##VIDEO ID:GHHZKD4zfiM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e Pete Beach today is Monday September 9th 2024 it is 6: p.m. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor mahand here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Robinson here commissioner Rikki here mayor patrilla here we have a quorum thank you do we have any amendments to the agenda as proposed for the budget meeting Mr Mayor I just want to be certain that I will be allowed to ask some questions before we actually vote on the two items before us of course um okay thank you I would like to request that we move the presentation from state representative Linda Cheney uh to write after the audience comments in this meeting we not doing the budget meeting first we are in between the audience comments and the presentation on the budget meeting if we can do the check presentation so that the representative and her staff don't have to understand so we're not modifying the agenda for the main meeting right now mod the exception of the one item you're speaking of yeah I'm I'm asking if we can move the check presentation to right after the audience comments understand thank you I'm a little slow on the takeout all right I was with you I was so for the for the budget portion yes that helps sure okay uh can we please have a motion to amend the uh agenda as proposed I make a motion to amend the agenda agenda for the budget committee meeting or the the commission budget meeting as proposed by the mayor Second City Clerk if you please do a rot call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner robt Robinson yes commissioner res Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries thank you MH do we have any audience comments I do I have two on non-agenda items and then I have two on agenda items Thank You Vince tmania you can come to the podium please if you'll please state your name and address for the record I am Vincent toia good a good evening everybody good luck to you and uh I'm here for what's been going on with the past city manager and I'm looking for accountability I've sent to the new city manager the eics commission I hope that you all do fill this out you could send it to all people the residents we need to get it done there has to be accountability and prosecution for one went on we need to get our money back so I hope that you could do something with that as far as the storm water sewer tax I've been paying that for 14 years this happened in 2010 what just recently happened with with our past city manager here which I don't want it to happen again I'm done you know shelling out and giving pensions and everything else and they take the money and take off um so this needs to be addressed okay we have drainage stitches from I spoke to Rob M um McDaniels in Swift Mud that the Santa's office sent it down to him to contact me there is money there there's no timeline of when to fill out the application but plans must go with it and they will help with this seaw walls they will help with um there's millions of dollars there he said and for 10 years there's been nothing from our city so it's a simple application your plans they come down and everything I think I sent it off to uh Francis already on that too and she's sent it to Amber to get it distributed so and that's that's it so I won't do any more job [Laughter] thank you thank you sir Karen Boer if you please state your name and address for the record good evening my name is Karen Boer I live at 2162 West Vina Delmar Boulevard um I've been a resident of St Pete Beach since since 1990 sort of a throwback here um I want to give you a glimpse of what this has become the city of St P Beach I will start by telling you it was my pride and joy to live in STP Beach I found this to be not only a beautiful but a relaxing place if I'm long withed I'm sorry I'm disabled and it takes me a little bit of a long time um several months ago my husband and I had to put in two new air conditioner units to our home that was the easy part writing the check was the easy part in an attempt to get the permit closed we had to of course have the inspection the individual that came out to our home was incompetent rude and disrespectful more than once so the first time he came out he failed us closed the you know said we didn't make the property available he sent a very nasty note to uh our contractor is a with a picture that said well I was at the door and they refused entry to the property well he was at a door he was at the wrong door despite the large numbers on the front of my house couldn't read same thing happened a second time with the same person I started calling and emailing emailing the city none of my contacts were answered in fact the emails were never even opened as a taxpaying resident I had to get in my car and drive down to this building to get an answer from somebody that's disgraceful even worse today currently I have sewer pouring from inside my house onto my front lawn it's like a third world country at a very high price so I had a backup in my house I had a plumber dick up my whole front lawn and they were able to get access to put a camera down in the pipe and saw that the problem is clearly coming from the city's property in the street not in my home not on my proper property not on my torn up lawn so I have an exposed sewer P pipe if I flush a toilet God forbid it goes right out into my front lawn so today we were visited by an inspector from the city of St P Beach this is after hours of phone calls last night to get some help hours of phone calls this morning to get some help finally got a visit from an inspector from the city of St b beach who told us us I'm sorry I'm a little slow who told us that uh we were going to be responsible for a $5,000 bill to build a uh cleanout pipe in the city's easement in order for them to help us $5,000 my husband questioned his decision this inspector and we were told well we don't have any money I should not be forced to be a part of the fundraising effort for this city on top of paying taxes and paying dearly and now paying for a hotel so that we can stop having to go to the bathroom and buckets in our house okay would we treat our tourists like this absolutely not okay we're making sure that the tourists in all the nice hotels have nice new facilities and they can flush their toilets I ask that this city move in the right direction and pay the same attention if not more to the people who actually live here not the visitors not the hotels thank you good night thank you David hubard David hubard BG Isle Drive uh I'm speaking as private citizen not as planning board member um so we were we were at or I was at the public comment of the last commission meeting and couldn't stay had to go home and I about half an hour after we got home there's a flash of light a tremendous explosion and uh our a palm tree in our backyard is on fire and I've uh I've actually got a picture of it you can rotate it so I call 911 because there's now there's flaming Embers blowing off of this tree into our house and the time between me speaking my address to the 911 operator and a sheriff's deputy arriving in my backyard was under 6 minutes it was maybe 5 minutes 20 seconds and less than a minute later truck 24 Lieutenant Wing firefighter Bosch firefighter Benfield were at my house so I just uh sorry a little emotional um I just wanted to come and publicly acknowledge our Our First Responders and say it was really a a great experience that I could call 911 and have them there protecting my family that quickly so I have I have this picture if you're able to show it okay and then I got this one too so thank you thank you I have no other non-agenda comments thank you right next we'll have the check presentation with State Rep representative Linda Cheney have your name on it just so RJ Meyers your um former lobbyist and mayor patrilla and I discussed the needs in St Pete Beach and uh we came up with flooding was a pretty big issue and in talking with Mike Clark I said to him you know Mike if we're going to do something about storm water I want to make sure that that water that we're putting into the bay is filtered before it goes in not just runs off the street and Mike promised me that in the storm water um system that I've gotten some funding for that they're going to do that so we're going to have water moving out of the streets better with this project and it's going to be cleaner before it goes into the bay and I want to also thank my fellow legislators who approved this all the way through the process in the house and in the Senate and then across the governor's desk I don't know if you know but at least half of the Appropriations that came out of Tallahassee this year got vetoed by the governor but this one did not he knows how important St Pete beaches to me and all of the residents and the resiliency here so I thank you mayor patri for working so hard to help me with this $625,000 we tried to get a lot more U but we're just happy that we got something um these are your taxpayer dollars that went up to Tallahassee did a big loop and came back down so here you [Applause] go thank you you're welcome and Mike I'm holding you to [Music] it we certainly want to thank state representative chainet for all the uh for all the work that she's done on behalf of the city you know between the $2 million for the new fire station and pass a grill you know $600 plus, for um uh for um storm water and you know we just I can't say how much we appreciate everything that she's done for us and I know we're certainly going to appreciate it today as we're you know discussing our budget for 2024 so thank you so much [Applause] all right with that we move into our budget presentation thank you mayor Commissioners and community members um our Uh current Finance director serving in a contract role Andrew Laughlin will be giving the majority of the presentation this evening and also a brief introduction since he's not had a chance to be in front of the community yet but tonight you're going to uh mainly see um the changes that you the prior commission discussed at the two budget workshops in the June July time frame with some organizational changes that I was able to work with uh Andrew and the team on introducing into the fiscal year 25 I do want to go over those briefly since I know there was a lot of discussion about org charts and reorganization you can expect uh from me over the course of the next year probably to see more but I wanted to address some of the most urgent reorganizations that I thought would serve the city better um we are uh I'm I'm I'm proposing that we eliminate the chief operating officer position and replace it with an assistant city manager that will oversee the library Parks and Recreation facilities uh parking management and risk management for the city the risk management piece will be the liabilities and claims while the workers comp will remain in human resources Our Community Development Department will now be made up of just Building Code Compliance and planning and I will be moving transportation to the public works department who will oversee Transportation Planning and implementation for the city um it really makes more sense for it to be there um since they do uh build and construct our streets and so I'm kind of a cradle to grave kind of manager um if you build it you should manage it and plan it so I'm trying to move in that direction and lastly I mentioned risk management moving under into the city manager's office that was moved out of Finance so finance will only be um overseeing accounting um General finance and budget and our payroll functions we also have some key uh funding changes that um Andrew was able to um in working with the department heads realize that there were um some major uh projects that needed to be funded and he will go over those details with you tonight so with that um Andrew if you could introduce yourself and um help us walk through the budget this evening sure thank you very much city manager rastelli and mayor vice mayor fellow Commissioners it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance as friend mentioned my name is Andrew Laughlin I'm with the company aaran aarion provides both technology and people solutions to local governments throughout Florida on the technology side we offer an Erp accounting software and related products and then on the people side we provide Consulting and Outsource services to local governments of all shapes and sizes throughout Florida so the uh they can be Project based um and then also on a longer term basis we do things from helping clients catch up on Bank reconciliations audit preparation budget preparation uh uh Outsource payroll needs to help process payroll all the way to Outsource Finance director and so me specifically I took an interim role as fine instructor for the city of madira Beach uh down the pond a bit and that was uh just a short-term interim role four and a half years ago and I'm still there so I've been the uh outsourc Finance director for the city of medier beach for about four and a half years so I've got a pretty good understanding do a lot of work with panel's County as well in the clerk's office I've got a pretty good understanding of of pelis County finances and operations and a little bit of politics so uh happy to be here in this role and uh and help you all through the the budget adoption process and what I wanted to start with was a just an overview so obviously a budget is future forecasting but before I went down that road and we approved the the millage and the budget ordinance I want to kind of step back a little bit and give you a financial overview from a historical perspective and so let's look at some Trends over the past six years on inflows and outflows and fund balance and net position by fund look at our cash Investment Portfolio and just give you a bit of a historical perspective to help you just be more informed and make better decision-making and ask good questions when it comes time to to budget related issues so that's what I wanted to do for you before we Dove right into those two ordinances so I prepared a presentation and just kind of want to go through uh Page by Page give some some uh some quick uh insight into that and then of course at any point any time please stop me ask questions no question is silly believe me I'm I'm happy to answer anything you might have sounds good get started okay so just going through on the the financial overview agenda we've got five items we'll go through inflows and outflows by fund function division that's basically the accounting and the in essence the financial reporting of the city of St Pete Beach so it's by fund and within each fund we have inflows and outflows and they're and we'll look at them all by by fund itself and then within the fund the functions and and then divisions at a at a at a more detailed level and then we'll look at kind of the the overall Financial Health of the City by fund and look at uh namely uh the uh fund balance and net position overview of all funds then we'll get specific into the uh fund balance of the general fund and specifically the unassigned fund balance and we'll get into are did you want that PowerPoint up on the screen that would be helpful sure um can you email it to me quickly I'm going to work with the it director sure no problem one moment just keep you in suspense for a couple minutes while we send this email okay so that's on its way uh once you I can you like me to keep going while she's receiving it sounds good okay so in the first one just inflows and outflows by funds so this is just so what we did as I provided you with a six-year uh historical perspective from the audited financial statements of the city from 2023 that was the last year uh the city underw its audit we're still in fiscal year 2024 we'll be ending on September 30th and then going through a laborious audit preparation process as we get to then issue the audit financial statements probably in the spring of 2025 but provideed last six years of historical data on uh did you get that email perfect on the uh inflows by funds so you can see in this in this uh chart uh at first general fund has the highest so definitely earning the highest revenues in the general fund and the vast majority of that is your ad valorum taxes so just put in perspective ad vorum tax revenue for the city in the general it's all recognized in the general fund that's a little over $14 million we're budging over $15 million in 2025 and then the next highest is your parking revenue and about four to five million in parking so Ador tax revenue uh Far and Away the highest and then you can see Wastewater fund and capital Improvement projects fund are your next highest funds Wastewater fund are from charges for services that you see on your utility bill and then on the Capital Improvement projects fund there is a dedicated Revenue Source that's your penny for penel uh tax revenue it's also called the discretionary uh ctax but then also to fund all these capital projects the capital projects fund does receive annual transfers in from the general fund uh to help uh fund those CIP projects and then in the next on the next page just shows some of the detail behind that that bar graph so you can see whereas General funds the highest in the Wastewater fund uh reclaim water fund um and you can see the capital Improvement projects fund is 7.4 million so highest is general fund then Wastewater then Capital Improvements projects fund are your three uh largest funds in terms of uh inflows per year Andrew can I ask you a question excuse me here sure because I want to be able to follow you mentioned on the prior one the parking but I don't see what which bar is parking what what um category does that follow yeah great question so right now we're just looking at inflows by fund and all those parking revenues are in the general fund so the general fund you can see in 20123 has 29.6 million most a lot of that is is Ador taxes to the tune of about 14 million in change next highest is parking then is probably utility tax and million 2 million get franchise fees um so those are your highest revenue sources so all that's embedded in the general funding revenues great question so that's inflows now just getting into outflows over the last six years you can see again general fund uh Far and Away the highest uh spender a lot of lot of Divisions within the general fund a lot of different Services we provide out of the general fund plus a lot of transfers out of the general fund to support other funds namely the capital Improvement project fund uh then you also see high probably the second highest is that Capital Improvement projects fund and then probably the Wastewater fund so inflows and outflows kind of match uh as far as your three highest funds um uh general fund Capital Improvement Wastewater and then you see your detail on the next slide so perfect looks like we've got that pulled up and so we can just go to uh page six of that that document another question Andrew since you're going through this the in 2020 just to have a little bit of story with it seems to be the year that had the greatest influx and outflux could you give a little bit a summary as to why um it was so significantly different from the other years it's like the outlier you know if you look with regard to general fund outflows yeah general fund outflow and and influx right both of them are are significantly higher than any of the years 2018 2019 21 22 or 23 yeah good point that could be Grant related I'm going to anytime you ask a question I don't know the answer I'm going to say look I've only been in the job 19 days that's my that's my go-to response I've got that in my hip pocket I've only been here 19 or so days so bear with me but I can certainly get back to you and give you the details behind that typically that looks like just kind of maybe a oneoff if it was a big Capital project that was Grant funded that that generally accounts for it but I can go and do some digging give you a specific answer at a later date if that's okay y okay great uh so then on the outflow side then we talked about that those your highest and then the next page just the outflows by function so then getting into the the uh on the functional side uh our functions are General government public safety Public Works culture and recreation then we have capital and capital outlay kind of on its own in those capital in that Capital Improvement projects fund we've got Debt Service as well transfers out as its own function uh waste water reclaim water storm water so just showing kind of an annual year-by-year comparison of those of those functions and so and the next page after that shows your your detail so General government public safety Public Works culture and recreation all that's incorporated into the general fund because I mentioned we've got many many divisions in the general fund that roll up into departments that roll up into functions and so there so Public Safety for example would be your law enforcement your fire your EMS um or your your main ones in public safety um so just giving you some historical perspective there and yes good call on a little a little bit of an outlier um in 2020 and we'll we'll I'll look heavier in that and give you some some detail um it looks like as you can see here and something in in public safety so 12.9 million in public safety on the outflow side so if that was some kind of Public Safety reled Grant I'll find out the details on that that anybody remember Co year p pmic year yeah that was 2020 yeah so that's a good point so um the city received uh uh Corona virus relief funding um around that time so that's probably pandemic related and then subsequently they we actually have an arpa fund and we'll talk a little bit more of that and the budget adoption in that ordinance um is a preamble to to passing that because I do have some commentary on on arpa but those were the two sources of fund ings funding uh that uh both counties and municipalities received the CRF from the first wave of of federal relief and then the um slrf state and local fiscal recovery funds was the second round of funding that's those arpa dollars that we received about to the tune about 4.7 to 4.8 million a few years ago director Laughlin could you just let um us know what page you're on verbally so they can help you advance sure um so if we just go to the next two pages one more perfect so this one just shows outflows just Citywide so just for Forget by fund let's just kind of look total Citywide where we stand and we've been relatively consistent there was no huge outlier years from the lowest in 2022 that's a little over 40 million total outflows and then the highest was 2023 at just a little over 45 million and then if you go to the next page page we give all kinds of detail that's everything by division so you can see where we've been spending in the EMS division and the Public Works Street Division and the B beaches division Etc over the past six years from 2018 to 2023 just to give you some some high level info on a on a division by division basis then on the next page is just your uh change in fund balance and net position CH change in net position by fund so here uh we had in in 2020 in in most years some positive change in fund balance and especially over the last couple years you do see uh some some neg uh negative in the reclaim water Fund in 2022 negative in the waste water Fund in 2023 but overall uh largely uh positive change in fund balance which is just taking your total inflows which is revenues and other uh financing sources which consists of mainly transfers and then your outflows which is all your expenditures Personnel operating Capital outlay Debt Service and any other financing uses which would be transfers out that you're transferring out to other funds so just comparing those two results in your change in fund balance and so that's the difference there that's depicted on this um on this page over a six-year period by fund and then this just uh shows you on an entity-wide basis on the next page a multi-year unrestricted net position entity-wide so in your audited financial statements you uh we the we present both uh financial statements at a fund level and then also we have what's called your entity-wide financial statements that brings it all together and there's two columns governmental activities and business activities and then a total so I just took the UNR what's my unrestricted net position at the total level uh for this city entity-wide and you can see we've had some positive trend up from uh 2018 to 2023 a continual um Trend up on that you can see in the next page some of the details behind that so your net position is your net investment in capital asset so those are all the fixed assets buildings infrastructure equipment offset by any debt uh against it and then some res different restrictions depending on the the the um the type of fund it is like for example restricted building department so any remaining fund balance in your building department needs to be can only be used to enforce the build floor of building code according to State Statute so those are examples of restrictions and then under that we've got our unrestricted and you can see the trend on there from 2018 to 2023 looking good a very positive trend then we'll get into let's just get into the general funds specifically so this next uh chart is just a ratio of unassigned fund balance to total expens expenditures and you can see pretty flat just looking at 2018 to 2023 but we've had some dips uh in between and a lot of those dips come from the passage of resolution 20221 which is a uh the city adopted a fund balance policy effective for its fiscal year 2021 and what it did is it said the fund balance