e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e go ahead like your own please the meeting is called to order we're going to start with an invocation and then the Pledge of Allegiance led by commissioner cber Pastor malberry please everyone father we thank you once again for another day we thank you for your goodness towards us we thank you for how you blessed us to come together once again at this time of session we pray God for the wisdom for the courage and for the insight and what to do in this uh meeting we pray God your hand will rest upon us that you will bless uh our mayor city manager bless involved thank God Amen and amen amen amen please join me as we salute Our Nation flag oured to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all R call please miss CR of course commissioner Tammy mcal here commissioner Justin Campbell present commissioner will Jones present commissioner Rufus Borum present mayor Robbie Cara present thank you Madame mayor we have a COR in the chambers thank you um on to approval of minutes has everybody have an opportunity to read the minutes and review them okay we make a motion to approve all minutes as they have been presented second we have a motion is second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to public recognitions presentation Employee of the Month Miss Jones good evening everyone Madame May and Commissioners um thank you all for this opportunity once again um for us to recognize an employee that has performed um outstanding during um any given month and our nomination and winner for our employee of the month in the spotlight is Officer Brian Bowers uh good evening Commissioners and mayor uh city manager Chief Shaw's on vacation so y'all are stuck with me tonight um so officer Bowers was nominated by the police department uh for officer I'm sorry Employee of the Month um for several reasons one he is one of our hardest working officers um that we have at the police department um a lot of times you have to call people and say hey can you come in and work with Brian it's totally different you have to say hey it's time to go home so Brian is just very very hardworking he does a great job um with all of his investigations he turns everything in in a timely manner I mean you just can't ask uh for a better guy um he trains he's only been with us for right out a year and we already have him as an active field training off officer um he just does an outstanding job and that's why we put him in for this award thank you Brian hold one second pet thank you yes the legal department would like to recognize this certificate of internship for our legal intern Joe [Laughter] andrako Joe is uh entering his third year at the University of Florida law school and he was very excited to work with us this past summer on the uh blight to bright team and he's worked closely with uh Mr cutright helping us all out with uh foreclosure complaints and working with the team to improve the city of Paka and he's done an excellent job and it's been an honor working with him and in fact he has agreed to stay on for an additional month to fulfill his pro bono requirements so he will be working with us for the next month this well thank you so much off all of that for nothing um River cental land swap notifications do we want to keep this in the administrative reports or place it under regular business uh Madam mayor I believe we still need appr the minutes okay no we did that already we did that we missed that um in terms of the uh legal department River Center land swap notification and deadlines uh we respectfully request that the commission make a motion to move this down to regular business make a motion that we move this down to regular business and also under administrative reports um I have been in touch uh per one of the Commissioners requests with Miss erley and she has also requested under regular business um consideration by the city commission for uh Direction on Investigation thank you so I will make the rec I'll make the motion that we uh move the land swap down to regular Administration as well as that we have discussion with regards to the investigation and investigation or Suns Sons second we have motion to Second all in favor I any opposition thank you any other cin manager and administrative reports no madame member thank you with that said I'm going to open the floor up to public comments please keep your comments to three minutes and provide your name and address for the record we do have a couple of cards Sam Deputy good evening mayor and commissioner Sam Deputy 9917 car Street 62 23 St John's Avenue I'm here about a matter that has been going on for years and that is the road construction on St John's Avenue we're in our sixth year of that our Merchants have suffered for six years and we just keep hoping that it'll be done because when we get this done we're going to have a glorious downtown and when the sidewalks are done next year it will be a place to show but the process has been difficult at best and the merchants downtown it's not we're not thriving like we should be and as we have in the past I want to reiterate we've been downtown with our businesses and our family 57 and a half years so we have that experience uh of of what is thriving but we had worked with the city to to on the goal of this being done by the end of July and it might still be done but the paving was to begin this past Sunday and we discovered upon City notification that on July 3rd that it was being delayed two weeks July 3 4th of July weekend you know you're going to come back and the Pavements going to be in motion well we just got the notice that can't go out did you get the notice that it was delayed so we wanted to know why it was delayed so we asked for a public uh inquest of information Miss West was very very helpful with that and very quick in getting that to us but there was no notification from this company to this city in writing that we were that they were delaying was it a phone call a multi-million doll contract changed on a phone call I don't think that that is proper business or at least in my world that is not but there was no contact according to City records from May 28th to July 1st with this company from this city confirming that this project was going to happen as we told the rest of the merchants in a flyer so that they could plan some were taking vacation one scheduled surgery all Fallen apart because of a delay that we do not know why we were told in the paper and the notice that it was a conflict of scheduling after six years we need a conflict of scheduling for the last month I'm not sure but we don't truly have answers we are concerned we were say we were told well what's two more weeks two more weeks can be make a break for some of these small entrepreneur businesses we need to have a City that supports the businesses that provide the jobs that pay the taxes that's what we need and currently we do not feel that this city has our back thank you thank you Tasha given Miss given good evening to everyone Madam mayor Commissioners our administrator my name is Tara giv I live at 225 stilla Avenue here in pakra I would like for the commission to consider what I just recently learned about and I'm not sure if you're familiar with it but it's it's called a posos um April of this year April 26 2024 there's some recent regulation or legislation that's coming out let me just read this to you posos including posos and pfoa are a class of man-made chemicals which are very persistent in the environment are very and are very difficult to remediate with the recent establish of mcls for p posos related compounds by the EPA and additional regulatory guidance expected soon from the FD P fosis are anticipate to quickly become a significant concern at brownsv R Redevelopment sites which of course the property behind City Hall I believe is consider of brownsfield with the latest Redevelopment challenges related to posos from both a technical and legal standpoint as a federal and state FD requirements continue to take shape I'm asking that our commission our city consider this when you're considering the land swap um is it really in the best interest of the city of Paka and the citizens that live here and who currently have the opportunity to utilize the St John's River Center which from what I understand was actually built for the community here versus it becoming privately owned but there's also some more legislation that's actually coming out um concerning peos and um I recently attended the Florida Brownsville Association conference and there was a lot of information and there's a lot of changes that's coming out so I'm asking that you do your due diligence and that you check every eye do every eye and cross every T before you move forward with this land Swap and respon and in addition to that I'm asking that our city consider the recent developments that have come out and that my question is are you doing everything that you can to protect us as Citizens to make sure that everything is fair that it's transparent and of course I know you like to see facts and from what I understand you have been you have received information and facts so thank you for your time and everyone have a good evening before you leave could you tell can you spell what you're talking about please P fos P FAS and PF oos they're two different two different things thank you wait a minute what's two different things what what's two different things okay one is called pfas the other one is called PF OA and there's one more hold on PF a s PF o o s PF O8 and there's some recent legislation that just came out April 26 2024 and May 8th of 2024 that you would need to consider you don't want to be stuck with something that you won't be a to remediate thank you any commission and staff response to these concerns or questions uh yes Madam mayor um currently that the regulation with respect to past which is also more C L known as the forever chemicals you may have heard of this um that regulation has been challenged in federal court we are watching that closely also Paca is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit related to P pass and I would like to also just acknowledge the very hard work that has been undertaken by Chief Taylor in ensuring that uh his employees are being protected from these forever chemicals they are found uh widespread in fire fighting um the the foam that is used to fight fires and also for their attire and he has worked tirelessly over the last several years to make sure that his employees are safe from these carcinogens found in Forever chemicals but we are highly cognizant of this issue and track it very closely and are actually are involved in litigation pertaining to it thank you excuse me you have the public comment has ended I'm sorry on to the consent agenda is there any items to be pulled I've been asked to pull D okay cons Madam mayor yes when you say PLL d uh remove it from the uh it's being pulled for the time being Mr cartright can speak more to that but he the applicant has requested be pulled and and brought back at a future dat I just wanted to clarify not pulled for discussion but removed from the agenda um p a for the discuss give a second my glasses okay for discussion make so a g is pulled period A and K are pulled for discussion no no no no a G and K are pulled for discussion D is pulled for consideration so I'll make a motion that we accept the consent agenda as printed excluding items a g and K for discussion and omitting D overall okay okay you have a motion do we have a second all in favor I any opposition thank you um and thank you Madame mayor concerning item a uh the commission annually appoints someone from this commission to serve as the delegate um the voting delegate at the Florida leue of cities this is requested by the Florida leag of cities um it is my understanding commissioner boram is willing to serve as the delegate if appointed by the board manager Troy Bell is also willing to serve as an alternative delegate if if the desire of the commission um I'm already I'm already part of that process so so so you're GNA have me to the the delegates should be there should be separate delegates I'm part of another board that's already oh a part of that I don't think sorry I don't recall us talking about that but okay when I asked you I thought you were willing to serve my apologies okay well um we can we can clarify let's clarify and and um to avoid any confusions I would be willing to serve as the voting delegate all right thank you thank you any more discussion on this go ahead I think we have a different discussion all right I don't want any confusion okay thank you we have a motion motion to accept cons item a but we we can't accept the motion we would have to create a new motion being that this was a recommendation for commissioner so will we deny it first and then okay it's already I don't think I to do we just have to make commission Campell attend as the voting delegate second on that we have a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you for the record there's no alternative no thank you uh can I ask do we normally have an alternate we normally have an alternate but it's normally a commissioner right right gotcha we avoid conflict conflict gotcha um D not D excuse me G Miss TR item G adopt resolution 20 24 R 136 a resolution of the city of Paka authorizing the P Police Department to expend funds an amount not to exceed 33,000 to upgrade and replace current firearms and handguns providing for scrier SS I clarify this I pulled it I said D but you okay G and I didn't want to stop it so I don't have any questions about uh trading other weapons i p oh you did g g I know and that's what I was gonna pull too he said g someone else did no G what to clarify I did the record D has been requested to be removed off the table all the way right she would be the one with the a police department and I have any I don't have any questions in reference to the weapon swap or change and purchase okay I okay yes ma'am so if you can kind of just G what's going on and he don't have his glasses y'all very waiting so so the reason that we've added it to the commission agenda item as a commission agenda item is because it exceeds our $25,000 uh per our procurement policy um we're at 33,000 and that's why we brought it forward thank you oh oh it says and to spend up to $3,000 yes ma'am and then the the purposes is twofold um one we're getting close to an area with our current Firearms where we're going to need to start replacing Springs firing pins things of that nature and the other is right now the value of our current Firearms is relatively high for tradein value and we were going to look at doing this item for the upcoming fiscal year but waiting another year we would lose a decent amount of money in the trade so we felt it best to do it this year the money was in the budget so we're going to do the trade with the approval of the commission this year along with the purchase okay you okay any additional questions this in Chief new sorry for the confusion that's that's okay that's okay um do we have a motion motion to approve second second we have a motion in multiple seconds all in favor uh I any opposition thank you on to K item k a resolution of the city of Pac Florida incorporating the proposed benefits policy to Section 8 personal security program of the Personnel policy and providing for scrier erors thank you commissioner J you have a question on that all right expound please as to expound on it to provide more information okay go ahead so as we brought this to you guys in October of last year and then we would put a hold on um moving forward on any more um policies it was brought back on our June 13th meeting with all of the corrections from October that the commission had um desired to see put into the policy um as pertains to p ion language and any other um supplemental policies that we own that we um offer we offer to our employees all of that information was placed in there um which is what we brought back on June 13th and so now we're asking for this policy to be adopted so we can update it into our Personnel policy any additional questions refresh do we have a motion second motion a second all in favor I any opposition where is oh M yes was one second we'll finish it up I'll take this okay all right we have a motion to approve K in a second and Miss Jones gave additional information as to why refreshed the memory as to why it was on the resolution was here again which was that we had discussed this in October and again in June okay it's been amended so we have a motion second all in favor I any opposition thank you thank you on to regular business a mayor yes if I may before we go into regular business I would like to make it known publicly that I will be recusing myself from item uh B and C for discussion and direction as I serve on the board for PAC of pal and I serve on the board for the Lee Conley house so I would omit any comments as well as a vote to ensure that there is complete transparency thank you and fill out the form as required I would have it okay um a Mr Bell thank you madam Sorry Miss mcco go ahead just I just am not sure if when we accuse ourselves is it required that we remove asks from the room it's it's a good practice I don't know if it's the requirement Mr West can answer that it does uh help with the appearance of proprietary to remove yourself from the room but it is there's no mandate that you okay there's no mandate um but we're on a so M Mr B yes thank you Madame mayor so we are at the point to to renew our contract with the Department of Correction uh for the services that they provide and our City attorney has developed um an addendum that I think will address some of the concerns that we have about working with uh labor prison labor so I'm going to ask her to give you a brief description of that because I think it is really a groundbreaking approach to uh the way that we can address these issues sure um basically the uh Florida is one of the the a few states that pays hardly anything to our department of corrections work squads uh which many have characterized as uh essentially slave labor um this particular addendum to this particular contract would essentially provide a benefit to no cost to the city and really no cost to the State of Florida Department of Corrections by providing for criteria for those inmates that do work for the city of fla for set number of hours um upon their release from prison all of their civil restitution leans will be completely forgiven um as you may recall we had a constitutional amendment recently that allowed uh formally convicted felons to vote but the state legislature has made that more difficult by requiring them to pay for their civil restitution leans before they can vote except there's no way to determine how much those leans are there is no Central database with the state of Florida to to determine how much they have to pay and so they still end up not being able to vote this would remedy that solution for those inmates that work on the the grounds of the city of Paka I am not aware of any other jurisdiction in the State of Florida that has attempted this I'm not sure that the Department of Corrections will be amendable to this addendum but we figured it was worth a shot um so this isn't a resolution approving it's it's kicking it back to the Department of Corrections with your approval um including this addendum think it's great I think it's a great opportunity for us to lead the charge so thank you so much for taking this into consideration and bringing it before us I think it's wonderful thank you um do we have okay we have a motion I'll make a motion that we approve item a second we have a motion to Second all in favor any opposition thank you thank you Miss West for doing this ready to move to the next item okay B discussion Direction resolution 2024 133 authorizing a donation to Lee Conley house to assist with operational expenses due to recent decreases in state funding and authorizing an FY 2023 24 budget transfer to accommodate same the request is the the request is for the amount of $2,570 89 Mr Bill yes thank you madam mayor I would ask the um because this was an item that was requested by the vendor to be placed on the agenda I believe they are present today and ready to provide a presentation supporting their request thank you Miss slaven if you give your name good evening yes please Commissioners um I I'm glad to see that you each got a copy of this so I don't have to go over it in so much detail but to give a little bit of oh I'm sorry to give a little bit of background um we are approximately 50% um Voca funded for our budget year and uh in the past two years we've lost $250,000 in federal funding last year or this year that just wrapped up we