for for for [Music] good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting to order for uh city seing city council on Tuesday June 18th 2024 if you all stand the mayor's going to lead us in the prayer and a pledge please go with me Lord thank you once again for the wonderful City that we live in thank you for all that you provide for us on a daily basis we ask that you watch over all our staff as they move our city forward we ask you watch over our First Responders as they protect us on a daily basis we uh look for you to guide us in our lives we look for you to hopefully guide the rest of the world in their life and make a peace a common thing we ask that all we do in your name Jesus Christ amen Pledge of the to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands na indivisible with liy and justice for all all right Miss Haley can you call the RO please may here car here here here here here uh if anyone has any business uh from the audience that is not on the agenda you can fill out one of the forms here on the front table hand it in to clerk Haley and we'll get to it at the appropriate time all right first up is the mayor's report uh short report uh I was able to attend the juneth event that adah McAn put on and uh had a good little crowd early and it's supposed to have been more in the later but uh it was really kind of interesting cuz they had uh two young ladies a six-year-old and a 13-year-old uh gave a little speech about what juneth was and they were both pretty good so was really impressed with the little six-year-old she did a good job so in the 13-year-old she won last year's event same thing so but uh the only other thing I have is on Friday night from 4:00 to 10: is a small business organization having their Spring Fling or what do they call that Jubilee summer Jubilee from 4 to 10 on the circle so Friday night that's all I have okay Mr Carlile no report Miss mendle evening um so glad to be here so glad you're here um I know weekend before this past weekend I went to two prayer times on our Sebring City Circle Friday night and a Sunday night and both of them were a blessing and we gathered to pray for our city for our government and it was just so wonderful to be in America and have that freedom to go and then uh also so um I'm probably jumping in on Harrison but I went to the the uh dedication of the new fire engine and that was so fun my son is a fireman paramedic in Salem Oregon and so the fire family is very dear to my heart but i' never been to uh dedication but they it's a washed down and a push in which that sounds kind of odd but in the old days when they had horses pulling um the firew wagon they had to unhitch the horses and back the firew wagon into the um to the station so it's kind of a traditional thing and it was just wonderful a great turnout and um it was just wonderful to be part of that and take a rag and wash it down sort of pretend and then they backed it in pretend somebody drove it back that was very cool and you know the fire family they are so important uh to and uh the First Responders and I heard from some of them that I I think Friday before last at the pickle ball court Charlie Brown I believe they had a man enjoy a game of pickle ball and then uh have a heart attack probably but was without the intervention of our First Responders he would have not made it and so we we're so grateful to them thank you Josh I wasn't one of you guys at the bis ball court was I okay um so the only only thing report I had is um attended a Planning and Zoning um meeting last Tuesday which was riveting as always and um we'll have some stuff on our agenda from that tonight but uh they did a good job and some good stuff happened for the city that's it car terrie I think you said that very well so no report yeah Harrison was there he's the lies on he's doing a great job there with our fire don't forget about lard what what I asked him okay yeah he didn't have anything he stole th I guess I just thought about you know I don't know how many people here realize how much we're watched on YouTube a lot of people watch us on YouTube watch this yes oh well hello yeah there's people from other countries that watch us really God Bless America um thank you everyone uh the only thing I have to add is just a couple of hours ago I went and rode the golf course with Fred Tucker and it is above and beyond uh what it was 6 months agoing uh no sprigging yet they pulled the tarps off of the greens today uh he was covered in sand whenever I got there but um which means they will probably sprig next week or the week after nine days it has to uh breathe before you can put sprigs in so um the fairways are in incredible Condition it's going to be very very nice so that's all I have all right next up is the consent agenda any questions on anything to do with the consent agenda I'll make a motion to we accept accept the consent agenda as proposed I second Miss Haley car yes yes yes Stewart yes Bishop yes all right no old business moving on to new business item 10A we have public hearing and ordinance number 1528 I will open the public hearing and hand it off to Mr Swain ordinance number 1528 is on your agenda this evening for first reading it's entitled an ordinance of the city of Sebring Florida changing the zoning classification specifically amending the zoning classification for one parcel to totaling approximately 0.72 acres and located at 442 south of Eucalyptus Street with its partial number and Sebring from mixed use quality development to public providing for separability providing for conflict and providing for an effective date all right thank you Miss per Torres yes so again for the record I'm Brendon Torres with the central Florida Regional planning Council and we here have a um application from the city of Sebring to change um a parcel from excuse quality development District to public um the subject parcel is located at 442 South Eucalyptus Street it is made of 7.72 acres and the owner is the Florida medal of honor memorial Inc next slide um currently the property is under construction for um a Memorial that honors the Florida Medal of Honor recipients and um the surrounding area is a public C1 as well as um mixed us um District um properties include county-owned facilities and an office building we do have some renderings