you made it she be right we'll start this meeting sorry for being late a couple minutes um Mary roll call Mayor Bruner here vice mayor Rich here commissioner Clark commissioner Collins here commissioner McDonald here and now we have um an invocation Pastor James broches thank you sir we'll all rise thank you afternoon ladies and gentlemen Father in Heaven thank you again for your love for us and your care for us this month of Love help us uh to show that love one for another father uh again you are uh good and great and I thank you for these ladies and gentlemen all of them Lord that serve you here and serve us give them great wisdom and understanding give them empathy toward one another and toward the the things that we're trying to accomplish here in this in this state and in this city to bring your grace and mercy upon all so give wisdom and uh a Unity uh your blessing I pray in Jesus name amen and now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under godible withy and justice for all Mary will you Mary you let the record show that uh Mrs Clark commissioner Clark is here yes thank you all right now we're going to start in the proclamations yes yes the Arts moment let me see where I put it Oh I thought I had we're going you have um the ABCs of black history in Martin County yes um I I apologize uh this is grude walder's Arts moment and Chena ch keba miny will be taking the proclamation or the Arts moment thank you hello unfortunately fam is not here today ABCs of black history my information is only as good as my source blacks have been in Martin County since the 1800s when some were bought by bought as slaves by whites and immigrated from the lower southern states to cultivate the rich soil of South Florida a Anderson Middle School Dr David Anderson longest serving School Board member and first bik elected to Martin County School Board b b Bryant first black orthodontist Board of director FAU first black president Chamber of Commerce of Martin County Johnny Bale business owner over 50 years in East Stewart C Maran Carpenter principal of Port Sal Elementary first teacher to integrate the elementary schools of Martin County D God Davis Park is name for guide Davis manager of Stuart Dodgers e Eugene Brown Jr first admitted to the Air Force Academy Eula Clark City Commissioner and Fighter for E Stewart F Felix Williams teacher of teacher of the year in 1957 the State of Florida second black to have a school named in his honor G Willie Gary first black attorney Greg Buckle first black architect H Robert first black mayor Joyce hopin Hopson first black female elected to Martin County School Board I Isaac M Hardy business owner in east Stewart Jay Julius Graham first black general contractor John Scott longest serving employee at Mark Memorial Hospital K Carrie Anderson youngest Deputy supervisor of election Seventh Street was Nam was renamed Marther King Jun Jr Boulevard l Loren Grant first black food service manager Deborah Langston first black employee at the Clerk of Court Circuit Court M gibbert Miller first black Deputy of Martin County shf department audrea Moore lead author of treaser Coast black Heritage in new Monrovia 1912 area in Port Cera that started as fishing settlement o orell Landers the first black woman to run for a seat in the city commissions War room Schoolhouse in portel educated many children in 1929 with the teacher costell Williams who was paid $75 a month P pediatrician Dr Bola gear first black pediatrician in Martin County Willie pway pway Park is a historic gz seld to the area in 1909 he owned property on both sides of Florida East Coast railroad Q quilly mcarty educator for with 40 years and managed the first black Golf League are Rosita Dickerson first black female employee at the city hall and Martin County Sheriff Department first as a clerk then the Sheriff Deputy where she retired after 32 years tick Ridge one of the County's oldest black communities first settled in 1898 good breads chrisy Mike Taylor's halls and Wy s willly Smith first black head of Martin County District first black head of Martin County School District trans Transportation Willie Simpson oldest veteran in Martin County T fam Waters infant Care Center built in the 1920s the mward is still helping the residents of Indian town today and was recently introducted into the Florida woman's Hall of Fame U Union Baptist Church built in 1923 in Jensen Beach was destroyed September 11th 1949 rebuilt in 1961 B Victor M Victor Mardy longest serving volunteer at American Red Cross W Walter odm first black principal of M High School lra Washington first black to advance captain of Stewart Police Department X zobia Anderson principal at portcon elementary and Crystal Lake Elementary director of curriculum and Martin County Schools why yearn yearning to do better and all they did Z zealous about accomplishing their goals thank you thank you Jaa very much mayor now we have the students of gertude Walden who are goingon to sing a song for us real quick thank you for coming little boys and girls thank you they're doing great better than me sing precious there's some there come on [Music] [Music] [Music] am [Music] like [Music] of [Music] [Music] [Music] f a [Applause] wonderful right right look look up [Applause] [Music] front now we'll go into our proclamations this is Engineers week February 18th through 24th recipient Devin ker Florida engineering Society Treasure Coast chapter Vice President we can't hear you backing let me read it again apologize Proclamation week the um Engineers week I mean February 18th through 24th 2024 recipient David Curran Florida Devin excuse me Devon Florida engineering Society Treasure Coast chapter vice president you can have the uh attorney read the proclamation yeah sorry about that LE will you read that sure thank you whereas Engineers design construct and maintain the infrastructure and Facilities that contribute to a high quality of life for all residents of the municipality this the municipality growth depends on Engineers executing Innovative creative and high quality solutions to technical problems and whereas the purpose of the Florida engineering Society is to advance the public welfare promote the professional social and economic interests of the engineering professions and stimulate and develop professional Concepts among all Engineers through education and excellence and practice and whereas members of the Florida engineering society and the American Council of engineering companies of Florida are making strides to interact with the engineering education sector to prepare future Engineers to maintain our economic leadership and quality of life and it is important that we recognize and honor the continuing contributions of America's Engineers now therefore in recognition of Engineers week of in the city of Stewart I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of the city of Stewart to hereby Proclaim February 18th through the 24th 2024 as Engineers week Mr Kent I'll come down and you I just want to say thank you to the city of Stewart for celebrating honoring Engineers during this week so thank you [Applause] other Proclamation House of Hope 40th anniversary wow and our recipient is Rob rener CEO of House of Hope go ahead Lee whereas House of Hope is a community service agency founded in 1984 that empowers Martin County residents to overcome hunger and hardship and whereas House of Hope provides support for basic needs including food clothing and financial assistance as well as life skills through programs and classes in education health and nutrition job Readiness the Arts and more all of their services and support from their four locations throughout Martin County in Stewart hob sound Indiantown and Jensen Beach are always at no cost to those who need them and whereas in the past 40 years House of Hope has grown from a small group of Volunteers in a single shelter to serving Martin County residents through its four pantries three enrichment centers three thrift stores five Gardens a produce farm and a packing house through all of its programs and services across Mountain Martin County House of Hope now reaches over 8,000 people each month directly as well as 13,000 people via its food bank Partners House of Hope also provides case management financial assistance work and career support as well as housing support throughout the year 2024 House of Hope is celebrating its 40th anniversary of empowering our community Martin County now now therefore I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of the city of Stewart do hereby congratulate the House of Hope in celebrating its 40th anniversary and Proclaim February 2024 as the House of Hope 40th anniversary you're amazing Rob would you like to say a few words sure thank you uh thanks for being uh part of our uh Journey we appreciate our partnership ship with the city and our garden that we have here in the Easter Community uh and also just thank you for recognizing this important milestone for our organization uh we're very proud and privileged to be able to serve the community uh and the growth the past few years especially has been exponential and we're looking forward to a bright future of continuing to support our residents across the county so thank you very much thank [Applause] you make you make you hold on we have another Proclamation National children 's dental health month recipient is Lori sang executive director of little lights Dentistry would you like to say a few words Miss sang read it me read the proclamation pleas read our Proclamation thank you whereas the American Dental Association held the first national obser observance of Children's Dental Health day on February 8th 1949 the single day observance became a weeklong event in 1955 and in 1981 the program was extended to a monthlong celebration today known today as National Children's Dental Health month the 20124 theme is healthy habits for Healthy Smiles this month-long National Health observance brings together thousands of dedicated Dental professionals healthc care providers oral health Champions and others to promote the benefits of good oral health and prevention to children and adults caregivers teachers and many others and whereas little lights Dentistry is just one example of a community of dental professionals volunteers and donors committed to providing quality dental care to uninsured lowincome children in need in our local area little lights Dentistry uh seeks to reduce Dental Health disparity improve Dental Health outcomes and increase access to Care by emphasizing consistent Home Care routines with regular Dental appointments brushing with floral toothpaste twice daily flossing daily and reinforcing nutrition habits that benefit all family members and whereas the future is to a large measure uh dependent on the good health of our families and good health can be achieved in part through good dental habits learned early and reinforced throughout life now therefore I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of the city of Stewart Florida do hereby proclaim the month of February 2024 as Children's Dental Health mon thank you well we want to thank you this is the staff of little light Dentistry my name is Lori sang I'm the executive director and we're proud to be the only pediatric provider throughout the State of Florida to offer free Comprehensive Dental Care for for lowincome uninsured children and we're located right here in the heart of Stewart and we are a new partner with you so we're excited to be here and thank you for acknowledging this momentous occasion for the month of February awesome awesome thank you and Becky I'm gonna have you move this way just a tad bit okay this way thank you very much thank you Dr s and Staff Black History Month Nina douly president of the africanamerican citizens of East Stewart would you read this for me Lee whereas in 1926 historian Dr Carter G Woodson established what would become black history months to bring special acknowledgement and awareness of African-American accomplishments contributions and history and shaping of America and whereas the African-American Community has endured Decades of struggle to be recognized as equal among our fellow citizens and has persevered through ha hate and bigotry to stand up for their rights and the basic rights we all we are all entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and whereas the theme for 2024 focuses on African-Americans and the Arts this theme is infused with African Caribbean and black American Li lived experiences in the field fields of Visual and Performing Arts literature fashion folklore language film music architecture culinary and other forms of cultural expression the African-American influence has been Paramount African-American artists have used art to preserve history and Community memory as well as for empowerment in 2024 we examine the varied history in life of African-American arts and Artisans and whereas the city of Stewart is proud to honor the history contributions and achievements of African-Americans in our community throughout our state and our na our nation therefore now therefore in recognition of African-Americans past and present in the city of Stewart I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of of the city of Stewart to hereby Proclaim February 2024 as Black History Month I don't see Miss dly here tonight Mr Mr please thank you [Applause] good evening I want to thank the uh the city of Stewart for recognizing the African-Americans uh Community uh and the part that we play in the community so we want to thank you very much and I we'll turn this in to Nina all right God bless appreciate God bless you now we'll move on to uh child trafficking awareness Jonathan dos Florida Faith Alliance is here to receive this Mr dobs I'm GNA have Mr Lee read this Proclamation whereas human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery in which human beings are controlled abused and exploited for profit through Labor and sex and child sex trafficking is the fastest growing crime in the world children have become the primary target of traffickers and predators as reported by the Florida state Alliance to end human trafficking and whereas human trafficking and child sexual exploitation online is happening in our own backyards with arrests documented in Stewart this year Florida ranks number three in the nation for human trafficking hotline calls local agencies organizations businesses schools and leaders are connecting to bring an end to this horror of enslaving and abusing children and adults through awareness and equipping citizens to provide tips to local law enforcement Florida Faith Alliance and Visionary School of Arts are collaborating to provide awareness videos and curriculum for a children of all ages to be a part of the sweep of awareness in Martin County and whereas the city of Stewart Commissioners call upon all residents to support local Florida Faith Alliance awareness campaigns to equip parents grandparents and concerned citizens to eliminate human human trafficking and help Empower schools and citizens to recognize the signs Turnin tips and save lives together we can rise up to stop this travesty through awareness and education with a long-term plan to house and restore victims now therefore in recognition of Tri child trafficking past and present in the city of Stewart I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of the city of Stewart do hereby Proclaim child traffic awareness Mr do do you have a little uh video or a little we do uh I was gonna do it after the yes couple words yes sir please do thank you yes sir uh I'd like to thank you mayor Bruner for allowing me to be here today this afternoon thank you uh City Council Members it's good to see you um again uh helping the community um especially become aware of the world's uh biggest crime which is child trafficking uh children have become the main target of traffickers according to the justice department and fortunately America is the greatest user of child sex over the last two years two teachers have been arrested in Martin County for sexting students four men were arrested for having thousands of pictures of child porn that were violent and as young as infants one of those men was a janitor at Jensen Beach High School prior to the pandemic our CEO and founder Lyn Baretta turned over a tip that came in after awareness presentation to our Martin County uh detective liaison which resulted in the bust of a large trafficking ring from Stewart to Lake Worth to Indiantown there were hundreds of users and women and children were rescued Florida Faith Alliance is advancing a movement with 11 proclamations since January of 2024 from Indian River County to Palm Beach County and we will continue throughout this year and our mission is to educate churches synagogues businesses organizations schools work and law enforcement to fight child sex sex trafficking and provide restoration to the survivors and the fastest growing gateway to trafficking uh are sexting sextortion and child pornography and these gateways are in every school recruiters are normally the same age as the children and they're starting sex trafficking Rings sometimes with organized crime and um legislation as you know is a very important part of this and uh the Florida Faith Alliance has been working with state house representative Toby overdorf since 2019 in order to change laws and advocate for victims we encourage you to contact our Florida senators to support bills hb1 and hb3 which limit underage participation in addictive social media with certain algorithms and limits underage porn viewing in the State of Florida awareness is a powerful force for us to unite and fight with and we collaborate with organizations law enforcement Educators and government leaders like yourselves the call to action is to support local awareness presentations to equip parents and grandparents on how to protect their children as 80% of prosecutions now involve online recruitment also to learn about and support our healing programs for survivors and so together we say not on our watch and so if you guys can say it loud and proud one two three not on our watch so thank you for your time this concludes my words I want you to know that Lynn spoke highly of you give you this prop thank you team effort it look strong and we now have a short [Applause] video [Applause] [Applause] [Music] hi my name is Han I a graduate from Martin County High School and founder of the first human trafficking aw school I here to equip you and give you the tools needed to be protected from predators and traffickers it is so important to know that all children and teens are at risk and for your sake and the sake of your friends this may save a life know that the average age of girls victimized ining is between 12 and 14 years old and for a boy it is 11 Florida is the number3 state in the nation for reported cases of human trafficking so who is the trafficker it could be a boyfriend a gang an online friend a neighbor or even a family member if you have full access to social media that means that social media has full access to You YouTube and many other apps can be used to look through your phone into your home and contact you dating apps are a large platform that traffickers t to use 150,000 brand new escort ads are posted online every day children are bought and sold through these daing apps constantly these are the top gains that traffickers use the trafficker will take up to two years to convince a child that they're in the same age and want to be a friend sexing while Min is illegal the reason it's illegal is that these images may be intercepted by or distributed to someone other that original compromising the privacy and safety of the original Center someone could be threatening you that if you don't send more graphic pictures of yourself and your body then they will expose you at school to your family and all over social media sexing and sexing is the fastest growing gateway to trafficking [Music] de [Music] son [Music] hey if someone wants to show you porn don't take the B don't take the bab don't take the bab don't take the [Music] Bab [Music] thank you thank you all thank you I want y'all to know I'm praying for you guys regularly and uh we're grateful for your service to our city thank you thank sir Madam mayor may I have a second yes