something part two yeah it's actually on your upcoming um topics for discussion so if we could kind of do FDA first and then do code will bring forward the um foreclosure thresholds so and and what proactive code enforcement is going to look like and anything since the Foreclosure is largely not possible in a town of Home largely hited properties some other options there's got to be some other teeth somewhere find us some dentures and that's it for me tonight thank you thank you Robert yes thank you madam chair uh I graduated from Western uh Chambers leadership um class it's a six-month program once a month uh go if you haven't had the opportunity it's uh one Tuesday a month it's a long day I'm not used to those long days I've been kind of semi-retired for a while but um it's it's a a great exposure to um all of between the Arts and the hospitals and the EOC in the schools and every week's a different theme so a great great program ran by Mary L at the Western chamber um my question on these fdas can we as Council give direction that says if you're not in the fine status if you're still in progress can we tell the magistrate to give these people an automatic extension of another 60 days yeah well we we do that naturally we do that that's why they take six months I'm sorry I'm answering directly we already do continuances and you'll see the note that I um put in that email to you all if somebody already doesn't have something now then you know we tell the magistrate what the status is the only times that we've actually kicked somebody into a fine on an FDA is when they're absolutely not responding I mean that's why we just keep continuing well my point is there are people that have the engineer and the Magistrate's like all right I got to see something from your engineer you got 30 days I don't want to see something the day before the magistrate meeting right you're right and I understand that but if we are at a Crossroads where possibly something's going to change and somebody's halfway through even if they're at the end and they Vision this change being beneficial to them and the town then can't we tell the magistrate that hey we're looking at this next month um we want you to automatically extend everybody's 60 days I mean those that come to her with the information say look I got it great but those that are still in a in a in a why don't you let why don't let me take a look and let me go over it with the engineers because some of them they really have to be done yeah some of them really have to be done and some of the other ones we can continue we almost always let people get a continuance but it's usually 30 days at a time which You' Beil an engineer in 30 days I mean it's a no been a 90 we've been trying 90 yeah all right if there's anything we can do to those people that are coming for a status hearing that are still caught up with uh my engineer is busy I'm still waiting on my engineer you know I know the magistrate doesn't like to hear that she wants to see something in writing and she does a great great job if anybody uh hasn't had a chance watch those meetings she's super fair but I think as Council we're recognizing an issue and we're going to try to address it and it looks like we addressed it it's going to change a few things that you know if we're in that process I don't know why we couldn't give direction to hey just extend all these 90 days unless they're at the point of no return and they want to keep going then you have to let them keep going but those that are at a point of return if we could do why don't we agree that we will look at each one of them and anyone that we can continue we will and any of the other ones that we cannot will'll keep proceeding can we get a consensus that's just my agree I agree okay all right that's it thank you good meeting great job got a lot done I'm not putting my foot in the code Arena so I abstain well that's said I'm gonna do it yeah okay March you're done Robert correct yeah okay go ahead March all right um I um was conflicted um on the Pud vote that we did um last time I was of the opinion that the question that was asked was have we kicked this around enough and can we move on and I agreed to that but I still didn't feel comfortable because there were so many conflicting things you know one staff member said one thing another other person said another thing so I'm asking that this discussion be brought back for another reconsideration I thought we voted on it you got a consensus on it no I thought we voted to I was not here at the meeting um yeah we'll have to look back and if you give direction that you want to talk about it again we can but the understanding that I have was that conversation was that the existing PUD language is not a universal application it is only applicable to properties with Frontage on Southern Boulevard there is only one um development that falls within um the Pud and it happens to be Groves at Town Center because it's an mu it's an mlu and that there is is a provision for commer possibility for commercial PUD on Southern Boulevard if there are 10 acres or more with a PUD there is nothing even remotely automatic about it first of all there is no availability for a residential PUD and having 50 acres doesn't mean you get a PUD you have to come through the process like everything else in our land use and zoning and go through approvals so this would be a perfect example of something that expart communication would work best on because if somebody said hey I want to do a PUD or I've got 50 acres now I can do a PUD they'd be really wise to come do those individual meetings with Council and Council would say not in our town and then you know they would probably understand not a good idea to put the application in but if they decided I don't care about those conversations I'm going to go ahead and you know roll with this they may put the application and we can't prevent people from putting in um a request for land use change that doesn't mean it's a yes we can't stop somebody from putting in a request for a zoning text Amendment it doesn't mean it's a yes and by the way if we have something in the code and somebody applies to use it again doesn't mean it's a yes at the end of the day the council after the recommendation of PCB has to make approval of Quasi judicial issues and most