were able to um we were able to pull together some additional funding we had some reserves put aside and we were able to muster through the year um unfortunately this year we took an additional cut and uh these are due to Federal Cuts nothing to do with any of the services these are federal across the board and um uh though I did reach out and I did apply for every opportunity I could I raised an additional $90,000 to supplement the 250,000 that we lost however um that that's simply not enough to keep the services at the level that that our citizens our survivors deserve so I'm asking I've I've been uh a part of Lee Conley house since 2004 as far as I know we have never come to the city for uh funding um however uh this year we're just I I I think that the the survivors in our community deserve to have 24hour shelter coverage and um I I hope you will partner with us to make sure that that happens thank you does anybody have any questions of Miss SL well I mean so it's 112,500 89 that's what correct so um what we did is we lost five positions um just just from the get-go it takes five Advocates to run the shelter and that's with no one getting a break um and that does not include our Outreach staff we lost five positions uh again I was able to write some grants and and pull in some additional funding but this $112,000 would cover two positions and then help with putting some food on the table also commission tell me about the you said it was a quarter of a million at first and then you got 990,000 of that and then you're asking for 112,000 correct I I didn't want to overextend I wanted to make sure that I'm only asking for what I need yes and what I need is to cover two positions and then um some of the expenses of Base needs inside shelter which includes food electricity things like that a very small amount going to that but the most important thing is we are a 247 Center um therefore it is a requirement that we have at least one staff member there at all times and um that takes five staff members what is your total budget um just over a million and then one other question um so this is what you want from uh the city but if have you approached the county at all yes the county supports US every year uh it's not a lot but they have again I've been here since 2004 and they give us um we are always in their ongoing budget like $10,000 yeah it's it's not a lot but um that's 10 years I mean almost 11 11 years well this is 11y year request and I might be able to be helpful with this um I had an opportunity to uh meet and discuss this um uh weeks ago uh this request on the loss of the funding um I asked staff if we had a policy in place to uh address this and we don't currently have a policy in place for those requests over 25,000 um I think it might be helpful uh if and I'm not sure of the urgency of this matter it might be helpful for us to develop a policy with a rubric to help you assess this because I'm sure you're going to receive several requests along this line in the future um so staff is already poised to begin developing that policy with a rubric and we can uh bring this back to you at the next uh next meeting if that's at the pleasure of the commission I I think that's a good idea I mean we we value what Le Cony house does and we now also have a request for pal coming up all of these services are highly needed in this community but as a city we need to have a policy um we're not a wealthy City and we need to kind of figure out how to do this feely for everybody but yet be a part of the community and a good partner so I think a policy will be very helpful absolutely well we did we we do have a policy in place as it relates to um procurement in general you're calling it procurement yes okay we were we we were doing like donations and we had something written up through Don Hol when he was in place so okay and I do know that there is uh a line item for contribution to special events that each of the Commissioners has okay all right but that's this is a right okay anything else no I don't think so any oh any other questions excuse me oh no she's cold that wasn't what it was thank you um C discussion Direction resolution 2024 r138 authorizing a donation to The Palaca Police Athletic League pal to assist with the Palaca Teen Summit youth director's conference and authorizing an FY 2023 24 budget transfer to accommodate San the request is an amount of $166,000 and we did request you return and give us information so thank you yes hello commissioner my name is Lita Thomas 2406 Lee terce Paca Florida um 32177 so um thank you all so much for this opportunity to just present to you um pal um as most of you know um is the oldest and largest um crime prevention program um in the United States we are a member um with our state pal and our national pal to try to help um this crime prevention with our youth um so what we do each year and every summer we offer the kids the opportunity as they work through the mentoring program um participate in all of our other programs afford them opportunity to attend youth conferences during the summer um there's two conferences um one is um a Teen Summit um typically is held in Washington DC um but this year was held in North Carolina um and then another youth conference that's held down um Youth Development conference ran by the youth themselves that's held at Disney um so I don't went way over my presentation um but you all have the presentation so um what the ask is is for us to be able to um offer this opportunity to them um so my request is really a reimbursement because the funds already had to be expended um for these youth conf conferences so um it's just a reimbursement of some of the funds that we've had to um put out um for the conference so I'mma leave it there if y'all have any questions I did send the presentation to you all and the presentation Shar some of the highlights and the pictures um from the conference that is held anybody have any questions M thas Mr Bill does madam mayor yes go ahead Mr Bill commission had uh directed uh staff to identify possible sources of funding uh when this was discussed before and we did identify sens this request is less than 25,000 uh item uh in the American Rescue plan funding that would be appropriate for that and under the educational uh category you do have the availability of funds to utilize from that category if you deem this to be appropriate and what were the funds available in that again 48,000 40 the balance is 40 the the amount available as of this moment is 40,000 okay and while we're on that um we still had that one budget line item for this is separate but I want to see how we can it by can at least try to entertain that um for the funding for the um the youth not euthanizing pet but SP spading neuter um we still had that funding line for the animal control yes so I would say use that funding Animal Control you put that funding back in into that and we can probably shift you make make better use of those funds from the ARA funds be a little bit more flexible with those do just want to put that on the table so it would require a motion by the commission to uh allocate those funds uh if you deem it appropriate from the educational motion to oh to fund this request this P the power request we're on the P request we're going to we're going to take fund from Ala from okay I'd like to make a motion that we move funds from the ARA um funds to um facilitate um the Police Athletic League's on request for a second a motion to Second all in favor I any opposition in the amount of what not to exceed 16,000 toed well say it was 16 and change when I was it 16,000 right 16,000 okay 16,000 commissioner can also make sure I understand that that 10,000 that's um that was previously there for the animal we put that back where it was or that was what you that was the director from commissioner B right yes we didn't vote on that that was a suggestion just a suggestion thank you that was for the uh Neu in yeah okay suggestion but there wasn't a motion so I motion to put the 10,000 back into control okay thank you second have a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you all right thank you commissioner I appreciate the support and just want to let you all know there will be a um Community back to school event on August the 3 um a lot of our um business partners are partnering with us um to host that event last year we gave out 700 backpacks um this year we're looking we've had 960 backpacks donated so we're continuing to work um to get the supplies needed so any organization is um offered the ability to participate um with us and provide information to our community there will be a food giveaway as well as a clothing giveaway at the same time so thank you August 23rd located August 3rd it will be August 3rd um at 1414 Bronson Street at the calvary Family Life Center what time from 11 to 2 you're welcome thank you m l thank you commissioner Campbell get back up here and next we'll discuss the land swap Mr Bell thank you Madame mayor I'm going to ask the uh City attorney based on the memo that she provided to um present on this item [Music] Commissioners there was a issue raised um pursuant to commun the disposal of properties in a community redevelopment um agency under Florida statute 163 3803a there are two different Provisions under that statute subsection one and subsection 3 there's only one case law on point the the city of Tampa uh somewhat took the position that I had in my interpretation however they were overruled um by the second DCA in 2020 and so in an abundance of caution since that overruling uh basically takes precedence over the Attorney General opinions that we were relying upon um in an abundance of caution I am recommending that we go ahead and provide notice uh for proposals for the acquisition and the revitalization of the St John's River Center in order to avoid what I perceive to be a Potential Threat of litigation um and so that would be advertised uh for a 30-day period and that is my recommendation moving forward and I do believe we have uh Mr Douglas here uh who I have confirmed with um regarding the the city's position on this particular statute Douglas yes good evening Madame mayor fellow Commissioners Mr manager and Madame attorney I just want to say thank you for the workshop earlier in the week and it's great to be back with you again and the the first thing I'd like to address is just going what Madame attorney was mentioning earlier and that is the statute that was circulated at the workshop uh we believe that the statute is distinguishable from the matter for us but with that said we don't want the city to be in a limbo um we want this to continue to be a win-win for the city and we are not going to object to opening the 30-day notice so uh that timeline will allow us to continue and uh the planning that's underway and will be in line with the other calendaring events that we had discussed in the past so with that said I'd like to also address commissioner Jones concern about the topic of access and that's something that's very important to this project overall and it really is the the heart of this project is access and from the very beginning our unwavering commitment has been and continues to be that the River Center will be open to the public accessible and engag to the citizens of our community and to our guests uh this is not and and never has been a a thought of an exclusive club we we do not want a wall built around the 100 block uh we we want to tear down walls literally and figuratively to let more people in we want more traffic we want more tourists um locals we want people to come and stay and linger uh under no circumstance do we want um exclusivity or any type of barrier to be built around the 100 block or the River Center and in no way has that ever been a thought and right now the river center is open with its current operating hours and our commitment is to make this building more accessible than what it is currently and that that's something that is uh very important to us that we will continue in the planning and the feedback and the input that we have received from Commissioners and how we can make this project the best it can be in addition there was a question about events and I just want to reaffirm the weddings socials other Gatherings at the River Center will still be an integral component of the River Center again we want more people not not fewer people downtown I'd like to turn now to the question of the pork Consolidated building that was raised at the workshop and what it means to the city the value to the city of the poor Consolidated building X door is multifold first the property itself is where the eye goes for visitors coming into our city and what better of a warm welcome than a city hall that rises up at the critical welcome Corridor the city would be able to have complete control of what our community's Gateway looks like moving forward think for a moment if that property lands in the wrong hands are there other Revenue generating options for Port Consolidated it doesn't take too long for the mind to imagine a different private party who sweeps in and sets up shop at Port Consolidated with an unsavory use or an absolutely inconsistent use with what any of you or any of us in this room would want to see as you reach the crest of the patka Memorial Bridge the good news is that opportunities like this only come once in a lifetime and the building will will support a state of-the-art board meeting room that considers technology functionality and safety the bones are good and there is ample square footage and it just received a brand new $150,000 roof and we do have in 48 hours you can only do so much but we we tried our best uh to be able to show some some potential renderings here of what the existing Port Consolidated building can look like again the structure itself would remain identical all the walls there would be potential for an exterior facade upgrade and then in the interior of the building using the existing walls existing rooms be able to have some greatly improved board meeting space thank you Mr dou we did we did want to focus on the issue on the agenda we appreciate that they're beautiful but we want to um yes ma yeah I'll keep moving forward y thank you and then also from a numbers perspective on the Perpetual evaluation analysis I would ask for you to remember that uh there's an important topic of Staffing that is included in that financial analysis that Miss Ronda odm prepared as an independent CPA professional and she is an expert that has considered all of the factors and importantly the Staffing implications and calculated the very real overhead factors of that Staffing and then finally the the benefits of assemblage is something we talked about as well at the workshop and that not only applies to the 100 block but also assemblage applies for the city as well and perhaps even more so on this side of the street bringing together the Port Consolidated property current city hall and the City Hall Annex allows you to have the space and an L-shaped footprint that could be sold for a major development project if you choose to go that route and then the final question that was brought up in the workshop was the matter of a writer first refusal and if that is the will of the commission certainly agreeable to that as well so in closing I just want to say thank you for your leadership and your commitment to patka as well as that of your incredible City staff and they have been instrumental as well in ensuring that we move our community forward and we are proud of the legacies all of us can be proud of the legacies that we will leave behind and we ask for your continued leadership tonight to promote progress thank you Mr Douglas um based on Miss West recommendation I think we need to move forward with the notice for proposal for the recommended of the 30 days just to ensure that we are in compliance with that so that in the future whatever the decision is ultimately that it is one that is solid and it does not come back to uh haunt us in the years and days to come so that would be the first request that we move forward for that proposal second was that that was a motion okay we have motion is second all in favor I any opposition thank you um on to um we need emergency motion to add to things to regular business I'll make a motion that we um add to as an emergency item the investigations as a result of a recommendation from our labor attorney Miss Susan elderly okay we have we have toy hold on I got minute one minute one at a time yes commissioner Jones uh yeah I think we may be forgetting so if we for us to move for we got have motion and discussion motion is second second okay then discussion go ahead commissioner Jones so I think we may be forgetting an important step so if we are gonna air on the side of caution here 30 days that's going to put us at the after the third of August which there there's a deadline the the contract's going to go into a band we're starting over so we're starting over okay I just want to make it clear thank thank you okay so now we're on the emergency motion um to add these items to the agenda do I have we have a motion in a second all in favor oh I think he was refering to he was referring to the previous okay but this is just to add the emergency motion there will be discussion okay we have all in favor any opposition thank you okay um with that said let's have a discussion about the first investigation which everyone was considering there are two investigations we have to discuss before we get so can I make a go ahead um one of the investigation I think uh as it relates to um the one for our our cm I'm not sure if that should be an investigation at this point because uh generally when there's a issue of that sort generally HR would handle it would be everything would be presented to HR HR would do their portion of the work and provide information to the commission as it relates to here's um what we what was um discussed and and founded and uh investigated and we're going to be moving forward with the investigation through uh this agency um to my knowledge that hasn't happened so I'm not sure if that would be the proper thing in in my opinion so I I spoke with Miss Miss Virginia Jones on that one particular issue as it related to our CM so that's I think we might be moving faster than we need to be on that after I gave it some thought commissioner mccal you have any thoughts okay again can you clarify that again what did you just and I want to apologize to everyone I have had some dental work done so it may be very difficult to understand me but I'll do the best that I can to be as you know clear as possible when speaking but can you can you kind of share that concerns please will no yes I will um my understanding it was it was allegations brought before with you correct absolutely and it didn't come from the HR person who would have to put in a grievance from my understanding a grievance have to be written in order for it can be even heard by for for any attorney to be able to address that labor attorney to be able to address that so something have to happen from internal in order for it to be able to before it can go on external I mean um uh Madam Madame attorney is that not right or help me I I do agree that um typically HR would conduct an investigation however given uh the the structure I don't I don't know what decisions have been made at the top to deviate from that process uh I think the city manager can probably speak better to these issues I don't know I I'll wait to my turn I would think this the HR department and director reports to the city manager how can they do an investigation when they're a subordinate of that person that would be no no no here's my question my question was the fact that things are happening internal okay there would be statements that are allegations or not allegations but the the the the um aggrievance would have specific in instances in there with dates time whatever happened happen and at least it would be presented to the commission's body the body so that we know and understand what's happening that hasn't happen a question please and it's just to I want to kind of as we're digging to dig deep I don't think there is any proper or policy that entails if there is a alleged grievance against the city manager what is the process um generally if there is a grievance against a city manager or any let's speak of just an organization in general they don't have to go to HR they can go to a member of the board of directors in this instance we don't have the board of directors we have a city commission so if a complaint was taken to one of the Commissioners the commissioner has the ability to bring it before the commission because again there is no specified policy which allows it