please I do appreciate Mr dos coming in Florida Faith Alliance providing this information this problem that we have is hidden from us in the sense of we need the support of external sources to combat child exploitation couple of months ago had individual walk into my lobby with thousands of pornographic materials which happened Nationwide so albe it the legislative uh body is attacking this we need to further attack it as a community with that said I appreciate it I agree thank you thanks thank [Applause] you going to go into presentation February Service Awards uh the recipient's not here but uh we'll give this to him it's Michael Daisy five years of service with the city of [Applause] Stewart I believe Ben is going to uh be here 2024 legislative session update thank you Ben good evening Commissioners Ben Hogarth um Community Services Department for the record actually move this mic really quick um so this year uh we're going to go through just a brief timeline I'm going to try and make it as brief as I can um this year's been a little bit weirder than normal years for uh for the legislature and what's been passed and the timelines and all that so um this year uh a lot of the committies started in uh August uh September time frame and they've been kind of ongoing before the session started started and uh starting in January um the 60-day kind of timer um started tolling back on um on the 9th we're a little over halfway through the session now um around the 50th day of the session uh which will be towards the end of this month on February 27th you'll see pretty much most of the budget will be wrapped up by then we'll have a good idea um where everything is and then March 8th is the uh the official last day of the session and um and then this year the governor will have a substantially more time before for July 1st to uh to sign the budget and make vetos of course um so in overview this year um more than 1,800 bills were filed uh very similar to last year it was a little over 1,00 then uh the year before that it was I think over 3,000 so it's uh it's considerably down from a couple years ago um but still it's a lot for us to track there's been a lot of political focuses on social media restrictions for minors healthc care access um of course the homeowners insurance uh crisis is still ongoing um homelessness is another Focus that came up this year of course that that you know ties into um you know the the homeowners insurance issue and affordable housing um there's been uh kind of a focus on local government term limits so there's a bill that would limit um uh county commissioner term limits and uh and then of course artificial intelligence is something that uh that's being discussed as well um the staff has tracked over 100 bills that potentially have impacts to uh to the city of Stewart um So for anybody who's listening or watching to this uh it we're not going over education bills and a lot of other bills that will have local impacts just not particularly to the the city of steuart operation so um if they're omitted here it's um it's not for any other reason uh many of the bills that would have had a negative impact that we talked about um before the session started have have already kind of uh been tabled or died or been amended and revised um so they not as harmful but some of the bills I'm going to go through uh tonight still have there's still some serious concerns with them um as far as our requests go we made three appropriation requests if you remember um last fall um the three requests were $1 million each for the uh septic to seur connection assistance program U Memorial Park uh master plan Improvement and the guy Davis Community Park revitalization um thanks at least um in part to our consultant and um certainly uh our our legislators in in Tallahassee we have currently half a million dollars for the septic to sewer and Guy Davis uh Park project right now in the house budget so um let's let's hope that makes all way through the budget process now and uh um through the conference between the Senate and the house and then of course uh pass the governor's viled pen so I'm going to focus first on some environmental bills um some of them I I think will have pretty dramatic uh impact long term others are kind of just something to be aware of um The Mangrove restoration I think is a great thing um to to keep your eye on uh for for two reasons one is the obvious natural benefit to the ecosystem um by installing imp planting mangroves along natural shorelines you're obviously uh improving water quality locally um after Hurricane Ian on the west coast they also found that mangroves have another um almost secondary or tertiary benefit that is uh I think just as important which is their wave attenuators natural wave attenuators so they limit um possible maximum storm surge so uh you'll see in some of some of the bills the state is kind of refocused on this on these natural um designs because the cost of Dune restoration and the cost of um of other sort of less natural uh designs are are far more expensive long term so that's just a bill to keep in mind mitigation Banks um this is just a point of awareness that the state is kind of looking to um have local governments be able to um install whether private or public uh mitigation banks in their communities these A banks of course used by private developers to kind of offset where they can't um currently mitigate water quality in a different Basin or in their current Basin so this provides them a secondary option so it's almost like a like a market for um being able to offset uh what they're supposed to by law um so that's going through they'll they'll provide them more opportunities and uh have govern governmental entities consider unsolicited proposals from the private entities entities for the Wetland mitigation Banks um Environmental management SB 738 uh that bill really focuses on um storm water management systems like uh for side slopes and that's just to kind of mitigate the runoff that we've had in in previous years um so the D has been talking to the legislature and they're trying to figure out more of a holistic uh review of coastal permitting processes for resiliency purposes um obviously flood mitigation being um a big issue as well so just another point of awareness um the language earlier on in in the uh session contained language that would deter lawsuits against de but that's been revised um and amended out thanks to um certainly our legislators and uh and of course U the Flor League of cities kind of lobbying um so the Department of Environmental Protection this is a sizable Bill I've done my best to just give you some very few bullet points um about what's going on here uh D is finally getting enforcement mechanisms to be able to go on to um uh properties to basically do an on-site sewage treatment disposable um in investigation if they have uh reasonable cause so even though I didn't put that on the on the slide they have to have reasonable cause so this is of course not just an illegal search and seizure they need to have some kind of reason to go on to the property um these do not include private residences now so that's just something to keep in mind that this is kind of a first step um certain public and and private facilities um that participate in developing a domestic wastewater treatment plan um they they're going to have reasonable assurance that such targets will be met by The Entity through plan actions now that's something that again they weren't very specific on in the past and enforcement has been um sort of uh evasive in the past so this will hopefully help with that and uh D is being directed by the legislature to also develop rules to promote reclaim water and portable water offset so this is another thing I think you'll see in years to come um is this discussion about reclaimed water uh it's it's no it's not uh necessarily the same thing as what astronauts drink but um we we do need to have more of an open mind about renewable um sources of water especially when conservation and and other um climactic impacts kind of take effect you know if we we're in an extreme drought there might be better options or Alternatives that are cheaper long term so um so the D is kind of looking at that how to reduce flood risk and then also um we're in the middle right now of of doing our vulnerability assessments so D is revising this process again um and they're requiring the use of Florida uh flood Hub so just as a point of um information awareness we'll we'll certainly communicate with our consultant who's working on that um to uh to to kind of get ahead of this if it does pass um so obviously I'm going to be limited on what I can say here uh just because of any potential pending litigation um regarding posos uh and Wastewater for the public who's not aware of what that is it's per fluorinated um alcohol substances these are historic um contaminations but historic substances that have been used in manufacturing of textiles and um really like uh carpet stain um Inhibitors a lot of surfactants primarily use um posos in them and so what's happening here is uh the federal government and our state government are starting to kind of coales around a plan not just to deal with posos in the environment that's getting into water systems Some Water Systems including like the city of Stewart um which obviously has a an exorbitant substantial cost uh to remediate remove now we have to start thinking about how peos makes its way into Wastewater what that is it's basically a holistic look at the system how are we uh putting P back into the environment through these kind of um industrial users uh who just really have Legacy sources of contamination potentially on site or that they use through their reclaim water so uh point is is uh Wastewater utilities are kind of being required to notify through this bill D keep up on uh Source monitoring and and monitoring of the issue notify industrial users um that they have contamination if it uh if discharge limits um are exceeded and and the state is certainly starting to set um new discharge limits that you could kind of see on this slide here um so 10 nanograms per liter is basically like 10 parts per trillion same thing 170 nanograms per liter for pooa so and the other one that they're starting to look at is dioxine dioxine sorry uh there on the bottom um and D is establishing a two-year implementation window um and Regulatory civil uh criminal penalties for these industrial users it's important for us just to keep this in the back of our minds when we're thinking about p in the future we've we've talked a lot about it in the past on on the portable use in water the Wastewater site could potentially be even more expensive um to deal with so it's you know this is Big Money Nationwide that's going to have to be spent to remediate this and the reason why it's so critical that we do is if this pervades into the environment um the the longer that we allow it to do so without remediating the further and further out from potential original um points of origin it gets it compounds the cost over time so ex you know doing this expedi expeditiously is is critical at the federal level and in the in the National level um utilities and energy bills uh Municipal the the two first uh sets of bills here that I have um 104 HB 47 and even hb1 1277 they all address kind of Sir charge rates that municipalities May charge the customers being service outside Municipal boundaries for water and sewer um the distinction is that uh HB 1277 also gets into this annual customer meeting requirement so uh the city would fall into this as far as uh ion understand we do have um customers for our water utility and and uh perhaps our sewer utility that are outside of our jurisdiction and boundaries so um 1277 would be requiring us to have an annual customer meeting with them um and and and the whole point of the meeting is to notify them what their rates are what the money is being spent on it's kind of think of it like almost like a budget Workshop of why their money is being spent and and what's it being spent on um so thankfully this bill which has shown these bills which have shown up a couple of times in the last couple of years they've been revised so that it wouldn't affect us too detrimentally we'd still be able to charge a search charge um to customers that we that we service outside of our boundaries because that obviously has a physical kind of cost administrative cost to doing so that we're able to recapture um what they what they changed here in in the new language is they only make it that you can't do that um if you have a facility that's outside your jurisdiction and Boundary so um I I don't believe we qualify in that meaning that we can recapture the sear charge still but it's just a point of awareness that this is something else that's come up um and then HB 769 uh revises renewable energy source devices to include biog gases defined in uh defined in chapter 366 say renewable natural gas I wanted this to also be a kind of a point of awareness because um not to be confused with like traditional sources of natural gas biog gas is something that uh wastewater treatment facilities and and other systems around the country are looking at as potential Revenue sources in the future certainly as their costs go up on the Wastewater side being able to recapture um some of the gases that are produced both through human and animal U biog gas um deposits and and certainly even landfill deposits those are if you're able to capture that you can turn it into energy sell it as energy and that and that has a revenue uh potential there so just something to keep in mind you might see more of that in the future um SB 624 6 1624 and 1645 um energy resources this again goes off of kind of the natural gas uh idea that's that's come up in the last couple years in the National and state level um it it basically identifies natural gas as sort of this uh resiliency facility uh which which could be owned by public utilities or operated by them for temporary use after an outage or natural disaster um prohibits local governments from amending a comp plan land use map zoning Land Development RS um in a manner that conflicts with resiliency phys facility classification so this is you know um as we've talked about it's it's hitting a little bit on home rule it's preempting us from being able to do something but um it's just again a point of awareness of of where we're limited uh the other part of the bill I think is a little bit more important this talks about uh the Public Service Commission um really focusing on public utilities and being able to um have a storm reserve and this is this gets into our operations um it's going to require a public utility to have uh a storm Reserve amount that's equal or greater than 80% of the utility's highest cost storm um impact in the service area um from the basically from the preceding five years starting in January 2025 so um you know all of 21 2 3 four and uh 2020 so that provides a method for voluntary public utility programs for residential customer specific oh sorry that's a different one um the bill all also provides the voluntary public utility programs for residential customer specific electric vehicle charging with revenues from program credited to utilities retail rate payers so um a positive that we're able to recapture U electric vehicle charging Revenue if we if we start a program um the negative is it's only able to be um uh attributed to uh the utility itself so uh we're not in electric utility but if we were if we decide to get into that program it it'd be very limited but that's something else that they tucked into the bill um the big Focus there is the fourth point which is operationally um our utility would have to operate um in a way that always keeps that that uh um that Reserve whatever our number would be and that's something we're going to have to look into on the staff level if it's if it's substantial or not um so Senate Bill 894 um provides for legal Authority for the local governing buys to conduct virtual meetings under certain conditions um don't get too excited here um as we've had fun with zoom in the past this is only um a maximum of two meetings per calendar year and uh can't be conducted with anything um serious in the sense of Quasi judicial or formal actions on ordinances um so when I was thinking about this it to me it makes sense if if a local government um agency wanted to conduct a workshop during the year that was remote this this would provide you kind of a couple opportunities to do that um but that's just something as a point of awareness for the commission um suits against the government um s SP 472 uh they're abolishing common law Doctrine here on home venue privilege that's something that they tucked into the bill um not not necessarily a big deal for us but this this talks about uh sovereign immunity claims um what I've got gathered from the bill and how they've rewarded it this year from the the previous few years and this year it kind of looks on track to pass potentially so um it would revise the sovereign immunity claims to be basically double what they are now I think it's 200 and um 300,000 respectively now and it would go I think to like 400 and 600,000 um but the interesting thing is they've added language here that that almost doesn't matter um they provided that the subdivision of the state may elect a sell a claim greater than liability limits unilaterally without uh legislative action so all the claims bills you see in the year in the uh legislature every year um if if we decide to settle a claim um ourselves we we don't have to ask them for for per permission to do so if it's greater than our our Tor limits so uh I we'll see if that passes kind of a legal scrutiny long term but just something to keep in mind uh and local government actions sb620 1628 revises requirements for business impact estimates for the adoption of local ordinances to no longer provide exemptions for Land Development regulations so you might have remembered in the last couple of years the legislature sort of attacked this idea of local governments being able to adopt local or is you know for their own reasoning and and they've required local governments to in in certain instances um develop a business impact estimate and I'm and I'm not sure if we've had to do that yet in the city um I on the policy ordinance because they they Exempted emergency ordinances they Exempted um almost pretty much every kind of Land Development or ordinance that would come before us for a for a development itself the problem is what this does is anytime that we want to actually change our ldr or LDC or Land Development codee um we would have to do a business impact estimate um and and I'm not even sure what that would look like or how much it would cost and what the feasibility of that is but this that's in this bill this year and something to to think about and uh development uh permits and orders would remain exempt from business impact estimate requirements so um that that would still be uh exempt I just want to be clear this is really just opening up the door for Land Development regulation to require a business impact estimate 328 SB SB 328 we all remember this from um from last month uh the city commission adopted a resolution in support um oh there's typo there is uh 12- 2024 in support of uh s sp328 the bill has been modified since but it still um for the most part uh follows kind of everything that we supported it's just important to remember here that this there's a couple of differences uh they've revised the bill um to now prohibit us from prohibiting an affordable housing development um uh from being any less than 100 or any more than um sorry any less than 150% of of the highest allowed in the city for the floor area ratio so another words um if there's an allowed density on the residential development um we can't restrict it to be to be less than that so it's almost like giving them a right of 150% of the highest allowed throughout the whole city um the height restrictions that we talked about previously um that's still 150% of the tallest adjacent building under certain conditions um they revised the parking language to now Force local governments to uh to reduce um parking development requirements by 20% if that development is within half a