often a site plan and site plans they come with conditions of approval so having another discussion about something that only applies on Southern Boulevard that nobody has come in to request and that anybody could come in and request it seems like we have some other matters that need time and attention to get coding in you know code language in that will actually prevent things from happening that can happen as opposed to talking about something that can't happen please forgive me that was I read the Pud stuff inside out and I I researched it um online uh and and looked at the descriptions and I mean it it mentioned that you had to have a certain size uh in order to even consider a PUD right but it mentioned that you had three things that you could put in there you could put industrial you could put um commercial no you know our PUD or specifically says it has to be on it specifically says that that's why really show me where it says that because all I could find was that um anything had to be H south of East Citrus on Southern Boulevard if I may Madam mayor U I think what the councilwoman's referring to is for a multi-and use PUD you have to have a combination of three at at least three different land uses so any of the three well any of the land uses that are available within the town you have to have a minimum of three so you can't do all one land use hence the name multi land use PUD you have to pick three so for the grown Center for example uh I believe they have commercial low they have commercial low office and they have institutional I'm remembering off the top of my head so they have to maintain those three land uses within their mlu boundaries been approved that's correct they've been approved um and one of the other things to remember that we talked about that's very important is there's quite a number of legislative decisions that have to be made in order for new properties to be um approved as a as a PUD in the town and that of course gives you much more discretion than a quasi judicial item and we talked about the fact that perhaps with the council sitting up here that there wouldn't be an affirmative vote for additional puds at this time um but there there is I know what the counc the Pud ordinance that we write now have in place requires that all puds okay it refers only to puds whether it's a regular PUD or an mlu PUD they must have a certain amount of Frontage on Southern Boulevard I think one is 650 feet and one is 750 feet they have but that that is all that our ordinance refers to further there with or without that ordinance so if we get rid of that ordinance what that does is make us lose some control over puds right as Council but even without that ordinance if we get rid of it anyone can apply for a PUD anywhere in this town at any time with or without that ordinance is that correct the code currently contemplates that a third-party applicant can apply for a text amendment to your comprehensive plan or to your plan development regulation with or without yeah regarding the Pud or anything else they could propose so it's up to council to deny those things if we don't want it but and that's where it being a legislative decision is important because you have much more latitude to approve or deny you have no requirements based on set criteria like you would for a site plan to point to a Criterion that they don't comply with as the basis for your denial you have a much broader latitude and you can take into a lot into account things that you couldn't with a quasi item so that the legislative nature of these types of decisions is something that's important and protects you all as as a council and the decision- making body all right well she said that they can be anywhere any place anytime eliminating Southern connection correct with saying that the ordinance that we have that you want to get rid of only applies to Southern Boulevard but I'm okay so that's one issue okay now the second issue is the reality of the situation is that anyone can walk through that door tomorrow and say I want to put a pie UD on Broad North and put in an application to do that it it doesn't matter I I have 20 acres of land on B Road North and I want to put in a PUD it's up to us to get the citizens of the town to keep a council that will deny that application all right because um you can cluster and create a a different density that could then snowball through the tent so I mean it it would not snowball through the town why wouldn't it because when you approve a single application it applies to that the meeting again motion to extend okay thanks you know I actually think that um the point made by Miss Forbes is that it doesn't float unless there's a council vote so anybody can come put whatever they want in and even when we put in the EXP parte communication and each of you can have that meeting and staff can say no as much as we want but when they hear it from you all and you ask the questions and you state the town's position this thing does not fly is that a for vote for passing if it made it all the way to you yes but I don't even foresee these things making their way to you make it that far okay because there's there's not much left for southern connection anyway you know other than the guest property which you know if if that becomes a PUD or I think they connect to Su do they they do they do they have a small sliver that it's not small it's a size of a canal five acres wide right that connects to Southern it is it's a ditch but it's the size of AR no I no I don't big ditch all right no it is yeah it's five acres is right okay so um the next thing is um the state college has a 300 acre area uh not acre but the 300 Conservation Area yeah 300 foot um they're they're cutting paths all through it and uh they're taking down uh trees in there and I I don't know why why they're uh up to that or who would look into you know what's going on we can go and take a look I can send okay you have an answer that was done by forestry when they had their brush fire forry drove through there with their bulldozers and created fire Trails it was on fire a couple weeks ago I I remember that it there was a fire in there yeah yeah they tore it over they actually ran over their fence like when they unloaded their they didn't bother to open the gate they just right over the top of