to or deem it appropriate to have to go to HR simply because HR responds to that city manager so again in order to avoid any discrepancies or potential flaws if a person brings it to again again this is in the instance of a city manager that if they bring it to a member of the a mission that we have a duty to bring it to the Forefront of our commission and then we have the ability to investigate or do what we have to do does that sound almost yeah I'm I'm a little confused if you're talking about the assistant city manager or the city manager in the case city manager in this case which I don't even feel comfortable with you even addressing so I don't that's why I asked Miss ER to weigh in I don't even feel comfortable with her with when they chop and in both instances I don't feel comfortable with them being put on the spot to to address this that's why the labor attorney we have on contractors contacted for direction I I certainly understand that but my my my my my issue with that was that generally the body would know what is going on and again that's why then the last meeting um myself and another commission on the board did not know what was being put before us that we were we were voting on and that's why in the past there's always always been all right here's some things that's happening as it relates to any grievance or whatever issue that may be going on with the city and we understand and know what's going before us before we just hear in this in this format that's all I'm saying and I commissioner M what go ahead go ahead Mr you want to say something just quickly the question came up as to whether or not there was a policy or in place and I want to make sure that we address that and if there is a policy or not everyone uh these are all valid points and it doesn't have anything to do with me except to say whether there's policy in place or not I can tell you that there is no policy because I was the one who brought it up one time before in the conversation as we were talking about policies and procedures because I went through the same thing with another organization that did not have a policy for the executive director who was receiving a grievance hence we had to create one and as a result of that conversation I brought it over to the city of Paka because I did not want us to fall victim to that same thing and here we are okay with all of that said what is the decision of the commission to move and moving forward in some fashion would you like for me to speak now yes please c those were very valid points that you brought up but we have to be mindful of the individuals that made the um that brought the concerns to me and remember remember the individuals directly report to the city manager so it was necessary for them to come to one of us I have spoken in length with Susan erly and I asked her what the next steps are and one of the things that she informed is that we have we she does have a potential investigat that is free and independent of the Le the lead or her Mar gr Department as well um also it will be depended the one that she has recommended would be dependent upon that individual's availability the one thing we need to do as a commission is identify we need to identify the scope of of the investigation from there that will inform the investigator's decision on whether or not the investigation will be conducted by that individual in particular that person will consider the timeline based on the scope the investigator would need someone to report to um we don't and that that would be something that we need to to decide I called the investigation if you all would like for her to report to me or report to the mayor the scope um and one of what I what I just what I what was brought to my concern um the issues that were brought before me um the scope is whether we have a difficult whether difficult work environment has been created as a result of the city manager's practices and what could be done about it our commission has already taken action by calling for an investigation so we are good on that part um it is recommended that when we call um when we make a decision on what we're going to do that it is important that we recommend that the investigation is completed before his probationary period is up so that if there um if the investigation uh conclusions and recommendations include Corrections or whatever and guidance and support he'll have that opportunity for time and we are crunched for time because his probationary period is up in August um and it ALS it also gives time for the commission to review and respond to the results by the end of the inest investigation so that we don't have we're not crunch for time um I am waiting he has reached out to several now just because she has recommended someone that um she just knows not um not like really good friends of this person is out of Tallahassee the one that she is recommending is an africanamerican female she did not give a name however um she am am I am waiting to hear back from that person so that's a starting point right there um and we can go from there and kind of have more discussion thank you m Casco M Casco um anybody else have any comments or thoughts we did make the decision as commissioner mcco said to move forward with this investigation I think now we're tasked with determining the scope which I think we would want to keep as basic as possible which is to investigate whether or not there has been the creation of a difficult work environment by the city manager I don't know if anybody has anything additionally to add to that I mean that recommendation came from that came from the Susan ER and adding to that I mean based on what I shared with her about the concerns what will it what would it be that we would need to add if these this is the guidance that she gave us to follow follow what more if you all are not aware of the concerns that were brought to me and I shared with her what more would we want to add may I absolutely I kind of follow both you guys uh positions however um a complaint should have been lunched with HR because they're first person with any employee relation issues and with that I I do understand the uncomfortable position that they may be in because it's against their supervisors but I think in the absence of an initial complaint it doesn't launch an investigation excuse me because what you want I I just on ering the side of caution for yourself commissioner I don't want it to look as if you launching an investigation so those people and I no you're not because you you have been transparent but I feel those people should have come forth with some type of statement to HR to begin this investigation so I just wanted to kind of like so so it's on you are in line but I understand what commissioner borm is saying that it has to begin somewhere and if it's not something in writing it could be consr misc conscrew that one of us is one that complaint that's all I want to say commission M what I would like to say and not identifying HR as one of the persons that made the complaint but we have to be mindful of who the individuals that made the complaint and remember that the person that they made the complaint about is the person that they have to report to so so we got to be mindful of that and I get exactly what you're saying apologize because I didn't know those details okay yes sir good yes sir and we and and in protection of the employees themselves now I would like to bring up something in full transparency in the process of the investigation whatever direction we decide to go in regardless of who we decide to choose the investigator will come in we do have Mr Bell who is present we would like the employees who made the complaints or shared the concerns to be to be able to be candid with the investigator we do not know how he or she will conduct the investigation and coming in into the organization speaking with those individuals and trying to protect their identity so also it was brought up in a or b if we should consider placing the uh placing the city manager on administrative leave no nothing different than what I said about the purpose of the investigation the investigation is twofold in order to provide our city manager with guidance because he has not had clear guidance in the process in his role and to make sure that we address the concerns of the city of of the employees now that's not some a route that we have to take also the investigator may feel that she can go he or she can go about it in a different sense so that these employees are protected and that they are not easily identified of about the who make the complaints so I did do need to put that out for full transparency not recommending either or but letting my fellow Commissioners know also keep in mind we do have two investigations going because we did talk about that and we do want to make sure that whatever we do that we are fair and impartial to both individuals that are under investigation go ahead and she actually brought up a point that I was going to make with one of the recommendations that came before um that the administrative leave in in the absence thereof there is an individual that normally steps up um but that individual is one of the U one of the position on we're in the position of an investigation as well so again that opens up a door again for much needed conversation but we'll be definitely put in a position if the two of our tops are not in a position because if we put one on we have to put both on absolutely that that was brought to my attention so just for for this closure that I was asked to bring up however it's our decision now I also want to talk about um and I don't know if I'm able to the investigation that Mr Bell is over um a recommendation um rather rather than putting that individual on leave possibly um placing that person in another position before just with respect okay sure can we close out sorry just so that we won't get to overlap and I want great thank you for that respectfully so if if we have to move forth with the recommendation I would make the recommendation that we stay along the lines of what has been provided uh the guidance that has been provided with regards to conversations that may have taken place uh with our label attorney which again each one of us as Commissioners have the ability to reach out to her at any given moment um to seek guidance and clarification of sorts so I would make the recommendation that we move forth and we identify who that point of contact would be um from our commission uh as a liaison between the commission and the investigator okay we have a motion that a motion well we identifi okay I can tell you that because I um one of the things that she recommended if because I initiated an investigation or recommended it to my fellow Commissioners that I can beat the point of contact or you but it's up to the commission I and complete transparency and if I'm wrong I believe that this I would not recommend the mayor because of the position of bringing Mr Bale on and a vote that was cast yes I would not want this to be I agree thank you I want us to give an opportunity to be as fair so I would not make the recommendation that the mayor serves as that liaison I think it's fair to all part both parties so that's fine I agree with that no if that's the case again since uh commissioner Mas has been the one that um has been at the Forefront of it I would make the recommendation as a part of uh the motion to have her serve as the liaison um between the commission and the labor attorney as well as the investigator moving forward we have a motion do we have a second second all in favor I opposed well we need to vote one way or the other oppos can we roll call it roll calls please M CR I just say nay I'm I'm gonna say nay in the in the I think that should be clear there if she launched it I don't think that she should continue to be a part of it because of your intimate knowledge with um the the subject matter as well as other dealing with with with the staff involved as well so I think if if if we could bring HR into the miss the point she's a part of it she is a part of it she's gonna continue she's the point person to the labor she's the point person to however the investigative out to be all right well well maybe that that kill my Miss kitens we have a couple of public comments and that's good I questions because here's the thing we have to be mindful with involving any staff department has in this in this because we're not sure who the complaints came from and protecting the identity of the state I can stay with that motion that was made thank you sir sorry about that no I like you ask we need still need to do a roll call do you want me to um I I I can commissioner Tammy mcal yeah y commissioner Justin Campbell yay commissioner will Jones um I'm sorry didn't hear did you hear um okay um go ahead may I say something for y yes go ahead along the lines of the mayor's uh vote for Mr Bill Miss erley also did not recommend that we hire her so that could be a conflict with her recommendation just want to put it that out there and that's important to know her her her her recommendation at this time may or may not be in Mr B's best interest but I want to be fair to the employees that are bringing these allegations um to them um so with that I just want to make sure that she really isn't hands on on this investigation if this want to continue well let Mr casc speak to that good question and again I I uh emphasized earlier that she said this is only a person that she recommended but this is not who we have to go with we definitely can um um decide to go with someone else so with that commission CH and I want to make sure that I don't think that she was not in favor of Mr Bale she was not in favor of the contract and some of the jargon that was a part of the contract not per se Mr Bell um actually she came back with recommendations to help side with both sides that were brought out of concern so I don't want to say it was her against Mr Bale it was her against the presented contract and not to to continue it on she did remind me that on the night when she was on Zoom that that was her very first time hearing about it she did ask for an extended time to review the contract not that she was not in favor of hiring him but wanted to be able to thoroughly review the contract so that just substantiates what you said thank you so to keep things moving yes okay so Sun said yes oh he said commissioner jnes say yes thank you commissioner Rufus boram yes may Robie K yes thank you motion passed unanimously Miss kitchens alleger kitchens 1027 sou 12 sweeta Florida I think the my initial question has been resolved it looked like commissioner boram was wanting to resend your vote and there would have to be a motion to reconsider and then the motion be approved and then you take a vote if you wanted to resend that previous vote but after you all got to talking the rest of you and that that cleared that up and commissioner mccal you were spot on everything you said and Miss erly said she asked simply asked the city commission to wait two weeks and do more vetting before they hired him she was not against him but uh if it if you know so the mayor voted no and Mr boram voted no if I remember correctly so you're saying that if they vote no then they might be prejudiced against him that's true but what if you voted yes you might be Prejudice prejudiced for him so if you voted yes you're for him if you voted no you're against him so how can you vote Yes and then not be prejudiced anymore than you can vote no and be prejudiced it sounds like you need an impartial person not me but an impartial person I mean serly you know because I've got opinions but I mean it sounds to me like you you need a third impart another impartial person who has no opinion either way to be the leaone instead of one of you y'all some voted yes some voted no it just see so how can you be fair if you voted yes how can you be fair if you voted no if you want to look at it that way think we worked it out I think we worked it out without you on this one no I don't want it you know I'm volunteer I don't want anything to do with it but I was just I just thought that was a tent but I like the way miss mccal explained everything perfectly and that you all voted on this to hire the investigator the only other comment I would make is that you've hired the investigator and that's fine and now you're talking the second investigator to check to check on the employee I think that it would be you would be well served to have the one investigator investigate both of them because when you have another investigator to check on the employee and then you have the the city managers being investigated being head of the investigation of his employee who's being investigated so I think the one investigator should be the one that investigates both the employees and it not be separate thank you thank you Miss given okay I want to make a statement towards what she stated I want it to be known and I want it to be fair to Mr Bale Mr Bale has made it clear that he wanted to bring in an outside investigator to work the case with regards to the employee so I don't want it to appear that he would be leading the charge you don't have to re approach it's fine but I just wanted to make sure that we brought that to the Forefront and that's not it's taken care of okay you're you're 100% commissioner and thank you thank you yeah but it was said that they wanted Mr Bill to be in charge of that private investigation than commissioner Masco also that was one of the concerns that I spoke with Susan ear early about and we want to make sure that the investigators that investigate have the institutional knowledge to investigate each case so we want to be fair and impartial to both that are under investigation and it may not and we may not be able to get the same one okay also if I may add I don't know if this is the proper time I just would like to um to address when we have um you know when we have individuals that come up to the podium them and their behaviors at the podium we have certain standards that we have to uphold and how we have to address our citizens our constituents and I think it's important that when you govern these meetings that not saying that you don't that you keep that in mind and get to know the behaviors of of your fellow Commissioners because we do have an individual who comes up and takes charge in this meeting room and I would like for you to um please help us in the a asset to try to govern the meetings accordingly because sometimes when we speak up we definitely are addressed and be and and made um reminded of how we need to address them and I think it's important because that one individual is in the process of running and um I would like for that individual I did talk with that person about how we are addressed as elected officials to make sure that if they were to be up here on this diet to kind of practice doing a better job at addressing us as elected officials so that if they do get this position that they are practice that so that they can talk to our constituents in a more M given good evening again Madame mayor and Commissioners my name is tsha given I live at 225 stilla Avenue here in Paca and I'm exhausted I just want to remind the city commission that you have a responsibility to the citizens of Pica and that's every citizen not some all to be fair and to be just and I'm glad that miss Larry kitens brought up Prejudice because when we look at this situation and if you read the newspaper you will see if you have two individuals that are going under investigation you mainly only hear about one and I like to I would like for our city commission to consider that me personally if you want my opinion it seems like a Witch Hunt Mr Bell wasn't welcome here in the beginning even the night that he was sworn in I don't even know to this day if he's had a picture with the city commission and if you guys have actually come down and welcome him you sna pictures I think at every meeting just about you know recognizing employees and things of that nature but speaking of hostile work environment that might be something you may want to consider um when we don't welcome all our employees and then we make this work environment difficult and challenging so all that need need to be considered we need to be fair and we need to do things in decent and in order there's policy and procedures I personally I'm born here and raised here and I've been here long enough to know how things work here in Pica I recommend that you get someone to investigate that has absolutely no ties to P I don't even know about the Susan lady I don't I don't know her but if she knows somebody in Tallahasse that's just 3 hours away so for the sake of trans parency and the Integrity of Paca