policy states that between 26% to 35% of our fund balance we want to assign just pull this money away and what's denoted in the financial statements is Coastal vulnerabilities and so the main thing is any potential disaster related events there's also some other things uh listed um that are um you know of an emergency nature perhaps or uh needed for a big Capital project in the future and we can pull from from this if we need to to help fund that project so that was established which reduced unassigned fund balance in the general fund because we took unassigned fund balance and put in this Coastal vulnerabilities and said between 26 and 35% of our total expenditures in the general fund we want to have sitting there in Coast in this assigned fund balance and then the rest can be unassigned fund balance and our Target for the unassigned fund balance should be approximately two months of our operating expenditures in the general fund which is two months divided by 12 is about 16.7% so if you look at uh this Trend up we're actually trending up where we in 2023 we had 46.2% of our unassigned fund balance in the general fund uh compared to total expenditures that ratio was 46.2% in FY 2023 so if you go to the next page what I did is showed you that history in that graph that shows now a higher um unassigned fund balance of total expenditures ratio but also our Coastal vulnerabilities uh to total expenditures ratio is a little l in 2023 that was about 26 27 26% but what's also interesting is I just provided you some some benchmarking analysis of other municipalities around panel's County city of seol city of Treasure Island City Madera Beach City of Indian Rocks Beach and city of panel's Park so it's an interesting uh uh evaluation here because it's not very consistent across the board you see some with a very high fund balance to Total operating expenses and unassigned fund balance to personnel and operating expenses ratios and we're you know maybe kind of around the the middle there with City midir Beach and Indian Rocks Beach being much higher and then we're also but we're also higher than city of seminol um so we're again 46.2% is is is a healthy ratio of unassigned fund balance to total expenditures as the gfoa standard is like I said two months gfoa is the government Finance Officers Association that sets out some blanket recommendations for local governments across the country uh to follow and this is one to say yeah have about two months of operating expenditures in your general fund set aside as on a sun fund balance um in case in case it's needed so that's what that benchmarking analysis looks like last thing I want to do on historical and then we'll just look a little bit on fy2 24 is just let's look at our cash Investment Portfolio so on the next page here you see a uh a line a horizontal bar graph from 2023 to 2018 that evaluates our rate of return and so I just took total investment earnings per uh audit financial statements divided by our total cash and Investments at the city on an entity-wide basis and this is somewhat predictable uh we were operating in almost a zero interest rate environment postco so you see 2020 and then a real dip in 2021 slight recovery in 2022 and then boom kind of taken off in 2023 so that's been um and so what I like to uh an initiative that I personally want to undertake if you go to the next page is I do personally feel like we're he the city is heavily invested in cash deposits 17 million in cash deposits in 2023 but a lot of these Investments are are liquid and they're uh Dollar in dollar out with no redemption or restriction other requirements so for example some of these local government investment pools are called lgips FL class we've got 2.3 million in uh FL Palm Florida prime those are earning north of 5% and so I want to evaluate more what are we what are we earning in in cash held in bank and can we move some of that money into local government investment pools and just get a little stronger investment return while we still have it who knows what's going to happen after the election and and what the fed's going to do and if if rates plummet but let's strike while they aren't hot I say while the investment of the uh uh interest rate Market is strong and that's why I do like also seeing we've got 8.6 million in treasury bonds and so especially those have a longer maturity where we'll have some good unrealized gains on those if the if the interest rate Market declines but we have a nice threeyear or so treasury bond that's earning at a good rate currently so rest of sure I'm going to try to stay on top of our Investment Portfolio and try to maximize returns any questions on fy18 through 2023 before I mov to 2024 budget actual I know there was a lot of throughout it CH I talk fast so apologize in advance but um happy to address anything you have otherwise we'll move into some quick 2024 uh budget versus actual comparison analysis silence is golden we'll move on so budget versus actual what I I did is just is basically through roughly end of July is when we started putting the compiling this data and just wanted to let you all see where we are year-to date on actual expenditures compared to budget so you've got an amended budget column and an actual column and then anything that looked a little out of the ordinary I provided some um some explanation for so for example in the general fund on our permit fees special assessment Revenue as well as on the building fund those per MIT fees were a little less uh um only running about 55% and 73% respectively and we budgeted about 493 th000 in Revenue so maybe it's a little aggressive um Budget on that and year dat actual is about 96,000 for each fund uh for the uh plan review fees I feel like building permit fees if I recall were a little more in line between budget and actual but we're a little lower than expectations on plan review fees and then on on B and C this is in intergovernmental revenues and in Revenue in the storm water there's just some Grant Revenue that we might not recognize um in fiscal year 24 perhaps just based on timing so for example on sea and storm water I think we had 260,000 budgeted for wated management master plan and we didn't uh get to that so we didn't incur those expenses in 2024 so we actually re-budget for that in fiscal year 25 and we hope to uh reap those Grant award dollars in fiscal year 2025 so we won't get that $260,000 in 24 but we'll aim to in 2025 and then that's that's pretty much the the the gist for B BC and D is just is is Grant and timing related items and then on the expense side you can see so we've got all these different all the different divisions in the general fund and then you've got all of your other funds so there's just one Division One Fund for the other funds and the general fund has multiple divisions and so we did was we broke all of that out to show you the amended budget and the actual budget actual balance in the comparison of each so we had some overage in in legal uh relating primarily it looked like one litigation involving protect St Pete's citizens group and then on B in the finance division uh we had some overage in Personnel um that during the budget preparation adoption process for 24 there was a finance director and then assistant Finance director but only one position uh was budgeted we now have two positions both Finance director and assistant Finance director budget for fiscal year 25 but that's why we're running a little a little tight on on finance for fiscal year 24 and then in the law uh we had law enforcement and and fire suppression so we've got um that's just and see there's nothing to be concerned about there those are contracted services from pelis County and we include the Inc cumbered amount through the end of the year so that's why we're running right around close to 100% but we don't expect any overage in that in the law enforcement department and then on the fire suppression we had some higher than budgeted higher than expected overtime and in a one time retray uh payment made for the union firefighters during 24 that looked like it wasn't budgeted and then in uh and this we had some non- departmental on the general fund side uh some FEMA related expenses is uh wasn't significant um but that did not get included in the in the non-departmental budget um I think there was about somewhere 20 to $40,000 on on the on storm related expenses that hit the non-departmental division but we didn't have a budgeted dollars for that and then in the last one is on the reclaimed water side on on um on tick mark F there's a joint project with pelis County and that was some repair and maintenance work on a reclaimed transmission Main and pelis County performed uh that work and then the city entered into an agreement I think in in August of 2023 instead of paying that entire amount upfront to reimburse the county for the city's proportionate share in that Pro those project costs we spaced those out over I believe about a five years fiveyear period perhaps and so $232,000 is due in October every year through 2027 and that amount did not get budgeted so ultimately uh what we'll do is do perform another analysis uh later in at the end of the fiscal year and early the next year so we get more final results uh State Statute from municipalities allows for us to put forth an an a budget amendment if one is necessary up to 60 days after year end so we could do is is is an evaluation of our our final year and results if we do need to amend any of the budgets for any these divisions uh then we would put put forth that probably in an October meeting in a first and second reading but want at least just present these preliminary results for you year to date so you have that information excuse me can I ask a question on this sure um for the reclaim water just because I know we're going to be talking about potable water and things going on a little bit later but for recla water I remember um and mayor you might remember too sometime last last year or might be two there was a discussion um and I know you weren't here as soon as I'm this is going to catch you is that there was a discussion about um the those who use reclaim the most or who's who is uh you know being metered and and I don't know if this is coming back to your your mind um and I'll say that it was commissioner Grill at that time that might have brought brought it up but that we were looking to see we have a flat fee right so we pay what is it $50 on our water bill right for for fees a resident um but it's not metered right and I know pellis County and since you mentioned you're familiar with pellis County went to the direction of metering usage of reclaim water but chose not to do the metering in this city and I think back then we and I don't say we because I wasn't a commissioner then but there was a discussion about looking for those who use High usage of reclaimed water and metering those properties um because I think you said there was 232k that was not budgeted right that we have to pay is what I'm assuming to the county um have is that is that coming back to you you getting flashbacks mayor I'm not sure but um I remember that discussion and we were going to look at what we're metering here at the city to kind of determine or make a true analysis of what we're going over because we're not metering at the usage level but we know leaving and you know the city we know how much we're using um so are we cons consistently over we have reclaimed water leakage all the time right so when water is pouring out into the sea into the streets for sometimes a week and I know probably people in the audience have seen water pour into our streets for quite some time that means that we're running our meter right so it is it related I guess is my question and have we done that analysis or have we ever put those meters and I don't know if anybody maybe Amber maybe you remember to or somebody remembers but I know there was that discussion sometime and this is just to help improve because I know we've got the expense but are we doing the analysis to improve in this area well the original the original agreement for the um reclaimed water was a flat fee uh to the city and then from the city to the residents um I know there there have been discussions in the last couple of years to change that to a meter um so I I'm pretty sure that's where the discussion ended though um the only question I have on the reclaimed water fund is that the actual are those the actual charges for the reclaimed water or does that also include repairs to the reclaimed water lines or is that a separate line item under the public works so these were this is a reclaim transmission main project under so it's a one-time project undertaken by the county and those are those expenditures incurred uh a larger total and then the city was one of the entities CP one the entities that absorbed some of those cost so penel County did the work and we're just reimbursing for a par portion of that project instead of at one time over a multi-year period um and then after that those those costs won't recur so those are not related to usage of water that's that's just simply um project related cost relating to this reclaim transmission line right thank you any other questions Mr yes sir uh Andrew is it it is yes yes uh I I think I know the answer to this question but I'm going to ask you uh just because I know we're going to get to it later okay uh it appears as if your presentation is a thousand foot presentation uh uh you didn't get into drilling down on any of the budget line inflows or outflows would that be a correct assessment this is high level yes it doesn't it this didn't go down to the account balance balance so there's you know well over probably you know hundreds of accounts that make up these balances by by division and then roll up by fund so yes this is a a rolled up synopsis yes so if I were to ask you a question that we have at least one inflow line that has not been reviewed in 35 years would you be aware of that do you want to share what that line is or uh it has to do with professional licensing um but there's there's probably others but uh that's the one I'm talking about on the on the revenue side so Professional Licensing for like business for example if you're a lawyer in this city you have to have a professional license sure an architect in this city you have to have a professional license if you're a realtor in the city you have to have a pro professional license as when I've started turning over rocks and credit to the city manager because I know she's turning over rocks too um when I started turning over rocks I discovered that that particular particular Revenue s Source had not been reviewed or changed since 1989 and I'm just curious if that's something that would have you know popped up to you in what you were doing here I know you're only 13 days in you say 13 19 but who's counting I'm 13 so we're kind of even on that uh so I I I'm just curious because that subject is going to come up uh in a bit here sure I I I I don't have specific experiences to share with the city of SE be Peach as I said because I'm been only very short tenure here but I can speak to other my experiences other municipalities let's take uh City madira Beach so they had not uh updated their fee schedule for uh what's called it was it's been called occupational licenses and then the term Changed by the state of Florida to what's called btrs or business tax receipts so couple things on this one uh there's a a fee schedule for all different types of professions uh from you know accountant to amusement park operator sir I don't want to cut you off I apologize but we've got a compressed meeting tonight I think I get that I think gets that I think I can I can help out here city manager would you mind sharing just briefly um about the fee study sure yeah so uh we are planning and in this next upcoming budget we've funded several feast studies one being an overall overall fee study for the city um we're going to be looking at waste water storm water our parking fees as they relate to all of it is as it relates to actual expense and Nexus to what the services the city provides and if we're collecting enough so one one some of those rocks that that you're talking about that have been unturned is just you know we haven't updated to looked at our fees in general whether it's permitting whether it's so 45 years some of them for for a long time yes and so that is part of you know the the work that we're going to be doing in the next year uh is to look at all the fees to make sure that when we look at 2025 budget you know we have better numbers in place for that and that's really just what I wanted to get out there Mr Mayor because I am going to discuss it when we get to raising uh the taxes on the residents so um I appreciate it I appreciate your time sir I know you new on the job I did did not want to cut you off or anything thing but I just wanted to understand if you were read in on that thank you any other questions relating to the presentation otherwise we can go right into the the two ordinances perfect okay thank you mayor Commissioners I'm going to read both ordinance 20244 in its entirety and then I'm going to read 20245 in its entirety Andrew will do his presentation we'll open for public comment there needs to be a motion to to approve the first reading not adopt but you must do 20244 first and then 20245 second ordinance 2020 404 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida establishing the millage rate for fiscal year 2025 beginning October 1 2024 and end ending September 30 2025 providing and announcing the name of the taxing Authority the rolled back millage rate the percentage increase over the rolled back millage rate and the millage rate to be levied providing for reading in its entirety and providing for an effective date whereas Florida statutes section 200.0 65 requires the adoption of the millage rate by separate vote prior to the adoption of the annual budget whereas Florida statutes section 200.0 65 requires that prior to adoption of the millage Levy ordinance the following be publicly announced the name of the taxing Authority the rolled back millage rate the percentage in increase over the rolled back millage rate and the millage rate to be levied whereas in no event May the millage rate adopted exceed the millage rate tentatively adopted now therefore the city Commission of the city of St Pete Beach Florida hereby ordains section one the name of the taxing Authority is the city of St Pete Beach section two the rolled back millage rate for fiscal year 2025 is 2.84 73 Mills section three the fiscal year 2025 Pro proposed millage rate is 8.5 7% higher than the rolled back rate section four the millage rate to be levied for fiscal year 2025 shall be 3.09 13 Mills per $11,000 of taxable value section five this ordinance shall take effect immediately upon final adoption ordinance 20245 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida adopting the budget for for fiscal year 2025 beginning October 1 2024 and ending September 30 2025 providing for the incorporation of the adopted capital budget as the capital Improvement element of the comprehensive plan providing for reading in its entirety and providing for an effective date whereas Florida statute section 16624 requires the adoption of a budget each fiscal year pin FY in parin whereas the amount available from Taxation and other sources including balances brought forward from prior years must equal the total Appropriations for expenditures and reserves whereas the adopted budget must show for each fund as required by law and sound financial practices budgeted revenues and expenditures by organizational unit where which are at least at the level of detail required for the annual financial report required under Florida statute section 21832 perin1 in Paran whereas the adopted budget must regulate expenditures of the municipality and an officer of a municipal government may not expend or contract for expenditures in any fiscal year except as pursuant to the adopted budget whereas the city of St Pete Beach fiscal year 2025 budget is balanced is presented at the level of detail required to file the annual financial report and shall regulate expenditures of the city for the period beginning October 1 2024 and ending September 30 2025 now therefore the city Commission of the city of St Pete Beach Florida hereby ordains section one the fiscal year 2025 budget document exit attached here to as exhibit a paren the B budget in paren is adopted by reference and is made part of this ordinance section two upon adoption of the budget the capital Improvement element of the city's comprehensive plan is hereby updated to reflect the fiscal year 2025 through fiscal year 2029 Capital Improvement plan section three this ordinance shall take a effect immediately upon its final adoption thank you city clerk okay so I can just make a few comments on each on the on the millage and then on the budget and then uh turn over to you all for questions and then ultimately make a motion so on the millage side so the current rate is 3.09 one3 Mills that was the also the same the same millage rate as as fiscal year 2024 the roll back rate was 2.84 73 so by keeping the millage rate as is that yields additional uh budgeted uh adorm collections for fiscal year 25 about 1, 268,000 and then the uh projected increase from uh and that's about that's based on Gross taxable value within the city of about 5.2 billion um fiscal year 24 collections to date are 14.3 million and what we're expecting to collect in fiscal year 25 is about 1556 million um keeping this the rate the same just an increase in the gross taxable value uh Citywide and then on the budget side uh what I wanted to kind of focus on I know you all have already been uh through perhaps a a gruelling budget Workshop so I don't want to uh rehash any of that I just want to really focus on any proposed changes that were making to this version from last so that you're well informed of what you'll be uh approving to adopt and so that's why in the in the uh budget document that we provideed in your packet that first page those first pages are those summary of changes from the previous version to the current version so I'll just go through a high Lev synopsis of those and then turn over to you to address any questions you might have so just a few things on the on the on the summary of changes from the from the previous version um on the general fund we've got uh a listing um with the initial proposed version and then the fy2 revised budget and then I have comments in the far right column that explain why why we made this change um so couple things that we want that you do want to highlight is on the arpa side so on the arpa side the that's um regulated by the um US Treasury so US Treasury regulations over the state and local fiscal Recovery Fund and One requirement is that all all those funds that we receive 4.7 million need to be obligated by the end of December of 2024 and then fully spent by 2026 and since the city of St b beach is a non-entitlement unit or Neu that means that we can spend those monies on Revenue replacement we do not need to uh uh there's no other strings attached or specific projects that we must spend it on and since time is of the essence what we can do for accounting purposes is show it as being spent at in the general fund um and then uh and then the general fund well that will in essence increase the ending fund balance of the general fund because we have those revenues coming in the general fund and then we can the general fund can then transfer any related any needed funding to the Wastewater fund the storm water fund Etc as needed so this budget reflects the the those change in those transfers um and so that's the difference there in the in the arpa fund and then on the um we had some various uh Capital related project changes that we made and those are all reflected uh on that first page and a little bit in the second page um going through just our list of CIP projects and then certain things that we did not get on the original list of the budget Workshop that that um that was presented to you you that through my various meetings and with uh with departments uh realizing that we that we intend on undergoing these projects in fiscal year 25 so we needed to make those necessary adjustments so didn't want to go through one by one and and um read each comment you've got that material in front of you just wanted to give you kind of some a preface behind why we did that so we had better information as we neared the end of fiscal year 2024 of certain projects that we in intend on undertaking some of those we had a lot of those we had budgeted in fiscal year 24 or even fiscal year 23 and just never got to uh undergoing those projects so we need to move those forward and budget them in fiscal year 25 since the budget is an annual document right so if we didn't spend it in 23 but we would intend on spending it in 25 we've got a budget for it in 25 so that's a lot of that cleanup work that we did based on having a better understanding of what our our Capital Improvement plan is going to be for the immediate F uh upcoming fiscal year and so that's what a lot of those budget uh Capital related items are in the capital fund and a little bit in the resiliency fund Wastewater fund and storm water fund and then on the next page is is uh the city undertaken uh a pay study um that you all have uh also had presentations on so just taking those final calculated uh results by employee per pay study and applying those rates uh for beginning of October one the new fiscal year and uh making slight adjustments to salaries and wages in FICA taxes accounts based on what those rates are resing resulting from uh the pay