here of what the memorial is um anti anticipated to look like next slide that's the building and then um some more images of um the memorial and then there's one of like the construction that's currently going on right now the future land use of um the parcel is downtown mixed use Redevelopment which allows for um a mix of residential retail commercial um Medical Offices public recreational institutional um development and may allow up to um densities of up to 40 units per acre and that would be against um upon a review of the approval of the community redevelopment agency in the city of sebr council um current zoning is mixed use quality Redevelopment District mixed use quality Redevelopment um permits um anything within the R3 District as well as professional offices including um clinics Hospital um restaurants Cafe retail stores and accessory buildings um including SIDS and um located within the the same lot so here we have the um zoning map which um shows the request of public and its compatibility to the surrounding area um public allows for um public is basically your um your land owned by um city state or local um federal government as well as um sabering firemen um Inc Highlands County Fair Association including but not limited to offices jails Park schools playgrounds recreational areas Fairgrounds ball fields auditoriums rways and utilities um we did a public Facility Services analysis the project includes connection to City Water and Wastewater system um regarding Solid Waste um the city serves the existing property has capacity to provide further Service as needed regarding Transportation the site is um serviced by um an existing surrounding transportation system the project is non-residential so there's no impact to public schools and regarding Recreation and open space the project is non-residential so there is no impact to Recreation or open space further um the site can serve as a recre ational amenity for the city so again here we have our zoning maps of what currently is there and what is being proposed um the Planning and Zoning Board did meet on um June 11th it did and they did recommend a um recommendation of approval to the city council at this time I stand to answer any questions all right thank you uh the purpose of the public hearing is to get input or questions from the public does anyone have any questions or comments no I close a public hearing wait sorry I had some questions but we're getting there I'm sorry go ahead um at this time I'll entertain any questions or comments from Council okay um I was just wondering um I haven't been over there with anybody in a while uh but I appreciate the homage to the uh Girl Scout house and also um you know every time I've been over there for any kind of an event you know the kickoff the different things there was a an issue with parking and is there kind of a designated area for parking or what are you thinking about the parking um Scott do you know anything about there specific parking spots you'll see on the far side that rendering use pass is there seven or something like that so my memory serves correctly I think there's inter local agreement between the county and the to the back of it yeah sort of thator group for parking you can see a little bit of parking in the back at the top and that great area you know I've been parking over at the county building too that's parking yeah that's all public parking yeah but nothing on the street not being proposed for the site plan now any other questions I'll entertain a motion make a motion that we approve ordinance number 1528 on first reading as presented second Miss ay yes yes M yes Stewart yes yes all right next up is item 10B uh another public hearing uh at this time I will open the public hearing and hand it off to Mr Swain so this is a public hearing to consider a conditional use permit for a 440 square unit uh square foot rather accessory dwelling unit at 1,000 Grand Avenue you have in your agenda materials a resolution uh 202 24-11 uh if you wish to approve it you would adopt this resolution which would allow it to serve as a conditional use on that property okay MH again for the record number tours with the central Florida Regional planning Council we have here today um a request for a conditional use um permit for the development of accessory dwelling unit as an accessory to a single family um dwelling uh the owner um wants to use it as a man cave um an accessory to the single family home um the subject um property is located at 1,000 Grande avenue with a parcel size of 23 Acres so the property is currently vacant they are going to be building a single family home in addition to um with the access accessory um dwelling unit so the property will include a 1,980 ft home and a 100 ft detached shed as well as the um the request of a 440t accessory dwelling unit um in the rear yard current future land use is high density residential with um current zoning is R R4 they provided a site plan that shows the um proposed single family um residents as well as the man cave that is um highlighted in red and then the shed in the rear yard they also um provided um plan construction plans for the home and the um assessor guest um D unit just to show that um they are going to be compatible in design and structure and then they provided um a floor plan for both the single family home as well as the accessory guest um dwelling in okay and then um we do have additional standards for approval um regarding this conditional use so the requirement is at the gross floor area area of um the accessory Gest dwelling unit should not exceed 50% of the principal building um floor area and that the building footprint um of the accessory grass dwelling unit shall not exceed 40% of the building footprint of the principal dwelling um highlighted you um you can see that the accessory grass dwelling unit is 440 Square ft Which is less than 50% of the proposed principal building as well as that the principal structure it the principal structure is 19 um 80 squ ft and therefore the 440t dwelling unit does not exceed the 40% of the principal structure so that meets both those requirements um regarding size um accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 800 square ft of um in the R1 a and R1 zoning district there isn't a size requirement for R4 