you have factual information pertaining to your assistant city manager am I correct that's okay that's okay I'm not but what I'm saying is you're spending time here wasting our time making a decision when you should be focusing on what you really got the information on so as I said before this is a plan in my opinion I feel like this is a planned distraction and it really doesn't look good in the city when you see this constantly on the Channel 12 News Channel 4 News and it's it's biased it's it's not giv the full picture so that's what I have to say I hope moving forward that we can be honest and transparent and for the sake of the Integrity of the city that we fully disclose all facts and information let's be fair thank you mayor yes sir okay go ahead m m commission M again I value and appreciate you when you come up Mrs given um this is the second time you brought up that you feel that the um when the city assistant city manager was brought on board that none of us came down and shook his hand and made him feel welcome and I would like at some point whenever the mayor seems It's appropriate for you for the uh city manager to respond to that because I feel that I can speak only for me that I have tried to make him feel very at home even after the meeting when he was brought on board we had an extensive conversation here in this meeting room so if he doesn't mind I would like to him to to attest to that to give you a sense of security that I I I did try to make him feel welcome also um about um it was about the uh being fair and impartial or whatever about this um having someone else on this I am the one that was aware and brought to this information was brought to me and again I stated the purpose of my investigation was number one to be fair to both parties to make sure that he has guidance so it was nothing it was equally balanced I wanted to make sure that I was protected that we were protected as a legislative body when these when these employees usted in me to come forth to me with this information and I'm aware of it and Savvy and to have someone else to come in and discuss something that they have no clue about wouldn't make sense to me also the investigation is independent of anything of the city thank you did you have something commission Campell I do and I'll be remissed if I didn't state it a lot of times and it's not just misgens who stated that when people come to these meetings that we waste their time what people have to realize is this is the only opportunity that we have to talk Talk Amongst ourselves to try to make sure as we try to progress and as we try to move forward that we move forth as a unified front we don't I can't pick up the phone call I can't pick up the phone when I leave here call commissioner Bor call commissioner call Mayor because we're governed by the sunshine so I it it feels as if it's a waste of your time we apologize but we have a job to do and a part of our job may not always be comfortable it may not always fall in a 30 or hour minute meeting it sometimes it requires us to dig and so be mindful again as we come and we throw uh actives and things of um what we what we do and things of how we operate just because it doesn't fall in the way that you deem to be appropriate we have a job to do and our job is not an easy job our job is not a quick job just like you want us to hear all citizens we've heard all citizens and we want to make sure that as we talk about these investigations that we don't comment aneous talk about them as one instance because they're not one instant what happens with the recommendation that came as the investigation of commissioner mccal as well as the one that I'm going to make sure that we talk about because that was a recommendation as well that we give it the IDE we give it the time that we need we can't control The Narrative of the newspaper or any media that comes to putam county or Paca we all know they have a job to do we all know that they have news to sell so we can't control that narrative what we can control is making sure as we move forward that we move forward and we take in consideration whatever it is on that with that first investigation and the second investigation that we leave no Stones unturned and whatever we do we want to make sure that it's across the board I operate in complete y'all hear me say transparency more than my baby called my name but at the end of the day I've done absolutely everything to operate in complete transparency from the time and as far as the whole we haven't welcome Mr Bell Mr Bell that's not even that's that's that's that's that's just a perception of yours that's that's just not factual but again when it comes down to us doing the business as Commissioners as legislators of this community we have to make sure that we vet it out and again if you feel as if we're wasting your time that is not it because again tonight is my mother-in-law's birthday my family is out with her celebrating and I'm here in the meeting so if anybody time is wasted it would be mine so I want to make sure that again I signed up for this and I'm here doing what I have to do and at any point any person that sits under the sound of my voice or on the outside want to sit down and have a conversation about what I do how I do it why I do it I promise you I'll Avail myself and we can get this thing rolling but as far as wasting time we ain't wasting time we are doing our work and with that said let's move on to the other item are we all set on this one so we do have to make sure that we agree upon a time when the um when the investigator reaches out and this will be the last one um about um it is also it it gives us time like a time if we want to say a certain amount of time before his probationary period is up you know so many weeks a date so that we can also have time for that investigation to be conducted and then the results are about for us so we don't we can't say well we just got this before us tonight before meeting that it gives us time to review the conclusions and recommendations okay so the proo probationary period ends on August 7th we're now on July 11th so what does anybody suggest that we request the investigation be completed and we have the findings by what date commissioner Forum uh my my opinion if if it's an investigation you got to let the investigator determine that time I don't want to rush anything I know we got a uh prob period coming up but at the same time you need to have the investigator to do their job without us um um giving them an abbreviated time so again you can like you say they they can be extended as it relates to the probationary period M that was one of the things that I brought to her attention and that is going to determine whether or not investigator will be willing on to take on the investigation because of his probationary period us wanting to have investigation conducted and if that investigation if if that investigation investigator fails here she has the time for that so we have to say hey we would like like it conduct it within two weeks and give us a week to review that way that investigator you know doesn't want to take it on without being able to do it in a fashion that he or she feels is good enough and will provide a thorough enough time to conduct so I need to be able to give you know some type of direction to that investigator and in fness we to Mr Bella as well as everybody else it needs to be done as soon as it's possible um again the person's going to be paid to do it by a certain time frame if they're willing to take it on so I don't know what people what are some of the other thoughts do we have any potential dates and if they need an extension I'm sure they will ask for it absolutely that was brought up they will ask for next again we want to bring this to closure for everybody involved because it's it's Troublesome for the city I think that as we proceed to try to move forth I think it would be friendly just to make a contact with the investigator just to see what a given time frame would be um again I think we limit ourselves if we say we want it in this time frame and it's not therough so I would say how long would it take possibly for an investigation of this magnitude to um to be done I think that's the first question and if it's something that we deem to be within an appropriate time frame we move forward but in the event that we don't we just have to take something else into consideration okay so my next question would be our next meeting is what August 20 when is it July 25th okay July 25th so would you all like for me to ask when I speak with the investigator um how would you all when I inform him or her of this information how would you all like for me to get this information back to you all to see if we need to call an emergency meeting to detering whether or not we're going to go move forward just give me some direction um I hope y'all understand I'm going with this I understand because you can't communicate directly with us s CR is our uh city clerk I mean she handles all our Communications okay so I can let you all know I can let uh Sunny know and then she can disperse that information out and we can go from there whether or not we need to call an emergency meeting to determine whether or not yeah and they from there am I right yes commissioner Jones since we've already determined that we're going to go ahead with an investigation and you're the liaison person why don't you just why can't we authorize you to go ahead and and get have an investigation and commence um because all back and forth is just going to delay it and I think that you if we give you that that authorization you go ahead the investigator know what he or she has to do and that's getting the witnesses getting the victims talk to everybody and that's compile a report it's not going it's not very that difficult so identify the investigator or the firm or whatever whoever we're going to use and you just have a move forward what you want to start and and then you can give us updates uh okay sunny but please go ahead and start it because it's just going to prolong thing yeah Fair okay are we um done with that topic on to the next I don't think we well we still need to talk about the um the other investigation that's what say on to the next investigation um and that has already Mr Bell yeah there you go thank you Madame mayor uh I want to um be clear that uh what I have called for and begun is an inquiry I don't like to use the terminology investigation uh wanted to be fair and objective and transparent and in the interest of uh collegial Integrity for the assistant city manager I want to make sure that we are uh pursuing an inquiry um the scope that I have defined I can share that with you it was included in the correspondence and I think the original uh concern about the other item was to develop the scope which you did but I believe that the scope uh for this has already been developed and if there aren't any objections that scope is the first determine if there is an ethical or criminal requirement to provide notice per code ordinance or icma code of conduct based on act or appearance the second item that I asked the investigator to uh pursue in the inquiry is if there is a requirement to provide notice what form or format must it take and did any such situations occur in fact or appearance if applicable that would warrant the need for disclosure and if sufficient or adequate notice was in fact given that is the scope that I have provided to uh uh for the inquiry so commission mccal so is it safe to say that you are asking for an independent investigator to come in but you want to name it and inquiry I am asking for an independent inquiry concerning the allegations that were brought to my attention versus an investigation yeah I believe that that the terminology is important and it may lead to an investigation but at this point it is an inquiry because I want to make sure that I am Fair Equitable and transparent okay goe I want to have a question and I I may need to wait until the end ask ask this question you want to wait because it's related to the other investigation you know if we're changing the terminology I mean we're both using investigators but now we're changing the terminal the verbage so I'll wait until then Jones yes ma'am I have a question part if I sitting up here and knowing what the job duties and responsibility of city manager investigating a looking into inquiry it's part of your job yes sir in the scope that you just described you should be able to do that yourself and at this point unless you find something more egregious egregious I think that you need to carry that out and I don't know if the board would agree with it but that's part of his job and his Duty versus to pay for an independent investigator to find that scope with he just explained that he is looking for or we are looking for please correct from about the job I believe you I believe that is that is correct that is um the city manager's role to do that if because of the level of the um staff well y'all know I just come different from what y'all thinking and if we're taking them back into consideration of uh and I hate to jump back to that but if we're taking into consideration a person that while this may be in his scope you have to realize that the person who is the being investigated wanted the position that the city manager has and so I want us I don't want him the city manager to be put in a position um just like we didn't want anyone else to be put in a position I want us to be fair and concise and I believe that if we said that it is his job and the city manager determined that he would request that an independent um inquiry um was to be looked into that we afford him the ability to do his job that we do have to be mindful that with this this doesn't necessarily fall up under ouros scope our hire is the city manager the city manager is responsible for the assistant city manager so if he feels that in his documentation are going through he feels that it needs to be brought to the attention of bringing somebody else in we have to stand behind him and do what it is that let him do what it is that he feel like he needs to do so again now we're jumping into the day-to-day operations and I don't want that to happen so again if we're going back and forth to make sure that we allow him to in his capacity as city manager to call in for an independent uh to look into this we as commissions or legislators have to stand behind him and not dictate what he feels because again we're compromising our role our role is the lead and direct our lead and direct but again when we come down to the day-to-day operations that's something that we entrusted him to do again so I'm usted him and I believe that he could be impartial and do an in inquiry so the inquiry will you know what that mean I got what you're saying bring back facts so we don't have any facts in front of us right now fact was provided give you cour to you so we are saying go ahead and call in a special investigator and I just need to ask a question for what so if it hadn't been brought to our attention exactly what we're looking for or what the accusations are that's something simple that I feel that our city manager could do is do fact finding the information provided the fact yeah I'm interpreting is the fact finding has has occurred and there's uh again the cager has made the decision and I believe has found somebody to do the investigation yes so there are some findings is what you're saying right now there are some findings what he shared with us there's not it's just it's just information it's not findings I wouldn't call it findings this year I would call what we share with Okay so let's let's let's do this the information that I provided to Mr Bale because information was provided to me anonymously by a concerned citizen of Paca to whom it is I can't tell you this day but the information that was provided for me I'm not sure if any other commissioner received that information or there was some additional information that you all may have received just in a different capacity I provided that information to Mr Bale Mr Bale in term did what he felt was proper he looked into the matter because he did report back to me because I was the one who gave him the information that was provided Mr Mr Bell as a result notified the entire Commission via email of what his findings were so we did receive the information and as a part of his findings Mr Bell stated that he would like to bring in a independent to look and in and inquire about the situation so that's where we stand we have been provided that information that email was sent out one day last week with regards to his finding I believe it was about two two full pages of what transpired how did we got here and it addressed a number of different things with in that particular email notification so Mr Bell I feel has done his due diligence with making sure that one he looked into the matter because again I was the one who provided him with the documentation that was provided to me anonymously in my mailbox but then again he did his due diligence so I believe that he is fair in his ass to bring in an independent person to look into the matter commissioner mccal I want to clarify that I did not question his practices I just wanted to make sure when he brought that to my attention if that's something that we needed to consider on his behalf if an inquir inquiry versus an investigation I did not question his practice and I would like to answer your question I did receive the information from a member in the community and um um I did provide Mr Bell with that information as well so um with the information as well um Mr Bell did um as far as informing B email he may have but I do know that he informed me verbally he asked me if I received anything in my mail and I had not but imediately upon receiving the information I did call Mr B in and inform him about about the information I received with two witnesses in the room and asked him to reach out to the individual to let the individual know of the allegations that were against him but did not provide him the documentation now I can say this when Mr Bell did inform me about the information he received about the individual he did inform me at that time he did not have the packet and the information in his hand so when I received it I immediately informed but I did let Mr Bell know that I would not get him the information until the person um the allegations were about were present and um so that there can be there could be no conflict um in the process of giving Mr B the information and the um the individual saying that there was any conflict or altering of the documentation so I don't know when he received received it but I know at the time when he informed me which was two weeks prior of me receiving it that he had not received an information so I just want to make sure that's on the record so go ahead Mr B I believe I have what I need in order to move forward so if you want to move to the next item on the agenda unless there's sheeld did submit did submit a comment public comment on this topic there is one other item well I'll let Mr Sheffield finish please come on Mr Sheffield name and address three minutes three minutes Sheffield 512 Mullen Park fla Florida 32177 um Commissioners uh city manager assistant city manager is very difficult situation and the Sunshine Law makes it almost impossible um to really truly go through this so I appreciate what you're doing in terms of deliberating and trying to get on the same page as to how to move forward with both of these and you've gone through a lot but what I haven't heard yet and I just wanted to maybe you you this is something I I missed or and this is something it's already uh taken care of but legal counsel with respect to since this is an HR matter and privacy whether you receiving or or discussing where you're going to get that guidance from and even when you come back as a commission before this city what you can and cannot comment on as a result of those investigations I would just ask that you seek that so that you're protected to City's protected and those being investigated are protected thank you Mr sheffi thank you Mr sheffi so Madame mayor yes Mr uh with respect to the public hearing items uh we have a gentleman that uh uh has been waiting for item C if you would uh thank you we talked about this before uh the thing about coming to the meetings you have to be and I understand we want to take into consideration everyone else's time but there are other individuals that may have been here that may have waited it out just as long so again I'm friendly for it but we've had this conversation before with regards to allowing individuals to be skipped again that's the risk that you take when you come to a