study that uh that the city went through and so those are the summary of of of changes that we made from the previous version that I wanted to uh outline specifically to you all so with that said I'll address any um questions that you might have uh relating to this thank you Andrew Commissioners questions so the current budget that we have is based on maintaining the millage rate as is where is correct on the 3.09 one3 yep okay a question which page would I find if it's here in this document like the the the capital Improvement projects that were moved or that weren't completed from um the past fiscal to now being moved to 2025 like how is there a list of projects out there that we can see what the money was that wasn't used that now is moving over to the next that we're moving yeah so a lot of that is on that summary of changes from previous version page and so that's the very first uh uh page with with data in the in the uh budget document deliverable and so it's kind of halfway down through that first page and you'll see the Gulf Winds uh Drive uh that's probably the the first one where those remaining cost to be incurred in fiscal year 25 for street lights and undergrounding project uh previously budget in fiscal year 24 for 1.3 million and so those those that's where that list starts where we went through okay let's look at our current projects in 24 what's going to bleed into 25 and let's make sure we appropriately budget for those and that's where that list starts and then in our our Capital Improvement plan we have uh a lot of more detailed CIP information towards the back half of the budget book that explains some of those those projects in Greater depth but this is just a a quick listing of those projects and kind and why we're um including them in this in this version that wasn't on the previous thank you that and I would just ask um if you could miss robelli to get because there's some projects that I don't see that are listed here um specific to neighborhoods and I know you wouldn't be familiar with them but just because I've have asked in the past for a list of projects for spe for for neighborhoods um in my district the Don csar Bel Vista boaa things that were outstanding in the prior year that I don't see specifically listed here that I would like to know where where they're at and if they were moved sounds good so as so the first question that there before us is what do we do with the millage rate do we keep it the same do we lower it do we increase it those are generally are three options and based on if we wanted to make changes based on how much of a change up or down we make it may require 32 or 4-1 minimum vote um personally I'm in favor of of keeping it as as it is right now we did lower the millage rate last year um I think it to about $1.4 million um I'm not sure that we're in the position necessarily this year to to lower it again um we have some Reserve fund issues that we need to address that we need to replenish but I'm I'm hoping to hear from from you all and as well from our residents toight I I definitely have a few things to say Mr Mayor certainly you can start I uh before I actually get so we can work off of the millage rate and I can I can ask a couple questions or get clarifications before we go to the millage rate because I do have some comments on the millage rate sure um so first of all I do believe uh because I did observe uh all the budget process this year and I do believe that we're going to have a much much better process with our new manager next year uh I do believe that she's going to address some of the things that haven't been addressed for many many years as long as 35 as near as I can tell so I am hopeful for next year that the budget process would be much better much more informed and much more intelligently created and I'm looking forward to your leadership on that Madam city manager um I have have two or three specific comments as it relates to the millage rate uh but the first thing I want to comment on um some of you probably uh know um if you were following my campaign any at all um that I feel that freebie has taken on a life of its own uh we are sitting here tonight seriously considering and in all probability increasing the taxes on the property owners in this city by 9% I understand we're not changing the millage rate but because the property values have gone up essentially we're increasing the taxes by 9% on the residents we are currently paying with no offset as I understand it please somebody correct me if I'm wrong with no offset we are paying $77,000 a year for what's supposed to be freebie now in my unofficial polling that I did when I was campaigning 100% of the businesses love freebie and 50% of the residents love freebie the problem freebie is not freebie it's $777,000 it is over half of what we're getting ready to increase the taxes in this city on so I just want to make that statement anybody can digest that deal with that any way they want to I just want to make sure that we all understand that it is taking on a life of its own it's becoming a large operation that has no facilities uh and it's a nice to have and we need to at least consider scaling it back uh but so I wanted to put that out there specific to the millage rate uh I want to say first of all I do support the city manager's Capital uh Improvement budget I also support um the pay adjustments uh for the city employees for better Recruitment and retainment but I do want to add to that um that I do feel there's a need for everyone in city government to focus more on the process to improve the product to all of us citizens uh so whatever I say as it relates to the millage rate I'm not looking to sacrifice either of those things so I want to make that clear specific to the millage rate um in all the budget meetings that I observed which is all of them including the budget committee uh I never heard a single person talk for more than 30 seconds and I could be proven wrong because this is all on video about doing anything to lower the millage rate now I will say I didn't hear anybody say well we should raise it this year I guess since it's going up by 9% we all figured well it'd be hard to justify a Miller rate in increase so from my perspective uh based on drinking this budget over the last three days through a fire hose um I feel we should seriously consider the roll back plus 110% option um which creates a millage rate of 3.93 and it reduces our gain an income by $413,000 um but that's still a 6% increase in our taxes but I do believe strongly in what I previously mentioned that the capital Improvement budget as well as the um Improvement in the compensation for the city employees is Justified um but my recommendation is that we we go with the 110% roll back rate and ask or work with the city manager to find the $113,000 and quite honestly if you want me to find it I'll find it for you pretty quick to be perfectly honest with you but uh that isn't how things work here uh so that's my recommendation that's what I think we should do um um we're all living off high property values right now and in my opinion we should flatten the mill rate because these property values aren't going to keep going up up up up up up they at some point they're going to level out or at some point they're going to go down and if we flatten that mill rate it gives us a certain amount of flexibility to raise the mill rate again if we want to um but anyway Mr Mayor thank you for indulging me uh I believe uh at least at this juncture I've said my piece thank you thank you sir and the Andrew if just so that we make sure we're on the same page uh if we were to take the uh Vice mayor's recommendation what is the difference so a little over four sorry a little over 400,000 uh if we uh that's the majority vote maximum rate allowed is what he's referring to 3.0 93 that difference from the current rate would be uh I have estimated about $412,000 so that would just reduce uh general fund tax revenue by that amount okay um so well I I certainly I was going to make one more point I I apologize and then on a per on a per parcel basis if you took a $700,000 property uh say a $700,000 residential property the difference between the current rate and the uh and that majority vote maximum rate 3.93 would be Savings of $57 on their tax bill thank you so well I 100% if if we could cut it to zero I would be with you I know I know you would so so the question is if we cut it where do we take the 400,000 from so I'm you want me to do it for you I'll do it no no I'm I'm Hing you have some recommendations i' take 200,000 from free freebie right off the top we may not be able to do that because we have a contract with them which is still has two years left on two years left two two years life left on it that's a mouthful um so again I'm I well I not to interrupt you I'm sorry no so so my question is let's have some suggestions where we can come up with $400,000 and I think if we can do that then we can look at entertaining rolling it back is freebie so sorry so freebie if I believe if I'm correct uh I have reviewed their contract I believe it is an atwill contract so I believe we could you know they could either go away or they could agree to reduce their services to save the money that we need to save um I'm not certain of that because I haven't reviewed their contract in a couple months but I believe that to be the case um we have an item coming up before us on the in the general meeting uh as it relates to the don da Vista um I I don't know enough about that place I know I know we're getting ready to approve $250,000 for it it might be possible to Band-Aid that and extend it um I'm really stepping in it now um but our library budget is $920,000 um that seems like a lot to me I mean we have a wonderful library but it seems like a lot uh so you know I I I I think we could look at that I don't know if it means reduced hours I don't know is somebody retiring soon I don't know you're asking me to find 400,000 I promise you I could find 400,000 I'm not a government budgeter but I in this budget I could find $400,000 could I do it tonight and have everybody agree with it I can't answer that question but I've been as candid as I can with you thank you sir commissioner in regards to freebie um are they in violation of their contract my understanding is they still have tip jars out I don't know if their my understanding on their contract was it was no tip jars and it was uh higher rate based on it not being tip jars so the question uh I have a question regarding that if it's Poss to renegotiate it um and and get those savings um or where where they're at on on that Ian maybe we can add as a discussion item to the next meeting so we can focus on the budget for tonight at least this first part I can just answer the freebie the contract does not allow tip jars we have had conversations with the contractor to enforce that contract provision if the community is continuing to see tip jars we need it reported so that we can hold them to the their contract terms now if I make sure I heard you correctly if you wanted to renegotiate the contract so it would be less than they could accept tips that's a that would be a renegotiation of the contract so can we add that as a as an item on the next agenda when we get to to approving that agenda in a couple however long okay sorry we we'll get that so the cler do we have any public comments Candace will you please play the YouTube public comment first Andre if you Pro you probably want to take a seat while we take uh public comments and then evening City commission and fellow residents this is the time of year when we're asked to support our City financially into the new year and I strongly support the city manager request to maintain the millage right to give her the tools she needs to address the problems we face and I also think it's incredibly important that we seek full transparency and accountability regarding the actions that happened during prior administrations that have left us at this point specifically I would request that our commission fellow residents and city employees check out public records request 20242 and pay specific attention to the here CM investigation materials redacted when you open up this 200 plus page PDF you will learn as I did over the past several weeks many concerning things that have potentially left us in the position where we are again going back to Residents to ask for more and more money to keep our city running um an example starting very at the very beginning on page one regarding the g b of our underground project here we have documentation of contracts entered into by Alex Ray that were apparently structured to come in just below the $25,000 threshold that would have required City commission approval and what's the take home message here in total approximately $110,000 was paid to this Miami based engineering firm Alpha Corp and there is no apparent evidence of any deliverables someone should look into that right and if you scroll down a few pages to page nine we have some additional documentation that was provided by an individual of firsthand knowledge who noted that this isn't the only time that the city manager had apparently structured contracts to avoid oversight we have here in this second point three other examples where that appears to have been the case the other thing I will doc note is that this is incredibly it's remarkable actually that we have a code of ordinance that says that our special magistrate alone is responsible for reducing leans well we have 10 pages of examples of the city manager personally reducing leans by stupendous amounts you know over $100,000 in leans reduced to $2,500 when you have an individual who is giving out that level of personal favors and doing so against policy and regulations one must reasonably ask the question why no one works for free and if there is any evidence that we are being asked to refill our reserves because money that should have remained in our city somehow left our city we need to get to the bottom of that so my request is that people who had firsthand knowledge and suffered under this prior Administration join me in filling out a form 50 and sending that form 50 in with information from this public records request and from your firsthand knowledge to the ethics commission so we can get to the bottom of what happened and make sure that it never happens again and that there is full accountability thank you very much thank you Candace Claud and Reese please state your name and address for the record hi I'm Claudine Reese I'm at 3120 East Vena delmare St Pete Beach um so my main purpose today is um for being here is to give support to our new city manager in um her request for approval of the city budget um however like the gentleman before me before moving ahead um I'm here to say we must ask why we find ourselves at a deficit having viewed the pr internal investigation into the complaints regarding the past city manager the citizens deserved to know if the funds were simply misused or if something more nefarious was happening this is why I have filed a form 50 to request a forensic accounting investigation at the state level only after we bring light to issues can we move forward with public trust whether the mismanagement was incompetency or criminal it is a fact that not one resigning commissioner from December 2023 was willing to support mayor patrilla in beginning an investigation until it became clear through many resignations of City staff that the city manager's Behavior could no longer be ignored in addition those four S ously resigning Commissioners were responsible for holding the city manager accountable throughout his tenure yet they did nothing and a few months later while voting on The billion dooll Hotel expansions all four appointed Commissioners also did not help negotiate on behalf of the many citizens who strongly opposed the hotel expansion this was a huge lack of leadership on a project so large it will change the city that we live in Forever the time to advocate for residents and show concern for our fiscal situation and infrastructure costs when uh was when these cups were up for approval and when we should have been negotiating with developers instead of signing up for new burdens to be borne by the residents thank you thank you Ruda Ruda Hance you please state your name and address for the record hi I'm Ruda Hance from 7711 coina way um I too would like to reiterate what the last two um residents also just said um and I do support maintaining the mill the millage rate because of the financial problems we have now are facing due to some of the revelations that I have seen looking at public records request 2024-25 um the time to advocate for residents and concerns over our financial situation and budget and infrastructure costs was when these Hotel cups were up for approval we should have been negotiating with developers then but yet none of the Commissioners that were here at the time chose to do that instead of inviting they invited new Financial burdens in supporting the hotels that the residents now have to pay pay for at that time we could have asked for the hotels to pay for the freebie nobody even thought to do that I I can't imagine why we didn't do that there's a 209 page document in this records requests which delineates the corruption that occurred under the former city manager's leadership this document alleges he was shoveling money to his friends in Miami who did no useful work and structuring payments to avoid Commission oversight let me speak to just three of many concerning items out of this report the first was a hiring of an HR intern that was a J1 Visa holder this intern was paid $5,000 per month this intern's role had previously been filled with a $10 an hour employee why the sudden huge jump and pay nobody bothered to ask numerous troubling procurement allegations as documented by former employee Sharon Spelman so many concerning things in there to include Vince and Alex not wanting to sign a conflict of interest form why not there was Zero review of purchases made via the city's use of their purchasing cards again why not I will be submitting a Florida Commission of Ethics Complaint Form number 50 demanding a formal res investigation and full forensic accounting of Alex Ray's tenure the citizens have the right to full transparency of how their do tax dollars are being managed I also invite all of our city employees and Commissioners and citizens to do the right thing and join me in filling out that form we are being asked to raise 600,000 to replenish sewer reserves did any of that money leave with Alex Ray we don't know our previous Commissioners never flushed this all out never consider the expenses we are discussing now never considered how to pay for the crumbling Antiquated infrastructure affecting our residents and never bothered to ask the hotels for some concessions on all the improvements the residents paid for that was required to be done before any cup could be awarded thank you thank you danana Richardson and if I may just for the sake of accuracy I did specifically ask for 20 years for the freeb in one instance and for 10 years in the other and an increased amount uh as well as covering some of the storm water and reclaimed water um but I was the only one and it was voted down so I just want to make sure that when you say nobody asked for it I did ask specifically for that freebie M Mr vice mayor to your point um we did try to get more money for that mayor I I will disagree with that because I was one that made sure that that was one of the conditions was micromobility so I I want that for the record as well thank you Dana Richardson if you please state your name and address for the record Dana Richardson 5830 Bahama Way South good evening City commissioners tonight I would like to speak on the investigation that was done under our pity manager Alex Ray in the 200 plus page document there were many red flags presented what I find interesting is one page that I can only assume is an email written to the commission by an employee requesting that they deny an extension of Mr Ray's contract I'll read just a few paragraphs I am curious to ask the Commissioners about Mr Ray's use of Consultants particularly those whose contracts are 24,99 $99 $1 short of having to get your approval no one sees or knows about these mystery Consultants I am requesting the commissioner report to Citizens at the next meeting a total number of these contracts since he has been city manager we are entitled to know how tax dollars are spent further down not only must you Commissioners not Grant Mr Ray the three-year extension he is requesting tonight along with yet another large unwar Ed pay hike no instead you must end his contract and fire him tonight with no severance pay failure to do this drastic but very necessary action will Doom this great City to the corrupt ways Mr Ray has brought here we all deserve better and will not tolerate corruption why didn't the Commissioners and City attorney not think this was important to be investigated but instead chose to extend Mr Ray contract what I find more troubling is this was included in the investigation along with other damaging information and nothing was done at that time either we don't know the depth of the corruption that went on in our city which is why I am urging this commission employees present or past to join me in filling out form 50 with the state to begin an in-depth investigation the residents are the major shareholder of this city pay 80% of the tax taxes and we deserve to know going forward I would like to see transparency accountability and better use of our tax dollars with that being said I do support our city manager's request to not change the millage rate and I have 30 seconds so going along with what Joe said um I'd like to see our city put our spending on a diet and focus on need needs versus wants we need our infrastructure sewers reclaimed water problems and Street repairs done now this is something we deal with every day and this is ridiculous for the amount of money that we pay into the taxes thank you very much for your time thank you I'm going to ask that if we have any more public comments since we do have a regular scheduled commission meeting right after this if your comments are not related to the budget please resar submit a form so that you can do it during the general public comments at the next meeting and that you limit your comments right now specifically to this budget issue or to the millage thank you Kath Kathy Gara if you please state your name and address for the record Kathy Gara and Don CeSar neighborhood um I'm just going to be brief but uh I am not sure I I have a question maybe for him but I know this is about comments but if I look at the budget versus actual in our expense comparison sheet it suggests that we have 58% of our budget unused so I guess as we're looking at ways that we are trying to reallocate funds into a new year I guess I don't understand how we can be at a deficit if we have 58% of our funds unused that also just leads me and I hope you as well and and why this is related to the millage is because it's raising money um so I while I'm not going to say I'm I'm for or against the millage today I'm more for if we say we need the money we spend it and we do complete the projects that we outline so I would ask that whatever the budget is that we lay out are we committed do we have the resources because it's not just about money do we actually have the people to do the jobs that we outline every year so far unfortunately I don't think we have thank you thank you okay that concludes our public comments for this item all right Commissioners questions comments discussion I just want to Mr Mayor go back to the 400,000 I do have confidence that our city manager will find would find the 400,000 uh if if I may be so bold I'm I'm going to put it on you to find it because so I'll sign up for the job you all make a vote I'll find it for you I promise you that um but I I have confidence that she'd be able to find the 400,000 um we may be able to get some of it by turning over these rocks that we're already starting to turn over um but I did lay out a couple things popular or unpopular um um she's obviously much more intelligent and much more capable when it comes to government budgeting than I am um but I I have confidence that she'd be able to find it and if not um technically we could get it from our reserves is that not correct and I do not like borrowing money or go going to reserves but I think we can sit here and intelligently say that based on the commitment that she has has made and the commitment that I'm certainly willing to make and I'm hoping the rest of the Commissioners will make that we will start digging into these things the one item that is currently at 90,000 that should be at $225,000 of of inflow uh surely is not the only place where moving forward we're not going to recapture some money that we shouldn't already be receiving now having said that I realize we can't double whatever it is we may find because of State statutes we can only increase by 25% a year so if we have a line item that's $100,000 and it hasn't been dealt with in 35 years which we do have one of those line items um the most we can do to catch that up as I read uh the state statutes is 25 uh% a year so we it would take us about 5 years to get something like that fully caught up even if we chose to go to the maximum rate on that so I I don't think it happens overnight I just know that there's a lot besides our property taxes in this city and our sewer and water rates that people aren't paying enough for the services that they're getting and I'm not just talking about residents at this point I'm definitely talking about visitors