the fence yeah I know it's still broken all right um uh Western uh communities council do we have a representative um going to those meetings it used to be the mayor it's always been the mayor okay well if the mayor doesn't want to do it I used to do it and I would be uh willing to lovely okay I need the information about what the meetings are okay all right yeah they haven't had a meeting in a while yeah there hasn't been a meeting in like six months that's that's kind of typical for them yeah yeah yeah okay okay um how many have been to the leadership uh um uh program that Robert talked about okay if you fabulous if yeah if you haven't been go through it I went through it when they first initiated it when chamber was in this building and uh it was just a little trailer at the time it was before this building was built and um yes I agree I mean the places they took you to and the adventures they gave you are are fantastic so if you can do it do it all right thank you okay um I just have a couple of things uh it it's come to my attention that we don't charge a search charge or a fee for using a credit card therefore we lose we therefore we therefore we lose money um and I know that it is now legal to do that so can I recommend that we put Implement a policy where we charge at least back so that we're getting the you know if it's $500 we're actually getting $500 um% for you know whatever they call it now a courtesy fee or whatever something like that so can I recommend that we do that um does that take some kind of a vote or consensus or we'll just well how about if we just implement it it ratified on the new Fe schedule I think that would be lovely um is that okay I think is okay we'll work with Glenn by what's allowable by Statute and and looking visioning forward to budgeting a little bit um I would like you to put together so here's what I'm trying to determine how much do all of these meetings cost okay um because I think if we're looking at making budget cuts we might look at you know does the fact meeting really and I'm just throwing that out there because I just looked until a the fact does the fact meeting really need to have seven staff members at it you know does it or does it just need either Valerie or you and and Jeff or Chris you know what I mean like does it really have to have Jeff Chris Val you know like does it really have to have five people and I'm just looking at budgeting you know and I'm also looking at people time and and job workload so if you could just you know does the planning pnz meeting have to have both the past planner and the current planner and the past engineer and the current engine you know like those kind of things so I'm just looking at if you can put together some kind of a chart when we're looking at budgeting so we can maybe make some decisions on where we can shave off some costs of of of different meetings because I know we're always very sensitive when we're here at Council meetings of you know like I was very sensitive to let Sarah Baxter be in and out and you know and go right and and we're always very sensitive okay Chris you're done you can go home that kind of thing so I can tell you that in 2018 the annual cost for the ulc was $22,000 it was in 2019 it was just shy of 20 okay old numbers but still and it may be that we have to and how that's allocated and we may just have to make some moratoriums on things I'm sorry you can't have Chris and Jeff there you get one or the other or you can't have you know these are really good points and you know somebody might have already thought of them and um first of all all the people that you're talking about are exempt so they're not getting extra hours if you will second of all um we are going to go ahead and reduce the number of people attending meetings um the budget meeting may not reduce right away because as you go through departments and talk about Capital you're going to need Richard there but hey he's salaried you're going to need yeah but he's getting paid by the no we're not going to be able to have the we're not going to have the attorneys come we're actually said we were we already did a deal on that that we're going to zoom for um Sunshine briefing for each committee and if we need then we'll set up by Zoom if it's needed so we're already reconfiguring the meetings so that we don't have I'm just looking for ways to make a little money and Sh absolutely right absolutely right all right great and that's all I have kind a motion to adjourn the meeting may may may may you skipped me right here and I do have a a very quick report for once she has some stuffff I do um the annual backpack giveaway um we will be doing that August 3rd from 9: to 11: which is a Saturday more information to come and we will advertise that on our website can I just make a point about that sure before we expend money and I know it's budgeted on backpacks um we did that with the lgla last year and what we found we actually got our backpacks donated um so we didn't expend any money on it and got all the materials inside of them donated but that being said what we found was they don't need the especially to the level we did so before we expend money on doing that can we just double check with the school and make sure that that's something that they really want and need and if it's not maybe turn our focus in a different direction I know it's something that we've been doing annually but it seems kind of pointless to put together to expend money and put together 50 backpacks they are going to be chucked in a storage closet somewhere we can do socks and underwear what what whatever yeah whatever it is just just a call to the just to make sure that that's actually needed I'm sorry good no thank you uh and then the clerk's office is working on an electronic signature policy that'll be on your August um agenda uh for example uh council member Shore is not here um with that policy we would be able to still send all of the resolutions ordinances um minutes any other pertinent documents um for him to sign electronically or anyone else that's um not here and we're just trying to look for ways to create a more efficient process and get our documents executed and and and stored away now are you done you kept it here late it's all your fault but it's all good it's good I really can't wait for you