but it does meet that minimum 800 um not to exceed 800 squ ft that applies to the lower um density zoning districts regarding building and design again like stated and shown in the plans the exterior elevation sheet of the site plan does show that the structures will be of similar material and design and style for appearance um regarding height the site plan does show that the structure has a total of 12et um 8 in and the maximum allowed in that current zoning is 35 ft so they also meet that requirement um regarding um exterior stairway stairway um no exterior stairway for the second floor is permitted at the front of the building this is a single um story structure so it meets that requirement regarding parking um they are required to have designated parking um established for both the home and the accessory um dwelling unit the city code does require one parking space for the principal residents and one for the gas um accessory dwelling unit um the current driveway does have capacity for two vehicles regarding utilities um utility connection is required prior to certificate of occupancy and um and it shall be connected to Central water and sewer system we do have um a recommended condition of approval for this um resolution and that is to provide an affida and Covenant consistent with the requirements of section 26 221 of the code prior to insurance insurance of um certificate of occupancy this is just to make um know that they can't rent this out or use it as a business that is just for for personal use um so on the June 11th Planning and Zoning um meeting they did move forward to um recommend a recommendation of approval to the city council for this item again I st to hit answer any questions from you right public uh the purpose of the public hearing is to receive any public comment or input does anybody have any questions or comments at this time no close the public hearing any questions or comments from Council looks good I'm all for it meets all of our conditions all right there's nothing else I'll entertain a motion make a motion uh we approve resolution number 202 24-11 as presented second second s yesy yes yes Stewart yes yes all right thank you Brenda next up is item 10 C we have a proposed amendment uh number three to interlocal agreement between the city of sing and the Highlands County for maintenance of the seing parkway here from high county is Miss Melanie Co pepper she's going to tell us why we owe them some more money good evening again Melanie Co pepper Highlands County transportation project manager I'm here to ask the the city to amend the current interlocal agreement for sharing the maintenance cost of the parkway the current limits of the parkway included in the interlocal started aval Avalon road on the North End and terminate at US 27 South by the Highlands Medical Center the county requests that the limits be extended to include us27 North by Advanced Auto Parts and Publix to Avalon road to the east there are several Parcels within the city limits of this portion of the parkway as shown in your map that have been fully maintained by the county since they were annexed it so if you look at the map that we attached there's the blue so when we created this map just FYI this is just a funny thing we we have the cities outlined and avam park is red the city of Sebring is blue and then lake plet is green for the Green dragons the blue streets and the Red Devils so thank you for that if you know you know so from Avalon road to 27 you see there's several Parcels that are in blue that have that have been being maintained fully by the county that are in the city the other portion we anticipate that you all might eventually Annex the rest of the road into the city I mean we can't guarantee that but we do anticipate it the county has gotten some um grants to resurface the the par the whole Parkway phase one from 27 to North Ridgewood Drive and part of that we hope to do some improvements to the sewer drains that are on that portion of the parkway I don't know about your yourselves but I personally don't drive on the right side of the road going down that portion of the parkway because it's just so horrible with the the uh sewer drains so the county just asked that we amend that and the inter local to include that portion so because if also it would be very difficult to the section of the grant that we got was from 27 to C neck Highway and if it's not to Avalon so it would be very difficult to be like okay this portion is the counties from here to Avalon and then 25% is the cities from Avalon to Scenic Highway and 25 is the county from Avalon to Scenic Highway it would just be a logistical nightmare but also we like I said we do hope to improve the city's sewer drains in the on that portion of the Parkway in addition we would like to request that the county have the ability to invoice the city quarterly as opposed to semiannually which is what we are doing now and I'm here for any questions anyone have any questions said Grant cover the whole resurfacing it does it covers from we actually have three grants we have three sections so we're going to go from us27 to Scenic from Scenic to the roundabout and then from the roundabout to North Ridgewood that's a completely resurfacing not just patch and repair right okay right yes probably be reconstru I'm sorry with me this evening is Richard aloke the project manager for the parkway yeah um also some reconstruction on the segment that uh melan's talking about because also along that segment is a house mohen um they have about a 13 or 14year history that they are claiming that vibrations from sewer in the roadway are damaging their house and so we're doing an investigation into that cuz there is visible cracking and stuff like that on their house and none to the neighbors on U well there is that Lots vacant to the west of them and there's not really any visible cracking to the magnitude on the house to the further to the east of there the same Builder as both houses or I don't know they they were there before the parkway um when the parkway happened I believe when it finally got connected to go from South by the hospital all the way around you know the the sharp 90° curve that got taken out then the traffic went up they say they've been feeling the vibration since about 2006 they've