as well um so anyway I trust she'll find it and if she doesn't then if we got to go 200,000 to the reserve fund and make it up next year then we'll make it up and if we have to raise the mill rate next year and I'm still here then I'll say you know I was probably a little Hasty last year and maybe we need to raise the mill rate a little bit but in my opinion to to raise our taxes by 9% um because we have the benefit of our property values soaring the last couple years uh I just feel that flattening that mill rate is the appropriate thing to do and we need to find the $400,000 um and get things better going forward people have been as sleep at the wheel here for a long time um recent months recent years uh but I can tell you I do not believe the city managers asleep at the wheel um and I know for certain I'm not asleep at the meal wheel so uh and and I I trust my fellow Commissioners and Mr Mayor um that you folks aren't either so I think I've probably said enough about this thank you sir does anybody else have an opinion on the millage rate please may I Mr Mayor yes thank you um I'm in support of keeping the milit where where it's at in support of um what the city manager is recommending but In fairness to the residents I I would ask um that we take a look at where we can cut waste in our budget um there's you know in the next uh meeting after this one we're going to be talking about fees and you know I think Andrew mentioned that the change in your property tax is $50 right so but we're increasing fees um with the Wastewater um and storm water that's way more than $50 uh for particular homes that I that I would rather talk about that versus changing the millage rate there are many areas that I think that we can cut um and I was very pleased you to hear the earlier presentation of receiving $625,000 um from the state which I feel would help um you're mentioning 400 you know K but we're we just received 625 and how that impact how that impacts our budget um you know one of the residents brought up you know money that it's kind of like to the ask I asked earlier money that that we allocated for a year but wasn't used um where you know where are those projects are we are we moving them over we have some additional projects that we didn't have in the prior year that's on our our budget proposal should we wait off of those um again we need to give time to prioritize some of our cips I don't think we've had enough time or the city manager hasn't had time um I think she might be proposing to come back to us I don't want to say mid year if if I'm safe to say mid year Miss robelli then I could say mid year but to be able to revisit and possibly amend our our budget um that's where I amk you thank you so I think that um the at at the moment I'm in favor of of keeping the millage rate the same um although uh I uh I I I agree with commissioner malland on many of his points um and I feel like the budget process this year was um was probably unsatisfactory to all of us and it came off of you know clearly a couple of years of of uh um you know things not going the way they should and and the budget not being as transparent as it should and uh I agree that there are a number of places in the budget that um that can probably be you know trimmed and rearranged um and I and I would like to see us seriously tackle those issues in the next year for sure because I think that there's a lot of efficiencies that we could gain and you know I I I I also don't know that spending the money we're spending on the freebie is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars I you know I think I think those are all questions we need to discuss um but I also think that we're in a we're in a position where we have so many infrastructure problems that I would hate to leave us short right now and I would rather see us leave the millage rate the same work really hard at getting things running efficiently and trimming things where they can be trimmed and taking a hard look at at what the job really is of the city and what the taxpayer dollars should be look be being used for so that next year when we go into hopefully a much better budget process um we can be in a position to then really really make some significant changes without between now and then putting ourselves in a position where we have some significant infrastructure problems that we may that we may be struggling with I'd rather see us have extra money to put towards some infrastructure problems than to cut back now and cause our s problems down the road I like the idea of it being a lower rate but my fear would be for the residents especially District 2 going around and seeing how many pot BS there are uh what the disrepair are in general um I would hate to not have that money available to do infrastructure fixes that we need to have done that may or may not be already budgeted for or may have an increase in cost by the time we get to them we also have some severe um Wastewater issues um all all the residents are sitting on Old lines uh we have monies that we we need to put aside for that as well I like that I love the idea of taking our cash and money and and reinvesting it so we make more money just like I would do personally at my own bank I'd move my money around too um so I'd like to be able to have more in reserves and and be able to allocate that to other projects um so my fear would be not being able to have that extra money to be able to to to really get things accomplished and the residents are crying for that they they they need these items done they need to be taken care of and you know if we're not going to take care of it in other ways then we need to take care of it this way thank you again vice mayor Mah I wholeheartedly agree with you in principle on reducing the taxes uh and if we're in a position where we had a financial director who was more than 19 days on the job and a city manager who's more than 7 weeks on the job um but they're both coming in and I am 100% confident that given 12 months time for next year's budget you know they can come to us and say look here is your existing millage rate and here's if we reduce the millage rate and here's the proposed items that we would cut if we were to reduce the milit rate by this and by this I think this laid in the game with this because so much of this was done before either one of them had an opportunity to put their hand in it and look at it um I think we may be putting both our city staff um and and and City Management in in a position where they may have to cut things that they weren't planning on cutting now one of the things that we'll look at in the next meeting is okay here's some additional opportunities where we can increase Revenue right um I wish we had the time to do both to look at where can we cut some things so we can reduce the millage rate as well as where can we increase some of the revenue so that we can put the burden you know parking is is a great example that puts the burden on the people that create the traffic the people that create the traffic jams and you know the congestion so let's put that cost on where it belongs right um you know rather than putting in our residents who you know who pay you know fairly Sil amount and BR property taxes um I just don't know that we're in a position to do that today to lower the millage rate without creating a little bit of chaos for the staff and for the budget um otherwise I would be with you 100% um because we would have had this conversation six months ago right we would have had this conversation and we might as well Prime the city manager right now this is a conversation we will have so looking at next Year's budget 2026 okay where can we make some adjustments and cut where can we be more efficient um you know you're already seeing that you know eliminating the COO position even though we' had already budgeted for an assistant city manager and so now we're actually there's some there's some savings there um so I'm I'm hoping to see a lot more of that in the next 12 months as we prepare the next budget for the following uh fiscal year um and should we you know have a a deficit sorry should we have a surplus in the coming year of $400,000 or more you know then that's great then we can look at you know how do we you know further reduce the millage rate next year um those are my thoughts on that am I done or no by all means so just to clarify for the other Commissioners um I I I stated I absolutely do not support not funding capital improvements um as they're budgeted by the city manager uh I did not advocate for not doing the pay raise for the employees I did put the condition on it that um I thought we should they should understand that there's an expectation that there's going to be some process improve Improvement around here um I'll just say you know all all I'm going to say at this point I thought I was already done uh and I already know I'm losing but um a budget of this size any rank amateur ought to be able to find $400,000 uh in order to cover the shortfall and um in order for us to flatten that mill rate now because we don't even know who's going to be here next year there may be another form six that comes up and half of us quit last minute so um you know who knows what's going to happen and and I don't see us not being able to deliver commissioner Robinson to your point the deserv the services that the residents deserve what they expect a lot of the service delivery is more related to focus and leadership and management rather than dollars so I'm not going to sit here and say that I don't think I think the world's going to come to an end if we approve a millage rate it's going to take $400,000 from this budget I just don't believe that to be true but I I really have talked way too much on this and uh you know I I respect everyone's opinion on it but uh I also respectfully disagree because I just don't see it as being that big of a deal uh for what the long-term gain is as opposed to what the loss is thank you you and if I may add one more thing as we're thinking of next year's budget you know I and as you mentioned last commission meeting there's many conversations that we have to have here and so we'll have this conversation here tonight and I would I would ask this respectfully is that you know for next year's budget if you do come prepared to say I'm going to ask for millit rate reduction would I don't think it would be a bad idea to maybe come with five or six or 10 items that we can present to the commission at that time and I think if that had happened it might have been easier for us to look at and say okay yeah we'll take number three we'll take number seven I think we can do number five and there's $400,000 it's I just I don't feel comfortable at this point just putting on the city manager and saying go find $400,000 somewhere but I think you know for us as the commission if we make those recommendations then we should be able to bring something to the table that says okay here's where I think we can make those cuts and I think that would have I think that would be helpful next time and that's I think that's you know one of the things that we all should look at okay where can we make some adjustments and some some improvements in our spending with that city clerk would you remind us again how you wanted it phrased so that we make sure so the first motion needs to be a motion to approve the first reading for ordinance 20244 then the next motion needs to be a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 20245 thank you do we have a motion I'll make a mo uh I'll make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 202 24-4 establishing the milit rate is there a second I second do we have to read it first or I read the whole thing in the entirety okay I second city clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand no commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries 4 to one do we have a motion please please and so Amber the second one is a motion to adopt or approve no approve the first reading approve okay I'll make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance okay unless we have anything else uh we are going to adjourn would um youall be in favor of a 7 minute recess to 8:00 p.m. okay thank you we are adjourned we'll be back at 8 e e e e e e e e e e e e e going to call to order this regularly scheduled Commission meeting of the city of St Pete Beach commission today is Monday September 9th 2024 it is 8:00 p.m. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation God indivisible city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor mahand here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Robinson here commissioner Riki here mayor pill here we have a quorum thank you city clerk all right first we have a presentation by the Tampa Bay Regional planning Council good evening um mayor patrilla the City commissioners um and all the staff here thank you for letting me address you today um I'm Megan bler Co please adjust your microphone so we can hear you thank you I'm too too short okay I'm Megan Blancher a coastal colist for the Tampa Bay Regional planning Council of which the city is already a member and I thank um past Commissioners for being uh leaders on that Council um and I'm here today to share a little bit about what your membership in tbpc means for you and why you see me at commission meetings sometimes I have a presentation there it is okay um I'm going to skip a couple things thank you um so our mission is to serve our citizens and member governments by providing a forum to Foster communication coordination and collaboration in identifying and addressing needs regionally we're one of 10 um RPC throughout the state dbpc was the first Regional planning Council to be established by the state over 40 years ago um you may see some familiar faces on our Council um currently mayor Woody Brown is the chair um and each year the commission up um Alex new leadership we serve six counties from up north in Citrus County All the Way South to manate County and 22 municipalities in between uh we have representatives from our 28 member governments that includes 13 gubernatorial appointees and three ex official members from fdot fdp and Swift Mud our Focus areas are responsive to high priority Regional concerns and include Economic Development emergency preparedness environmental planning and resiliency planning the planning Council staff are also trained in planning Technologies to support these areas including geospatial analysis 3D visualization and economic modeling our staff applies for grants for many of these projects um to do that sort of work and our staff are available to you um in many of those areas so specifically what we can do for zp beach and what we already do for St P Beach um we support you through Regional government Lon program which brings me here today I am the sorry yall make me very nervous um right I'm the government leas on representative for trpc you have been assigned to me and I um you may see me in City Council meetings sometimes than keeping um breast of what y'all are discussing what sort of um challenges y'all are facing and how we can assist you we also support the city through um planning and Technical Services and convening cities and counties throughout the region to work on issues that everyone is impacted by so again government lays on program the idea is to take back the information we can glean from our relationships with cities um and share them out in our personal meetings on Mondays and we can see what sort of Trends are emerging and what kind of resources we can share between municipalities and that way we can reduce redundancy and react to emerging trends through this government L program you have me a dedicated staff member focused on issues in your community and looking for ways to support CP Beach commissioner Maria you can expect to be hearing from me um usually only one email a month with resources um and information and opportunities to engage with communities um facing Mutual issues um each week we start off by I already said that part by sharing out all that sort of um Mutual learning that we can glean I also um am the aison for gulport and Newport Richie and that's my email and I can give you any sort of contact information you might need the second aspect of the work we do at tbpc are the planning support and Technical Services we offer one big benefit of working with tprc is that we're a public agency in St P Beach can contract directly with us and eliminating the need for to go through procurement I listed some Services um on this slide please get in touch with us about your project some of this work is done as a benefit of your membership currently we complete projects as we receive grant funding as well a couple of those projects that impact St P Beach perhaps you've seen our project Phoenix um video demonstrating what the impacts of a category 5 hurricane might be if it had made a Direct landfall in Tampa Bay um we did a recent update of this project and um created tabletop exercises for emergency managers to accompany the updated video um we um completed an economic valuation of Tampa Bay demonstrating the annual economic contributions of the bay Estuary to the regional economy and the resilient ready project worked on three with three local governments including um residents and pasag gril to provide Technical analyses and Design Services for their flood Throne study areas a project that I helped with this year per an FD funded project is the um collection of Technical Resources to guide Municipal and County staff in completing vulnerability assessments that meet fdp resilient Florida grant program requirements it was designed to benefit agencies with limited capacity or experience hit the ground running and it will be available to the public after final FD approval tbpc conducts vulnerability assessments for some of our municipalities and counties so our Lessons Learned are also included in this resource and are available publicly the final and arguably most interesting part of the job is convening acting as a convening agent for Tampa Bay we bring together local governments on Regional issues um for instance the agency on Bay and Coastal management focuses on Regional environmental issues especially those impacting the bay and that's a very well-known um Council that's been working for over 40 years the resiliency Regional resiliency Coalition allows local governments to work collaboratively on mitigating current and future climate hazards one product of that Coalition was the model Shoreline ordinance with language reviewed by experts in construction ecology flood plane management permitting and more the ordinance template is designed to support local governments in as they add policies that promote all types of Shoreline protection strategies We Believe widespread adopt adoption of customized ordinances will be part of long-term Strat strategies that make communities resilient to sea level rise and title flooding through 2070 um other committees initiatives that TBR RPC is involved with um is the storm water management public education and training committee providing grants for storm water communication initiatives um to Our member governments that exist within fdot district 7 which um St P Beach does um tbpc is currently in the process of forming a committee to implement the comprehensive Economic Development strategy and we're looking for leadership on that so if anyone's interested in seeing the development of that SS um let me know and I can give you more information to wrap up I'd like to extend my invitation to Karen Marriott to come to our next tbpc meeting October 14th um there is a virtual option but I'm sure you'd like to meet me when I'm less nervous and get to meet some of my colleagues as well thank you for having me I can take any questions you have and I'm always available and thank you thank you again for the opportunity to speak thank you Megan certainly I do have a question for you before you I'm ready I wasn't sure if you were going to be going over the the template um ordinance um for shorelines that was in our in our packet um but one of the one of the questions I have is as an your organization um which is working at a local level um I I'm currently working and I'm familiar with Tom Ree ecosphere and I I read that he was helping in conjunction with this ordinance but one of the things that in the neighborhood of Donar we have a grant and we're we're doing a living Seashore line um that's getting towards um permitting soon let's just say by end of October um and then also with another Resident in vinaa delmare who's trying to um construct or add to a living Shoreline behind their home but some of the barriers that we and are running into is not so much the local but is at the state level with um Department of envir Environmental Protection or Army Corps of Engineers Fish and Wildlife Commission anytime we do a living Shoreline there's other um for example Coral I don't know if you're familiar maybe a lot of residents don't know how abundant coral reefs is what I'm talking about just in case anyone is right at our seaw walls and because of this then we run into permitting issues with Fish and Wildlife Commission um D and then it slows down this um process for something that um I know locally Tampa Bay is trying to push um but there seems to be a disconnect um from the state is that something you all also work on and helping connect um it's at the Forefront right we're at the beginning so and us considering ordinances because it's so new um we run into a lot of barers um so how can we better that I guess is my question or are we working on that sure tbpc doesn't have a lobbying Wing we're not um involved with any of the law making up at the state or the federal level we do I can as an ecologist I appreciate there are a lot of protections around particularly um endangered species which all the corals are um and we you can be thankful for the corals because they help build the beer Island that we're all living on um but we do have connections with all of those uh State agencies and and we could help navigate any sort of connections that need to be made there um we're in Communications with your um with Mike Clark um if he has any questions he knows how to reach out to us as well for navigating the implementation of the ordinance um but that's an obviously a trend that we're seeing across the region and we're hoping to give um municipalities the resources they need to navigate it thank you for the question and that the ordinance that we received I know that was I think it was October 26 2022 was the the version is is that there's no change right like nothing that need so that's pretty yes and the ordinance is customizable it is intended to be changed as the city and as the commission wish it to be changed okay thank you thank you thank you all right do we have any amendments to the agenda as proposed I have a couple things Mr Mayor certainly um I'd like to move 4B 4 C and 4f to action items okay and I'd also like to for discussion um add pile driving did you say pile driving yes I did okay any other amendments to the agenda I'd like to add a discussion item okay which should be um um higher standards for traffic concurrency okay and also uh special event permitting okay any other amendments okay do we have a sorry clarifying I just want to follow up were we adding freebie as a discussion item here was yes yes that too discussion about freebie bringing something forward for future discussion okay all right can we please have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended I make a motion to adopt the amended agenda for the city commission meeting Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries thank you do we have any audience comments I have no cards mayor all right may I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll make a motion to approve approve the consent agenda as amended Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries thank you next we have action items 5A we have uh 58 is Calvin jordano and Associates genten thank you for being so patient this evening thank you uh mayor and Commissioners Luis CNO with Calvin gardano and Associates uh joining me is David Dixon uh also of Calvin Jano and Associates uh we're excited to be uh talking with you about this uh very important project uh when we started the discussions with the city originally uh we had um this was rather more of a general density study that we were talking about but since then it's sort of uh the scope has narrowed quite a bit into uh specifically looking at hotel densities also focusing on the uh town center and large resort districts specifically um and we've been working with staff and also with the Planning Commission quite a bit up and until now so we're excited to uh get to have your discussion on this and uh get your input uh and quickly I'll just go through um a a little bit about Calvin jardon and Associates uh we've been around for uh since 1937 over 370 employees uh I'm out of the Clearwater office uh and we have had a relationship with the city of uh sap Beach uh for quite a while it has it's been a while uh since we've done any any major work with y'all but we've done some support with the city uh and we've uh do a lot of work in penis County and do similar work throughout Florida uh CJ's expertise is really with public engagement uh we ped ourselves on uh just doing uh outstanding Outreach and getting people who don't normally participate uh into the process uh we're also experts in planning uh we're and you'll also uh see a brief presentation on uh the scenario planning that we were talking about uh We've teamed on this project with Lambert advisory uh they do very good um economic and housing studies uh we think