mile of a major Transportation Hub um so long as there's parking available within 600 ft and so I don't really know what that means it's very loose open language but something to be mindful of um and then the air report or the runway related exemptions um from the building height Provisions are still in there which is what we really liked um it's been revised in language we need to analyze a little bit more as far as how the 10,000 feet apply but uh I I think this is still a good bill and um still something that uh meets what we were discussing last year or last month I should say HB 267 dealing with building regulations um don't want to spend too much time on it the applic process that was revised in the last couple of years is being revised again um and this is anytime an applicant comes in requesting whatever it is uh just some kind of Building Development or um you know retooling their property whatever it is they're making it more concise as far as what each type of applicant um needs to do and how long they have to do it so the bills rather extensive just the important takeaway is that this amount these amount of business days is what their the applicants are going to be required if they fit into that category so 30 15 10 business days and 60 business days for multif family residential units um again this is kind of a hits at home rule but it's something that we really need to to keep our eye on um it'll certainly affect the development process to a degree um the city is pretty good at Expediting applications but it's just important to remember that U that that these are changing constantly so we might have to evolve the same way um and uh there's a five business day after receipt a written notice is required for all these applications to at least um state or advise to the applicant that their um application is sufficiently complete so I you know I don't I'm not a planner and to me that says you know I have to have figured out in five business days whether their application is materially complete um I don't know in the 30 business days that you normally would have how long it takes to do that for each application but five it's almost like adding an arbitrary five business day um ex expedited um notification to each applicant um and it's like locking it all the five business days so that's just a point of concern and um there's other provisions and notices in in the bill that we need to take a look at so that's another one that staff has its eye on um that expands on previous years hb1 1221 uh land use and development I believe this is yeah this is my big one um this bill two different slides just to just to even bullet point what's in it um I think this is the most substantial change I've seen this year on the land use side uh this the state's redefining what infill is urban service area urban sprawl um especially when you think of like the city between the city and the county and and how urban sprawl kind of like works as you get out to Palm city in the area here um they've taken previous language that we considered bad language and potentially harmful language in the past and they've added it to this bill this year um yeah and it's it's not a surprise it's what they're essentially doing is they're requiring developers to this is the good part is to uh qualify their changes on quantitative data but they're prohibiting municipalities from requiring a particular professionally accepted methodology so what does that mean um that to me it says what you can't do is question their methodology so that's potentially a problem if their methodology is potentially questionable so it's it's something to think about something to be mindful of that's that's uh the the legislators add that in there it's it's very loose language um one other thing they did was they prohibited comp PLS from restricting density intensity and optional elements that are already established in the future land use element so if if you are as a commission for example making a change and the intent is to restrict or to change density and intensity uh don't put it in optional elements um make sure it's in the future land use element so that's something to be aware of and um comp plan amendments to include the amount of land located outside the service area that's a new consideration um that they've added here and Land Development regulations are now required to establish minimum lot sizes within single family two family town home zoning District to accommodate maximum density authorized within the comp plan um and this is where it gets a little confusing net of the land area required to be set aside for like things like subdivision roads sidewalks ponds buffers Etc so what they're trying to do here is make more land within that development that PUD that whatever um be more towards the actual Building Development than these other additions that make it pretty that make it walkable that make it more of a holistic City so um you know we might we might look at that as a negative change um from a planning aspect and then the last Point here is um to provide applications for infill development must be administratively approved without the need of a comprehensive plan Amendment rezoning or variance if the proposed infill development has the same or less gross density as the existing development and is consistent with development standards so again it's taking more power away from the local government to amend or change developments and uh more to straight administrative approval kind of like what we saw with 102 um this has just got more broad applications because it's not exclusive to 102 type developments um s SP 609 local business taxes this was one of the ones I was hoping that our finance director would be sitting in his chair for when I got to it um it's ens trying the 2023 2024 base year for local business tax revenue generation that means that this fiscal year as we stand now all dollars collected um through the business tax as a revenue as generation for us freeze for every year from now and perpetuity in the future we can collect from more businesses um we can uh we're supposed to adjust the rate but regardless whatever doesn't get adjusted whatever we collect in and over the amount that we collect this fiscal year that has to be refunded we are not allowed through this bill to collect any more a gross amount received even if we had 30% more businesses correct that would mean that if if if the city next year had a thousand more businesses I mean that's a lot but let's say we had 100 more businesses next year that means that we can't collect more money but each business their share their their dollar amount would go down right because because it gets spread across more businesses so that's something that uh might be aware of I don't know if the Flor Le of cities has been uh blowing this up into emails and flare emails I saw this and I said uh it's something that we really need to take a look at the only thing that they've Exempted from these new Provisions are uh models business tax levies that only base it on gross receipts um so if you have like a uniform model that only deals with like the business type and in in this type of business gets charged this amount that's different than as far as my understanding goes is like charging them based on their gross receipts so that type of model is apparently exempt in this and and I'm not enough of an expert to know why they Exempted that um but I believe our model would not be exempt and that's important to to think about and talk about uh in the future and of course there's a financial reporting and audit provision added um on top of this and the last bill um just as again another just point of awareness vacation rentals um it's uh not something necessarily we've had a huge problem with in the city but uh it's it has been a point that's been brought up in the past um airbnbs do have advertising platforms the state's trying to make it uh a way to collect and remit taxes from from those advertisements and those uh if you want to call them sales points of sale um the taxes would be collected by the local tax collector so it would be up to the locals to to obviously remit that uh appropriately and uh the local government uh can still develop a registration program um and there's too many it's a Litany of uh requirements and procedures that that I want to list here um but we're only allowed to at the first time get $150 per rental unit that's registering and I believe it's $50 every year thereafter for each um existing on the book uh rental unit so it it is a potential Revenue generator I don't know what ours would be that's that would take too long to kind of go into for today um and uh there's other requirements but it's just something to be mindful of they're they're only allowing they're preempting us on everything right now on vacation rentals except for this whole registration program so um that's it for the update for today if um any Commissioners anybody has any questions for me yes sir any questions yes go hey um I was actually going to bring this up on my commissioner comments but I think this is probably better time uh Ben have you looked at uh House Bill 1317 it's a it's a a bill that and they just revised it on February 1st uh looking at studying the elimination of property taxes that I haven't seen I I saw the homestead bills which pretty much got tabled in um earlier last month but this one I haven't looked at yeah they in fact they is it's actually just a study but they literally want to study and they want to replace it with a consumption tax which I'm not even sure what they mean by that but um I certainly think that's something that we need to just uh again it's not they're not looking to do it right now I know I sent it I saw this I sent the article to Mr mortell who I believe sent it to jol Lee he and uh uh I think uh Jolie probably popped a gasket I don't know and uh but that is certainly something that we definitely want to look at if that's the the direction they're going you know obviously they have to come up with a replacement for local tax but it certainly seems that um it's it could make it very difficult for us to meet our obligations uh in the future if uh if they come up with some sort of formula for a consumption tax um I don't know again I'm not even sure what that would be but uh just probably keep an eye on that so I appreciate it that's 13 that's House Bill 1317 I don't know what the Senate companion bill but I believe there is one because the article references some comments coming out of the Senate I'll be sure to add it commissioner and and this goes for for all the Commissioners if you do have a bill that's a that you've been alerted to um we'd be happy to look into if we didn't list it tonight it's not an exhaustive list I went through tonight and um these are only the bills that I've seen that are actually moving through the process uh it would take me too long to go through the litany that were filed that we've been watching commissioner mad mayor yes go ahead okay I just have two comments I don't know I just wanted to um thinking what would be reasonable cause when you have like large properties like a large form 4,000 6,000 acres in Central Florida along the Swan River the St John's river somewhere and you have dump in or something going on in the middle of that property it takes time for those things to seep into the underground water and for things to happen I wish if there was something I haven't read the bill either in that bill or somewhere else if they had put up a standards like let's inspect like once a year once every two years then that way you would be able to at least go on the property and inspect certain key points or whatever and know what's happening to say that reasonable cause and you know you have large areas and outfall all over Swan St John's river lake okobi just a few examples I mean that's to me is like a a big red flag that says we're turning a blind eye you know I I don't know how helpful that rule is and to say that DP can go in there if there's reasonable cause so unless there's some big nasty outfall going on somewhere um that's obvious I don't know when you have things that's causing um SE page that will be you know showing up years later if we had a system where we could inspect um whether it's farmlands or whatever the type of industry or whatever it is um that's kind of uh interesting to me but it seems like it's a step forward but to me it's like when you know when does reasonable occur and who does it is there some little person hiding out to check out things on you know so anyhow I just thought that if there were guidelines set to inspect certain Properties or factories or whatever the rules are uh whether under NEPA or under I don't know it just seems strange the other one was about the um I guess elect is it elected officials um meeting remote or having workshops I thought that we could do some things already if we advertise it because I know that our city of Stewart in the past had had a um a remote uh Workshop like a retreat or something and I'm wondering how if this I thought that we could we could still meet the Jupiter Island the Jupiter Island board voted uh a few years ago to allow their um Commissioners to appear at the meetings remotely and to vote at those meetings the city commission board historically has uh taken a different approach and voted that Commissioners could not appear at the meetings remotely the commission could um change that at any time if they were inclined to by essentially seeking to amend the charter and having the issue addressed at the charter um like for example if it was this year and the commission wanted to put together some rules that said a commissioner could miss up to two meetings and appear by zoom and still vote at those meetings by Zoom they could add that to the Charter we could put it on the November referendum and the public could vote on it it probably passed because it wouldn't be a um Miss every meeting thing and quite frankly the value to the community is better than having no one present for example if a commissioner is going to be out of town they're going to miss the meeting so the benefit of having five people and five different um responses even if one is by zoom and able to vote is still better for the community than only having four at that meeting because in theory the commissioner is not going to be at that meeting if we don't allow it anyway so they're going to be absent for whatever the reason is that caused the absentee but the it's a policy decision and obviously it it it loses scale if it becomes every meeting no one's present and the public is sitting here and there's no one sitting at the Das so you know you obviously would have to to figure out some parameters on something like that but if that went through if we just followed the state statute we wouldn't have to do anything locally the state during covid started it but passed some laws that allowed meetings to be absent and I know there were some cabinet meetings last year unrelated to covid when the cabinet members were not in the room and the public was there and the hearings happened um by Zoom now is is the problem that because of AI now that we may have some problems if people try to do more things by Zoom or it doesn't have ai has zer somebody could impersonate somebody electronically I don't know I mean I would assume for example if you weren't going to be here you would tell us in advance and then if you appeared on zoom and then there was another commissioner Clark on Zoom we'd have two we'd have like an AI one and we'd have to debate it but in theory we it would actually be you that would would appear but obviously if it was an isolated event or two meetings the the benefit to the city of you know if if in fact you broke your leg and couldn't come to the meeting but you could appear from Zoom from home the benefit to the voters that you could continue to participate and express your vote would be better than you simply not appearing at all and not being presid in the meeting so it' be a policy for the commission and essentially the state law allows that to happen it's just that our Charter doesn't allow it to happen at the current time if we wanted to do that now um could we ask you to look into that and bring back something for a charter consideration sure Lee would be happy to I'm already working on many other uh C Amendment so already in that in that mode and obviously a charter amendment is different than a code Amendment because it would require referendum language we could bring it back next meeting any Commissioners have any other question for Ben no thank you Mr hog start that was a great presentation thank you everybody and for everybody who was still awake thank you thank you and our next presentation uh open government presentation Jolie thank you sir uh evening Commissioners hopefully my presentation is not as abysmal uh so here we are uh this evening what we're talking about uh the city manager asked me to present some of the features of the open goov product uh the city unbounce to you possibly the city's been on the same uh basic Software System for about 30 plus years W so in the background it was running not only you know issuing a purchase order and cutting the AP checks but it was also the utility billing software the permitting software uh the stuff that we did the fire safety inspections in so uh back two years ago we went out and scouted some software systems we decided on um the open gov product and so not only is the opening up product what we switch to to do the accounting but there's quite a few other options that the open of product offers to the staff and the citizens as well so first thing I want to do is just highlight actually the budget itself so on the city's uh budget site you can go to the financial services and click on the steart budget now we also presented the 2023 budget this way but this is the 2024 budget the city uh and you'll see this photo here is the background we picked I understand commissioner McDonald provided this photo for us here in the in the banner and so what this is is the budget is entirely paperless and when they say paper lless we didn't even do a PDF uh the the budget is completely compiled electronically put together and presented with a table of contents and the reports and everything 100% out of this product that the taxpayers have purchased and we did win the international budget presentation award for last year's digital budget it's in this you'll see it copy of it in this one and so basically the citizen or the user who goes to the website can find the city's um operating budget for 2024 as well as our Capital Improvement plan you'll see that there's a a table of contents here with uh hyperactive links everywhere U as some things we've broken up the Departments into different funds that they belong to some you know some staff is not always familiar with where it's at we provide information about what the budget is and then oh lookie here's here's some photos of our elected officials little statements about them this is the board makeup at the time the budget was adopted and issued okay so I know that the seats have changed but for the uh adoption of the budget it's who was in the seat at the time I I voted on and uh here is the copy of the presentation we received for last year's completely digital budget as well we expect and hope to win the award again this year for the 24 budget Ben you I mean Joe you did that thank you no ma'am no I I just uh as I've said many times I'm your cook I'm not your doctor the uh departments are the Departments are chunking potatoes and carrots and everything into the pot and I just doew it that's all uh so the Departments provide all this information to us now some of the highlights I'd want to show you as far as information available so back up here under the table of contents you may see that we provide uh let's say you want to find out about avalor in the city here we provide the various taxable values taxable value history of the city uh also the adval taxes generated uh this is the change in taxable value for those of you who can't see this is that 2008 8 to 2014 time frame where the values were negative uh or the the increase the value dropped so the increase was a negative increase and here's our history of millages you'll see the