public meeting um and again to for us to be fair and partial to everyone I want us to take that in consideration as we move forward again again and then after this point if we are are we just done discussing the topics um the investigations in both cases so I will move on to 8 a are we done I hear you question if we are done I'll move on to 8A are we done we're done okay anybody else have anything to say in regard to it okay 8A public hearings Miss CR I think May the request was to move agenda item 8C to the top of the public hearing agenda and my request was that we on as we have been roll on simply because there are other individuals that are here that have been waiting as well right and I was trying to respect commissioner Campbell's input I'm just going down the agenda it's there's only another item in between that hopefully is a second reading that won't be an issue a thank you Madame mayor presenting to the commission resolution 2024 R 139 we do have a legal council approaching the the podiums a resolution of the city of Poa Florida approving the fiscal year 2024 2025 non-ad Borum assessment role for Fire Protection Services facilities and programs directing certification of the assessment role in collection pursuant to the uniform assessment collection act confirming required statutory notice and imposing levying fire service assessments providing directions providing effective date and providing for scrier a thank you good evening and I want to compliment everybody in this room for participation this is a terrific Community you guys are doing a good job I don't mind waiting the dog on bid I watch something tonight I've been doing this for 30 or 40 years you're all working hard on difficult issues my name is Mark Lawson with mgpa along with ened LLC and Dr Owen bich we have a continuing contract with you to help you with your annual fire service non Ador assessment this meeting is a public hearing I will provide an introduction I will listen carefully and try to answer what I can in the way of questions this is a policy decision to be made tonight we have clearly over time developed the infrastructure that would give you comfort that what you do is fair and reasonable proportionate that's the most important thing and benefits and burdens covers the cost of benefits and burdens to property to partially fund a chunk of your budget the discussion here reminds me tonight of the fact that over time when I was a young man I listen to George W HW Bush say read my lips no new texts but what he didn't let the American people understand was the federal government controls the monetary system and it has deficit spending what I saw you do tonight was listen carefully um do you is there a timer that you're Desiring I'll Beck okay keep it as you let you have to listen carefully because you have to balance your budget every year and that was unfair for a federal person to say no new taxes you have to have Revenue to pay for what you want the cony leeh house and the other items that come up you have to find Revenue now this program has had the same rates for over 10 years it depends on the amount of improvement value being articulated by the property appraiser and that naturally goes up so the rates throughout the city have gone up over the years you have to decide how much you need from the fire assessment to fund the fire department it's about 58% and then you pay for the rest with your general taxes this is the time for citizens who are interested to comment on your program and the assessments Your Role has been published there's been an email site to receive requests for comments I have none to report to you I've checked with your uh uh uh staff today no one has responded to that that was published and it's on your website as well I will sit down and listen to comments when I'm done I'd like to give you any kind of of information I can but again this is a policy decision that you all have to deal with God bless you all this is a nice place but you've worked hard tonight thank you um the Stevenson since you're both name and address for the record please um Mandy Stevenson 415 Jackson Avenue Paca Florida 32177 okay I've been up here before and no I do not know how to address all of you guys I've just been up here high thank you for your work um this fee it needs to be capped sto something you're right he did say everything keeps increasing market value keeps increasing you guys are getting money it's increasing jobs equipment all those things are increasing but when I look at my bill and I'm paying more for a fire fee than my property taxes that's an issue okay because one is assessed one is market value there's no reason why I should look at my tax roll and say oh my taxes aren't very much oh wait that's the fire fee that's like ,000 why my house is just a small house I live in a small area just because house is sell around me for more doesn't mean mine should jump and you guys should get more money okay and if even if it's a vacant lot I have a brother-in-law that has a vacant lot he pays a fee on a vacant lot what are you guys going to come out and do yeah I mean there there's nothing there so why is he paying a fire fee but this was designed to help the city this was designed to help the migrate it has done that we have prospered we have come forward we are moving forward this needs to be stopped now a cap put something on it just do something you guys have to make a decision I've come up here year after year do something do better I just that's all I have I just want you guys to do better because it's still not getting done there's no discussion when I leave I never hear no discussions I never see anything in the paper I never see anything in the mail I never see anything that is being done once I leave I just don't get it so what what does a person have to do leave a message on his site I don't pay him you guys pay him out of what we pay you so it doesn't make any sense I just I just need better I I need accountability and transparency on what to do and move forward and then a lot of us that live in the city now are actually talking would it be cheaper to just be annexed out of the city and and I have talked to the mayor about that I go to the county I mean whatever that whatever that cost is is over the years has got to be a lot less than this I have joke I have gone to the county and I did talk to the county about being released from the city they said I had to have a letter formally from the city to be released and then I can be in the County Annex I do not have City Water I do not have city sewer but we're on the city because of our road so this no City utility yes so this I mean it just keep each year it just gets worse and worse so that's why we're here thank you okay can we help El you want the letter not being funny but I wouldn't want to be paying fire you shouldn't be receiving the fire fee if you're not I remember oh I'm sorry because you do have folks that live on the same road in summer summer County and summer City so one there's two on our road okay and and it's across the city I've noticed that there are it happens so what is it whatever we can do commissioner Casco are you are you finished okayer Bor my question is um have you I know you came in uh last year year before last and you were supposed to been working with the city manager at the time so did nobody help you after you this gentleman's the only one that reached out to me that's it but I think you were supposed to work with the uh city manager and Mr losw okay so we we will we will work with you to get that addressed especially if you're not in the city oh okay I will clarify I'm sorry when you have to come up to the podium we can't have this back and forth dialogue we are drawn into the city okay um we did after the meeting Terell Mr Mr Hill he did say for us to talk to Jonathan at the time we did talk with Jonathan he remembered our situation because the city of Palaca the housing they came out Paca housing the gas Authority they did come out their house and that's when they determined why are you guys paying City water and city sewer they did the test they did all that we got money back from the city for one year for paying for x 20 something years um and so they said all right and so that's when I talked to the mayor because there was nothing being done she had just been in office no one talked about what they're going to do with this tax fee no cap no nothing and it was just dropped this gentleman talked to me and nobody went anywhere with it Jonathan did tell me if I paid $1,500 and filled out 13 Sheets of paper that he would inquire what to do well we well we we we're we I was in conversation with right so we have I see the manager here you need to work with him to get that address whatever it takes to get you especially if you're not um annexing into the city but why is that at the expense of me and that's what I want to address he's right he's got that he's got to look we if we you you've you've communicated the problem right mhm so we're going to see what we can do to assist or Aid you I got it it's not at the expense if we're trying to help you we know that youve spoken with people in the past yes sir let us help you right now okay and and I appreciate that and I respect that and and I I I will reach out you can reach out I give you my number but how does that help the rest of the city of Taca that's the question that I have okay how do how because even though I'm one individual and I kind of got through the crack how does that help the city of Paca the rest of us residents that are struggling I mean there's many people that are in the city limits that are on fixed budgets and they live in houses and they're not selling theirs but people around them are and their market value is going up and they can't pay this fee there has to be a cap on this that's my concern I mean I'm dealing with it and I'm paying with it it upsets me but I've moved past it I just think that there should be a cap it was not discussed when this was brought out 10 years ago or however long it was not discussed how long the duration would last and I think that that warrants an investigation or a inquiry into stopping this or putting a limit I I I hear what you're saying and here's here's what we have uh our our mill rate at one point was 9.1 47 we were 11th in the State of Florida as it related to highest millit rate yes sir okay so what we did along withp what we did along with other cities who um um had would been taken advantage of by some other other entities who were not paying into the T tax base but utilizing all of the various infrastructures and services that we have we broke it out so you got your uh your your base millage rate for what your your home or your business it went from 91478 to initially seven initially 6 point no no seven it was it was it was I think it was about seven then we dropped it to 6.45 6.25 so we we dropped it to that point so you have a bit of a break there on your you got you gotta know how you have to know how you have to know how the whole millit rate work in order to be able to see the the the reduction the reduction in your um in your amount you were paying $9 and N $94 One n $914 per ,000 of your uh um but not on market rate you were you were paying $9 and 14 Cent per $1,000 on your overall value of your home yes okay so you went from 9147 yes sir to 6.4 yes sir so now you're you're saving the $ three almost $2 and something you you're saving on that portion you drop down to the fire fee the fire fee was 2.46 2.46 yes sir $246 per ,000 of assess value plus $200 per parcel correct okay so so right there is where your um your your um the home value if your home value is two 200,000 you're paying um 2 something or right at $200 something dollars per year for that tax so you're combined from your um base millage and your fire fee together now I'm going to tell you this you're getting other taxes you got to know what the city is hitting you for so I think they know that I do to Robbie several times and let me comment on what you just said I just have one thing okay okay I point of order but I like to I would like I would like to actually look at it too because I I I very well understand how how all of that works well let me kind of explain how the millage rate works it was 9% based upon your assessed value if you've been in your house 30 years your assessed value is way down here okay so if you take that 9% and make it 6% you think you save 3% right but when they come in and you're tax assessed your fire tax it's a fire assess when your fire tax comes in and it's and it's based upon now not your assess value but your market value yes which has skyrocketed in the last 10 years okay now you're paying some around 20% on your Mill and that's how math works yeah well I very well understand how math works I mean that's why I was trying to help explain how the military work but well I'm I'm talking there talk I'm talking right now 20 years I'm talking right now so that's that that's that's where we had a level of disrespect to step in as with st I wasn't finished but anyways uh you need to allow for when I have the floor anybody else on the dice have the floor you need to respect that and and everybody else need to do the same so I wasn't finished I'm finishing up now but I very well understand how the whole m r thing rate work I would like to see your overall thing if you would like to if you if you don't mind working with me on that yes sir and and I appreciate that and not to cut you off but this and you have seen me up here several times yes and and so I do understand how it works and I know you're behind there and you know how it works but as a normal Joe that just lives in the city of Paca when you are not and and there's other people especially down here around the city limits here I I mean I kind of don't live in the city limits but people that are not moving out of their homes because they can't afford to they're also not being able to afford to live in their home okay and because it did come down we do want to kind of be like this I understand that we do want the millage rate to stay low we do need this fire assessment fee to help balance the budget I understand that it works like this not like this it was like this it needs to come to death understand what you're saying but again I thought that you were help I mean we I only saw you this is not helping the city of F I understand that but your issue that you're bringing forth will help us to look at the entire city and we need more people like like you to come out and so that's we're here to help okay thank you thank you commissioner MC I just will Mr Jones commissioner Jones do you have anything to add because you seem to feel can I get my part FL and that's where I here get okay so you know you eat a eat an elephant one bite at a time and just to bring it all together I think we've informed you what would be a good practice if you get with the city manager Mr Mark wson the attorney Finance whoever they decide to get to the table and address your issue and from there they will have guidance in addressing the rest of the folks that are having the same issue and I think that we can cap it right there if that's okay with you m yes it is thank you commissioner Jones I'm a solutionist and I think that I hear you loud and clear because I have a problem with that fire assessment myself one of the reasons why I ran for office is to speak people like you like me and everybody else in here that our assessments be I remember when it came up about 10 years ago and they did say that they would lure it when needed when necessary when they have gotten the milit under control and uh I talked to Martin Lawson today because I asked him how can we l for all citizens and um that's something that's we're challenged with today um commissioner how can we can we do it and I'm going to challenge our finance our city manager to come up with a solution that's going to give the citizens a reprieve we have to do it and if that mean trim the fat in our departments we need to do it we need to look at that hard and fast and we want to give our employees the tools that they need to do their job but we also have to be cognizant that the citizens in the city is double tax you get city tax and County tax and this fire assessment is considered to most a third tax so my challenge to you Mr Larson M cardi Mr Bell to come up with a solution where we could lose I think we said at $300,000 uh or you can come up Mr Larson right now I want to give you that are we done with public comments comment yes because you're going to help me convey this thought that I spoke to you had three minutes please I one more question no you have to come no no let's go we're gonna move past out come on Mr lson please speak to the I will do that it's a public he I I have to see if there's any other for any other public comment first please and that you've already had your moment I won't call Mr Larson you you can have a I'll address it I'll go back I'm going no you can have SE point of order are there any further public comments I haven't finished well we don't even supposed to be talking public okay go ahead we're not even supposed to be talking toing public Mr LS you go back I was giving feedback to the young lady who ask a question and ask for me specifically and I'm gonna be deprived we're not supposed to no so we're to answer your question you wanted action those are the directors I gave okay and we will try and follow up okay don't please don't do that please can can we bring from my understanding and I want to bring legal in during this portion of um conversation we are to be listening we're not to be responding and I want us to be clear on that we are out of order we've been out of order yes so again legal if there's ever a time that we are operating outside of what please steer us back in the right direction because this conversation has gone on too long and as a result we've gotten nowhere and I'm not ignoring we're supposed to be listening to the citizens at this moment at this moment that's what it was identified for to give them the opportunity to say what they have to say and it's not supposed to be going back and forth at this moment because again it's public hearing public comment we listen we don't do it at the beginning of the meeting and we don't do it at this part of the meeting as well and that is why I called point of order on a couple of occasions without success you cannot be going May it's not without success you are the facilitator of this group so at some point point of order means we're supposed to cease and you're supposed to steer us back in the right direction or bring counsel in to make sure so again we are out of order I oh I agree and we we're not all here to even hear that so okay um at this point is there anybody else here for public comment Miss kitchens please fill out a card mark it on the one I've already filled out um at at the expense of being called trying to run the commission again I'm exercising My First Amendment rights of of freedom of speech and addressing my grievances to my public officials don't raise the fire tax the fire fee any leave it what it is if you're not going to lower it but don't raise it as the assessed value goes the marketable value goes up then the tax bill is the the fire tax is going to go go up as the marketable value assess value goes up then the fire fee is going to go up but leave it at the set rate that it is $246 C per 1,000 plus $125 per land unless you want to lower it but leave it don't don't raise the fire fee please if you do anything lower it thank you thank you is there anybody else here for public comment seeing nonone reclosed public comment Mr Lawson thank you this was a public hearing and I've done a lot of them I uh did make some notes I let my page flip shut and I let me I can fumble around and find that but let me just talk from my knowledge first of all Miss kitchens is right but the discussion got off track in the sense that the approach you take only looks at one aspect of the changes that the property traser makes every year it looks at only the change in improvements not land that's taken out so when people talk about marketable value that's just value sometimes and what we do and what your approach has been validated to do it subtracts the land value from that to have the Improvement value so it doesn't go up because it's not as much value placed on it number one number two I think I learned something tonight I talked to these folks they're nice folks they're emotional it's good I think I would like to look at how long they've been in their house because our state passed the law years ago called it helped with homesteads save our homes what it does it locks in value if you move in and you stay there for a long time someone who