it's important with this project that after we do some scenario planning with the city and with the community uh that we get the uh feasibility of of these developments and projections into the future and Lambert advisory does a very good job at this uh also teaming with a legal the legal firm of we serota um and I understand uh there's been there will be discussions with Susan travar travar and of Y serota later uh this is the scope that we have an outline of the scope that we presented I understand that uh really tonight I'd like to focus on phase one because because I understand a lot of the uh comments that we've received so far a lot of the feedback has been on public Outreach and participation especially uh so I'd like to focus on that the rest of the project it's written up pretty much like a standard um comp plan Amendment uh package that we would do as I said this started out as a as a general density study but it's sort of uh morphed into uh the important topic of Hotel density and and visioning the future of that so uh public input data collection and analyses uh the first uh step in the process major step is uh we want to have a community uh a commission commission listening session with you all once we kick off the project uh just finding out what your concerns on the topic are uh it's been a while since we've all visited the topic I think it's a good idea to uh start out with just listening to your your concerns uh then we we will move into a project kickoff with City staff to sort of lay down uh how things how they want things done aail ailable studies things like that and then uh very important public engagement um and we'll go into more detail on how that's going to work but uh we're going to do some specific Outreach to uh the uh TC and the the large resort districts uh and then um that is going to follow up with existing conditions and Trends analysis and some of the deliverables uh with phase one are the summary of public input and process process and outcomes uh this is going to be pretty detailed as far as the feedback that we get and the scenarios and the people's um input on those uh we're also going to complete the existing conditions and Trends report doing detailed Market studies on um you know what the what the market will support and and uh into the future and then Vision key recommendations report and this will really be what you will use moving forward on whether or not you want to mend your comp plan to address these uh these outcomes or whether you just want to have that as a visioning document for the future and um all in all the project is expected to take we've written it up as an 18-month process uh certainly I think the way it's been uh evolving is we may want to spend more time on the front end with the public engagement and take all the time we need with that um Dave is going to talk a little bit about some the um some of the the uh methods that we use to facilitate public input and he can also talk a little bit more about the scenario planning that uh we're proposing good evening Mr Mayor members of the commission Dave Dixon principal planner with Calvin jodon Associates uh this is I think we can all agree this is a stakeholder engagement project first and foremost it's it's basically just now we we'll talk a little bit about how we get input and um and reconvey it back because engagement is back and forth right um it's not just us listening we have to analyze it and then put it back out but um we have a lot of workshops uh for for doing such things and also we'll be working with you to identify a list of stakeholders we kind of already have an idea um and then we'll just kind of dial in those organizations and folks that you and staff would recommend us go to first it's not just the public it's you know the important everybody who's um the important folks in the in this in the city so we will be going to two we'll have two CommunityWide workshops and then two specific to the the large resort um and then the town center now in those ones uh we have some really good tools I think we're going to kind of show you uh how we can really look at some of the physical makeup of the of the actual community in the buildings themselves um next slide please oh thanks uh so uh we we we've outlined in the scope all kinds of stuff that that we'll do um and of course I think this one we're going to push to go above and beyond anything you typically do because uh it's just a really really high you know high-profile item in in the city in the community right now so uh we we like to use a lot of boards you know a general openhouse type meeting bright colorful Maps boards easy to understand images um and more high-tech stuff like live polling where everybody gets out their mobile device and they will do a poll um and in this case we're actually Hing to do those in front of people with this idea of what what the density might look like with different scenario outcomes um see this one so as you know we have our our scope lined out um if there any allow you to ask any questions after this next next one please but really I think what the coolest thing is for for me is is uh some of the new technology I've been doing mapping for 16 years and we finally have all the things that I wish we could have which is you know it's a mapping cardgraphic software but now we can easily turn that into three dimensions to to study massing and it's not just um playing with Legos these Legos have a ton of data behind them so we'll do a quick um a quick sample of of what that looks like for when we're when we're going in front of the community but it's it's really cool it uses your own zoning and you build out kind of a theoretical or a model of your existing conditions and just like the 2015 density study it also looks at what capacity is left and then when you start turning the knobs whether that's F Building height um four area ratio you know how much how much space a thing occupies in three dimensions uh you can do that kind of on the fly in front of folks so if you just you know pick the TC one you want to change change something it it'll just kind of populate it on the Fly um in the overhead kind to show you kind of a quick example of the technology it's called argis Urban really cool um turn sound off Ryan can you switch to the overhead please thank you doesn't have any sounds you can probably turn Okay so you'll see here this is actually what the model looks like and you have a interface that allows you to enter into these fields the the zoning tweaks that you want to do um and so not only is it neat looking and cool but after you start seeing these changes happen um try the the second link I sent you video but all these all these blocks they do move and it's incredibly detailed but really it's so powerful it's almost too powerful so I always recommend keeping it a little bit on the fuzzier side when you're talking about building math it's you know it's a very tricky thing to talk about but what we can do is get whenever we get a certain amount of square footage or a certain number of stories in a in a scenario in for for a single District it'll output estimated population differences estimated job uh numbers estimated um housing units by type and then you know for example with the jobs if you if you happen to build out a scenario where you add 100,000 square feet or whatever 5,000 square F feet of of a certain commercial type it'll line up a job ratio to that so you can see how many people you actually might theoretically add in each one of these scenarios and then of course we have um yeah it and really it takes some computing power but this can happen on the Fly and it's just really cool it's really cool that we have the numbers behind it to to do this studying so that when we take things uh back to you as leaders and to your planning board and and to your citizens we can kind of test these things in real time and say yes maybe the you know the view shed will be changed here but and show it in 3D but we'll also have the economic impacts with along with our our um Partners from Lambert we'll have we'll have numbers and and nice images and we'll have we'll be able to test it all very quickly so um that's I think that's pretty much at the end of the the my section there um let me see we go back to the the slides please but you can kind of see actually how how you just change the number turn the knob and it starts adding adding uh actual stories on certain types of buildings um and then we can always we always are able to test this with live audience polling which through through the mobile device as I mentioned is that the last one yeah Okay Hand B I mean you could stop right now if you would ask any questions on that particular subject as well on the engagement piece or the sure particip Commissioners what time of year would you be looking at doing the the citizens uh workshops we certainly want to want to just find it at high impact times when people are going to be there so um throughout the year I think we'll I mean probably try to space them out evenly so that you know really the idea is to start with a visioning sort of session so you get you know come in with that critical distance as as we can as Consulting uh Consulting team and then start to build your consensus I mean that's really the the the first the first step and then we want to test that so we won't we won't come in with any any modeling at the first Workshop right so as far enough apart to where we can effectively build up our modeling and our questions and our consensus and issue list then we'll test all those things and confirm them with the community at at the next one I mean it's well and and we also we'll work with the community on scheduling we understand you know August probably isn't the best time to do meetings and November December um yeah we we we're sensitive to those concerns but yeah we'll work closely with you on that but um really we can start early on uh in the process the public engagement okay yeah based on your 18 months yeah it's so it looks like you're the initial phase one you're looking at September through April so that puts us right in the middle of season um so that that's actually pretty perfect have you given any consideration to the live local act yes find that a high priority that that is that is always a consideration these days um um you know fortunately um you know we we think with um the type of pressures that you're getting it is primarily existing already res already large residential and um and the the the Town Center District so it's not going to be affected quite so much by that but yeah you know there's not a whole lot we can do about well there's just concerns with with the the you know the the threats of uh if we don't get this then we're going to do that that we've seen here in the city yeah and I don't think anybody liked being threatened that way um and again we're you know we we have our flooding uh issues here and uh getting rid of uh you know setbacks and zoning and things to that effect uh just to add more concrete is a problem here on this beach it is any Beach Town we're going to be looking at things holistically um you know traffic concerns as well that we heard mentioned um and yeah espe uh visually I think is is one of the biggest concerns that we hear from the public is you know what this does visually and uh to traffic sir uh what other cities have you worked with specifically coastal cities oh we um we do a lot of work in pelis County go back to your slide from like had a SL oh yeah that would help but some of our clients include Treasure Island um madira Beach uh we we've done a lot for Tarpon Springs um yeah they're they're all stood up there South Pasadena Shores um yeah yeah Readington Shores um we're currently working for Belair Beach so uh yeah just a lot of a lot of projects this is this one is um uh little little larger than a lot of the the ones that a lot of the projects that we worked on locally but uh I think it's comparable to Tarpon Springs and SAR is not exactly Coastal but they're on the water um and we we just finished their comp plan update thank you when you talk about the community meetings and and getting public input is the um is what what's the what's the plan of Outreach for getting people involved is that something that's part of your scope of work or do you rely on City staff to make sure you get people to show up or if you have the first community meeting and you have you know clearly this is a an issue that a lot of people should and need to be involved in if you have the first community meeting and 12 people show up do you do you go well okay we did something wrong we need to redo that or how how does that work yeah that's a very good question I we are going to work closely with City staff primarily primarily to identify stakeholders and to discuss how you know how they think um the the community meetings will best be designed uh but we have experience on you know doing non-traditional Outreach uh events um through social media things like that go ahead AB every time we do one of these we ask folks how they found out it's usually either through um social media or uh HOAs usually get get a lot of the word out so those are probably the two ones we hear the most but I'm telling you social media Facebook ads with um depending on the on the scope of your of your budget for for advertising it's not much but it has the highest impact because it pops up depending on where you are um if you wanted to do it in the in the city of St P Beach it would Target those folks if you want to get a certain age group of people you could Target those Folks by by those parameters so those are really the most effective but when all else fails papering right it's it seems to really really work well the old school stuff still works too we just want to we want to bolster that with some of the newer technology and is that and and and then is are are those methods of advertising are those covered under under the budget for your scope of work or is that the city's part of the job uh we use we utilize if you have a public relations uh person we we utilize the city's website uh but yeah other things like advertising and things like that we we do budget for that and for uh social media as well it's it's pretty lowcost high impact sure yeah all right phase two all right yeah if I could get the slides back up oops all right phase two uh probably not as much input on this part but uh so we'll just uh shoot over this is basically uh once we get the key recommendations uh and everybody agrees staff the commission agrees what those recommendations will will be uh this is where we propose putting them into uh into your comprehensive plan uh and Land Development regulations if possible if necessary rather um and then we move forward with that adoption process so that's pretty straightforward I didn't want to spend a lot of time on on those next steps but um you know that will be the the deliverable is your updated comprehensive plan and that's the conclusion to our presentation we'd be glad to answer any more of your questions but uh we're excited about this project and you all know it is important and uh I think we're excited to hear what the community has to say thank you Commissioners questions comments I have a question for the city manager um how many proposals did we receive back actually received two two and what was the process that was it price based that we decided on these folks and I'm not being critical of them I'm just curious just want to know my understanding of our review of bids and I'll ask the team to come up and correct me if I stated incorrectly um is that they put a te team together of internal experts including our purchase manager they have a scoring criteria for the bidding process and um it does not always go to the lowest bidder on some of these professional contracts so they are looking as to the quality of the response from from the uh each company that express interest thank you I can add additional background on that if you would like um so so the process started um last year um the commission decided to go ahead and put out a request for bids um we received um two two firms that applied uh the commission actually invited both firms to the commission meeting and we interview them each individually so that we can have a you know a much more in informed dialogue with them so because the the two firms were vastly different I mean both highly qualified um but just very very different one firm um had worked with a lot of small and unique cities like us all over the world um and then this particular firm as you saw by their list of of cities uh they've worked for you know half the beach towns in in the State of Florida and so you know even though you know both firms firms were highly qualified they both brought very unique things to the table um because we're looking at a major comprehensive plan change because we're looking at how it will impact potentially the large resort district and all the entities that might be involved there because we're looking at you know potential moratorium and because of the legal uh resources that this firm also has with the local knowledge um at that time it was decided that this was the best firm suited for our needs um to help us do this comprehensive plan review I mean they they've done this a number of times um they've done this for a number of cities in the city in the State of Florida um and so at that point the commission uh voted to move forward U with this firm uh we also reduced the scope at one point so we actually the original was in the 250 to 300,000 range uh and we decided to narrow it based on feedback from the community I remember uh commissioner War F lowski at the time was actually one I made the recommendation um that since the community's primary concern seems to be the large resort District the hotels and uh some of the areas that we specifically focus our attention that and also reduce the cost by only focusing on the specific areas that the community wanted to have attention drawn to I hope that helps it does I remember part of that now that you got my memory but not all of it yep thank you mayor and if I that's a good segue for me just to address the commission you did ask to bring special counsel in to discuss um someone who specializes and moratoriums and and so that special coun uh our special council is coming on the 23rd so as you if you approve this tonight and after that discussion you need further amendments staff is prepared to work with the consultant to bring back amendments to the contract if it's approved tonight thank you C the manager I do have another question um on your phase two it talks about uh creation of alternative growth scenarios based on Trends analysis and preferences for growth presented during public Outreach events in Phase 2 and so does does that then at at that point then is that when you would then bring that back for for more public comment on the results of that yeah we anticipate that uh we are going to present different scenarios during the public engagement process and we anticipate it'll be like a stay the same medium high growth scenarios that we'll have the visualization of that how that looks um and there's other there are other parameters that you can apply to that uh as far as you know you can have more density but less footprint or lower Heights and things like that so we're going to try to distill that into a preferred scenario and then that will will bring be brought forward as a recommendation uh for Amendment to the comp plan um and if there if another scenario is preferred that will be the that will be the proposed amendment okay I I mean that my my only my only concern and and this will probably be addressed in in the future um when we speak with Council but you know I know we were talking about you know timelines for for some sort of development moratorium while we assess this um but this is a this is a pretty long a pretty long process um you know there's there's there's six months of public comment and then there's a year after that of figuring out what to do with the public comment um and that's a that's a long time for property owners in the city to have a whole lot of uncertainty about what they can and can't do with their properties and if they can or can't be sold and if anybody will or won't buy them um so I would I mean I I guess that's just a a question that will be answered when we speak with with council at the at the next meeting okay do we have any public comments okay gentlemen thank you so much thank you all right do we have a motion I'll motion sorry let me bring this closer motion to approve a contract timeline and scope of service with Calvin jordano and Associates Inc for comprehensive plan development in the amount of 156,00 do we have a second I second that city clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner res Nikki yes vice mayor mahand yes Commission commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you city clerk all right next we have item 5B to authorize a city manager to execute agreement with KY construction who's up oh you caught me off guard see while ordinance was next uh no we're on items and since you pull three out we get to have three of them discussed tonight right so yeah I wanted to drill down on this a little bit it's a lot of money and while I was working through the budget it appears as if um the dawn Vista which um it looks like we get $9,600 a month and rent I'm I apologize a year should be a month uh a year in rents for that facility and we're getting ready to invest $250,000 um or potentially invest $250,000 into replacing uh the roof in the HVAC system and I have some specific questions as it relates to those items um but I guess generally speaking um I'm not an artist so I'm you know I'm not fully read in on this facility are we subsidizing this facility because it's culturally uh good for the community uh or or what what exactly because we're certainly not making any money off of it uh so I I guess the first thing and I have several fall along along questions before I would would wish to to to vote on this but can somebody enlighten me if uh there's more to the story here the $9,600 a year in rents good ah may I sure yes I I have I have answers to your questions if you allow me I like answers so this was deeded to the city it's a restricted Deed by the federal government in 1975 must be used for recreation uh public park public Recreation purpose in order for us to even do what we're doing now which is a technically a memorandum of understanding with the suntan Art Center um to put on an art show we had to get it approved through the federal government um Department of Parks and Recreation up in Georgia any changes that we've done to this building including in um installing uh wre Wi-Fi and some internet cables and even a baffle box on the property um our office had to work with the federal government to get a approved just because it is deed restricted if we don't use it for that purpose then the federal government takes it back um the $800 is part of the memorandum of understanding that agreement is up in 2025 I believe um and then in that point you can always renew it for a higher fee but it comes out to $9,600 because it's $800 a month for the suntan Art Center to put on an art show based on artwork that's prepared at our public facilities essentially so it's very restrictive on the use of it but it has to be open to the public parking lot included and so the parking lot was deed as part of the property as well building and the parking lot understand go ahead I was just going to say I'm very familiar with it since it's so close but there's also a park as well but um the the Fisheries it is very specific and it's more than just the sentan art gallery I mean there's a lot of other classes available for the community there um The Toast Masters for example goes there there's yoga classes being held so it's more than just art that's being offered um obviously more intense in art Pro you know for for for the citizens I know I'm one that's used it in many who who use that facility as well as a community center um just kind of like um the community center and our rec center or the one down in past the grill the the Webster correct it's we use it the same way so there's there's many uses um and just a question to Matthew um since you you talking about the federal part this is also historic if I'm correct right has historic um building um because it was it's part of the Donar Hotel so I don't know if you're familiar with with the history um though I'm not sure when that National U registration happened but my question is more about does that have this have to be approved through the feds because it is a historic building um does it have to go through their approval architectural let's say approval process I'm not sure um that's just the question I have for that thank so so I do know that it's on the National Registry it is historically designated um do you need approval I don't know the answer to that question so um commissioner renski res yes I'll get you a cheat sheet yes that won't do any good it's not cheat sheet um so I assume you would admit $9,600 a year is not much money for the investment we're making here but I recognize there's other uses just like the Warren Webster building um and many of those uses are communitybased uses is there let's say this building were to go go away is there anywhere else that's feasible for these type functions to happen well I guess I I would ask um are we receiving any rent from any of the other community centers you know are you getting anything from Webster Hall are we getting anything from the rec center this is an asset for the city so unless the question you're proposing is do we eliminate