city has a has a nice rich history of set it and forget it millages and we've been running at this five Mills for the last several years now um when you return to the to the main page also you may see that there's a here's our strategic goals and long range plans so these are the uh the recent document that Jeb kski put together uh with the outside consultant and presented to the commission that they reviewed and adopted these are those goals as well as how it'll be used but also you'll see that because it's a digital budget and not an actual PDF or paper you can click right here and go right to the actual adopted plan um that we looked at the 15-page document with everything that was adopted by the commission so it's interactive onstop shop in the citizen or the user of the document can get right to what they want also along the way we provide other things such as the debt of the city so for those of you who are interested this is all the debt owed by the city of Stewart out to the year 2041 uh this is you know by the Year this is principal payments as you'll see they they you know as your own personal loans du and then there's the interest that's what it should look like it should taper off this is how much we owe to each of our creditors uh the state revolving fund truest Bank JP Morgan Chase Bank of America and then here's the debt service by year by fund and then down here we give an in-depth description of what those Bond issues and Loans were for where they go and so you can see at your care and as you point to them you'll get a little different stuff so for those of you here's Courthouse Commons otherwise known as City Hall 2 Wells Fargo so as you point to it you'll find out where that is when it ends and then also the departments say for example the fire rescue department when you drill to their fund you'll you'll get a little explanation of the department and its background uh you'll get their goals and objectives for the coming year here's their performance measures but then we also have digitally collected the number of rescue calls by year which is graphed out you can see as we talk about building station three to address the call need I believe it was uh Chief leion who mentioned that building station three basically got us to where the call volume was back in 2018 not where it is today and then also you can see there's an interactive display for each one of the expense categories of this department as well as the line item detail of their budgets uh we have included what they requested what the manager recommended and what the commission adopted and then also a detail counting of the staff there and you can see that this is a 62.5 positions because they actually share a position one of the Innovations the HR department did was started to share positions between departments so that that helps and then as you can say this is filled with all kinds of statistical information if you were curious about who the largest employers in the city are and who pays the most in taxes that kind of thing so I I would invite anyone and everyone to drill into this you can see you can go directly to an entire funds makeup of the water sewer fund its Revenue sources and its overall expenditures by department and its total um positions in that department now um short of any specific things what I wanted to tell you is that opengov also offers us some other features some of those is earlier Ben was talking about these development applications and so opengov also Al gives us a public facing side where now citizens and users can apply for permits online and in that product uh I know that Jody's working on getting it down to her industry specifics but basically they'll they're they are able to address these deadlines of responding to the applicants within a number of days they can route the application correctly to the different people who need to view it based on the logic but you can see here at our website we've already Incorporated for you to click citizens can click and pay their ambulance bills with the city they can also click here and pay um those other services that haven't been moved to opengov yet uh you so for example fire safety inspections will be going live next week on open goov so that would be another link here also you have the building and permitting department where you can register your alarm system apply for a building permit or register as a contractor and then we have the business tax page where you can do a business tax if you're an out of state insurance or if you're closing it and then when you go in here you'll see that there's somewhat of an interactive page with helpful PDFs for you to view or download and also little q&as that the user can click on and get the answers they need and then click here and directly go into applying online and it's it's now an interactive kind of logic to the question about the AI if you are requesting to build a restaurant it knows to route that request to someone to check for a grease trap or the inspections related to that and we will be able to provide this I have to say the police department who were on a different system than the rest of us they've actually adopted this wholeheartedly you can now schedule your off-duty details uh register your golf cart including an inspection of the golf cart uh pay your parking tickets and even make public records request through the police department's point also to that opengov offers what they call their transparency portal and so out here in this transfarency portal we can begin to track how many people are coming to the website any engagement kind of comments they left and then we have stories and reports that are out here available for people to drill into and what that looks like is when you go into the transparency portal citizens would see uh they have different reports they that we've made available to them and they can have stories so they can jump straight to the 23 budget from here or they could go to the 24 budget from here they can also go to these reports and let's say here's their interactive report of revenues and expenses from um any one of these years that they click on as you drag the dial over the numbers change to display a different graph the user can get a little curious if they want and break it into different models um we have this also here's the metrics so if you wanted to come in here and click and say I don't know how many Building Inspections here's the history of building inspection activity at the city from you know n 2020 or 2013 to you know this past fiscal year that we have and then a couple fun ones I've put out there for people um you know how much does my property tax pay in this budget this is your property tax that we collect from you this is how much Public Safety cost when you beat this column then you might get over here to paying my salary as I've heard over the years many times young man I pay your salary like okay well after you pay for the police of fire then you can come see me so uh and users can drill into this and pick different looks that they want and now the latest one that I you know have brought to the city manager attention is um what they call the community feedback product and I I I know there's going to be a lot of interest in this but it's not ready for prime time yet so I don't expect to see 50 emails tomorrow asking for these but I took the liberty of calling it The steuart Wave because they encourage you to name it something and so this is a community engagement website where the city could make announcements and subscribers would receive alerts to these announcements you know if they've signed up and registered with the Stuart wave they could receive announcements that were posted here uh everything from just the Apple you know dunking contest to you know there's an emergency alert U we can actually take surveys and people could sign up for tags that they want to follow but you can also have them sign up sign the uh document of what our civility Clause is or what the registration limits are and a third party so not the steward staff a third party would read comments and posts from the public and determine their civility level and then work with them to try and get it cleaned up and if it was protected speech and the author wasn't willing to amend the statement we would simply post it as a unest you know uncontested statement but you can do some fun things like this along with hosting meetings you can also do things like take surveys so do you have a moment to take a quick survey and then you could say yeah I want to take the survey and how would you prioritize food shelter clothing and happiness and we would collect these statements from them we got also yes I I want to ask you is that for the the citizens all of us of Stewart the city the the benefit to this the county well the benefit to this is that the applicants when they register their email address and address is verified Okay so we've done these MailChimp surveys or Survey Monkey in the past Good Very and there were things where 80% of the respondents were from another state they just felt like getting involved in our business yes I know when we ask about fluoride in the water woo you know we get statements from Peru but uh this would definitely tell you who from your community voted and what their answers were versus outside the community you could also they have the fun things like how would you like to allocate your widgets you know so we have this much dollars how would you like to allocate them to these programs or where would you like to put them either dollars or percentages uh we can also do the um what does this City do right kind of survey and so you know the the respondents claim it like the city keeps the harbor free of pirates I really try to do non you know non-inflammatory things for this demonstration uh can pigs fly your position yes no neutral maybe and then lastly something like we we've tried over the past to get photos for the annual calendar or for the budget Cover Book you can actually do this where you would be able to submit phot you could ask citizens and then citizens can upvote them and like the photos you can also do that on comments you could upvote comments and or ideas you could do an idea engine including a map you can point on the map and put your little pen on the map and then have other users upvote that so at some point you know we plan to turn staff loose on this on collecting the data from the public directly on where they see the the direction of the city going so the open go product is comprehensive across you know we're we're using a day-to-day downstairs to cut checks and issue posos uh contractors are registering and then that's feeding into their building permit applications their business we're going to be running all the inspections out of un and public works out of this as well as you know the financial reporting that goes out and the beauty of that is as these transactions happen it is automated so that report is need near time soon to be real time actually but near time so the next morning that report that I showed you on the portal is up to date so there's no more waiting for finance to issue the report or you know making a public record request to finance to say where's this revenue and expense from last year it's there so we do make a distinction between what's audited or not so we're certainly trying to make use of the system and uh it's coming along very well are there any questions Madame mayor yes commissioner Clark so that um our business tax receipt little glitch that we had at the at last year to now is that all resolved now the whole system is able to go clearly through for new people who are coming in or want to pay their annual business tax commissioner uh I would say new it the problem is not new businesses and new respondents the new businesses and new respondents are prompted with the system from the Fresh Start they answer the questions for the first time time and the logic walks them through the boxes they need to check and whatnot and it takes them right to the point of paying and issuing their license to them at home which so they can print the the problem were the Legacy businesses that were ported over from the 30-year-old system into the new system those new fancy questions and all the buttons and features aren't set up for an existing business and it's what we like to refer to in the it business as a pebcak the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair so the users didn't fill out the boxes that they needed to to renew their business tax and open up their business and so a lot of those fields are left empty and I know right now that the business tax staff is trying to work through this problem with the Legacy businesses to get them renewed on the system once they are established and renewed and open goov next year's business tax renewal would simply be an email have you changed your business yes no do you still have the same number of seats in your restaurant yep okay thanks click you owe $100 pay your business tax Madame mayor sorry so um with the same update of the open gol system how are we doing on the small scale development and fast tracking uh building permit and so on is that on online is that un Target and working well in the past year two and a half years that we're trying to get this thing done I'm not going to speak for Jody uh up in development department but I will say this is my understanding prior to this city of Stewart already had an exceptionally fast development approval process and several of the limits that have been proposed in these Bill changes the city of Stewart was already under so all we're doing now is getting this electronic system to meet that but yes if there was something like that Bill's requirement of within 5 days they have to know that their application is complete doesn't mean that your application has been approved and you're ready to go to construction this means you've checked all the boxes and you've submitted a good application there's actually a lot of back and forth time where you're just trying to get them to check all the boxes they need to check or upload all the documents they need to upload so yes that this open G system is very interactive with the due dates and respondent times and things like that of it routing it to staff your application's never going to just sit empty on someone's desk that's sick you know at the bottom of their inbox now it's going to be alerting people and I believe this speed from application to processing is going to increase it's very it's it's up to jod and her staff about how they organize it for their industry but I know that they are definitely making sure it meets those standards if not best practices even what may one more I'm sorry yes apart from um when we get letters and emails and personal complaints from residents regarding whether how we function as a commission or how staff is responding to this them do we have someone whether it's it or something that's looking at complaints that come in with regard to our system so we know when we're having problems in a particular area we we don't generally get complaints related to the software operations of the budget when we get complaints from people related to Traffic or related to a pothole or related to isolated events we take them into the City and we provide a copy to the uh respective Department that the issue may be related to and either myself or uh sometimes the commission or the department director will address whatever that that issue might be but I don't think I've ever seen a complaint or comment from a member of the public like related to open go or related to you know our email system or any or our uh our uh public records programs or anything yeah and sorry and I commission I mean mayor Bruna talked about people out of town and I was wondering where the slippery slope stops when we have um comments coming in and you said that there was a relationship with it that could distinguish certain things because when we have people who might you know just flood the place with a lot of things I just wanted to try to figure out if we actually have a way to clearly do that now we we we are not flooded with complaints I mean honestly the the community will let us know if they have a concern but overall the the experience we have is that most people are actually pretty happy with the services they're receiving if they would send us letters like that we be glad thank you okay any any other questions thank you sir great presentation thank you Jo open gov all right now I'm going to see if um any of the Commissioners have a comment you want to start with YULA or yeah YULA please commissioner M commissioner might now almost have known that I have like 85 things to talk about so first ma Madame mayor I'd like to pull item number 14 um to just ask uh about you know our millon program and just to maybe have our public works department just kind of uh talk to us personally even though that that is on there for just award for a certain amount but just maybe to tell us a little bit more about Millan uh in general and how we come up with all these Road seg ments to do that so I'd like to ask that I don't know if it's Mr cunan or Mr um leet but uh just to kind of talk about that so if I'd like to pull that the other thing is on the 17th um the city of Stewart will be like hopping I guess we have the open day for the North County Little League on MAR Luther King we have a um African-American Soul Food Festival on Martin Luther King we have the black Heritage uh festival at the 10th Street and we have the Women's Club having 110 uh it says I guess celebration it's more than a centennial it's 110 at the Women's Club in the afternoon on the um 17th and I know the Women's Club has asked me to ask the city commission to go on the website and to make sure that they um get themselves uh involved with um rsvping and attending this program so I'd like for the city to do that I mean our our commissioners to do that we're 100 the Women's Club is 110 years old yes yes and they were involved with the hospital with a lot of formation of our city cuz they they started before the city itself um well I don't know Troy you must know 2024 is we've done aund we're all 110 we're all in the 110 range Yeah Yeah from because 2014 we're at 100 so everybody's at 110 um so we're all in the same um range and they were very very helpful in the formation and work with with our city um this the county is doing their 100th Centennial in 2025 and they're in the planning for that and they have a website I've gone to the website and it looks like they want organizations to contact them or to say what they're doing and I'm not sure exactly how their planning committee is working but I'd like if our commission and if we have to vote on it to ask our city manager to talk to the county we are the county seat to see what it is that the city Stewart can do to to make sure that we all have a wonderful Centennial for Martin County which was done in 1925 when Governor uh Martin was the governor so I don't know if we need to vote or if Mr Mortel can just kind of tell us if he's even had any contact with the county when he comes up on his presentation um with regard to I just mentioned Martin Luther King um residents and some folks have asked me and I've talked to commissioner heatherington who is our um uh District commissioner with regard to doing crosswalks uh markings at the intersection of Martin Luther King and Palm Beach Road we have a large intersection at um East Ocean and Palm Beach Road we have a huge intersection at uh 10th Street and Palm Beach Road because the school is there and there's a lot of Crossings back and forth there's no traffic light there at Martin Luther King Boulevard and 7th Street and Palm Beach Road right by the audabon and um where those new homes have been built on the corner there so I'm hoping that we can follow up with the county and see what it is that they can do to help work with um putting some markings there for people who are walking across or bicyclists or just to make sure that people are careful in that area of our um city um I also wanted to ask about something that was brought up by Mr um hogart uh and also by by m or Finance person when we're talking about measuring how things happen at the city and I know with regard to development and