been in contact with the city from about 2006 to till I got assigned to them and I'm trying to Shepherd them through reconstructing and what we can do to help them with the money that we have so those issues too but that's the most needy section of road is basically from scenic highway coming in the 27 the oldest segment why would their house feel vibration when nobody else's I everybody feels vibration and when you live by a road depending you can feel vibrations that's just the nature of you know heavy trucks and everything else going on the road their house is experiencing more damage than the other house whether it's settlement we don't know but they have been actively pursuing some kind of remedial action with the city and the county since about 2000 and 11 how old is the house uh like I said it was pre Parkway so I've got to say it was built before 2000 so I'm helping and I'm project manager on all three project the other two projects are fairly straightforward we're going to see if we can get some help on the corner at Ridgewood and uh the parkway the by the I think it's the Family Dollar uh semi's kind of been tearing up that corner just because they can't navigate it but again that's additional money the state's pretty tight on cash and so we're just trying to make the best use of every dollar we can get okay thank you so I to add to that when he said this the state's pretty tight on cash because people are going to electronic Vehicles you're losing some of your gas tax revenue so you know the the grant funds are going down and and then our funds for gas tax are going down as well just FYI just good information to have all right any other questions you said a grant covered the entire resurfacing project I I thought at the it's 50% so the county and the city have to pay 50% and then the grant pays 50% so the city will be responsible for 25 25 right right when before we entered this interlocal agreement I think I read the way it worked at at the County's meeting we were on the hook for 1.4 million of that approximately that's before we accept this inter local agreement just the part that we're already on correct so they've given us a number and let me see if I can number we are toal this if you agree to this then we would otherwise have right 1. 1426 million is the total is or 1. 427 million roughly is what the city share would be of the $5.7 million right prior to amending this interlocal agreement no that's that's the total for all three segments okay so so this really pertains I'm going to say to general maintenance of the Parkway right so from this point forward we allocate money um actually two pools of money if you will we have some that we reimburse the county on a yearly basis for maintenance and then we have an escrow account where we're escrowing for this very item which is pretty much you know resurfacing the roadway or whatever needs to be done you know every I'm going to say 15 to 20 years okay and they provide those numbers to us as well so we have money escro we may have to come out of pocket a little bit of money but it's it's less than it's less than it's another 80,000 yeah it's less than 100,000 okay and what'll happen is I don't think that we would get all of that money up front so you know you could be putting money in escrow that eventually when we bill you you might have the money in escrow back to for that 880,000 because we're not going to be doing all the work tomorrow so you know it has to be done by 2029 right did you we Bill quarterly to the do so that just puts us on the same cycle as billing for them for this project okay did you figure out the problem with the the Palm tree roots make roughen up the road that has not been brought to my attention remember where they we I think it's already been solved so that was an issue we were having roadway is that what it was well they were saying it was the roots to start with well but there were palm trees by some of it so we drove um sheep candles if you will into the ground on each side of the palm trees to help prevent those roots from extending out trees into the roadway so that that was the solution that was come up with at the time and it seems to it seems to have worked because we don't see any further deterioration so far right anything else I'll entertain a motion make a motion we approve amendment number three for maintenance of the sing Parkway as presented second Missy car yes yes M yes steart yes yes thank you thank you thanks all right next up is item 10d Miss Julie Fowler with uh I guess it's called CLA now um is going to present us with our audited financials first up is Miss that's correct I just wanted to um report that I'm happy to report that our financial statements are completed and we should be receiving them to distribute to council with then the next they'll be printed tomorrow they'll be printed tomorrow um so the report is timely this year and um then I'm going to turn it over to Julie to present the PowerPoint good evening good evening I'm Julie Fowler with CLA and I'm excited to be here tonight much earlier than we did this last year to review the results of your audit so um soon as we have the PowerPoint going we'll get started so I'll go ahead and go over the disclaimer uh the information I'm presenting tonight is very summarized from the financial statements that you'll be receiving so when you make financial decisions of course we recommend that you look at the entire document not just do summarize slides that you're looking at tonight so if you want to go forward to that agenda slide this is what I plan to cover first of all just what the scope of our audit was this year followed by what our opinions were on the uh on the uh that we provided then some financial statement highlights followed by some emerging issues to think about for next year so next up the scope of our audit included an audit of the city's financial statements to determine if they were prepared in Conformity with generally accepted accounting principles as part of that audit under government auditing standards we required to look at the city's internal control as it relates to financial reporting and identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the internal control structure and Report those to you and then we also provide a report to you as the