an asset for the city um to reduce costs it it's the same asset that we would have with the Webster or um with the rec center um Community Center or the right the community center correct so um which obviously has expenses we we also have to do the HVAC for the community center as well um you know it's an asset for the city so and I I certainly understand that I just I you know this is a pretty big expense we're getting ready to lay out so um I know that we do get rents for the Webster building I do I think last year we got 100,000 on the community center and rent uh which you know is not a small number but it's probably not enough uh for that particular facility it just seems like this is a very expensive facility albeit beautiful um I I and I'm not saying that we ought to give it back to the federal government or any of that I just want to have the discussion um so I've raised that issue if anybody else um questions at then then fine I would like to ask some specific questions as it relates to the repairs and the maintenance that's been outlined to us and I I guess Madam city manager is Mr Clark available to answer those questions yes commissioner while Mike makes his way up here is there because I mean it' be it's nice to have a city asset in that location we don't have very many is there a way to actually acquire it from the federal government so at least we own it so that when we spend money on something we spend money as an owner rather than a tenant great question don't know but I do know you can't this isn't something that you can lease right you can't give someone an interest in this property no no same I'm saying like can I'm just saying to your point like it has to be used you can't lease it you I mean even this this this concession or this memorandum of understanding I'd prefer lease agreement but we can't even call it that understand right um but to your point mayor great question yeah I mean if we own it then it leaves us now it leaves us open to hey if they wanted to host a wedding party next door some now we have additional uses that we could use it for where we could offset some of the costs right and if the federal government is I mean it it almost sounds like it's a building that they're really not interested in having so they're giving it to us to hold on to for them while we carry all the expenses um but if we could just acquire the property in some way anyway Mr Clark I leave commissioner Mahal and have a few few questions for you yes sir Mr Clark um so one question it struck me when I saw the estimates um and I went to the building today um I I was able to get in all the rooms with the exception of the one underneath the tile roof um my experience and understanding is that towel roofs typically in Florida have a 25 to 35 year lifespan um I know the flat roof that's a that's a whole different story but it's been bundled in here that we need to replace the tower roof is that side leaking I know I'm going to talk a little bit about the other the flat roof side in a minute but specific to the tow roof side is it is that leaking as well or it's like well these guys have got to put HVAC units in they've got to redo the flat roof we and the tile roof isn't great but maybe it's okay but let's just do it all at once which If This Were a revenue producing place to me that would make perfect sense but this isn't a revenue this is a nice place to have that's really pretty um so the tower roof 20 years isn't that a little premature I can address the uh that we had a professional inspector go up there give an assessment uh do a complete and thorough review of all three of the roofing systems came up with a report and the report was it it is in the facility's best interest to replace all three Roof Systems at this time okay you have to remember we're we're framing these Roof Systems down on over 100y old boards uh that uh have uh weathered with their age and so how we address this kind of maintenance is important okay um so we are maintaining this building if there's if there's an issue um with a leak or what have you the city of St Pete Beach is repairing that or the it's not a tenant I understand but the for INT all intents and purposes the is the tenant doing the internal repairs or are we obligated to do the internal repairs of uh roof leak or something of that nature to the best of my knowledge the major repairs have been done by the city uh since I've been here uh 5 years or so ago we had a major replacement of a lot of the stucco on all sides of that facility that had be uh been damaged over time be you know because we had roof leaks leaking down in between the stucco and the and the plaster beneath it uh we actually had a professional team out of Michigan who specializes in that kind of historic preservation uh come down and do that particular project uh the elevator is a little problematic from time to time uh and just other aspects I think facilities maintenance has their calls to go in there for whatever small things happen inside the structure these are these these big items come to public works yeah bringing people in to do the sucko stucko from Michigan sounds expensive but uh okay so you don't really sounds like you don't really know how if the roof leak has been repaired previously it needs to be repaired now it's not desperate but it's the the the ceiling has been damaged uh in the second floor area that I was able to well two spots but particularly in the probably the meeting room um do you know is that just a one-time leak or have we repaired that before do you do you have any knowledge of that there have been repairs uh previous to this uh small in nature site specific but again as I said you know when we have a professional Roofing inspector walk through the building and they give us a report as to what the best course of action is uh now at this point to prevent further damage and take care of the systems uh then that's that's what we're basing our recommendation on I think that's all my questions thank you thank you commissioner questions comments from the commission do we have any public comments thank you thank you Mr Clark can I ask one question for for the staff or you know the city manager um knowing that this is a and the reason I've brought up about the historic nature of the bill building um had we considered looking for potential funding through the natural National Registry um because we don't have me I mean the Donar hotel is the only other property in the city of St Pete Beach that has a National Registry if if I'm correct right other than than this particular property is there a possibility to looking to see it maybe um no I I see a nod but maybe I I don't I don't think the Dawn and this are the only two on the national register there are home there are homes in Pastor grill that are for oh that are on the national okay good all right so our shuffle board Shack I it's on the registry pardon the the shuffle board Shack okay okay but propert so property owned I guess I said I'm not talking about City owned City owned correct City owned so um you know I it's not that I'm trying to delay this repair but you know know if we repair um but there's a grant out there it's almost can you can we still search for one and and acquire the funds to pay back what we repaired or somehow to talk to the federal government um who's responsible the I don't know if it's the Veterans Administration or who's who's the division in the Feds that that's managing this um memorandum that we have but is it possible to work with them to find out if we could find funding um to replace the cost right to to reimburse the city back just a question I'm I'm not looking for an answer but well I just want to clarify federal government has transferred title to this property to the city so we are not renting it we are not leasing it we own the property for all intensive purposes we are just restricted on how we can use it correct um that would be a great question for the historic preservation board Lyn Rosetti applies for Grants she just got one to do surveys down Cory Avenue know she got one to do and and pass a girl she gets roughly $50,000 a year through state grants and I think that's a perfect opportunity she's using this particular building for the survey that we're doing in the Donar neighborhood and in conjunction with Bel Vista as a contributing um structure structure correct can we apply for Grants if we approve this tonight or do we have to wait to approve this and then apply for Grants and then bring it back so my understanding with Federal money and you can correct me if it's is FEMA but if you start a project before the federal government approves your project that you pretty much are null and void on any work done prior to the government approving it and my additional experience with the federal government is they are the slowest to operate on any grant money so I mean best case scenario two years to get a grant through on a historic so I I think it's a great question um kind it's kind of exciting actually um I haven't delved into this particular area I can't imagine that there aren't some types of Grants along the lines that you're thinking um it would I don't believe it would be FEMA there are typ typically yeah they're typically a disaster recovery style group um it would be somewhere down deep in the bowels of some three-letter agency that deals with uh you know the historic register buildings and such of that nature uh I think we could probably find ourselves a um professional who deals in the financing of these kinds of things and ask some questions uh to commissioner moland's point you know is this something important to do I absolutely recommend that this is something that we do but we don't have to do it today uh the building's not going to fall down the Timbers aren't going to rot away the termites aren't going to eat it um so I think we've got some time and if it's a year that might be a little bit tough um but if it's if it's just a couple of weeks or a month for us to find out what the grant Cycles are and what the possibilities are then we can apply that timeline to the damages that we're seeing and make a more intelligent decision U moving forward as you know do we wait like a year or two years for a cycle like we are with the boat ramp or are we going to walk right into a grant cycle that ends in November and there you are uh so I'm I'm perfectly comfortable with stepping back for a short period of time uh seeking the advice of a professional that operates in this realm and find out what the answer to your question is how long are your bids good for 90 days and then they will reassess because this is a continuing contractor so basically we'll just put a pause on this and if there's price escalation later on then we can you know we can work that in this is not a bid this was not put out on the street this is a continuing Services contractor that's under our uh we can you know we can do a task order and modify this at any time so we're not in jeopardy of losing these these uh projects okay you think that's something that I mean I hate to task staff to do something it's not my job to but we have a lobbyist team City pays for so I'm already trying to get an email out to them to see what the cycle is for federal they're talking three months to do some study or some kind of quick reach so that we you can come back and say no I just don't want to mislead you there is nothing quick with the federal government no I just might to be very clear I've never had anything go quickly but I think we would know the answer as to whether or not there's availability of funds and what the grant Cycles are fairly quickly we can find that out quickly okay and then the second decision be which which which which way do you go okay so there's a consensus that we table us for one or two commission meetings to give staff an opportunity to look and see if there are any uh what's the language Matthew for um an uncertain date to return your guess is as good as mine well a certain date right we're saying not go over the 90 days we just pull this from the continuing this to a date certain or are you no yeah contining into a date uncertain I don't know if it'll take us two weeks or a month and a half I think Francis has clear direction to just bring it back when it's ready I like it go so we're in agreement for both items 5 B and C formerly 4B and C instructions to the city manager are to table us for tonight I am and then take a look and see if there's any grant opportunities thank you all right next we have action item 5D the change order for half Associates for B vestus Drive seaw wall yes Mr Mayor I had asked this to be moved only because I need clarification this um so I seem to recall um it was probably during the budget meetings I though I'm not certain um Mr Clark um spoke to the fact that we were going to do a test of the new title valves and that test was going to take place in the Don CeSar neighborhood that was my recollection of it and then when I saw this change order and I read the conditions of the change order it kind of sounded like this is what was going to happen in the dawn C our neighborhood as a as a test and then when I looked at the total dollar amounts and it didn't really seemed like that it was anywhere near the same kind of money we were talking about for the Don CeSar test uh so I guess my question is is this the test of the the vaulted title check valves or is this something different and the da Cesar test is still going to happen um moving forward so the Don CeSar project is a retrofit of five previously constructed outfall structures and the concepts that we're using the ti check valve Vault was a concept that was created by me and several other engineers and designed by H and I have shared that design with uh other Engineers outside of our organization and everybody's very interested in it uh and partnering it up with a baffle box makes sense for the debris issue or the interference of the proper operation of a tide check valve and as representative Cheney mentioned the water quality aspects of return turning water to the Bay so whether or not it's a test uh you know this is the first time anybody's done this so we can call it a test I have a high level of confidence in its success um the Bel Vista neighborhood was previously approved for tide check valves at two locations um that road in B Vista floods very similar to the roads and uh in the Don CeSar neighborhood and when we first thought about what we were going to do in B Vista we had a number of ideas uh because the topography there is just a little bit different the seaw wall configurations is a little different and you know we want to make sure that we're addressing the uniquenesses of the uh particular neighborhood's requirements and so we awarded that task for design um see here I think it's November 27 2023 MH okay just bundle my stuff up here um when we awarded that design for the tie check vales we were still thinking our way through what's the best configuration for that neighborhood and so in that award we mentioned baffle boxes but we said designed by others because we weren't positive it was going to be a Suntree baffle box or some other structure that we were kind of thinking about um after a lot of thinking and conversation with Engineers uh we could not come up with a better solution than the pre-manufactured Sun tree baffle box and so what this does is it brings that baffle box into this design and makes this design the same as what we are doing in the Casablanca neighborhood in two locations does that make sense so isn't this one a lot less expensive than what's projected for the other one uh it's only two location so in individually they're all about the same cost of design but by using Hof and bringing the baffle boxes into this one we kind of gain a little we we take advantage of their experience so they're not going to spend as many hours doing uh doing this and so we do get a little bit of a price break on it from that perspective so um and I asked this question specific to this actual request um but also how does any of this affect the passor gril way Replacements uh the city engineer and I are preparing a um future tie check valve prioritization report for the city manager so that she can um understand why we select the locations that we select and how we go about doing that and what the criteria are we we'll have that report fairly quickly uh and um when the time is appropriate we can bring the the right projects for the right reasons back to you all for uh approval so the passag gr tie check valves uh there's also one for the Bell Vista aisle Drive neighborhood District one's got some issues so I'll just tell you that it's the depth of flooding in the roadway that prevents transportation from taking place place during high water events that pretty much drives the train of decision making so we'll be bringing that data from previous reports forward to the city manager for analysis and Madam city manager just to clarify and I know there'll be amendments um but the Donar check valves as well as the passor grill way check valves were in this budget that was just approved that's that's one of the project that I didn't see so I think it's a last year's budget I think so the the $750,000 resiliency fund that was created almost to this day last year uh was restricted As I understood it to the Donar neighborhood correct but there is a sustainability fund and there are other storm water funds available for these kinds of projects and that's where the other projects will be funded out of so the budget Madam city manager I know we jumping around so page 148 um of the budget shows um Donora out valves pass a grill check valves Donora baffle boxes dones are b b boxes uh that's next to the last item on page 148 of the budget are you in the storm water I'm sorry storm water fund so it's DC is what I think you're seeing right DC or it says DC for Donar yes that is correct those are in the 2025 budget yes okay I I just wanted since we were talking about that I just wanted to confirm that thank you thank you now that's that's design and and built out that the money that I think you're seeing on that budget um Mike let me ask one question because maybe this might help and it'll help me for sure um or commissioner mahalan as well what is the total expense because this this is a second it's almost like a change in design right so back in November of last year we approved 18,000 um what was it $188,200 for a continuing contract for professional design service so to me continuing means that there was something even prior to that right no so this is why is it continuing so that that was the initial design for these particular locations in B Vista no we use the word continuing to describe the form of contract that we have with the design firm of half they continue from year to year as we continue to renew them and so through that through the course of the year we can give them a task order for anything within their scope of services and right now we have about 12 projects with half okay so this is um more like 28,000 in total if you're thinking of the change that we're adding 18 and 10 yeah okay but uh we really did want to bring this before you to the you know so that everybody would understand what our intents are to try to protect our neighborhoods oh absolutely thank you Mike thank you your honor do we have a motion I make a motion to authorize the city manager to execute the change order with half Associates for the Bell Vista Drive seaw wall outfall modifications project in the amount of $10,000 $74.98 Second City Clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki yes mayor petrilla yes motion carries thank you next we have ordinances 6A final reading of ordinance 2024 d02 clerk yes thank you mayor 20 ordinance 20242 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida amending the code of ordinances chapter 98 buildings and building regulations article 3 Property Maintenance section 98- 66 residential and Commercial Property Maintenance Article 4 seaw Walls bulkheads and retaining walls section 98-10 standards for seaw walls bulkheads and ret retaining walls not on Gulf of Mexico section 98-101 standards for walls bulkheads and retaining walls on the Gulf of Mexico section 98-104 appeals providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scrier error construction publication and an effective [Applause] date good evening Brandon Barry planner so I just wanted to quickly cover the purpose of this ordinance I can definitely go into more detail if you have any specific questions the first first is to reintroduce seaw wall bulkhead and retaining wall variance standards and requirements the last update to our variance standards for seaw walls was in 1997 at the time the standards um were tied to other chapters and and sections of our code of ordinances boards had different responsibilities they've just become out of date as other sections have been updated we have not been updating the seaw wall standards for variances so this is just an opportunity to uh bring those back in and ensure that the standards are in line with how we have previously reviewed variances we are proposing it to be an administrative process it's something that would be reviewed by the building official at the time that the permit is made for application the variant standards would need to be supported by a marine engineer analysis it would not just be um you know filled out by by a property owner it would be by an Marine engineer appeals as for anything else would come to the city commission or designated board the second is to update outdated Technical and construction standards again over over 25 years since these standards have been looked at at the time um the standards really relied on uh concrete and aluminum since then there have been fiberglass there have been other materials that have been introduced it's really to bring the technical and construction standards up to date and the second is to or sorry the third is to set minimum maintenance requirements for seaw walls city does not have any explicit seaw wall bulkhead retaining wall ordinances at the moment we are proposing to add those in compared to the first reading there were four amendments to were discussed with you at the first reading the first is to maintain the existing cap thickness and width standards the first readings show those standards removed we just added them back in there have been no alterations to those standards they were just reintroduced the second is requiring steel to be corrosion resistant steel is one sorry corrosion is one of the leading causes of failure in Sea walls the cost of corrosion resistance steel isn't much higher it isn't much more burden on the property owner so that is something that the building official is requesting the third is out of a discussion that we had at the first reading adding in standards adding in references to living shorelines throughout the amendments to make sure that they comply with the navd88 height requirements that were adopted a few years back whenever there's any kind of newer substantial Improvement obviously we don't have many living shorelines in the city but when they are introduced we want to make sure that they meet those standards and that they comply with the other development standards that they're backed by Sound Engineering analysis and and so on the fourth was another discussion Point um we we didn't want to inordinately burden property owners that are maintaining their seaw walls that are maintaining seaw walls at the height that they were properly permitted for under this ordinance that may be a discussion that the city has in the future but the intent with this was really just to introduce some maintenance standards to make sure that seaw walls are not physically degrading um whether or not they've been properly permitted through through our office so what this update does is remove any overtopping from a properly maintained Seawall that may have been constructed in 2019 2020 before the new navd standards were introduced we did not want somebody who had been properly maintaining their seaw wall who experienced over topping to need to bring the seaw wall into compliance with the current code as long as they are maintaining it the way that it it was permitted uh so we did just clarify that language to exclude those from the definition of a degraded seaw wall prot protection structure and those were the four changes from the first reading we ask that you motion to adopt ordinance 20242 did you have any questions for May Commissioners just one question um I know we talked about um backfill right since these are going to be engineering designs that the building official will then look if there needs to be a variance is do we have to update the backfill ordinance or because we allow the engineers to bring the design to the building official it can be done at that point I believe it can be done at that point I don't know that there's any specific standard related to backfill at least in R code um I and I I wish it was here I know we at a standard for it but there is a certain distance at which the seaw wall can project off the rear property line to where or sorry to the rear Pary line I think it's 12 in that's the point where the state gets involved so there are other standards that we're not necessarily responsible for here at the city okay thank you Brandon and one more thing Brandon just because we we did get that um sorry just because I want to forget the Tampa Bay Council you know gave us that packet is that something that you all are looking at um as well as incorporating into because I know you can bring this back later it doesn't have to be done now but that you may be incorporating um and bringing back to the commission for