Senate Bill 102 and just uh doing annual appraisal and report on the comprehensive plan and other changes we have not been having too many um workshops I know when we had new Commissioners come on we talked about doing you know the zoning in progress and we kind of slowed down but we still haven't really talked about future plans and policies whether it's more things to do with historic preservation or to do with um how we can ensure that we don't have excessive or or any gentrification in areas like E Stewart even though we've adopted the code so I'm asking if we could have this city manager look into coming up with a system where maybe we can ask our development director to at least once a month pick a topic from the comp plan or something that's affecting us the last time we had a decision to to make with regard to a restaurant possibility that was at the corner of Colorado and seol where it was you know dealing with the old Historic downtown we also had issues when we were looking at Redevelopment along Colorado and so if we could just pick certain issues or certain things related to the comp plan that maybe if in the future we do need to look at these things and possibly make some policies to go forward whether something needs to be included in a referendum or if we need to have that policy but I think if we don't have a regular presentation on something and uh we may think it's simple but it could spark some conver conversation that if we could get that from our development department if our city manager could work that through and see how we can best educate ourself and educate our commissioners about what is exactly in the comp plan and when we have things coming up like conditional use approval or land use amendments that we know that we're not going against anything we're just doing what we need to do to make sure that we're trying to follow and to deal with what um residents have the the the circumstances and situation of their properties and their businesses so I just wanted to um to bring that up the other thing is that the county I think is having a half cent sales tax I had this conversation but it's been a little while Mr mortell might want to bring that up and it's going to be countywide but when that money comes into the city I don't think that there's any limit on what we can do with it and so again those are things that we can look at with some policies of what we want to do how we want to maybe if we know that we're going to get that especially that that passes that we could start looking on trying to uh you know put out uh some some way to maybe start something a bond issue or whatever so that we can have monies up front to do something the state prohibits us it's against the law now for us to Lobby tonight we have an agenda item as a resolution to just support the county to seek thing and then I will bring back when when if anything is approved then we'll work with it but those are some of the examples that I said that we need to to look at if it's approved then that's something that we can work on um what else is there nothing just that code review and the workshops to get us more into if it's even to take every chapter of the come plan and go over it and make sure that our commissioners are aware of what is there and we may not do everything in detail but I think we need to do that so that we don't make any missteps and have any lawsuits when people start redeveloping or developing uh thank you very much oh oh I did say Mr Gordon mentioned about the festival but I did mention it and Miss douly she's I'm sorry that Miss douly couldn't be here but she wanted me to make sure that I mention the um Festival coming up this weekend thank you commissioner yes so I'll just start off by responding to what you're saying and that I don't need I mean I can't speak for any of the other Commissioners new or that have been established here but I don't personally need Jody to uh come up and pick topics about you know what we can or can't uh vote on uh with regard to whatever she has enough to do and um we have two attorneys that are disposal that we can go down the rabbit hole with land use and you know what's allowable in terms of how we vote but the the main topic I wanted to touch on was water um I know there's been a lot of excitement recently with the ribbon cutting for the STA that's adjacent to the EA Reservoir but a little more recently I was discouraged to hear um in Chad Gillis who writes for Fort Meers news um press this was shared by Gil and and votat but uh he had reported and this quote is pretty pretty hard to hear but large scale Lake o discharges Lake Hobe discharges are likely a few weeks away and that was including to the east so I have a bit of a an ask from you guys if if you would be open to it but I would I would like for us you know formally as a a city as a board to if you were open to it write a letter um with that potentially building up you know there had been one conversation from uh major Bell at the last Rivers Coalition meeting that you know we're not looking at discharges and now it seems like there may be a pivot so I just wanted to ask if the rest of you were open to it just you know nothing aggressive but if we would be open to writing a letter um to the Army Corps you know drafting something up that's requesting for them to exhaust all possible options for getting water off of that Lake before they're considering going east and tactfully you know thanking them for their commitment to you know human health water quality the biodiversity of our Estuary you know I'm sure Ben could come up with great words but you know so something formally if you all would be open to it but also personally um it's not like the old days where maybe only one of us could have the Army cores number I know they're very open to communication from all of us and are happy to text and call and talk to any of us so with that potentially lining up I would just like to encourage all of us to reach out to Major Bell text call and just let them know how we all feel here and that we would very much appreciate exhausting again every possible option for getting water off of the lake besides sending it out to the east so with that that was all that's it thank you any else any other commissioner commissioner Rich want to go first yeah go ahead Mr Rich commission Rich well I will respond to the comments by commissioner Collins because a few weeks ago I attended the Everglades conference co-chaired by Martin County's own Mark Perry and um 450 attendees the board of SF South Florida Water Management District all the colonels all the majors and one of the reasons I'm happy to go is because every opportunity I have to speak to these gentlemen I convey that there's nothing more important to the citizens of Stewart and the quality of our water and to poison our water is to kill our community and they understand that they we've all done a good job I'll give us all credit for attending the rivers Coalition meeting they know we're making every effort to stay well informed they know they and they know we care a great deal and they have although not formally adopted loome do we have an approximate date Ben no unfortunately sorry just for the record um the what the court told us earlier this year and we were expecting at the end of last year by December for it to be in effect um already but because of other constraints that they're dealing with with on the legal side it might not be until sometime later this year that it's actually rolled into effect so um to go that goes to kind of what commissioner Collins was saying about this potential for um discharges they're still operating and forced to operate by law under l08 currently um only thankfully with these relationships that we've built over the last uh few years with the Army Corps have we've been kind of they've graciously helped by trying to manage the lake as close to what loome would be as possible um but because of the El Nino effect this year which we're praying is starting to actually fade very quickly right now um unfortunately that's dumped enough water late enough in the system in the in the season so we'll we'll see but uh they seem to have made a consistent effort though to abide by Loom although not formally adopted um but yeah it's a difficult situation right now uh I I actually did attend the the uh the opening of the STA and I was there with John M from Martin County um there were about a hundred people there and the only person who didn't seem to know John M was the governor and it was it was very impressive and this sort of goes to the agenda item we have later is so you know what can we do we can we can complain we can be in their face we can be well informed I I have no objection to sending them a formal letter with a proclamation um but we also can work with the county and I think that's a very valuable relationship for both sides to do whatever we can um to make the situation better we have the opportunity tonight with this proposal um you know we're we're doing living short lines we're keeping as much water out much water out of the river as we can and that's um you know that's what we can do at this point in time but unfortunately there's just too much 16 and a half almost right Ben yeah and and in the issue so what we said to in in previous years and this is good edification for for the community to remember too that when Lam first started we first started telling the Army Corps by June June 1st every year we we the city would like to see that Lake as close to 11 ft as possible and the whole mindset behind that is in the worst water year you would see up to six seven feet of water dumped on that Lake and we wanted to be able to make sure there was enough time by the time the the uh wet season ended to the next dry season that that Lake would be low enough again where we could just mitigate when and how much in in the way of discharges we would get the problem is is that we're at I think in the last 20 years probably one of the highest points on the Lake elevation as we've been this time of the year and that's concerning um on one hand because obviously we could see a a mass volume of discharges in a short amount of time because they would need to uh evacuate that water from the lake in a short amount of time if there's if there is an early start to the tropical season so that's a concern but um the lake with those levies that have been built and the dyke that's been built um you know over the last 10 plus years however long it took them uh they're confident that the lake can um withstand longer over you know a higher elevation for a longer period of time but um our concern again is the higher that Lake gets the longer duration we're going to have for high volume discharges regardless we're you know we're not asking much all we're asking is that the largest Wetland restoration project in the history of the world be brought to a sucess successful completion so there are 60 68 separate projects involved in dealing with this problem so it's a massive undertaking yeah thank you it that's it thank you it everyone okay well thank you very much uh see I already brought up about uh House Bill uh 13117 just want to point out that the uh Ste news had an editorial over the weekend giving us uh the only a grade in Martin County so I'm very happy about that that uh I think that's a win for us and the quality of uh the quality of our especially our staff I I'm going to give all our credit to Mr mortell and everyone on his team for that and then uh finally uh I just want to thank Peter our director of uh Public Works uh for the uh utilities I've had a couple issues come up lately with some residents and we've been working hard to resolve all of them and one of them in particular they're all been a little bit complex but one of them is particularly complex that we're working on and uh so I just want to thank that's uh give them a shout out for doing such a great job and that's pretty much all I have at this point thank you I had mentioned you speaking of the water several months back that we keep these letters going so if we have to until we know what uh until the plan does come through we should every month if that's where you wanted to go to the Army Corps then every month send them you know here we are don't forget we're waiting mayor I just the other thing I don't have any objection to the letter as well I forgot to mention that there are so many hundreds and hundreds of nonprofit uh environmentalists uh in our state and especially in the southern southern part of our state uh Rebel Coalition and there just so many the the one that you went to um what is it the foundation Everglades Foundation there's just so many of them that are always um speaking about it on the ball uh sometimes I wonder you know why so many what's going on why doesn't it happen but no one's pulled the trigger with the Army Core yet p pig sugar yes so we will um go to our manager um I had a few comments uh first um I don't know if there's a consensus one way or the other if you want an agenda item where we um actually bring sections of the comp plan back and have us address them I heard commissioner Collins say that he felt comfortable speaking to the staff directly I can say along the lines of that I it would be walking a tight RPP a little bit because it would be difficult for example if there was an agenda item later on tonight and we did a presentation today right that was interpreted to be in favor of or against whatever that agenda item was the public or the people present might misconceive um the message we are trying to send the applicant might believe that we were trying to uh taint the process for them or vice versa the public might think that we were trying to Tee It Up for the applicant or something like that so um I can work with um commissioner Clark uh moving forward on maybe some ideas on that um the um other thing I wanted to um talk about just uh for clarity we uh the city received an invitation to the um NAACP dinner that I believe is March 16th um I looked and I know that last year the uh City bought a table at that dinner I talked to Jimmy Smith I think it was Wednesday or Thursday of last week and a um table is uh 10 seats uh if the commission uh is interested in having me bu a table at that again please uh give me that direction so that I can uh move in that course again it would be March 16th why not just um per person tickets versus is an entire table I mean we that you guys are welcome to do that to any event I was just saying that in this instance last year the city bought a table I it's fine with me whatever you guys uh whatever your pleasure um and then um I also I think the city's support is good and last time we had um people from not City commissioners especially but people from staff who work so closely with the community with other things so do you need a vote or something something I'll make a motion that we that the city supports this event and and support it with a table I don't know if it's going to be $1,000 or whatever it costs to do it but I think that it'd be good because there are lots of um people in the city who work on community activities and uh I think it's a good thing I do too I'll move for approval if we want you're the mayor so you can't technically do that thanks they'll be taken out of your budget Betty thank I mayor were you going to say something no say I bought my own table last year so I think it was $1,200 okay well I I'll keep my mouth shut here all right okay I'll I'll move on um you're okay yeah go ahead so uh the um other uh things obviously we had artsfest last weekend the um East Ocean Boulevard was was closed but it's open now and it actually seemed very successful downtown was very busy I want to mention that we've had some extremely high tides um and they've started to subside but the high tides are causing the walkway that's underneath the FEC Corridor to flood and what happens is people get down there see the flooding and then turn around and climb up over the grass rather than walking all the way around and I get it because you have to walk all the way up to Sailfish Circle to get back around and it's essentially trespassing um and every time yeah on the Railroad and every time it happens I get a call from the railroad expressing concern about it so raise the pathway sorry can we raise the pathway if we got really short but is the higher we raised it the low the tracks are so like we have to shrink ourselves down but when we build the new bridge which is on the project for tonight we are planning to elevate that and it will make that pass passage way better but until we do uh Milton and I are going to be working uh on on notice uh situations because I don't know if the people are coming from the boardwalk or if they're coming from down the street but when they get all the way down there and we put a little yellow tape that says that Crossing is closed no one just turns around and goes all the way back around they're all climbing over the tracks and we we can't have that because it's um dangerous and it's trespassing and they've been complaining about it so we'll see what we can do do along those fronts uh Mr Mortel does the railroad have cameras or how are they noticing people you're saying you get a consistent stream cameras and they call you and say but they yeah they call me and email me in fact I could read the emails that happens a lot it's very attentive right they're and they also have a a bridge attendance um so so there's they're concerned about it great line trains are going two two an hour they're probably see people um yeah in any event I mean it is what it is and I'll address it but I just wanted to make everybody aware that please do not trespass on the FEC property um I would hate for them to revoke the easement to go under the bridge because that could be the next step and it would make it so that we can't use it at all um I got a i I was contacted Wednesday or Thursday of last week and it was um a woman that was working for Roger Dean Stadium and she asked me to bring this up to the commission's attention and I told her I would tonight she wanted to know if the city was interested in over the summer during the state leagues participating in like a Roger Dean Stadium uh Stewart night and having the Stewart sailfish race the local person and getting tickets and going to the game and having the mayor throughout the first pitch and things of that nature she she brought it up as a as a comment and that they wanted to get community involvement I mention it to you because rather than having you make a decision one right now they were calling it Town Spotlight and they wanted to start with Stewart I said I would bring it up and have the Commissioners give me feedback um outside of the meeting if we find that it comes together then we'll talk further and do it with her one of the concerns I had though as well was if you have a steuart night and only four people show up it has the exact opposite effect and um you know it's beautiful outside right now but come July it's not the same I mean you like oh I'd love to be outside now um anyway but a YouTube Star um if you have any interest to that or have any concern about it please um let me know and I will um uh pursue that and further uh get back to you on it uh lastly as commissioner Clark was mentioning the resolution regarding the HS and sales tax for clarification the amend the agenda item for tonight is limited to we're just asking the county to put it on a ballot for a referendum because cities can't do it we are not debating or discussing what parameters we would set on any funds that might be generated from that in the event that the county ultimately votes to place the issue on the agenda or on the ballot I will then schedule another agenda item so that the city commission can in fact pce very specific parameters on those funds so that the members of our community will know that if they vote for that sales tax that it's not just going to be buried in the general fund but rather the commission will dedicate it to something beneficial for everybody but that will obviously have to to come back um at some point in the uh future and then in response to the uh comment that commissioner McDonald forgot to mention um he had talked to me on Friday about uh some legislation pending in Tallahassee about