moves in two houses can be identical you can live in one and you can move into the identical one next to it 5 years later your tax bill would be a lot lower because you have saved our homes this program doesn't look at save our homes because that was an unpaid for mandate by the legislature to cities and counties around the state because they don't live on taxes they live on sales taxes nevertheless I want to get to the bottom of that Mr manager and commission we will use them as a case example and look at that and try to figure those things out the issue about the email is not to me it goes to the city and she did not receive and he accept my test email it was published in the paper and on the website the reality is very few people have raised this issue there are very SE there are a few vocal people and that's good I'm great on that and you have too sir so I think it's very important to understand Miss kitchen's right if you raise it then you would be multiplying it that is not what's proposed here at all and then I would say to you you're having a budget hearing tomorrow and this is the hard decision you'll have to make if you adopt this tonight and I recommend you do so your staff knows what you've done in terms of budgeting okay but it's not final till your budget's final and if you choose to say listen we're going to choose to fund less with the fire side then that will be part of a larger budget conversation where you say okay we'll cut two three 500,000 and then you'll have two three $500,000 Less in your fund because my guess is you're really not going to cut your fire department budget that much the point is there's a priority of expenditure your insurance rates in this community depend on the iso rating you might cut it 50,000 if there's a union member here they're shent because that's  because that's your most expensive labor for that reason it's also your most expensive labor is because it's 247 three shifts a day just like police it's one of your biggest expenses and it's an availability expense so who serves you serve these folks property and everybody else in your community now that I wanted to make clear it's not a fee it's not a tax it's as proportionate as can be because the state supreme court has said it's got to benefit property or relieve a burden it clearly does it has to be fair and reasonably apportioned that's your job but the Supreme Court said we're not going to tell you how to do that you've got to try to figure out for yourself but here's what the Supreme Court has said it must be proportionate and you have a final judgment in circuit court that says it's proportionate and I know Mitch's kitchen will tell me the same thing because all we do is look at that Improvement value on one one of those two charges and we say charge your property commissioner Jones in proportion to all other properties in the community including the folks that speak out here they have likely a larger amount of improvement on that property than someone who lives in a very small house somewhere else each pay proportionately and then because of availability every parcel in the City pays $125 and therein lies the answer to the vacant lot two houses with or two two lots with a house on it then two vacant Lots then three houses built out those two vacant Lots only pay 125 that at least allow them to carry a share of that availability because what could they do tomorrow they could go down to your department and pull a permit and build a home and why should they not pay to help pay for the cost of Fire over the years well they hold that block so that's a nominal charge they're paying no improvement value they're only paying for that that's why we devise this approach because people would come to us and say what about the guy who has all what about the developer who has 1,200 Lots out back that's the other issue I try to do my best I started the the the procedure with this is a policy decision my suggestion to you is we've heard this over the years I enjoy this community I really and I meant it my heart aches for you to listen to what went on here tonight on several fronts with we need money we got to do this tomorrow your budget comes up the age-old problem is you can't deficit spend you have to balance your budget I want to help you my best suggestion to you is adopt the resolution if you feeling you need to change it we'll help you get you some numbers so you can feel with a pain if you'd take it down 100,000 200,000 whatever I can help you with that so you can get a feel for it because I think what I understand is this is a situation where you're trying to what if what if what if what if you've had a suggestion let's cap it if you do that you fall behind slowly every year if you keep up with the way you do it it slowly grows it maybe to the to the dislike of some but what it's done has helped you dig out of that hole 10 years ago and it's helped you keep up it's not gone up nearly as much as the overall cost of things and my point is if you I want to I want to examine and do that math on what happened with save our homes because of the comment gentleman made that merits uh investigation inquiry understanding okay thank you commissioner Bor well yes M Mr Lawson is absolutely correct because again uh when this uh 10 years ago the city was not in a position to even do anything as it relates to infrastructure because for for one thing we could not even make B well our bond rating was garbage garbage and so the the city had no infrastructure in place we had about four U water main breaks a month uh you can go back and look at the numbers it's in the uh the city couldn't balance his budget uh borrowing or taking three and $400,000 2013 2014 go look at the go look at the cafer is it's in there but we the city could not do anything as it relates to even going um making a loan to try to uh build a building so what we did do we used the tools that people have been kicking the can down the road for years and we made a tough decision to go ahead and put the fire fee in place I love you it's not a fee it's they're different fees and taxes are different but I'm saying we we we we we we we did we did the Reconstruction on on the whole and so it put us in a better position to be able to do a the number of things that we're currently doing now can we do things better with the budget yes we can we've had um Surplus in our budget it helps us to it helped us to get our um Reserve up the city had no Reserve during that time long story short so I'm just giving you a little bit of talemetry on how all of this stuff worked and how it helped the city out so I know everybody is in a rush to leave but you need some education around this stuff thank you so so now we are almost over 20 miles of infrastructure water lines that we have put in place as a result of that we have increased our our our Reserve if you don't have Reserve our Reserve was4 or $500,000 you can't even operate a month on that in the city so if you have a emergency you can't you you don't have to wait wait on the federal government to come in and bail you out we put this city back on Solid Ground so that's where we at right now we can always look at trying to U adjust the the rate we can do that but again there's a number of other things that the city has been doing against my fiscal responsibilities and we get this money built up we could do better by not wasting this money so and you can go back and look at the records as it relates to that and the video and and and what's in what's in the minutes that's all I have thank you any other H questions thank you commissioner I I I really appreciate that I really do okay we have a re resolution before us going to say you read the resolution I'm kind of lost track yes ma'am I did okay thank you so we have the resolution do we have a motion second have a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you I will work hard to help you get information thank you you're coun thank you home be I wish I could stay for a while long to watch okay quickly Miss commission Mr commissioner Bor rather uh Mr Lawson also mrw Mr Lawson also also a added bonus for the for the community as it relates to the fire fee and them them not having to pay for each individual lot you can go and file and and and and combine them combine your lots and you pay one fee as opposed to paying for each lot so that's a that's another little small savings you can have in your in your pocket whatever the property praiser does we follow absolutely thank you you good okay let it let thank you everybody thank you on to on B Miss CR thank you presenting to the commission for second reading this is ordinance number 20 2406 an ordinance of the city of Palaca Florida providing Urban homesteading standards for the raising and keeping of domestic foul and residential zoning prohibiting roosters providing conflict severability repeal scers errors and an effective date thank you it's the second reading so I don't think we need to hear any more information I'm going to open the floor to public comment is there anybody here for public comment on this item seeing n we close public comment do we have a motion so move we have a motion to Second all in favor I any opposition nay that chicken farm motion pass SC to one thank you on to C so poor Mr wise can have it a moment um Miss CR thank you Madame mayor this is a two-part it's a small it's a future L use map Amendment along with a rezoning um presenting to you for adoption ordinance number 20247 an ordinance of the city of Paka Florida providing that the future land use map be adopted of the comprehensive plan be amended with respect to the following parcel of land which is lesser than 50 acres in size from the city of pla commercial to the city of pla residential low for the following property located on Kelly Smith School Road PL Florida 32177 Parcels number 09126 0213 4 Z 00 1 0 091 2602 13 4 Z 020 and 09126 0213 40030 continues to the boundaries of the city of Paca providing for script and providing for an effective date thank you Mr Madame mayor Commissioners as s have pointed out this is small scale comprehensive plan Amendment uh and a resoning for a three lot residential subdivision that is located on the north side of Kelly Smith Road between Round Lake Road and Gil Lane totally approximately 0.51 Acres this item was discussed by the city Commission on at the June 13 meeting and it was contined to today's Hearing in order for staff to add additional information also some pictures of the site uh the pictures were attached or attached to the to the package that you receive and I also uh included uh an update staff report that provide you with a chronology uh related to this parcel to the whole parcel and to the three lots that were created uh let me just point it out to to you that the the parent parcel where these three lots were plotted was annexed to the city on June 9th 2005 through an ordinance number 0528 then on October 12 2022 a last plate application was filed with the and was approved by the city on March 29 2023 the County Appraiser assigned a new parcel number to this new lior lot on April 4th 2023 the PNA County uh emergency division assigned an address to the new lot and the address is 134 Kellis Smith Road palaka on February 9th 2023 the city Commission approved a request for 134 K road to amend the future line use from commercial to residential low through ordinance 20233 and reson the property from General commercial C1 to single family District R1 by adopting ordinance number 20 2304 subsequently to that uh p County issue a building permit for a single family home on November 2nd 2023 and that house is still under construction as you can see from the picture on May 9th 2023 with the remainder of the other parcel an application for a preliminary plat to create a three lot residential subdivision was submitted to the city the final PL application known as as IIA play subdivision Phase 2 was approved by the city Commision on March 14 2024 through resolution number 2024 r57 at the last Hearing in June 13 Mr Weise addressed this board and since then I have a meeting with Mr Weise and I provided all this information that I'm relating to you today uh staff still recommends that you adopt the ordinance in both ordinance changing the future line use map of these three lots and also and I'm here to answer any question you might have anybody have any questions Mr I do go ahead commissioner Jones so I I kind of got look confused uh with the the dates that you said that that lot was commercial and then it was requested to be residential what was that date the day was February 9th 2023 February 3923 2023 when was the house built on that lot that's a separate POS he still the construction the the permit was isue November 134 134 yeah yeah when the the permit was ISU November 2nd 2023 that was after it was resed by the by the city commission the city commission resed a lot to R1 residential so and I think we were I was confused because the lot itself was um the notice said 7341 K Avenue tell me where tell me how that confused that that was a mistake that was a mistake in in the advertising because you did advertising sorry did you do the advertising well my department did yes what happened was that for some reason it was a different sequence usually when you approve a plot you also approve the resting and the future line Amendment at the same meeting for some reason that didn't happen with this one he went first to the planning board in March for the resoning and the the final plot was approved by the Commission in April so when the advertising was put into the newspaper they used the the original one that went to the planning board and that was the correct address because the Lots were not ploted yet so that was a mistake and that created a lot of confusion okay so when you when confusion is created mistakes and errors are made that's kind of misleading so we're talking about it's very misleading because the I would say stand up and point to it but uh 73 41 K Avenue can you point to the top of that lot Sunny is right there that's the area that came before the board commission okay so all and if it was an error we should have known about it then we have people that to be noticed about the zoning change when you think they're talking about the zoning on that business quar or there actually it I won't say I won't use the word deception but it's not clear it was never clear that you're actually talking about the back half of that lot which is totally different street totally I think I pointed out that at the last meeting the last meeting June 13 I told this commission that what you was in front of you were those three lots that were plotted and approved by this city commission back in April prior to Mr aami's involvement who's Mr gami oh I'm sorry I'm sorry he was not the planning director at that he doesn't have his glasses so [Laughter] he that's okay we all all make forgive me for not so what all jokes aside so it is very it was it was very misleading there and um yes when we approve these things uh these things should be clarified any error should have come back to us and if it actually if it wasn't pointed out by a citizen we wouldn't have never we probably would have approved this again going forward we did ask prior when people are asking land owners homeowner Property Owners asking for any changes that they're up here to actually present what they're asking us to do and I really don't recall that taking place now this is the second time this have come before us and we have discovered that actually belong to staff now that's a whole different can of worms and we had a complaint in reference to it all I'm addressing here in front of you is yeah is the resoning and the fature line use Amendment so you you bought for an error how do we correct the error what if I mean what you have in front of you today is clear the error you know has been corrected it was advertised you know the way it should be it doesn't show to be cre Avenue anymore it shows just the the the the the legal description of the parel so all formally property located at 7341 K Avenue that's what it says right and was yeah that's what it said yeah because it doesn't have an address yet for the parcel were plotted it was approved they have to get before this this I would like for them to come explain to us how did it occur Mr Kennedy what we have other Commissioners that want to speak but Mr Kennedy come up we usually have presentations first and then we will come back to all of you folks okay it it was kind of along the side of what he asked and it's just simple you know and we may not even have to come back to it if you don't Adam mayor it's up to you I just want to ask Mr Jones asked him um uh who the who approved the advertising and his response was oh my department approved it who is I am responsible for it you know my staff my my staff prepar it and reviews it then you go over and review it catch the error it was a mistake okay they just put a new the advert that was for the planning board meeting in March that they just used the same okay and that was a mistake and then you said the mistake was brought before us June in June 133 at the hearing I think I pointed out that was a mistake so I just would like for the notes I I guess I'll ask if to make it easier to to review the notes to make sure that we were were properly notified that's just it and I'm done thank you for the courtesy Madam thank you um Mr Kennedy are you coming up thank you name please and address Patrick Kennedy 673 Third Avenue wac Florida I'm here on behalf of the applicants the applicants actually jjjt1 LLC it's a LLC the primary managers are Toby mcgean and I'm just learning the second person's name Joshua Anderson there is also next door real estate is a uh a limited partner involved in the deal but they're not involved in the development of the property but the uh the one thing I will say about your notice you want to jump to that is you guys actually do more notice than you're required to so on these rezonings you have a map highlighting the Lots with an arrow pointing to it in addition to the legal descriptions and that's more than required for a rezoning like this so you actually should be uh commended for spending the extra money and going above and beyond as far as your newspaper notice goes so so you representing yes yes were you here at that that I was not no I just got involved in the last week or so last week yeah oh so that's why you just learning the second person's name yes yeah well I need I knew the llc's name but it was uh mentioned to me it might come up who is who's involved in the LLC so I pulled up the uh who is who is the name in the llc's Toby mcgean Joshua Anderson and then next door real estate LLC is a limited part list is a limited who is next you the name one who's where's the other one Joshua Anderson whose name Joshua Anderson those are the two managers of the LLC that's the name of the they're listed as a limited partnership who's there's no owners they're not going to be involved in the development they they do have a a an ownership interest in the land as a member of the LLC I hear your question answer You' never answer the next door the next door who's who part of next door uh you're assistant city manager is part of next door I believe uh I'd have to look it up at make sure but I Mr Douglas is also part of next brought that out you said the other one but no but they're not well next if you look at how it's managed and arranged transparent just across the board just completely transparent no no fair enough but uh in any event uh they do have a uh a minor ownership interest in this xoor realy which has uh there's there's another member of that as well I'd have to look it up I don't feel like we should address this matter being that this was something that was brought before the commission to being inquired I believe that this should be tabled until that has that inquiry has been concluded I agree with that commissioner Campbell and I'm not I'm not gonna try to talk you out of it [Music] but if I may if I may he he deserves that his time is that's just what time is over yes no I know think I also I also think the applicant has should have more than three minutes to speak on hearing has the abil reasonable and we we you asked him a lot of questions but he didn't really get to the heart of the matter please finish Mr Kennedy yeah what we're talking about here is a is a rezoning I mean that's it does residential make sense at this location at this time it's not about who owns the property when you re own property ownership isn't the consideration it's does the land use make sense at this Loc a whether uh your assistant city manager has a an ownership interest or not that's the question that you're being asked to answer so I I I don't understand