discussion we have read through that I don't think anything in this update is in conflict with that of course those are much more involved standards than what we're proposing here um I think it is something we're planning to look through and and bring back for a broader discussion at some point Thank you thank you thank you city clerk do we have any audience comments I thank you Commissioners do we have a motion I'll make a motion to adopt ordinance uh 20242 seaw wall bulkhead and retaining wall regulations I'll second City cler if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner resz Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you next we have item 6B first reading of ordinance 20246 city clerk please thank you mayor commission ordinance 20246 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida amending appendix a of the city's code of ordinances implementing an hourly public parking increase implementing a Wastewater fee increase providing for codification conflict severability correction of scriveners error construction publication and an effective date great great thank you so I know in our previous budget meeting we talked about evaluating fees and looking for alternative Revenue sources besides the dominant uh adorm tax revenue so here's an opportunity to do so and the uh specifically the parking Revenue 25 cent increases proposed to $4.25 per hour for weekday and then for weekend uh also a 25c increase to $5 per hour that'll generate an estimated additional $255,000 of Revenue and then on the Wastewater side increasing the fees uh for from4 $465 to $476 for the first 3,000 gallons and then an increase on a per 1,000 gallon from 1473 to 1573 that'll be almost $600,000 estimated additional Revenue so staff uh recommends approval of this ordinance I'll address any questions if you have them thank you Andrew I did have one question on the parking fees um I know in passor gr for for example we have on certain weekends and holidays a flat fee of $25 per day have we looked at um changing that or just keep based on this we're keeping it the same did we look at what impact it might have if we just switch to hourly um do we have any data on that or I don't have any specific data on that but that's something we can look at and evaluate you're you're s suggesting potentially changing that to hourly and what that that Financial impact could be yeah so the the reason it's come up is it's um I've had a few discussions with the um business owners uh in Pastor girl um particularly on 9th 15th um and also on passag girl way um their comments were that especially if it's a holiday weekend if they're coming into the ice cream shop or to the restaurant for breakfast you know they they have to pay $25 even if they're there for only a couple of hours um and so that in their opinion that's limited some of um you know the traffic that they might get from from the for the business owners um and so the question was is there a way to you know would it be feasible to amend that well Mr Mayor I hope uh we do I believe we have a full parking evaluation coming MH I I with you I've spent a lot of time talking to people down there myself and um there's a lot to be considered but um I I would hope that um real soon we're going to take a a deep dive on everything down there what you brought up and many other things as well and I certainly hope next budget season that the parking discussion uh is more in depth as it relates to raising the fees and uh uh we spend a little more time on it than throwing 25 cents to close a budget deficit which seems like it happened this year but uh I for one uh hope that we spend a lot of time on parking Citywide um I I think there's a lot of movement forward I know Mr Mary you've spoken of it I believe the city manager is um chimed in on it uh that there there there's a lot of meat on the bone there both from a just making it better perspective but also a potential U maximizing um the revenues so um uh you'll have a supporter and me if uh if we want to get serious about getting that whole situation yeah better yeah I mean that was specifically a request from the business owners in passor Grill but thank you for reminding me that we have the parking study coming up and that actually would be ideal one of the great many things to look at during the parking study so I'll withdraw my comments and we can we can take care of this as is and then we'll have we'll revisit it after I I have in my meetings have been soliciting comments uh and my last meeting I actually asked people to start sending me emails so I could start besides just keeping my own notes but keeping books on on the the input that I'm getting so um I I will count on me for working very hard with you on that one Perfect all right any other questions for Andrew on the parking meter ordinance I have a question um because we lumped Wastewater and parking in the same um you know ordinance or reading but you know let's just let's pretend here we don't want to do waste water but we want to do parking was this the way of doing this putting them together like can you separate something out you can okay see a not over there okay yes thank you for the record for the record okay okay so on the waste Waters just so we're on the same page we are proposing increasing that by $3 a month two cents which we all know I hopefully know that that's a it's a lot more than just that right because I've spoken to Res I'm not a two person in my house resident nor one person but I know I spoke to a couple of people who are two people and they do spend or sorry use more than 3,000 um gallons and and it's a two Monon cycle so I'm not quite sure because this I know says monthly um but we receive our bill you know two months so um when someone is reading that they're like well I you know I I brought my bill I hate to say how much because I'm a bigger family but it's much more you know it's not you know Wastewater is my highest um on my bill for my water right way higher than anything else there um it's significant so I I mean I I could see it increasing significantly um for me as a family but even for those who are just two people yeah and so Andrew would you mind reminding us on why we even having this discussion because we're approaching a significant deficit and we're about to exhaust our Reserve funds uh for this item correct sure we do have an pretty ambitious Capital Improvement plan for for fiscal year 25 we have a $6 million Capital project for the pump station one I also presented to you all in the historical results for fiscal year 2023 if you just look on on a cash flow basis that outflows exceeded inflows uh for fiscal year 2023 uh for the Wastewater fund so it's it's pretty narrow as it is plus with the additional Capital expenditures we anticipate spending in 25 uh that's why staff felt that uh the this increase was necessitated there's not a significant amount of of of Reserve in the Wastewater Fund in other words if we don't do this if I remember correctly from the last budget meeting our we will be 600,000 in the whole was that the number for the reserve fund two years that we had two years of of Reserve using Reserve wasn't that what it was from the workshop we if I remember correctly we would be us we want to be somewhere around million is that correct and if we don't this brings us down to about 300,000 in reserves actually Andrew probably needs to give you clearer explanation in the workshop it was left out that you have a $6 million Pump Station replacement that is at a point of failure if you don't replace it and it's the main Pump Station that removes all of the Wastewater off of the island may I ask when we found out about this when did you and I find out about this just found out so it's been less than 19 days it's been it's been in the last 19 days we found out about this okay so we were preparing for this and he's trying to fund it's there is partial grant funding right yeah so we have the grant funding but we had to pull from the Wastewater fund more than we had anticipated so the numbers you saw in the workshop are not what we're dealing with now I think we're in a negative that's right so the the general fund can absorb it and and and transfer ideally we want that the Wastewater fund to be independent self self-sufficient from a financial standpoint and since we have half a dozen cup applications roughly on the books what you know what conversations can we have about so I know in in the past going back 10 years ago um we had negotiated with one of the developers as we were doing our 13 and a half $14 million Golf Boulevard Wastewater um pipe I mean they had contributed $7 million at the time they never did the project so we never got the money but now that we're looking at another half dozen big projects that somebody wants to build what conversations can we have with those applicants if you want me to answer it I will sure um if you're referring to the prior development agreement with trade wins it wasn't 7 million it was 2 million and and the way they were getting reimbursed technically was connection fees so they were putting in the infrastructure but essentially it would have been a wash because anytime someone connected to it they would have had to pay a fee that goes right back to trade wins and I was heavily involved in that development agree M when it comes to uh the conditions that you want to add there has to be a rational basis it can't be an exaction you can't just say I want you to replace a sewer even though the sewer and the Wastewater is okay right so you have to be meticulous with the conditions that you ask and they have to essentially in big picture you're implementing conditions to make you feel comfortable that they're meeting the criteria they're meeting the criteria straight up then they're meeting the criteria straight up but what you're doing is you're trying to to benefit the community because there's a bunch of different things especially in the community redevelopment area you have a list of 25 criteria that they have to meet and if you feel like these conditions will get you over the edge and say you know what based on this I'm granting you approval and that's what you would do I just um to have a blanket rule of if the city's in need 100% we've done it before and it's at the end of the day if there's development agreements it's all a negotiation developer gets up here and says yes it's on the record okay all right any other questions comments on the parking rate and Wastewater one one last question well maybe not last but one more question but um because I know we separated it out here as residential base rate and Commercial base rate but yet they're the same why why do we separate between residential and Commercial if if they're their same is there a reason for that like why isn't it just for all owners you know like what what's the difference do we know if one is making more of an impact than another or I imagine that's just how the raid schedule's laid out and then if in the future we wanted to change the raid for one or not the other or change to a different proportion we have that ability to do so yeah I've seen it pretty customary that you have different rates for commercial versus residential because the loads are completely different so when we do the rate study I'll be asking them to specifically look at that especially when your developments have restaurants and bars and those are heavy loads on a Wastewater system absolutely so I think there is some course correction that could happen there and that's not linked specifically to new development that would be all commercial corre yeah and just one more one more point is yes we do have a major Capital project in fiscal year 25 but also if you look at that multi-year plan that the total is over $27 million in the next five years of Capital Improvements and some of that can be funded we can issue debt to fund it but then we need to you know make Debt Service payments so in order to do that we need the proper Revenue sources to do that so it's not just a narrow-minded okay we got this big project next year but we do have a multi-year period some some large CB backs okay thank you any further discussion do we have a motion I'll make a motion to adopt ordinance 2024 commissioner Marriott it's approved the first reading sorry yes sorry um I'll make a motion to approve the first reading first reading of ordinance 20246 parking meter and Wastewater fees do we have a second wasn't involved in this so somebody else have to say I'll second city clerk do we have a roll call please commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner marot yes commissioner Robinson yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you city clerk next we have resolutions item 7A resolution 20244 establish rate of stor water service assessment city clerk thank you a resolution sorry resolution 20244 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of St be Beach Florida establishing the rate of storm water service assessments approving stormw Water Service non adalum assessment roles Pro and providing for conflicts severability and an effective date Andrew welcome back thank you I've been up here so long my computers died but this is uh the ordinance here will will leave the the storm water rate consistent but as we discussed in the in the previous budget meeting we want to take a harder look at that and undergo a formal study of our our storm water needs and relative to the rates and uh and come back to uh in the future with a potential plan on that but for now the uh as this ordinance uh uh provides that we'll have the the same effective rate as in Prior year thank you questions comments for Andrew do we have any audience left to make comments tell scared them all away and and you did say to keep the same rate right is that what you said yes right I mean kind of thumbs up it's have questions on that but I know you're going to do do a study or look into um okay do we have a motion to adopt resolution I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 20244 to establish the rate of stormw waterer service assessments do we have a second second city clerk if you please do a roll call vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner R Niki yes mayor petrilla yes motion carries thank you m all right all right next we have items for discussion just as a reminder we are due to adjourn at 10 p.m we have 1 two three 4 five six items for discussion speak fast mayor a quick question because I I thought it was posted till 11 is that what it says on the city no okay commissioner resi it may because when you post an event in our Civic clerk it automatically pushes out an end time so it may show an end time but our rules and procedures that we adopted you must adjourn at 10 p.m. or make a motion to continue the meeting to a later time thank you for clarifying it it does say 11 on that so that's why okay so we'll try to get through these and if we need to extend then yall have been so eager to make motions this evening all right commissioner mahand discussion for uh board yes so we talked about this a little bit last week um I mean we could probably spend two hours talking on it I'm guessing but I mean the bottom line is um in my observations and participation in the board of adjustment but also observing the other boards and some of the other things uh I I've just uh feel that there needs to be a higher level of accountability but I also feel that we should empower the boards to do more and if if if we don't want to do those things then we probably just need to be honest with ourselves and stop wasting people's time and recognize that staff's going to make recommendations and and decisions and where we're appropriate and necessary going to be involved and make all the decisions uh I'm fine doing it either way I feel like we're kind of in the middle right now uh we some of the boards we get kind of good information from all the boards feel like that they don't get uh appropriate feedback from the city um specifically City staff less the commission uh so they get frustrated and uh they don't feel empowered so this discussion happened uh I think last October or whatever uh with the commission that was seated at that time nothing ever happened with it and then once again as I got involved um more with the boards um I saw the need that some things ought to be cleaned up tightened up and the real question is is you know do we want to create more empowerment or do we not um I put thoughts together just a starting point point I'm not going to get wrapped around the axle if somebody says H you know I think your idea of wanting them to report every month is too much I think it ought to be every quarter whatever whatever um these are my thoughts um I will say that um the city manager gave me some intelligent feedback today um and I agreed with most of what she said uh and I did have uh two members of the beach stewardship reached out to me today which they somewhat echoed what the city manager told me today uh in so much as adding dates to the beach stewardship uh that yeah we can add dates to the beach stewardship but the question is we're not already get we're we're we're already unable to staff um for what we have and the beach stewardship feels at least the two members that I communicated with today feels that if they're going to put in more time then they want more support not just more communication specific to the beach stewardship I still feel that that's an important enough board or committee um that they should meet monthly I don't think quarterly is enough for that um that's my personal opinion the other boards already are scheduled to meet monthly so there's no change there um but um I I did get that feedback from two of the stewards today um one suggested they do six meetings a year rather than the my recommended 12 and then the other one um among other things felt that if the staff wasn't going to support them more that it' almost be a waste of time to do more so the historic preservation board I had met with the chairman while I was a um a candidate uh a couple times we had extensive conversations uh they are coming up soon um I think they would probably based on everything that's going on the easy to to implement changes because they're already in right and um I know the chairman unless he's changed his mind um in the last month or two uh generally supported my thoughts on the recommended changes for his board I didn't consult with the um Board of adjustment because I sat on the board of adjustment and I felt I had a tremendously good flavor of that particular board um the planning board uh we heard David hubard here I think it's David is David David hubard here last week uh expressing his frustration um about basically feeling like they weren't being heard and empowered I will also add I know there was some conversations some time ago about uh people on the planning board specifically but I would say Board of adjustment applies to the quazi judicial that um they were sitting on the boards when their lobbyist reports were delinquent and I have addressed that and and what I proposed uh so I I know we could spend a lot of time on it um if you know as long as this isn't going to go on for months and months um you know we can have a little bit of conversation and visit this again or or whatever you feel Mr Mayor how we proceed with this but um I definitely want to get the ball rolling if we're going to do anything if we're not let's be honest with ourselves right so my my initial thought is I've looked at that right I agree with um you know some of the changes are needed I I think you're right we could spend a lot of time on it um I think if the Commissioners were open to it this might be worth forgive me for saying this but might be worth a workshop a commission only Workshop right where we maybe we come in an hour early before one of the commission meetings maybe when we have a light agenda um and we just spend an hour kind of because you have some of them are I would say redundant because it's the same change for all the boards right you if you miss more than two meetings if you miss more than three in a calend a year and so on um but I think some of the other ones I think we could probably hammer it out in about an hour but I think it would take probably close to an hour just to go through some of these that is again as you said if the commissioner is willing to tackle it if if we just want to leave it as is right I I think it's something worth looking at um sooner rather than later um you've heard me mention the planning board and the board of adjustment with their Lobby reports many times um so certainly an agreement there mayor I um a comment on it I I do think that we should look into our committees overall um but looking in the charter as well um because I think some of the and I served you know on the beach stewardship committee um I was a member um but the frustration and I don't want to say it's frustration because we we volunteered we came into this committee we read our Charter we saw what we were responsible for and then kind of started seeing like between nourishment you know it's written in in the charter but it's not something we review so that's a point of frustration let's just say for that particular committee what I would like to do is and take the opportunities that we're having coming fairly soon with some of these committees that we do have a joint meeting with to kind of quit you know I W say quickly but what are the strengths what are the weaknesses what can we fix with that committee um versus us just you know on our own we should be hearing from them what they're frustrated with and and I don't want to add a meeting just to add a meeting if you need a meeting you I think they've always added a meeting Beach stewardship we didn't meet all every month but especially like when the beach ordinance came I want to say we were meeting every month or maybe even more because of the need right so um and then that of course was taxing on the staff but you know why you know I don't want to put let's just meet to meet you know for no reason but I would rather talk with each individual board and even consider looking at some of the ones that um and and I hate to say the library but like we we have a library advisory do we say advisory boorder committee advisory but and I don't know the history on that particular one when was it first establish and what was the purpose at that time um but I'm also aware they have friends at the library so and I think from my understanding some people who serve on that committee are also Friends of the libraries which I don't know if that's a conflict by the way but um it it's there but again my point is do we need it you know because it is taxing on the staff um and they're still providing some advisory right because they're meeting as a group and they can come here and present to us whenever there's something coming up on the library um do we need it you so again revisiting the charter seeing if there needs to be changes um based off of purpose and coordinating with them you know hey let's just hash it out what's going on um and and we're with them as well so and just to clarify um I only selected those four um boards because not a lot gets done here and I figured if we went to the boards that have less impact uh that would drag things on longer uh that was the only reason why you know I didn't spend the time to because I'm I'm absolutely certain that every board or committee um needs something fixed or made better um but the reason I chose these four and and I appreciate your comments but my fear is is that this has been languishing since last o I believe October it may have been September it may have been November so we're almost almost a year later and nobody's done anything with this um and I you know and maybe you know maybe not doing anything is better I'm not saying that that's not the case but I am fearful that if we take that approach that we're not going to get anything done I respect your opinion but that's how I feel yeah and I'm I'm saying because we do have workshops so they you know I think if I remember the historic preservation board and maybe the planning board as well was coming back to us with certain recommendations right or we're having discussions so I think in that process we are tackling some of the things that you're mentioning and we could have in that discussion so I'm not saying no I think some people have brought it to us is what I'm saying um as well as the beach stewardship because I do remember the discussion even being on the committee of it says Beach re nourishment but this is not what we do right I guess from my perspective I just thought I wasn't necessarily looking for us to pass and eat it uh I was looking for us to develop a consensus so when we did meet I fully expected that um at least in the the we know beaches coming up for for rewrite and historic preservation uh my goal was to try to get a commission consensus on what we thought and then communicate with the boards uh at that point before we surpass something final that was my thought and also in in reading your recommendation that it was more a unilateral you know just setting base requirements rather than looking at each board individually but one of the things again we could do is look at these items specifically since the would apply to all the boards um but maybe one of the other things we have nine boards seven even easier don't give us two more no no no I'm simply saying is what what we could do is over the course of the next 12 months is once every two months invite one of the boards in for a special sit down with them tell us what tell us what you do tell us what is in the charter that you actually don't touch like the beach with nourishment