the retail legalization of marijuana yeah and um in the past the city has in anticipation of things such as that started to put together some zoning language so in order to avoid you know the Big Green pot leafes all through downtown Stewart um I will have the City attorney and start working with him on some kind of zoning language that would be commensurate with the vision of the community as it relates to that so like a brown pot leaf instead of a green one so thank you for just that uh uh as I've been as I've traveled in other states that have legalization and they didn't do anything EV every other shop is a cannabis dispensary of some sort and I'm not taking an opinion on the on the referendum in fact I believe the medical marijuana passed in and Stuart I think was voted up by like 86% so I I feel it's likely that this referendum will pass uh Statewide and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have some zoning in place prior to it being on the ballot as a uh it's our form of preemption I guess again for the state now they'll come in and they'll change it but uh because the uh because they've got so much lobbying money the the uh they literally in Tallahassee this year they had uh cannabis plants uh in a big display on the third floor of the of the I never thought that I would have seen marijuana on the in the capital growing and it and it stunk high heaven how difficult was it to get into the cabinet yeah you know we had to sneak it in you know but they weren't sneaking it in it was just there so I I forgot to mention um that I I had brought up painting the Annex Building a bright white and I was wondering if we could or how I can still go about getting that building painted a nice clean bright white um you had mentioned the cleanup of the building and I know that Milton and I spoke and and he had had it some pressure cleaning done and cleaned it up we didn't um wash over the um the mural but it it um if you look at it closely it doesn't actually qualify as needing any maintenance I mean if the commission wanted us to get a bid and and paint it we can but um it's you know it's the prerogative of the board it wasn't on our Capital Improvement it wasn't budgeted so I can have Milt get some estimates and bring it back and see if you guys are interested in pursuing it okay that would be great thank you Madame mayor can I since you mentioned the building what what about the Chamber of Commerce building what did we decide again Mr Mortel on us one you didn't decide anything okay so but you were going to just clean up the landscape and all was going to do something but the Landscaping well um I emailed a person Friday and told them that if they wanted wanted to present you with an unsolicited offer that they should submit it I um had some other ideas for it right now but before I brought them forward I wanted to Hash them out so I'm not really wanting to discuss it on the floor okay as you know that building has a um 10-year uh restriction because it's Waterfront I've also had some talks with businesses and residents in that area excluding the eight tow houses that are store that have been built since the last time this issue came up and there is no doubt in my mind that if you thought about putting a restaurant there you would be met with opposition um but right now I had um thought about making it available to the public by putting a uh 501c3 in it as well as potentially making it um a property similar to the uh historic properties where we've allowed a um State represent representative to utilize it as an office space but I don't want to go down that path yet because the session is going on and I haven't had a chance to sit down with our state representatives to hash out any details but I will bring that back to you at such time as I have it ironed out thank you and that's all I've got okay all right I'll move for approval of the agenda move I moved for approval of the agenda pulling item 14 pulling yeah oh yes pulling it are we pulling item 11 Mike you said that in my meeting I mean normally we do I get it um I think if you want to I let me look into this I don't see Jackie May is here so yes let's plan pull it I'll move to approve agenda pulling item 11 because Mike had want told me he wanted to do that and item 14 okay so we're pulling second okay second all right so we're going to get approval for um all of them except um 14 approving the agenda oh the agenda that's right all right so we got a a a motion a second and all in favor say I I I thank you all right and then U any comments from the public we have several here if you uh would like to uh speak at the podium if you need to fill out one of these green cards take it to Mary Helen miss Helen McBride Helen McBride I live on flam Mingo Avenue now my comments commissioner Collins and commissioner Rich you weren't on the board and you you weren't sitting in the audience so please know what I'm going to say I was here when you proved Hudson uh on the river and you made a lot of comments and pros and cons one and commissioner Madame mayor you made the comment you wanted to be sure there was parking for the fishermen well on February the 3D I felt like getting out and I thought oh I'll just ride down to Flagler Park and you know bunch of people in the river and that I came down and when you went to make around the circle by the restaurant you got three police cars sitting there with their lights on flashing lights and then all on the right hand side are cones and I thought my dad being nice I thought oh maybe they're having a wedding and they're reserving the spots I went around and then Bingo all cones the fisherman the one that I saw well there was two old um I say guys in their 30s or 40s but there was a a grandfather his son and his grandson and they were carrying all their gear and they kept walking and walking and then I thought well this isn't right cuz you talked about parking how you know the space they were supposed to have Valley parking and wh whatever but seeing all those cones and three police cars who's paying for those police cars and the police officers then today when I went to a meeting a senior citizen who was born here in the city of store she was mad she said Helen I went down like well her son came into town and he said hey mom you love to fish let's go down to the bridge and fish she said we went down and sure enough there's all the they didn't have the police cars there was a police car he was writing a ticket for to someone and she said all the cones no parking I said no that was on the third she said Helen I know my days it was the Saturday now what's going on we can't we that's public parking I can you all did say you're going to leave some no they could take like maybe four or five spots I can't remember exactly their number but we the people come down to Flagler Park and we can't park and enjoy our park because someone is reserving all our public free parking spot that's wrong you you all have got to realize you can't do this to the people of store you can't favor the business people over the citizens especially if a father or grandfather wants to bring his child down or like me when my grandson's in town I bring him down to watch the the trains cuz he's a train bu but you got to do something and just like if you remember the I'm going to pick on the former city manager and the former City attorney when that was going up and they were showing the plans and I said the deck in front up facing the river I was told that it was a public deck and I don't it's in the the record I said oh well that'll be nice I could get a cocktail at the restaurant and sit out there till my table was reserved and I was told oh no that's a public deck well since they opened it's always had tables and chairs out there and I've mentioned it to quite a few different people in the city here in City Hall miss Helen mean Hudson on the river has what's going on he's a very nice gentleman I love his other restaurant but enough is enough when I come down oh that was with my the woman that was talking to me she's like me we're having problems walking and her son said well we'll park in City Hall she said oh no I'm not walking this far and but it's wrong I agree you got to do something respond um just so you know the uh a public hearing was held and just like it where Sailors returns parking lot is also a public parking lot the valet Parkers are not allowed to charge anybody to park and they have to allow anyone to park there so your friends could pull right up to the valet and they'll park the car for them them for free and take care of it for them and they don't have to worry about parking they can park every single time at the very first spot and the car will be taken care of number one number two there are reserved spaces for fishermen down there however the FEC took took over two of them back because of the county settlement agreement that the county had as it related to the railroad crossing and the county required that they have full-time Bridge monitors as part of the settlement agreement however we didn't assign the um other spaces again to replace it because of the fact that when the public hearing happened about the valet and the valet was adopted it was that they were not allowed to charge for valet at all and there is no requirement that you go into the restaurant so the efficiency of that was the same problem that the city ran into in 2006 when the hazinga property open Sunset Bay Marina and the sailors returned that because of the merging of the property of the Marina and the restaurant it would be complicated to have people parking and not parking and deliveries coming and the city restricted it just as they did here to um all of the valet parking is open to the public and that you're you're welcome to tip them but you don't even have to tip but they cannot charge you and they cannot require you to go to the restaurant and they won't if I come down and I see to the valley I want to park but I want to park so that I could sit like when my back was really hurting me sit in the car and roll the windows down and you can look out the front window and see the water and the people and watching the young kids there's no parking spaces down there that would allow you to do that oh you're talking about facing the park not facing the fishing bridge then no facing the park people uh well it used to be before this all started uh people I know there was one um she was a very friendly lady she had like a a van but was like a camper van and she'd be there all day right that that the lady that lives there yeah I know in that miss Helen I I truly agree with you about the fisherman I don't know what we can do uh but that should be their parking places and that's the way it was supposed to been and I know what he's saying and I'd like to talk to you when this is over we got to do something yes ma'am for the people thank you okay thank you um Miss uh Janine Alexander good evening good evening some of you might recall that I was here in October of 2023 um mainly to bring attention to the fact that I was um domestically abused in February of 2015 and it was not not properly handled by Stuart police um I still have firm opinions and beliefs as to what happened and transpired not only that evening but on my initial arrest of March 12th March 11th of 2015 when I was surrounded in SWAT team style in a private Community 55 plus at 10:30 at night it almost cost me my life I'm going to disclose something to you that has been um a matter of humiliation to not only myself but my children and my deceased mother I still carry the title a felon on my head and I will die with it on my head unless I take the matter before the board of clemency as recommended by the governor of this state's office I haven't been viewed very um seriously by the former City attorney who is now the city manager manager recently I had occasion to contact him in email and advise him that when I attended that evening on October 23rd the meeting a lady approached me a miss [Music] Karen robs she called me about two weeks ago I had occasion to reach back out to Mr mortell and advise him of what she was claiming in her phone conversation which sounded a little bit delusional and I'm not going to say anything derogatory that could um find me in a place of defamation against uh against her because there were other things that were matching up I'm a licensed realtor I was very fortunate that I was able to salvage my real estate license even though I was charged with a felony back in 2015 I lost my license to teach in any state in this Union even though I held some of the highest test scores on the national teachers exam when I took it to get my bi ology certification I brought 100% Pass rates out of classrooms in Middle Tennessee I had aspired to retire in the State of Florida as a school teacher I have been robbed of that retirement and the privilege to teach our children exactly the things that were brought up this evening about sex trafficking I presented in Nashville Tennessee and I've been commented to in emails by Mr mortell about sexual harassment claims that I brought against a former princi principle never will I be humiliated for standing my [Music] ground but I have been in emails and I have been publicly humiliated by Stuart police multiple arrests multiple vops by a former domestic partner what I'm here to present this evening is I have no affiliation or association with Miss Karen rth my situation is distinctly different and I find that the city of Stuart had every reason to find fault in her dilapidated neglected property because I too let me finish please I maintain a property in the city of Gainesville where I had 50,000 in violations to go a little longer but I'd like for you to clear it up I'm really actually through I made my point I don't really want to present again before the city commission I'll tell you why I suffer from post-t trauma because of the events that happened happen in 2015 it takes everything in me to come public and for him to make comments and emails that are demeaning demoralizing and devaluing of what I I represent needs to be admonished by you all as City commissioners you need to look at his emails and see the kind of comments you're not listening I am listening thank you for listening this evening I'm going to excuse myself um officer Manelli before I do could I get you to do something for me I'm sorry Chief Tom Manelli because my leg we have another um I just want you to hand this to Mr marel and I appreciate it thank you we have one more request to speak Mr Tom Whittington good afternoon Mr wington good afternoon good afternoon Madame mayor Commissioners staff uh residents friends I'm I'm thrilled to be here Tom Whittington hopefully the outgoing president of the Marine industry Association I'm joined here with our executive director Justin beard who's just done a great first year uh in this job I am here to thank all of you for your continuing support for the Marine industry and the Stewart Boat Show Stuart Bo show is our major fundraiser and it's what we use to do what we do in the community and I hope you'll check out our website because this year we've been very active I'm here especially though to thank you for seeing me in 2023 after our 49th boat show when we found that we were losing some property to have the Show Boat Show and we were scrambling we were looking at alternate venues from Fort Pierce to Indiantown and we're worried that we would have a 50th Stewart Boat Show and by granting us the the road Frontage on A1A uh you allowed us to make lemonade out of lemons and thank you very much for that I have been part of the Stuart boat show for 14 years I've been part of the association for probably six six plus years and this was the smoothest running boat show I think I have seen and even though we had a different venue a different layout we got a lot of compliments a lot of folks said oh the show's bigger well it was not bigger but it was set up really really well all sports did a wonderful job we had over 200 vendors we had about the same number of attendees we actually set a record in pre-sales for tickets but we had about the same number of actual attendees and and the weather had some effect but that was all right we still had a great show we had kids from um surrounding County come and take a tour of the boat show we we let them see the Marine industry we're going to do it with Martin County City Stewart this coming this next year but there are a lot of great things that happened and I I do want to thank with thank you I'm going to be coming again to talk to you about uh our working with brightline and the uh uh US Coast Guard and we think everything is going well and excited about the progress of the the bridge and thank you again for all your hard work awesome thank you sir awesome okay Hawkins put in a paper was there another one no I have only I've have only three uh move to approve the consent agenda thank you uh and then um I want to get comment uh from the audience but we're going to pull 11 and 14 correct you have any comments from the audience I see none oh maybe it's an item can I get approval we get approv one we get a second are we already got yes we have it all right uh all in favor no commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner Clark yes vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes okay now we're going to pull 11 was it you commissioner that actually Mr Morell I'm GNA pull ask uh our grants person to come up and give you a brief summary and the reason I've asked this to be pulled is because um as commissioner McDonald pointed out the Stuart news editorial board um gave the city some high marks and one of the reasons why is because it felt that the city's foresight uh to apply for this grant last August when people were still fighting over the um whether whether the bridge should be replaced or whether there should be a bright line or not was intuitive to the extent that now the uh bridge is accelerated and it's um moving forward and I've asked Dr May to just brief ly update you on the uh process and procedure the resolution is actually the commission authorizing us to accept the grant of $13.5 million which I don't think is even close to any other Grant the city's ever received in the history of Stewart Mr M it's actually in some ways the grant is only 100 is only I'm going to say only $130 million but there was a we also worked very closely with fdot to get a $50 million match so there's an additional 50 million as well yeah there's a there's a lot of money and a huge benefit to the community uh related to the elevation of the bridge the boardwalk underneath it the Marine industry Association will in theory if we hope to see this come to fruition but the Studies have shown that 85 to 90% of the current registered boats uh using the water wake uh at the present time will be able to pass under the bridge when it's closed and there's the double tracking part which will stop us from having these freight train staging and other intersections throughout the community um with that being said I will ask Dr May to take it from here thank you mayam good evening everybody uh for the record Jackie May City of Stewart grants administrator and as Mr mortell stated he asked me to just provide you with a very brief overview if you have any more questions that I can answer afterwards I'll be happy to try to do that for you so um just to recap um with the goal of replacing the almost 100-year-old St Lucy River Railroad Road Bridge the city in partnership with the Florida Inland navigation District bright line trains Florida LLC and the Florida East Coast Railway applied for a US Department of Transportation National infrastructure assistance Mega grant for 130.5 million we have been awarded the full amount that we requested um the city will serve as the lead applicant and oversee management of the grant find as is considered the local interest sponsor due to their experience managing Coastal resources and infrastructure bright line will serve to support the design and construction to meet the safety requirements and the capacity and the FEC will lend their expertise regarding Bridge operations regulatory matters safety and of course they're the current owner of the existing Bridge um so getting down to the nitty-gritty we we did in fact request the 130.5 million