what the conflict really is but I'm not involved in that whole investigation but the fact that you have staff member who owns property in your town and wants to reone it shouldn't present a problem if zoning makes sense yeah so I mean he well he does have a going by what you he does have next door real estate has an interest he has an interest in next door real estate no no because I'm trying let's move on because we've already stated as a result of what has been brought before us that we feel that it's in the best interest that we do not take any actions with regards to this so that the conclusion of the inquiry if there is anything that needs to come back to us that may have been founded that it comes back at that time if it comes back here let's move forward but if not there's some things that we have to do the people that sit behind this diet that we have to take control over so I understand your position because you just jumped in in the week and you're getting paid to do this and if you're doing it pro bono I commend you but again we as a commission have a job to do and we're doing it thank you yeah and I have a job to explain that goes right to you um governing the meeting we just ask and I was asking yes and if you're finished up Mr canedy yes well again it's already been subdivided the plan is to to create residential lots at this location and all we're asking for is residential zoning so that's it's it's not uh Mr I mean Bor excuse me um my my only issues is going back up to Creo that's that was presented to the commission is not a small error in Omission that's a that's a big big big difference and we voted on something that was presented to us at 734 one creel Avenue and that is a totally different location whether it was a a a typo or whatever the geographical location is way different 7341 to be clarified there's again some confusion here that was there is no known address but that was a go ahead Mr what I voted explain please you voted the res last year last February on a lot that was created so a split lot that was created back in 2023 that's referring to the small so 134 right you're referring to 134 I referring to 7341 right but that's a big parcel that was they created two two Parcels I mean they created two lots the big parcel and 134 we eventually got 134 as an address that was a block created that was res by this by this board to R1 back in February 202 23 okay but the total lot was addressed as Krill correct before it was because because it haven't been at that point where the advertising was put in it will have not it didn't get a final plot approval at that point yeah so you couldn't put you know an address I know I get it I'm just but what is in front of you today are those three lots subdivided ploted and approved by this commission and they ask you for a resoning okay thank you now still commercial right yes right now is still commercial yes yes still commercial again the whole point of subdividing was to create the residential lots you can't do with commercial building thank you we're GNA have Mr wise come up please for public comment thank you and give your name and address to the reckon and our apologies um again first thing I'd like to do is uh just thank commissioner John and city manager and Mr lenzo for helping me with some things with this situation okay could you give your name and address though please I don't want to interrupt you but could you give your name and address please for the let me tell you who I am yes please Robert A wise 150 K Smith School Road Baska Florida 32177 thank you yes ma'am uh I appreciate that and same token I like to apologize to everybody that I misstated some things that I wasn't fully aware of because this has been so confusing to me this property from the Inception of it when it was Ann nexted into the city was own commercial and it's been Zone commercial ever since that I can remember and when it started ad vertising this this uh uh subdivision it was advertised at 7341 or whatever it was Krill Avenue like I said before I brought up now who's going how they going to have the it the the in and out of it was going to be on Highway 20 but that's where the the address was but I was informed that they they couldn't do that they have to go through get Smith School Road but I've learned it I've never received notices on this 2023 subdividing residential and all this they might have been mailed out but I didn't receive one but I've come to every meeting that I've can't have come to regarding this property even back when Mr Carl flag was mayor I came to the meeting but uh it's very confusing the way it's been done it's been very leading to me but I live right there on the corner and I've watched things happen and I don't know still don't know how they can go in and and and divide this thing up and put houses on it when it's still Zone commercial I don't know I don't that's the Dilemma to me and it's not for me to straighten it out and I I would request something like this comes up there'd be a lot of due diligence into it yes to see how it's done and the proper procedures that needs to be taken to correct this kind of confusion uh I appreciate your time and all but uh I would like to say one thing the city went out there and cut a trench across that road had a Missi School Road and through all this rain it's about that deep it's been there ever since the last the day after the last meeting they started working that road cutting across it put water lines and Sewer lines across from the pumping station school and it still got a might big trench across there but uh I know that y'all have a job to do and I commend you for it but I don't want to be out of order but I'm going to say what I got to say that's right if that's all right when y'all having a problem you have a discussion that involves internal internal situations put it at the end of the meeting I've said over two hours listening to y'all and I commend y'all the way you canu to yourself most of the time but uh it would help people like me I got a wife home that's at home B I don't spent about three hours away from her right now yes you know so if y'all got some discussions like y'all had tonight y'all need to put it to the end of it and let us poor citizens have our say and go on home then y'all can hash it out okay thank you Mr I appreciate it let me ask you one other question one question this is CL just clar because he he could have been made an allegation was that a city excuse city employees that cut across the roadway somebody did they had to get it off that pump from that pump that station right there point of a Whispers there is investigations that's not appropriate that is appr we wait for the investigation thank you Mr wse thank you all very much um item so what how moving forward we have sa um do we have a motion to approve oh I made the recommendation okay that's no I know that I'm just trying to see it's table it hasn't been voted on yet we we we need to have that vote I make motion to deny that request second wait a minute wait stop we had a motion on the table to table there's a motion already on the floor on the law to table we have a motion to table do we have a second do we have a motion a second to that okay motion is di okay so just a reminder because this is a land use change under our comp plan and also a rezoning that does trigger the fact that it's a causi Judicial hearing and also a causi legislative hearing um so you you do need to keep that in mind as you progress forward um if you need any clarification the reason why I made the motion to table which the appropriate method to move forward I y'all shut it down I make a motion to deny a request we had a motion to table and that was did not receive a second you've made a motion to deny the request but go ahead commiss West first let's do this so I'm sorry uh Miss CR can you please put up the slides so the first phase of it is comprehensive plan amendments you're sitting in your quasi legislative capacity because you're actually changing the policy of the city the applicant has the burden of proof on that to show that it's consistent with the the comp plan the city's decision will be presumed uh to be correct and sustained so long as it is fairly debatable so if you are making a decision that is not fairly debatable based upon what has been presented to you today there is potential liability if you are not comfortable with making a yes or up or down vote on this I suggest tabling it and directing staff to provide additional information that would allay some of whatever your concerns might be but just keep in mind and that then if you could please go to the Quasi judicial M France here you're acting in your judicial capacity you're acting as a judge to interpret the policy of the city to see if the rezoning complies with existing parties and the applicant for rezoning has the burden of proof to show that the land use change is supported by competent substantial evidence if you down vote you are saying that they have not met their burden of competent substantial evidence I'm just putting these out there because there is potential legal liability if it's a down vote if you want to table it and direct staff to get more information that would subject us to less potential liability okay with that un being understood I say that my my my reasons for it I think it creates urban sprawl urban sprawl will where where we are picking and choosing where we want to be in the city where we want the city to be just like those folk right there hold on hold on fellow commissioner let us at least um do the table second open up for discussion and I want you to share it then just so we'll be we'll be okay are you okay with that fellow commissioner I'm okay with with turning it down but yeah know but what what I want you to do is to make sure we're fine go ahead and and let's move forward with his his um what I don't like is open up for discussion and then we can decide whether or not we're going to go in that direction motion to table on the floor second second for the sake of discussion we have a motion to Second discussion who is making the motion to table this time commissioner it failed so he's making a new motion of a second so we have more information from M West and so now commissioner Campbell made the motion to table mascal second for the sake of discussion and I would like commissioner Jones to be able to State what he has and I feel that it creates Urban spraw it's not in our future land land use that's not what we had if you could show me that you may satisfy the question that you had a resident that Liv two houses down St they were not noticed on that particular those particular parcel we already know you made your department made an error so we as governing body ended up voting on something that wasn't accurate at the time so I will say that publicly can can we sometime say we made a mistake and I think at this point until all parties come back together with actual facts what they're trying to do and the effect that it have on those areas because everything else surrounding that parcel is the county putam county not City there have also been some things where we had the water and SE come from I don't want to go to that yeah well the young man just told us he just told us he bought it here that that uh change the land use designation on property that is not within the jurisdiction of the city this is city property I I understand it's city property they're asking for rezoning and I said let's Deni the request to rezone it from commercial because that's what it is as the young man just said as long as he's been there it's been commercial so we don't have to reson it as residential so not commissioner Mr White was referring that he didn't get notice was when the res the part the lot 134 back in 2023 that's where he didn't get notice not this time got notice and that he came to the hearing I know it is a different property and it was presented and that's my my position I put the motion out you don't have to go with my motion another thing uh attorney you had that readily accessible but when we were asking other questions there was no guidance I just want to say no I'm talking I know what I'm talking about I I have these slides queued up on all future land use change requests and resoning requests they are the standard slides that you have seen numerous times I've put them up just for your ease of reference um there's nothing different about that so we let Mr Kennedy talk and when Mr Kennedy talked it appears that he didn't present anything to support and I didn't ask wa to come up Mr Kennedy I say when we did allow you to talk did did you call him to the podium I did not call you to the podium Mr Kenny please sit down because we're getting really again out of control I call you to the podium and if you do not sit down I will ask that the police remove you thank you no Mr Mr Kennedy please just sit down he's it's okay pleas okay I mean please sit down it's okay to sit down is what I'm saying thank you he sitting there telling you that she did not approach the podium so I'm I'm with it we have for the sake of discussion we do have a a motion in a second on the floor to table how do we want to proceed all in favor I I I we have all opposed he motion failed two to three I that okay on to I you can't it is I'm sorry I'm sorry just yes you're right I'm sorry there need to be a new motion of St so that this can properly be moved on moved on so who's making a new motion and what is it I made a motion to deny the request for resoning a motion do we have a second Madame mayor is it for the resoning or The Flume can I can I have clarification the application the entire application to The Flume and the resoning I haven't read the caption for The resoning Who go ahead and read the other one please no two separate things I just said for the for the zoning and then you got stop it you stopped it there point of order point of order I would like to recognize again that the individual is speaking from the floor May Madam mayor can you please control that manage the meeting in a manner so that that individual is not speaking from the the floor again there is amending the future land use map and resoning Pils those are the two that was IGN if I may just just to remind the commission let's just wait Mr try to get this resolved first please thank you yes thank you okay so there are two items if you look at these agendas okay so what is your motion commissioner CHS the first item that we were just discussing was to resum is that correct future land use the first item is to change the future land use map to change it and okay well again I I vote to decline to to deny that change of the future land and re zoning andry zoning see you take one at a time future L use map changes Le I deny is that a vote or a motion a motion motion just that one item second for the sake of a discussion you have a motion in a second discussion yeah I just want to remind uh the commission that this is and you have a staff report would address the standards that are applicable to the luse amendment and to the resoning if you want to deny you going to have to have some findings the fact that staff is incorrect or made mistakes in the in the analysis just to state state the incorrec diven the errors before when it was presented not only that and I said what is creating the change will create create Urban spraw and that is left up to the applicant to prove different am I right or wrong on it except commissioner Jones the the staff report directly addresses the issue of urban sprawl and here here's the problem the vote is going against what your internal staff is finding so you what you're going to have to do is refute that through a finding of fact that it does not constitute urban sprawl because it does not meet the criteria which is typical of urban sprawl for example it constitutes Le frogue development it doesn't have existing infrastructure it wouldn't constitute infill development well would this justify it staff report would include approval through the assistant city manager who actually has an interest in this property as well as presented it to us to pass it so if you if you want to know why I want to deny it there you are so without trying to say that in the public that's the real reason why okay so there's conflict conflict I feel arise in even creating it if I'm wrong I'm leaning on you uh attorney if that's not we'll move forward whatever Direction you say should go okay so your your finding a fact is because the assistant city manager was involved in the application is one of the applicants and you said in staff that approved this because he is actually Mr Lorenzo's balse direct report when this is happening okay so that is the basis for denial I think think commissioner I never reported to the city and city manager I report to the city to the city manager the assistant city manager hired you Lorenzo no the city hired me was here when you got H yeah but he I don't report to him I report to Mr Bell please thank you so you tell me you just told me that staff who is staff can we identify staff that push this forward and approve it who are who are the me members of Staff it's your planning staff it's your planning department all involved please can you and then you can make me make a better decision well it sounds like the denial is based upon the fact that the assistant city manager is one of the applicants for the land use change in the rezoning and that is the basis for your motion for denial am I capturing that correctly you know also looking at me also also there also approval he's in the line of approval as well so you're playing you're on both sides of this thing that's how I said so how about clarifying that if that's not a conflict or it's not a reason to go forth or to deny it you give us Direction on it um Madam attorney so the the fact that you have a member of your staff that is an applicant for rezoning and a future land use change in and of itself is not a conflict of interest and he's in the approval line because he actually is no that's not he's not in direct report who hired you Mr Lorenzo I think the question is who was the ask the question I received an offer of employment from the city of palaka at the time the there was the inter city manager was Mr Jonathan was the as if was the acting city manager at the time when I got my uh offer for employment which was who and this this item began before my time which was who the staff report that was that is part in your package the analysis was done by the private planning director I didn't hear it who was the acting interim city manager Jonathan Griffin thank you so if that's not I'll follow your direction as as far as being legally in line I have a question yes I wanted to get some clarification on what Le Leap Frog development is sure Leap Frog development is when you have um development within a urban service boundary then you have undeveloped land and you Leap Frog over that land to develop something that is well beyond the urban service boundary right so Leap Frog could be also be a reason Leap Frog is an indicator on the old under rule 9 J5 a indicator of urban fra yes so all of that is the reason why I will deny that's not enough except this is not leap frog development it's infield development how is that not leap frog when we're talking about State Road 20 pass anything past the hospital on the south side of road is All County development until we get to that one spot which is 7 341 and we go we want to make this partial City and I'm happy to do a presentation on what constitutes Urban spraw but this is a neighborhood uh with existing available infrastructure such as water and sewer that that is classic infill development and not leap frog Leap Frog is when you stick a 12200 homes in the middle of a cow pasture that has no existing infrastructure and is not adjacent to urban service boundary well again urban service boundary I'm not going to go back and forth with you so you said it doesn't constitute it the city manager even timed in and he probably thought it was le frogging as well so if you say no I go along with tabling but my I think my vote failed anyway if I'm not mistaken table that failed the table failed yeah the table failed but I I still don't think get any direction for my counsil here okay go ahead commissioner okay I went no you have ma'am ma'am I'm saying you have the floor me go ahead I had it we didn't get any direction from my Council really after that disagree I got a whole lot of Direction but the table has died bring it back up to move on because if we don't we're not going to move on the reason I brought the table up was for allowing it to have to be properly vetted that would have sealed it that would have given us the opportunity for us to make sure again we have