city council you'll be receiving that and it talks about how the course of the audit went so here's a summary of the reports that we have issued first of all on the financial statements it's an unmodified opinion which means we believe they are prepared in accordance with the applicable Financial framework so that's an a clean a of opinion we also perform an examination of your compliance with Florida statutes for investment of public funds and in our opinion you are in compliance with that statute as to the um internal control report there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that we identified this year so that's really great news um your staff has done an excellent job of implementing some additional procedures things we talked about during last year's audit have been implemented so those were great to see and then in the management letter we did not have any findings that needed to be reported under rules of the auditor general as I mentioned we will issue that report to you uh we call it our governance communication the most important item that's in this letter is this year you were required to adopt a new accounting standard on cloud-based Computing how those items get recorded and so the city has implemented that it did not have any significant impact on the financial statements but it was a change from the way things were done in the past we didn't have any difficulties during the audit everything went very smoothly this year and we also disclose to you what the estimates are in the financial statements just so you're aware that um those are are things that we are relying on Specialists to determine okay so let's look at some financial statement Trends and highlights so first up we have the general fund and this is a five-year Trend and it shows you know what has happened with the revenue and expenses over that period of time so that kind of orange bar is the r revenue and you'll notice last year you hit a high in the general fund of about $15.3 million and that was largely because of the American Rescue plan act dollars that were received last year so we expected Revenue to go down a little bit and it did but the good news was it didn't go down as much as we expected because you did have some additional increases in your taxes utility um like electric franchise fees things of that nature so overall the revenue of the general fund came in at just under $15 million expenditures did go up a little bit uh that's largely due to you know budget increases the cost of doing business continues to go up and so we see that in those numbers so overall the fund balance in the general fund on the next slide ended the year at $1.6 million and in government we break that into different categories based on how you can spend it so of this amount you have about $840,000 which is in that blue bar which is restricted and that is for the fire Tru that you will be taking delivery of in fiscal year 24 you also have some that's assigned for next year spending about $2.5 million and that left you with $8.3 million of unassigned fund balance at the end of the year so on the next slide when we look at your fund balance Reserve policy the city has a policy that you're going to maintain at least 3 months of your expenditures and your unassigned fund balance so that yellow bar is what you would need to have that minimum and then the blue section of the bar represents how much you have in excess so you can see that um right now you are well in excess of that minimum the general fund is in a very healthy financial position at the end of the year so you have about 61.5% of your general fund expenditures in fund balance unassigned fund balance that does not include the restricted amount up next we have the water and wastewater fund and you'll notice that Top Line is the revenue and that does continue to increase as we expect you had a rate increase effective December 1st of 2022 expenses are also increasing for the same reasons as you pay your folks additional salaries um the cost of operating the system continues to go up but you did have an overall increase in net position of about $3.7 million the working capital in this fund has almost doubled from where it was at the end of 2022 and that's largely because you paid off that bond that you'd been paying on for many years so that leaves the fund with a lot of working capital to be able to fund future improvements so the water fund is in very healthy financial position also next we have the solid waste fund the solid waste fund did have increases in Revenue but that was largely due to more accounts there was not a rate change during the fiscal year 23 you did have a rate increase that will go in effect for fiscal year 24 though you can see that the expenses increased at a faster rate than the revenue did so overall this fund had and a loss for the year of about $130,000 so it ended the year with ending net position of about 1.7 million any questions on the numbers before I go on so next up some emerging issues the auditing profession is trying to keep up with the changes in the world so for next year we'll be adopting some new auditing standards where we take a deeper dive into into your internal controls especially those around it so um we'll be looking to ensure that the controls that have been designed are actually in effect so um we've already been working with your team to let them know what's coming and feel like they're going to be well prepared for those um tests that we'll be doing next year as part of the audit so that is a summary of the audit um things went very well this year we're very thankful to for Penny and Jared and the entire staff all the help they provide us throughout the course of the audit any questions anybody have any questions anyone from the public Don you have anything to add to this conversation all right I'll entertain a motion the motion will approve the audit financial statement physical end of September 30 2023 is presented second Miss haly car yes haly yes men yes Stewart yes fish yes thank you thank Youk Julie all right we have no business from the audience Mr Swain you have anything to add nothing further Scott you have anything Penny oh thank you Penny and Jared you're all set yes sir all right Miss haly please so move second pull the board car yes yes and yes Ste