that will comprise 60% of the budget which is estimated to be $218 million for the entire project uh we will receive I'm sorry rather uh we are applying for a Federal Grant from the Consolidated rail infrastructure and safety Improvement ranking which is Chrissy and that will be 31 1.5 million or 14% of the total project cost um FEC is applying for a state of Florida strategic Intermodal system fund Grant of 25.5 million and bright line will bring in 30.25 million and the City of St is offering 250,000 in kind um towards the project I'll move for approval second thank you we got a motion for approval motion for second do we have any comments from the the um audience I see none Mary will you do a rooll vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark yes mayor Bruner yes commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Collins yes okay now we're going to go to uh 14 was pulled was that you commission 14 is resolution 16- 2024 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida approving the award of uh an invitation to bid 202 24-12 the city of Stewart pavement maintenance Zone one mill overlay and point repairs project to the lowest and responsible bidder with a total unit price of $38,988 to Eminem asphalt maintenance Inc doing business as All County Paving of Del re Florida authorized the city to execute a final agreement subsequent to review and approval by the City attorney providing effective dat forther purposes and we have um uh Milton uh leot presenting thank you Milton go ahead Commissioners Milton leet Public Works director uh this is a uh pavement management project uh it's the mill overlay and point repair of several of the uh major arteries in the city those streets consist of um right Boulevard from Dixie Highway to US1 Fork Road from US1 to North River Drive and keep in mind these are all in zone one and then we looking at South of the bridge which is West Ocean Boulevard from US1 to Dixie Highway and Southwest 7th Street from US1 to channel Avenue and like I said this is a Mill and overly repair project M questions he Milton yes sir uh just for people that don't know uh we do a we do a a z one zone every year with the uh milling and overlay correct yes the city is developed into five zones five zones that's what I was wondering how many zones we had so every five years we're going back through and doing either uh milling and overlay or do we do also do the crack ceiling crack ceiling Point repair Rejuvenation it all depends on what area needs it right so and so this is a regular thing and and by City staff keeping up on this and doing this rotation we actually keep our roads in pretty good shape correct yes we do okay thank you very good I'll move for approval second all right we have um um we move for approval accepted a second do we have any comments on this from the audience I move for rad call Mary commissioner Collins yes commissioner McDonald yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark yes mayor Bruner yes okay now we will go to the commission action 17 Stuart Main Street contribution service agreement Lee could you read that for me sure mayor resolution number 19-2 2024 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida authorizing the mayor to execute a service agreement between the city and CA in Stuart Main Street Inc for its contributions to the city and the promotion of economic Vitality Redevelopment and historic preservation of the Stuart Main Street District providing an effective date and for other purposes good evening Jim kolski Community Services director for the record not the AI version the real version um I'm here to discuss uh resolution 19-22 as you're aware Stuart Main Street has uh been in existence since 1987 and it's evolved over time um it has been operating under a service agreement that came due uh in September of 2023 and um you are here to look at the new agreement that was um discussed by staff and their board um and um their request is to enter into to a new agreement for $70,000 that is um budgeted in your CRA budget and Candace Callahan executive director is here and she can answer any kind of questions that you may have and I'm here to help as well okay thank you I will open this up uh if any of the Commissioners have any comments no there no comments all right no I just wanted to to make sure you know we had this for a certain number of years as a resolution said and then they didn't get to do certain things I think during covid so there's an automatic extension but they're kind of they're kind of out of whack now so I guess we need to make sure that we we get this done I have no problems with um with the 70,000 um they're proba probably other things that we need to um figure out with regard to uh steuart Main Street or and how to you know to to help them I think that they were having this plan to be sustainable maybe Candace let me hear from Candace what she wants to say all right M Callahan for the record Candace Callahan executive director for steart Main Street um the only thing I can say this point is thank you for the long-standing partnership between our two organizations um again 37 years of service and helping achieve revitalization of the historic downtown um because we've been so successful together as partners I still think that there's more work to be done um especially since there are some large projects ahead for the city of Stewart um that do fall within our district we are hoping and planning to expand our district boundaries to be of more service and of more value to other areas of our Historic downtown um and not just focusing on the historic core um yeah uh I think that really says it all the agreement I think um is really similar to what it has been it's a shame that the organization hadn't had a service agreement before but that was because if you remember some of you may remember our previous director was employed by the city of Stewart to run our program so I instead of a service agreement you hired and paid a staff member to run our program it's not a very common way of Main Streets operating it does happen there are some C that do house their Main Street programs um personally I think my board and I prefer this Arrangement where we can be a standalone nonprofit and be more of an an advocate for you um in working and supporting the the business Community but as well as the residents and our visitors um I think it's a little bit of a cleaner um way of organizing it um did commissioner Rich have some questions I believe I'm I'm fine I wanted to say a few comments too whenever you are um or should I go ahead well commissioner Clark brings up a good point and so I've actually spoken to former Commissioners about their understanding of the city's agreement with Stuart Main Street and the first time the 70,000 was awarded was and correct me if I'm wrong but it was a your primary fundraiser was reigned out and it created a dire situation and the city provided the 70,000 as a stop cap to help you get back on your feet but there was there was a an end date on that original money it was not meant to be given to you on an annual basis on an ongoing basis and then more recently there was a 70 thou the 70,000 was given but it was supposed to be declining in amount over I believe it was a three-year period and and then Co came and there was an attempt at accommodation there because of the fact you couldn't rent the Flagler um you know this is a it's a dynamic relationship because you used to do you used to do the fireworks right Main Street would did the fireworks is that correct true and you don't anymore you used to do the Christmas parade and you don't anymore we've never done the Christmas no no no that was VNA and Ela Mary and stepped in okay sorry and because we stopped doing the fireworks we were able to do a lot more for the downtown yeah okay and I don't know any other Main Street programs that fund and put on their City's fireworks display that's not if I can correct your chronology there was a fundraiser dancing in the streets that was a big fundraising for the organization and then after that there was a rain out Main Street um was short on revenue and that's when the city decided to go ahead and have an employee that was quite a while ago was yeah and what really happened was when thra left the city to go to Fort Pierce who was the main street director the city had been paying thra full salary and benefits and had an office in City Hall so when she was leaving Main Street had a void because they didn't have a director so the initial $70,000 was given to Main Street to hire a director without the city incurring the expense expense and Legacy costs of having a um emplo an additional employee in city hall or or creating what would be essentially a sunshine board and then um that was the initial as the commissioner uh Rich pointed out the three years of funding that was going to be provided then uh sometime after that Main Street came in and bid on the Flagler Center to replace the the dancing in the streets that ther had cancelled um as a as a funding opportunity as part of that rebuilding they were going to have during that three-year period however the first year was covid so the city right after we leased it to them told them they weren't allowed to have people in it um which you know was obviously not fortuitous for anybody which is what led to the extensions um uh that took place however it in in uh commissioner campell's or commissioner Richard's defense the uh original $70,000 contract if I remember correctly and I wasn't part of that negotiation but that was intended when after thra left to give Stuart Main Street like you said a a a rebuilding or transition period and it was intended to end and then the Flagler thing was actually unrelated but because it was the same entities became kind of interrelated which then in turn um caused the extension to it and um I think that that clears up the history and then also at that time of that agreement you did not have the Green Market so you've added the Green Market to your portfolio since then which I assume is profitable for you is that correct you don't know money in Money out what money in Money out it goes to support the downtown in our mission actually so thank you for finally we we did finally get the financials here so I just have a couple questions um it's um it says under vendor participation income is that the Green Market and the fall craft festival and the spring arts and spring craft no sir unfortunately we do not manage the vendors for the three art shows that we do and partnership with Howard Allen we get a donation from Howard Allen but those vendor fees are mostly the green the Green Market and also um I think we also now allocate vendor fees from the small vendors that we have at Rock and Riverwalk every Sunday how much does he pay you for those events how much does he pay us it's a donation so a donation and a partnership that we have with them um does he put them on does he organize them does he essentially yes we put in we put in the application for the event we pay The Upfront we pay the um the fees the event fees for that and then he it's like a third party fundraiser so they donate money back to the organization for our support you don't origin you don't originate he just comes to you and says can we can I be under your rubric or um I mean do you go to this individual and say I we want you to put on this fall craft festival this is well it's a 30 each one of those are 30-year events that we've been doing in partnership with Howard Allan events they approached our program years and years ago because they valued what we were doing for the downtown and wanted to partner and also have a way of giving back I just this item struck me under Event Hall rentals M it says wedding 5,000 $ 5,843 did you only do one wedding at the flag we all uh no sir what no no okay we've done more than that not a lot of weddings to be honest because I hate to say it lack of parking um but we've seen a decline and weddings being booked there so we're doing more small scale events and a lot more nonprofit events and meetings we host probably on average one or two weddings a month okay um under three responsibilities you're supposed to P pursue grants which support the historic downtown Main Street District yes sir which we have and your total proceeds for Grants was $20,000 I don't know what Financial reports you given gr and the grant writer expense was $23,000 isn't that amazing so are you looking to be more effective there than ra just supporting the grant writer salary um I'm not sure I understand your question how do you mean efficient is that what you just said well the the cost you paid your grant writer was less than the amount you received in proceeds well because she's also working on other projects we're not just always going after one um Grant for the city we also have our own initiatives and projects that we're looking for funding for so she's working on multiple projects at once yes and I right it said we got a $50,000 grant for the city of Stewart to update the historic property survey that hadn't been updated since 1991 we just completed that project we just submitted a grant again on in partnership with the city of Stewart for the historic designation which is another 20 $5,000 you and you did the grant or did Jackie may do that Grant we have our own grant writer that's that expense that you're seeing okay so this coming year we should anticipate what's that I'm just looking at the numbers for last year and you know okay you seem to be struggling getting Grant proceeds which is something you're required well Grant proceeds go specifically to a grant project so it's not like gets free money for Main Street to support our general expenses so we always try to have are listed in other places on this sheet no okay they shouldn't be um so one thing you're supposed to do is downtown design and Improvement Stuart Main Street shall identify a minimum of one one key downtown Improvement project per contract year it shall provide a summary of the project and identify the following your project is just an Earth Day cleanup event just yeah I think you're lacking a little ambition there to what could be well we're not responsible for capital projects I know that language was used earlier on a phone call with me today and earlier in the week we're not responsible for capital projects we're happy to help we've actually a couple years ago I just shared with some of our commissioners and reminded them of a project that we donated countless of hours towards um the North osula Extension project design project to introduce more parking into the downtown more efficiency um in in our uh roadways in the downtown um but that got put on a shelf so also because we are in Partnership we're supposed to be an advocate get an an assistant to some of your projects that obviously align with our mission as well and obviously being in the historic downtown I think there's opportunity there for us to be more utilized in certain Pro with when it comes to certain projects um for instance some of our projects in the past we helped with the Riverwalk extension we had to get the property owners to kind of buy into that concept right the Colorado Avenue Road diet that was done back in what 2015 I believe Nick so that those are things that we also do we just haven't been utilized in that way as of late so yes I've had to just do an Earth Day cleanup to try to make some sort of positive impact for the downtown no I mean I'm all for cleaning up litter but as far as an exciting project to enhance downtown and the feeling of downtown happy to have your ideas if you have any ideas for us yeah more than welcome to come I went on the state Main Street site and there's some pretty ambitious projects going on around the state there are so there's a lot of Main Streets that aren't hasn't been they H they haven't been successful like we have so a lot of those larger scale projects are happening in smaller downtowns that are just starting their revitalization efforts so my final point is um thank you by the way of course um is I'm uncomfortable I'm very uncomfortable with item two which this agreement is shall be automatically renewed for subsequent one-year terms each year I mean as we've seen this is a very change they have a very changing portfolio um and I think we're abdicating our responsibility to look at all the money we're spending we don't do this with any other organization really because and they're not it's not I don't think it's asking too much of us to look at this every year to look at what they've accomplished um and just to make a decision that yes we wish to continue this and we're happy with the results so I would just ask a I'd like to make make a motion that item two it be changed to this agreement shall be effective on the date it is last signed by the underside parties through o 31 October 31 2024 and then that's it so it's just a one-year agreement and every year we have to get together look take a look and make the decision to fund it again any other commission commissioner mcdonnald so you made a motion yes I so I I I would second that only because I I do agree that it is important for us I love everything you second it but he he wants to speak I was next but there was a motion on the floor yeah I was yes she called on me but if there's a motion on the floor we're just going to ignore that if there's I just made a second she called on me you just jumped in line if there's a motion on is that not Robert's rules that there's a motion on the floor and there's a second then go go ahead go ahead I'm not going to argue with him go ahead am I wrong I well I thought I was next but you know guess me we're doing Robert's Rules right yes go ahead yes sir yes sir I I love everything that that you guys are doing so don't take that the wrong way I I really appreciate Market on Main and Stuart Main Street but I do think it is important for us to review these uh versus it just automatically renewing so that's why I would second that I didn't hear you what you uh seconding that idea of um moving forward with this agreement but removing just the automatic renewals of them I do think it's important that these are coming in front of us so that we can you know look at them and review them and vote for them or not okay we have Motion in a second but I'm going to let all the Commissioners speak and myself so I don't support the that we have a cause in the agreement that we can at any time give notice and in it but let's just talk about Stuart Main Street for a moment and how important is first of all the city of Stewart you know it's not just a not for profit the city of Stewart actually at with at the emphasis of Joan Jefferson and other uh people that really kicked off the U revitol of downtown started Main Street you know the city it was the city started I want to remind everybody the city of Stewart was you know for I wasn't here in the 80s but my wife was and she told me you could fire a cannon down Aila Street and I hit a car a person half the buildings were boarded up the at one point the lyric theaters I believe the roof was was caving in and uh downtown was dead Colorado was dead Oola Street was dead seminal Street uh was nothing to be proud of and but but more specifically let's talk about the history of different projects that this that Main Street has been involved in far as revitalization and it's much easier to come up with big Grand projects when you when you have nothing and so we first of all they established Main Street they established events in downtown they worked with the city started a jazz event down at the uh Riverwalk uh Main Street took that over turned it into rocking Riverwalk I can't imagine Stuart without rocking Riverwalk can't imagine Stuart without Christmas on Main the Hobgoblin the different strolls the different art events not to mention the partnership that Stuart Maine has done with other events the uh so the so the Colorado Avenue uh getting into the uh uh some of the design elements Colorado Avenue who and uh the Sun the the sales I actually voted against the the shades uh over the uh over the stage Riverwalk stage and that was a mistake BEC but that was a Main Street program and it was a mistake to vote against it and because they've turned out to be such a great success um the uh