clearly you can't control that what resources you need what help do you need what adjustments should we make how else can the commission support you right and then look at each board in do the do the blanket revisions if that's what is desired but then also have a plan that over the course of the next 12 months you know and maybe for one of those sessions would take two of the smaller boards that only meet on a quarterly basis um where I think one of them only meets twice a year so you know we bring them in together so then over the course of six meetings over the course of 12 months we get every single board in here we get it we get to actually talk with the board and see what help and resources they need um but I think some of the suggestions that you have brought up I think those are necessary on a just a general Citywide level I like the idea of setting a higher standard and and letting everybody rise to that um also the consistency making it consistent through the boards and uh communication is huge so I like that and I think it's worth us discussing it if we want to hammer it out if we need to and um do that before a meeting that's fine with me I like the idea of of meeting with the boards and figuring out you know individually what what if anything needs to be changed in a level and and starting there I mean I I I certainly understand commissioner Mahal's frustration with you know like nothing ever happens in this building you know like and it and it and it and it can be very frustrating but uh um but but but I think that uh it's it's uh it's hard to it's hard to take on all the problems at once you know yes so maybe I'm I think what I'm hearing at least from the majority is that over the course of the next 12 months you would like us to schedule seven joint meetings with each board separately and the commission start at 5: pm on a regular meeting day to have that I don't think no my my initial suggestion was that as a commission we come in for a special Workshop to look at these items that affect all the boards and as part of the regular commission meeting just like we have different entities come in and do presentations maybe as one of the first items we every other month we invite one of the boards to come in and maybe take the first 10 15 minutes of that commission meeting and have a conversation with them and What needs do you have what research do you have what adjustments would be benefit official can I ask the City attorney a question um even in this part it's part of the charter isn't it the the hours of the time pardon it's part of the code the code um so we'd have to change it through there as well wouldn't I mean I mean is there what's the process for that is it just us throwing a motion or you approach the approach you're taking is a good one I think you start with what they need to do then you amend the code and then from the code then you develop resolutions for specific boards laying out how they run meetings um if since I was asked just since I've sat at every board at this point they in One Direction and and the hard part from staff and I'm not going to speak for Francis is they rely on staff to give them Direction and sometimes there's nothing to do right so the direction comes from you all it's very simple fix if you want the beach stewardship to do something give them the sea turtle ordinance that'll keep them busy for three months I mean I mean it's it's not and the HPB the difference with historic preservation board is is they had a goal in mind and they made it happen but I got direction from you to be able to sit there so it comes from you giving Francis and the city attorney's office direction to provide them support so that they can get where they need to get so just my two cents are you all agreeable up to that plan okay all right it is 9:59 we can table the rest of the discussion items for next meeting or we can somebody wants to make a motion to extend I make a motion that we extend uh the meeting until 10:30 in order to complete the discussion items okay do we have a second second city clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner R Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrill yes motion carries thank you all right next we have item 8B a discussion on future revenues commissioner molland yes and I thank you mayor I I'll try to make this quick um because we've we've talked about this some already uh as as I was uh working with the budget um here here this past weekend as well as what I've observed during the M budget process uh this year uh there's clearly when we have line items in our budget that haven't been updated and reviewed in 35 years I probably don't need to say anymore um but I I I I just want to be able to possibly us get together and the city manager and I have talked about this uh to potentially maybe have some brainstorming sessions to to just do a deep dive on a lot of the 20 $25 a day on the parking I mean the parking is a part of it but there's so many different things I I'd like to know what our debt various debts are what our loans what our terms are what our credit ratings are um and you know consider I hate that but apparently we already have some but we have a lot of needs in the city um and if for some reason if we get creative and all of a sudden we feel we can generate you know a couple million extra dollars a year and parking or whatever can we maybe float a utility bond in order to be able to you know put some real additional meat in our infrastructure I just want to be able to spit ball and things like that uh and as I say the city manager I believe has already sent a d to call out um I kind of don't like that word but um to all of us about a Saturday meeting which is my understanding unless I misunderstood that part of that meeting would be to do just that I think what I've I've seen tonight um from everybody on this um commission is that um none of us want a budget process to happen like it did this year and there's a lot of there's a a lot of issues with the way the process has been handled that wasn't just emblematic of this year they've been Legacy issues of lack of focus or whatever it was uh but I get the sense I I feel encouraged that um I think this group maybe wants to roll its sleeves up and actually do something so uh anyway that's why I wanted to bring that up the city manager seems on board and that's my discussion on that matter thank you sir all right uh pile driving I'm all years I just uh I attended the historic preservation board meeting uh whatever day it was this week doesn't matter and there was a lady um who owns a historic home in Passa Grill and her home um the neighbor I believe bought the house next door tore it down and is driving P was driving piles and damaged her home um damaged the concrete I have she brought some photos in her sliding glass door um won't open uh who knows what other other damage was done I I just wanted to get it out there I did reach out to miss colan who um updated to me that uh contractors have to have certificates of insurance for this type stuff and this or that I think we can all agree that we really don't want homeowners having to be chasing down a contractors's insurance company to fix problems with their house that they can physically see and and then who knows what other problems they can't see and I I'm not sure um there's a easy fix for it as I told that lady when I spoke to her after the meeting um we're probably not going to be able to do anything for her but maybe we can do something for everyone else um Christen uh when she got back to me about this she did indicate that Anam Maria Island has a ordinance on pile driving in certain proximity of homes um I read the ordinance I it's still kind of falls in the category that you're relying on um chasing the contractor's insurance company down it just puts some more Provisions in I'm of the mind because there's other options besides driving piles that if you're in you know a very close proximity to another home um I don't know if we can but I don't know why we couldn't put a Prohibition on pile driving under certain conditions uh I I know she had mentioned that we' have to do an ordinance to do that I don't know uh I didn't ask her this I don't know this would only work for historic well this is historic what were historic homes in Don CeSar place as well um I don't know if the historic preservation board could add that to their uh reite that they're in the middle of um rather than having to do a whole new city ordinance um to to get something in place I don't know if anybody else besides me cares about the matter but um it just seemed like uh it it's logical that somebody that's you know 5 ft away from the side of your home um when there are other options to drive piles shouldn't necessarily be driving piles uh causing damage to to a neighbor's home that was my thoughts on it comment um and I did watch the historic board preservation and I think even on that same meeting there was another project that that had come up and they were not using pile driving so they had chosen I forgot what's called it aggregate Bing or there's two different there was like a floating I forgot the term augur thank you um and I agree I mean I'm I'm a victim of pile driving it's so the Bay Way when it and you don't have to be next door by the way to have damage to your home so when the Bayway bridge was built um it's not next to my house it's across the water but it caused damage to my home and every other resident not only in the Donar but on Vena as well um because we were talking about piling it it went every minute on the minute from 7 A.M to 5:30 p.m. okay when that that construction occurred so I I I could feel what it is but I don't know the codes I don't know what triggers um I mean we've done some cups right and we've talked about when what to approve and what kind of driving when they're putting foundations you not to impede damage to the the property next door um don't know if it's an ordinance I don't know if it's an approval process or why some do it some don't you know like in that particular day I heard her speak but then I know it's money right one's more expensive than the other um but why does one choose to do the right thing I don't know but I don't know maybe we do need to look at it I'm not sure I mean I know there's a lot of people who have sustain damage because of pilot driving but I I don't know the answer so okay so is there something we want to look at for a future ordinance review or but maybe I can um start practicing the prioritization conversation with you now as we're leading up to the uh priority work setting session maybe if you could start referring those items that are important but maybe not urgent to our priority work setting session I'll start keeping a log and then when we're there we can start to talk about in what order would you like us to take these and then also talk about which commission you'd like us to work with and that could help start organizing it and in the interim would it be possible for the there to be some type of prohibition put in the historic preservations board rewrite that is currently being worked on I know that's not a Citywide but it would at least address the the historical homes which are clearly more susceptible to damage is that feasible you're asking me I I think I think we put this one on the priority to TBD yeah okay and then we will I'm not sure that there's a way of just singling out understand I mean it'll still take the same process you know ordinance multiple readings right but don't we have a new ordinance coming for historic preservation already in essentially in the pipeline I mean that's something if we want to kick it back to the for them to take a look at it's it's more of a zoning ordinance okay pile driving in my opinion would be more of a code of ordinances type thing yeah or building code CU then you can go to code enforcement and violate them that way Land Development code they're working on the overlay in the CR DEA right now okay all right thank you all right next we have item ad I can move some of my stuff to the priority list um I just wanted to discuss the the need for um more protective or higher standards for traffic concurrency and seeing if there's examples from other cities uh given that we've had some changes that appear to kind of lower those concurrency standards so I'll add that to the priority list and um I'll move on to the next one we'll kind of get through this time unless anybody has comments on that I agree and and then uh special event permitting was the other one uh just uh the process uh there seems to be some discrepancy between uh the the guidelines that are given by the uh uh the recreation director it says 200 people or more there's a little guideline book but that that's not outlined in our code at all so I do believe uh we talked about uh city manager and I talked about that a bit today it's at her discretion in regards to that but there there seemed to be a lot of things that are popping up that are questionable whether they've gone through pering or not and how that process lays out and if we get notification of it or if they just go through because they they uh same as last year and then it goes back to who's paying for the extra services that they're getting who's cleaning up is it residents paying for it or is it uh the people putting on that event or hosting that event so I have concerns with that um that uh as well as the uh fees for that there's another big one there appears there's some weddings that are getting by with without uh getting permanent uh we're missing out on some fundage from that um as well as bigger things there's an event that's on Facebook right now that's September 20th um over on upam Beach uh that uh who knows how many people are going to show up so there's that so there's some concerns on that yeah could I could I add something to what you're saying um commissioner Robinson because I mean I would I wasn't thinking as an IT discussion but I know I kind of mentioned I think with um Francis about this because I'm not sure what triggers or who you know we have these things happening at up and Beach right which was a pretty big event that was published on social media there's one that I saw today on Corey Avenue that I quite don't understand when you do a road closure and if this has been approved it's not the market it's apparently a wedding second year wedding I don't know if you got wind of this but I'm like how does someone hold a wedding anniversary and close a street and why didn't that come here I'm not quite sure what triggers it to come but I think that's pretty significant um and I'm finding that out when I just you know I I and that was on a Facebook post and I'm like how did this happen and not and not understand the process so yes I if it's to go to the workshop so we can discuss or I I can't find it myself I don't know what triggers I remember at a point when I came to commission meetings hearing certain events coming to commission needing approval I could think of like when Bel Vista does their Halloween um and there's a closure and we ask the fires that you know um truck to be there and you know they block uh so for safety for the kids who are out on the street but that comes to commission so I don't know you know is it was it done once and then it's a five years you know stint that they just keep it's approved for five years or does it come back just questions I guess similar yeah so some of the some of the events are administrative and some of them do require commission approval generally it revolves on alcohol right um so maybe priority list there and then also maybe at we can just get a a one-page summary from staff at some point in the next 30 days just as an email to the commission it says here special events this is what triggers this is Administrative this is what triggers a commission Bill and that way you know with references to the code wherever it is because it yeah does that sound Clarity is good and then lastly we have the freebie um maybe if I may on the freebie since we've brought this up now uh this is the third or fourth time this year that we've had a conversation with freebie about their tip jars I've received uh pictures and from residents just this past week again about tip jars in the freebie um if if you all on on board with this I think at this point we just put them on notice and just say look you're in breach of contract you know you have 30 days to come into compliance or whatever the terms of the contract specify in case that there is a breach and just let them know you know at at this point you are again we have documentation so it's just I'm I don't really want to keep having this conversation with them I'm assuming that's directed to the city manager yes do you really want 30 days to remove a tip jar just or do you want something shorter a week tomorrow I think they're saying that putting them on notice that they're breaching because of the T tip jar that's what I heard yeah they're in breach I mean their contract specifies no tipping they're not allowed to accept tips never mind actually solicit them so I could just put them on notice and not and say immediate compliance okay okay great okay all right next we have reports C the clerk yes thank you mayor Commissioners I have issued quite a few doodle polls I know that name isn't the most popular but it is very effective so I actually just issued one based on the conversation we had for boards and committees so I gave you two dates one in October one in November so follow the instructions um in the email I also issued one for the priority work session everyone except for commissioner Robinson has responded um it does look like October 19th so are you able to tell me now if October Saturday October 19th at 9:00 a.m. works for you it will be it will it will work for you okay so I will send a calendar invite for that to get that on your books I also issued a doodle Poll for the joint workshop for the historic preservation board and City commission seven of the 10 have responded it does look like it's going to be either Monday October 7th at 4 pm or Tuesday October 8th at 4M Tuesday October 8th is a city commission meeting so I would prefer to do it that day but I still need two more historic preservation board members and one City Commissioner to respond the September 23rd agenda format will be a little different the city manager and I discussed the what happened this evening with the the budget meeting and then the regular commission meeting statutory does not require what we've been doing it's just been process here that the city has uh undertaken but it's not a requirement so the next commission meeting with the budget will not have two separate agendas you'll have one agenda you will have your presentations first then you'll go into public hearings which will outline your ordinance for your millage and then your ordinance for your budget also going forward resolutions can either be adopted on a consent agenda as a consent agenda item or if they require a public hearing much like this evening with storm water that would be considered an action item so the city manager is now moving them to either consent or action you will no longer see a specific um segment laid out on the agenda for Resolutions and that is all I have thank you would you mind um I know I emailed you about this but just so that we let the public know what we have an election coming up in November generally it's only the last 30 days of the election cycle but for national elections it's a little bit longer would remind is outlining really quickly so signs yard signs can be out for any political candidate that put this point one yard sign per candidate correct correct yep uh not in the RightWay of the city so most likely if you're within 3 ft of the curb you're probably in the r away what am I missing and they must be removed within s days after the election okay so they perfect thank you city manager thank you mayor and um Commissioners a quick update on the uh City attorney process I am working with our purchasing manager to uh work you through a interim City attorney uh selection on the meeting of September 23rd we will be um you will see on your agenda a collection of uh interest from candidates that may maybe September I'm sorry September 23rd not December um we did uh send out a request for qualifications last Friday it is open until September 18th we will collect that packet and on the 23rd seek further direction from you for the candidates that are interested in the interim role I also will be presenting some options for you for the permanent selection at that same meeting and seeking direction for that process and that lastly um I wanted to let everyone know the city is back on next door uh we do only engage um proactively so we send out information that is important um to the community uh we do not respond to comments or um make comments so it's just purely a communication mechanism for us to get information out to each of the neighborhoods and it is subject to uh public records so we are working with the city clerk to make sure all of that information is also stored as a public record end of my report thank you city manager for the attorney yes thank you um I just want to mention one thing with with what Francis just said and and the fact that we're scheduling all these doodle polls um I just want to make sure there's no consensus that Andrew and I need to be at these joint meetings with with historic preservation board and and I about the boards and committees I'm assuming it's okay I think Andrew sent out an email we be at the planning board I was at the special magistrate Board of adjustment and City commission but unless you give me different direction I'm I'm just going to plan accordingly to not be at these joint workshops do they they have to deal they deal with ordinance change or historic preservation board yeah but staff has been involved from the beginning it's um and you have a consultant and Sal Mary that the city is hired to to assist with the overlay so um again if if you want us to be there then we'll accommodate accordingly I just want to make sure we're clear is that a yes or a no yes no yes I don't have to go or no I'm sorry you're not can I just modify his request that if I ask the City attorney to be present that they yes will make it if there's some legal advice I think staff may need okay I will try to be prudent Matthew thank you nothing further district for just a reminder uh for those residents that are still awake um that's have to we'll have a town hall Wednesday September 18th at the uh Warren Webster building the agenda is on the city website under the District 4 commissioner and and also uh you could email me and I could provide you a copy of it uh I want to thank the city manager for reigniting the passag grill trash pickup uh conversation uh I know any of the residents that's awake down there now will be happy to hear that although some of them I think already know uh and then the last thing uh Mike Clark's not here here any longer but the 29th Avenue seaw wall looks nice it's coming along nice you seen it oh yeah I know I see it I think we that's all I have thank you it's exciting so um District 3 yes just um just to thank the staff for all the hard work for tonight because I know you're here long hours too but I know there was a lot of preparation um for for this budget process um so it's greatly appreciated um so so thank you um city manager as well and attorney you know for the work done and city clerk as well so thank you District Two just wanted to say I do have Library hours um I'll be at the library for any meets any meetings uh from residents September 16th it's a Monday 6:00 to 7 October 14th another Monday from 5: to 6 library library hours change um in October uh November 13th that's a Wednesday uh 5: to 6:00 p.m. and December 16th Monday to 5 6: p.m. and again for anybody who's awake um just wanted to uh let residents know that the Cory Landings project is back uh with the new developer um does not have a project name it is all three Parcels it includes Charlie's Blue Parrot um it is a New Concept instead of uh uh rent it is uh luxury condos looking at about 170 of them all the parks and the residential uh benefits uh previously stated are supposed to remain at this point but there has been no official uh new cup or or meeting to that effect but I did want people to realize that that that's back on the table or will be somewhat back on the table um and lastly I just wanted to correct my b had last last meeting uh as far as uh board members uh just to be clear uh John kurman from the beach stewardship is remained uh Board of adjustment is Chris core uh finance and budget Review Committee is John samur ISAC historic preservation board is Holly Young Library advisory committee is Maggie Milton Parks and Recreation is Jan stic and planning board is is Cindy Perry that's all I have thank you district one uh I'll make it brief um um very excited in our district that Tiki Bagel just opened on 75th in the old gailes Diner and so I know everybody is super excited to see something back in that space and it's fantastic um and uh uh for all the residents in district one it looks like if they haven't all been done yet a lot of those um boxes that are sunk in the ground that have been missing cover for months um that have some sort of uh Frontier Communications equipment in them um are getting covers back on them so that's great news and that's all I got excellent can I ask a question since she said do you know if that's Citywide I don't know I haven't I haven't searched them out I just know the ones in my neighborhood are getting covers on them all right well thank you everyone it's been a long night and we are adjourned for