to think about she's brought up the possibility of litigation and things of that nature we want to be mindful of that again if we asked her the question she gave us the answer and it may not be what what you wanted to hear we have to respect what she has brought to us and again if you agree you disagree that's the way you vote but again in order for us to move on and move on to protect this city we got to make sure that we make a decision solely based on what's been presented to us and not personal feelings thank you commissioner MCO thank you for that and I have no personal feelings I would like to correct that if that's what we need since it died legal how do we move forward in order to correct this so I have my advice does not change on this issue um I I believe you should postpone this matter table this matter so you can fulfill whatever questions you have whether it be additional information about Urban spraw and what constitutes lead frog development uh but my my legal advice to this commission is to table this matter to get that additional information rightfully understood what is the process we need to take to do that since it's already died do we do we open it back up retap you can commissioner that's what I need to know sure you can do a motion for consideration so long um as it the motion is made by I'm sorry it's late by someone who did not make the original motion can I make another suggestion yes sir instead of tabling it which is typically at a later time in the meeting why don't we look at a motion to postpone to a later date stay that way you don't have to worry about reconsideration just take a motion to postpone I make a motion commission C go ahead no you go ahead because I wanted if we second it for the sake of discussion you go ahead you do is that is that something that we can do if that was a plan B I would have liked to know absolutely I I st I like to make a motion to postpone until datee certain certain the next commission meeting next commission [Music] meeting next regularly scheduled commission meeting by the way which is August the 8th that's why I say it date certain okay so we have a motion do we have a second second have a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you we got get clarity I still ask a question it's not to bring so my question was Mr Lorenzo who bringing these things forward if you with the approval and if so your work goes directly to Mr Bill for that's correct that's correct I report to Mr Bell so with any of the uh recommendation for the these developments who are who all is included in that bring flu to us who on staff is included like I mentioned before this I this resing this PL All Began before my time what I can do for the next meeting for the when you continue this since what about since you've been here what about it Mion since you've been here and you bring these these uh these decisions to Annex not rezone zoning changes lot splits is that solely you that make those decision yes I'm the I'm responsible for making the staff report and to do the analysis that is required on the Florida Statutes this analysis on this what you had in front was done before my time but I can do is for the next meeting is I will reconsider the analysis and will do my own anal is if that's something that the commission would like because remember this already went to the planning board the planning were considered they recommended approval staff review and we still recommended approval but if you want I will take your staff just you the staff the planning director was before my time I know and and the reason why I'm asking there not interrogation but you we always get staff Rec men who is Staff who's all included that's basically what I'm asking you well in this case it's me I'm the planning director and I'm responsible for this item coming in front of you so the planning director makes a recommendation based on a technical analysis of the the criteria that you have in the Florida statute either to recommend approval or denial and again the planning director has the education and experience to review these matters and make the recommendations and we are a legislative body not an administrative so in that micromanaging he does discuss it with the city manager Mr Bell in this case and that is the process for all of these items I'm glad you clarify that thank you you just made it that they do discuss it with the city manager thank you that's what I want to know okay okay so that mean that parcel was already discussed with the prity manager or addon which thank you thank you I have no further question okay thank you on to um I'm getting little on to I please it's actually to little I but um it's to to just continue this the second half of this an ordinance of the city of Paka Florida providing that the official zoning map of the city of Paka Florida be amended uh from City of Paka General commercial C1 to the city of Paka residential single family R1 for the following property located s Skelly Smith School Road plaque Florida 32177 partial numbers 9126 0213 410 09126 0213 40020 and 09126 0213 40030 providing for severability providing for scribers errors and providing for an effective date okay and because we have motion to already have this in place we don't have to go through this and through two are you going to read that too or do we are we done with this and we go on to Da we have voted on one and not the other I'm ask you cannot vote on a rezoning without the future land use in place so that's what I'm saying so we just have to move on to D do you need a motion to postpone that as well yes so to postpone motion to postpone second motion second all all in favor I I any opposition thank you thank you I'm just recording that vote motion passed unanimously thank you um moving along to the next ordinance um to be presented uh this is uh actually second reading for adoption ordinance number 202348 an ordinance of the city of Pac Florida amending provisions of a plan unit development known as Crystal Cove RV Resort Phase 1 located at 121 Crystal Cove Road to remove the requirement for a swimming pool spa or like facilities allowing up to 30% of the build sites to be used as a park model recreation vehicles and revise the maximum length of occupancy to no more than 180 days in any of 12 consecutive month period providing an effective date forri SS anybody have any questions of Mr gami on this no second reading okay thank you I'm going to open the floor up to public comment anybody here for public comment seeing none we close public comment do we have a motion to approve I make a motion that we approve uh ordinance 202348 we have a motion and we have a second second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to E ordinance 20249 um presenting uh to the commission for first reading 20249 an ordinance of the city of Paka creating the municipal code sections 54-1 through 54-6 establishing procedures for qualifi judicial proceedings providing for severability providing for effective date and providing for scri Serv thank you Miss West sure um currently the city lacks uh any established procedures within its municipal code for quas judicial proceedings which as you just noted are fundamental part of land use law and are legally required for all land use changes establishing this procedure codified in the code will provide transparency not only for the city commission but for staff and for the public on a wide range of proceedings that come before the city commission its board and committees um this defines all the applicable terms and so you're going to have basically standards moving forward on all your quasi judicial proceedings and this has been a bit of an issue I've noticed as we have had some of your um committees for example the historic preservation board you've had a couple of appeals and it's the the the people making the appeals wanted more clarity on the process and I've tried to implement that on a peac meal basis based on my experience but clearly this this was a a needed change in your code and I would strongly recommend adoption thank you any questions Miss West I'm G to open the floor to public comment excuse me anybody here for public comment saying now en close public comment do have a motion so move second a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to F thank youting that vote motion passed ously item f is a resolution clarify on sorry uh that was first reading right okay right um yeah I said that um this this is a trail thought resolution 2024 r145 a resolution of the city of FL of Florida adopting the tentative millage rate of 6.4 I don't know if I have to say these zeros but o Mills for the levying of adalum taxes for the fiscal year 20242 providing an effective date and providing for scers airs so Connie good evening Commissioners smir all that are in attendance um the chapter 200 of Florida Statutes set a timetable for the calculating and notifying the public of the process of setting avalor Millet rates and adopting a budget so like day one is July 1 and then we have by 20 35 days we have to actually notify or advise the property appraiser of our proposed tentative millage rate and also the current roll back rate uh within 55 days um the property appraiser will mail out to the city and Property Owners a notice of proposed tax the 80th day we um have to Ser do with certification and must hold a public hearing so September 12th we will be holding our first public hearing September 26 we tend to hold this the final and second hearing so we've already received the certification of tax value from the County Appraiser and this year our preliminary gross taxable value is 712 m953 th000 which is actually 7.8% or $51 million more than what it was last year last year it was 661 milon 523,000 so we will make certain that we meet the deadlines the roll back rate uh as calculated is 6.1 1271 and that's not a tax increase that's just based upon the fact that the property uh value have increased and to be certain that we remain level so um applying the proposed roll back rate will give us an income level of 4, 368,000 the rate that we have currently is 6.4 0000 Z if we made if we just stay there we would then generate revenues of 4,562 th000 so that's slightly more than the roll back rate uh we have actually three options option one adopt that R bake rate of 61271 or maintain the current rate of 6.4 or we could consider other options in the packet I did put in some historical information um letting us understand like how the the values have increased uh from 2020 we increased from 37 million and now we're up to 64 million so all three districts together and then uh the revenue from 2021 we were at 568 th000 it's anticipated for this budget that we would be closer to 900,000 so that lets us understand how our property values are increasing our revenue for uh the CRA as well okay so there were some options I put here I put the 61271 the 6.4 and then I not knowing where you would like to go I did say perhaps you wanted to increase um revenues by say a set amount 500,000 if you thought of that then you're millage rate would be higher it would be 6.68 and if you decided that you wanted to earn a certain percentage more than what you earned this year let's say 5% then your millit rate would be higher it would be 6.72 a little bit lower okay so the point is the roll back rate is 61271 our current rate is 6.4 and I think that's the most important um thing that you want to know or information that you want to understand if we do 61271 that is not considered a property you know increase that is not considered an increase if we decide to stay level with our rate we're currently 6.4 if we say we're going to stay there our revenue is going to increase and it will increase by 198,000 I believe compared to the rollback rate 194,000 so what we need to make a decision Commissioners what do you want to do do you want to stay level at the 6.4 or do you want to accept the roll back rate whatever it is we we have to communicate not later than like August 2nd August 4th I like I like to do a roll back give something back to the community taxpayers if if it's if it's got the same level of services you're not you're not hitting anything at least I mean it's only 100 10 and something thousand yes sir so I think we we should do something for the community as it relates to taxes so and I'll say one more time on page six of the information you have it actually quantifies you know what that amount is it would be $194,000 less okay so if we stay if we went with the roll back 61271 we would earn level of what we earned this year okay 4, 368,000 if we decide or you decide that you know what we want to keep the 6.4 rate that we currently operating at in this fiscal year we will increase our avalor Revenue up to 4,562 which is an increment of only 194,000 oh you have it on the thing there oh cool I didn't know that okay excellent all right okay so you know what I'm saying all right great and if I could add we are communicating this information to the state and uh just realize that whatever we communicate prior to us actually doing our budget it's going to be more difficult to increase after we communicated a lower number than it would be to communicate a higher number right and then decrease Point well taken because like let's say that we uh we we're living so early in the budget period okay and so as we get to a more finite budget and and and we realize that oh my God we we need this money uh once we do that communication to Department of Revenue August 2nd August 4th to try to raise that rate is crazy so you know whatever we report that's our that's our that's our line kind of I'll recant that because I do want to have some level of flexibility and not lock in just any event that uh an emergency does come up where we need to um have that additional Revenue but uh again we do need to be mindful um if we can return some of those funds back to our um uh taxpayers uh that will be my um suggestion and as we're in the budget period what we can do we can remain cognizing that your your desire is to give back to the community or reduce that avalor by 194 I we can use that as a part of our budgeting process and that once we're once we present to you a balanced budget and and we don't need that 194 then you can always say Miss cardi report a lower rate we want to go down to the rad back rate you that that is cu once you report it's it's you can't it's you can't okay all right so yes sir great but before you leave the podium um we we talked about that power assessment um do you think that you will be able to work with Mr Lawson and figure out a way we we can lower that um assessment yes if I may be candid the fire assessment Revenue stream actually constitute an average of 58% of the existing fire department budget so you know I'm just putting that there then to say that there is a way to create different scenarios to say okay if the right now for instance as of this moment we expect the fire assessment revenues to increase uh currently this year we the Year we're living in we got like 1.9 million okay so for the budget year that we're going into the anticipation is 2.1 mil so that's 200,000 that we are expecting to have as an increment in the fire assessment revenues for the budget for 2425 if you give us a directive you know hey see if we can also keep fire assessment revenues level then I will definitely pursue that I I I did thought that I had gave yall that direction you did so and I am and I will have that as a part I wrote it wrote it down want to make sure that we own that to try to make that happen for for our constituents right and I did commit to working with our finance director and Mr Lawson to see how we can make that happen ma thank you any further questions I'm going to open the floor to public comment is there anybody here for public comment come on up um after listening do I have to introduce myself again I'm sorry what do I have to introduce myself okay Mandy Stevenson 415 Jackson Avenue black Florida 32177 thank you for listening um after hearing her um speak my question because if you're having a budget meeting tomorrow we as the city are very dependent on this protection plan because it's not a fee is what Mr lawon said it's a protection plan so with that being said going forward in the budget you guys can't in what I'm hearing fudge anywhere you you can't balance the scales any different because you are so dependent on that Revenue money to keep the budget balanced so whether you stay at 6.4 Z whatever you can't really lower that because if the market value in the city of Paca takes a nose dive you guys have no cushion so I understand what we're asking as residents of the city for you guys to do but you guys also put this in place to help us get out and now you guys have solely surrounded your budget around it and that wasn't the purpose so that's all I have to say that's why I say maybe it will cause for us to trim a little fat in some some of the but some of the Su of the wish thing okay that was a public comment floor is still open is there anybody else here for public comment seeing call public comment and it's not a dialogue it's public comment to hear the public and not go back and forth thank you Mission Mor and and that's that was one of my um that was one of my things as it related to like last last year's budget um last year last year's budget when we had 22 positions put in place and it well over a million dollars and so that those are the type things it's not a dialogue commissioner I can I had my I had my thing raised so I can make a conversation so uh I do have that option to put put my card up so I can at least be recognize so I can make a comment but she didn't recognize you she did she did so but anyways um again speaking back on the budget that's what we're talking about trying to be fiscally responsible last year's budget again we had 20 over 22 about 22 positions posted I think we went with uh 17 or 19 or whatever so we're we we we we had more people um supposed to be hired and we we we we we're eating up the monies that we get in we collect so that's we want to make sure that these positions that we hire for that those are those are positions that we need to be in several of them wasn't filled we don't need extra cushion for the city and that's where some of the fun the money are going thank you I can I can give you POS several positions public common has been closed are we ready to make a motion oh I'm sorry commissioner I just wanted to ask be fair you allow commissioner Bor to respond I think fair toiss to respond go ahead yeah I'm sorry I don't I just want to be fair to that commissioner Jones respond you let Commission of Bor do it and just fair and fairness say he's fine yes ma'am thank you madam for that recognition thank you m May m may just clarify in that budgeting process though Commissioners did cut at least 11 of those positions you know okay I just wanted to remind you thank you do we have a motion motion to approve second thank you motion to Second all in favor I I any position thank you pass commission comments um my my comment was I think you you said that the commission cut uh cut position we we we as Commissioners we we are not we should not be uh cutting positions that that put forth through uh the city manager whatever so cor my opinion I had gave direction to the city man you're over the day-to-day operation you present what you need to the commission we just deal with the budget in peace thank you're correct right thank you thank you any additional comments I would just looking at how today's meeting went I would make the recommendation between staff and the City attorney to propose the proper way of how we proceed through um meeting so that we are effective and efficient in our due diligence um as legislators and that we are operating uh in a manner that allows us to one here out um doing the proper Protocols of the different sections of our meeting we've been here but sometimes it's good to bring Refreshers um to us and I think this is a perfect opportunity just stating from what has transpired throughout this meeting on today tonight now thank you any other commissioner comments I just have a question sure is our audit officially completed yes ma'am and we had a clean opinion uh our net position increased by 9.3 million um we had a stellar report no findings and findings that had been there for two or three years were actually taken off of the report because it evidence of the correction that had been made and when was that a officially completed officially complet you want me to stand up or it's okay you're good I mean it's Accord to the May mayor I just wna okay it it was actually completed May 24th 2024 oh you know I have a big voice I'm sorry okay okay thank you thank you any additional commissioner comments