I was actually met with Main Street when they presented me that was the first commissioner they presented the idea of extending the uh Boardwalk but the boardwalk was again that was all the original bwalk Stand was also Main Street worked on that and creating the path that goes not all from all the way now we go all the way we have a path because of the efforts of Main Street and the City of Stewart because it's we've done these things jointly that you can that we have a loop that you can walk down through underneath the railroad bridge up by sailor return past sailor return down and all the way back to where you start on Colorado oh the uh U the the Flagler Center yes the Flagler Center they leased the Flagler center it's one of their uh hopefully income generators but they how much rent do you pay I think it's over 30,000 a year you pay back to the city so we're getting part of the $70,000 back uh we're also uh they are running the Flagler Center or for us uh when we were running the Flagler Center I think the last time that we ran it and we weren't doing the events and it wasn't as nice they didn't we didn't have donors putting in Windows I think uh I think in like 2000 uh back before uh before the uh Main Street actually took it over as a tenant they found a donor um Kim Capen found a donor to put in the the glass uh the new glass windows which I'm going to guess that had to been 40 or50 $50,000 in Windows and they ran it for but in 2009 might correct me wrong was it three between 3 and 400,000 to cost to run I know that that Jolie's here I I think it was very close was about three from my recollection three so three 300,000 and you know we we we spend 250,000 I think a year running the sailfish ball fields and we we don't have we don't require anything hardly from the uh little leagues here we're getting so much value from Main Street that um you know the the Colorado extension and when I when me and commissioner Clark came on to the Commission in 2011 that was a big big issue and it was a and it was a challenging issue and I will tell you you know Main Street you know Main Street not only did they push they brought in experts to come in and walk the community and McMillan came and walked us with an expert that Main Street HED they found a donor to donate the money to hire an expert to talk to us about the road diet and those buildings main or Colorado Avenue was 80% vacant the there was the old Goodyear store that was just an abandoned tire store that's I think seven or eight businesses now the old crer building uh was for at that point for several years and that is I don't know how many another 10 businesses there now and all of that had millions of dollars to put into it not to mention every one of those B buildings has been fixed up the old slom WEA weather uh Weber building my uh has been now was a basically underutilized failing and I hate to say failing but it was flower shop nevere yeah never mode that no Landscaping was done you couldn't see the building because of the the bushes that had just overgrown and now it's a thriving business driving coffee shop employing people who um my wife's father's old building uh in fact Merritt's I see Merritt's here and his father used to practice in that building years ago that was and I can tell you when my wife's father owned he put no money into it the new owners uh with the because of the uh um because of the renovations on Colorado Avenue they invested a lot of money in renovating that building the uh where Max is shaving is that building used to always be empty it is completely full now the uh next to the dry cleaner had as a retail spot in half the time that was empty that's full and it's exended down to businesses on Oola Street have benefit for on seminal on Flagler and we are seeing the benefits of Main Street in all of the works so I I respectfully request that we not pass this motion so we can do another motion where we do it as requested by staff thank you mayor can I I was going to ask commission sure commissioner Clark did you have your hand up I thought you no I said my piece okay um I guess uh somebody talked about Robert's Rules of Order so I'll employ Mr bagot at this time to figure out what's happening here so we have our regular um what is it item number 21- um no sorry it's not item number 21 you had a motion that was 19 failed for lack of a second and then you had a second motion did chis you second commissioner colins second in the motion there was offered a a an amended motion was offered it doesn't sound like it was accepted so you have a motion and a second on Mr we have to also accept Mr McDonald's motion at this time now or we have to vote on the first motion he made a motion I requested that we pass this what I said and I'll second Mr M no you can't you can't because we have to deal with the first one I'd like to just make get back right I got to get back to the first one yes first we'll take a vote and if not no no I had a comment I had a comment com on I'm not done yeah we're still discussing that initial motion so um I think it gets a little bit muddy here right somehow I mean I mean we're this this motion is saying we want to move forward with our agreement with Main Street and and and do the $70,000 the only the only difference in in what's from what's proposed here is that we continue to review this each year which I would say is an opportunity to talk about it you know having it automatically renew it is is probably more uh streamlined but you know there's so many things that are always happening this is an opportunity to not to beat you up you know or beat up what main Street's doing everybody up here values what you do I haven't had a chance to speak so when you get through I would like to speak I know but everybody up here values what you do I think we would all say that the the only difference is from what's proposed is wanting to continue what we've previously been doing which is just look at these each year um some how though having any not criticism but but trying to look at this critically I think may be perceived by some as not valuing Main Street um all the work that main Street's done we're all very thankful for and we all know the history of of you know what the city was like in the past but again just for clarity I would like to say I think part of this discussion is it's it's good because um I think I think valid points were made you know with regard to the original intent of this agreement with Main Street but I I also agree that it's Dynamic it's been this Dynamic thing that uh seems to be functionally working right this is even though it may not be completely clean and and this amount of money is for this budgeted it works somehow it it just works um but I do think it it would be good for us to clarify sort of going forward are we going to let go of this um getting you on your feet thing right like there's been this this theme since I've been here of this $70,000 was to get Main Street on their feet and I'm saying this for clarity of this motion I'm not I'm not poking you for a comment hang tight okay can we can we move are we moving past that and we're going to just say that this is going to be the agreement in perpetuity which I'm I'm fine with and in that case then yes it should automatically renew like it that shouldn't even be an issue but we kind of need to formally I think put our our flag in the sand and say this is this is where we're at now and this is what we want to do going forward versus arguing over the how um valuable Main Street is if if that if that resonates at all like we all know Main Street is but I would say do we want to continue in that original hey this 70 grand was intended to get them on their feet or do we want to move into a new um sort of era where this is just in perpetuity and that's fine well I would like to say yes I'm getting tired of hearing her just getting on her feet I don't know who brings that up but why it gets started but um that I don't allowed to comment on that very thing yes ma'am you may there are forces in this room and I will not pick them out out but there are forces in this room that jeopardized our organization I'm here to fix it and make it right not just for myself but for this city how we were treated was a joke in my opinion and I'm sorry and I don't want to seem like I'm not being thankful or appreciative but there were conversations that jeopardized our relationship and put us in a box that should never have happened when I talk to my state directors and my national directors they're embarrassed for me and that is not something I want to be proud about for the city of Stewart we should be better right and it just saddens me to hear that that was unfortunately that was right before me unfortunately because if I was their director at the time and I was in place those conversations I would have stopped and changed the narrative I'm trying to get us back on the right path so this conversation of let them be on their own let them be on their you know get them on their feet we'll give them Flagler Center so they can have a revenue stream that's not going to do it all you did was quadruple our budget when we got Flagler no offense I'm making it work but it's not as profitable in order for us to be sustainable without these other revenue streams and other partnership agreements like this and if you cut our legs off we're not able to do more we're not able to grow isn't that the point is to continue to grow and do more and be more valuable instead of just doing events which we've been put in a box to do that's not what we do we're not an event organization and again our program is supposed to be in perpetuity helping either our CRA or the city in general achieve these goals that you have you need us to help get some of that work done obviously again look at our resumes on our website of all the projects that we've helped with and as of late unfortunately again we weren't utilized because staff changed leadership ship changed conversations were being had about what they thought our organization was and what they should be doing so yes in perpetuity just like every other 2,000 there's 2,000 other Main Street programs across the country that are helping achieve greatness for their communities why are we being treated so differently especially when we're looked at from National in the state as one of the leading main streets in the country but we're being treated this way and M I'm here to fight for that if I could just if I just I'm not sure what forces at play but I want to be very clear that the city didn't do that my recollection of it was that the uh there was a couple in Palm City that were operating the the Green Market and the city went out to RFP and Main Street applied for that we didn't actually ask them they they came to the response to that and we also went out to RFP when Island party reyolds leas ented on the Flagler Center and Main Street applied for that as well we didn't ask them to do those events or to participate in that it was super beneficial to the city and I told all of you at different times that the city could not possibly maintain Flagler Center open uh at the budget that's related to Main Street right now however for clarification there was no time that I ever forced flaggler or the Green Market on Main Street no and you are not that person but Mike Mike I would just for clarity I I'm not trying to beat this to death but for clarity that the original agreement for the 70 in your understand I just I just want to set the record straight like I feel like this has been this muddy thing since I've been here what was the intent of the $70,000 the the intent of the $70,000 was to give Main Street $70,000 as seed money because thra left and the city manager at the time was not hiring a director within the parameters of the city and as a result it was to give them the money to hire a director and and move on I know that uh Mr charski was uh probably more involved in it than I was and he could probably answer your questions and I would agree with Mike's description of that was a three-year agreement for that purpose because um when the employee was working for the city first in the CRA and then in my department it was uh an awkward um Thunder was a great employee but because they answered to a board and also as a city employee it's just sort of an awkward manage we couldn't fire or hire you know thra and thra couldn't had to answer to her board so it just made a good clean opportunity for us to be able to separate that employment situation so that that person could actually become um the director of the 501c3 Madam mayor yes go ahead so I had brought this up and I didn't really bring out anything the same way that Mr uh commissioner McDonald did but um I was just thinking and I know that Miss Miss Kahan didn't come with that tonight and I don't think Jim or even Jolie or Mr mortell but if we value the intrinsic role of the steuart Main Street and what it means to our city of Stewart and the things that come from having a main street and having the association with other partners in the state as well as partners in our community I have no idea why we have to go through this I know that we started with this extension and starting over which is why there might have been the idea that some seed funds need to be there but I have no idea why we as a city we were paying for thundra and it's been years now and prices have gone up things have changed there's a lot of things they putting a lot of money into the building themselves and even before that when John loer and other people were there there are always issues going on I think we as a city Administration need to step back and say do we as a city need to put 100,000 or $150,000 in our budget to support and to make sure that we're going to have a Main Street program and work with it because yes they have their thing and yes they are raising funds and they're doing Administration but I think it's just so intrinsic the value that they bring to the community that we need to show strongly that we support them I didn't want to bring up I didn't something to the $770,000 today which is why I'm thinking that you know you're saying to do it every year but I think that we as a city need to even though we don't have an employee that we're having we need to put in some money more than $70,000 to have it in our budget annually to make sure that our back bone is going to be there and that we're going to be able they're going to be able to really have the strong foundation and the key support of our city to do that that was I start I just brought it up about the 70 hoping that somebody would say something and I see that Mr McDonald has done the analysis of some of the intrinsic value and the physical value of what has happened we would be nothing if people like an McMillan and other people didn't put their reputation on the line to stick with Main Street and to make sure we had it we had problems we've had people who've passed away not calling any names we've had problems with things before we're getting the reports that we need now we have people who are interested in really making this something that's uh it's it's already it's a wholesome organization it's doing what it needs to do what it needs to make sure that we have that foundation and as a city in the State of Florida and for the things that make Main Street has done and for the reputation that we have instead of saying we're doing 70,000 we might stop them next year we might stop them the year after we need to be steady and we need to make sure that well I know you're saying they give an annual report and hold on one minute Mr Collins I'm not going to get into anything with you okay so um we um we it does say in item number three Mr Collins that that they can um come back and do something every year where's that can somebody help me section three two all section two okay section two and three that says that they can um additional for okay section number two yes so it does it it is covered it is covered that they can come back and we can do it at any time but I really need Mr call Mr saying something that's not accurate hold on we're saying something that's not accurate do not say anything while I'm speaking I'm not finished listen if it's not accurate it's not accurate have your time to tell her that when the time is right we all say inaccurate things at times but we don't behave like this sir somebody should no you're wrong correct the I know you guys are eager to shut me up but I'm not going to let something fly that's not true in this in this item number two it says that it's going to automatically renew this doesn't have to be a big deal turn to do it let's just be honest about what just couldn't wait do it you don't need to shut me up I'm just trying to correct the record in the moment okay and I all right I I said That's you anyhow I'm not going to tell you that's Mr baggett's thing anyhow so whatever it says in section two and section three and all of the sections um we have two well we have one motion Mr um the other motion didn't go through but I really think that we need to give instruction to staff to look into creating and maintaining and having solid funds in there for Main Street as long as we're here as a city of steart and as long as we have a steuart main street and if they come to us if Mr Flanigan or somebody comes to us and say hey guys we have more than enough money we don't need our money your the city's budget because we're flush but we the city needs to show that we are in full support and that we want the staff to be able able to have the ability to work instead of worrying about what are we going to say to the city to make sure that they're going to uh give us uh some money next year I don't even want to my blood pressure is up that's it thank you commissioner Clark McDonald and then me okay so the yes the term two says it automatically renews yes and I think that is important the reason it's important is that it does is that offer long-term stability yes we have it R It also says with 30 days written notice yeah yeah so term seven and it's actually I think it actually even says it in term two as well uh with can be canceled by but term 7even termination agreement either party can terminate the agreement without cause with 30 days notice and uh we they do they're doing reporting we're seeing them we get an anual we get an they come and give us an annual report every year and I still don't forget I report to two other organizations I have to do good I have to I have to check the box we we've we've got this this is this in main I think that Main Street has proven itself and it's proven its Effectiveness it's proven its I mean uh the the shop local shop smart program is still going on great program understanding it and that's an award-winning program W award um so we you know and then I also just and I'm going to digress for a moment but I have a list of all the all the accolades the city of Steward has received you know best small town best downtown to retire in best a lot of that has to do with the efforts jointly with between Main Street the city of Stewart the CRA he downtown Business Association because it's we've done this in a in a teamwork in Partnership um and the re automatic renewal is to show confidence we still have the reporting if if we're not getting what we need we we can terminate it and so that's why I'm I'm really focused on the long-term stability so so that that the steuart main street board can do long-term planning without going oh God we just have to get through this one thing every year they can do planning and show us what they're doing and they can be budgeting for the future so that's all I have uh I will not support the motion the way it's written announced right now so it helps us knowing that we have your trust and your support because when we go after grants that's a longer like I applied for a grant and I won't have those funds for like another year so the projects like the lead time on these things is is why we have main streets generally have imp perpetuity agreements and yes if we're not doing our job then you hold us accountable because we're not abiding by the agreement but I'm not going to let that happen while I'm here just for the record but I think it just it helps us feel more safe right in any kind of relation ship business transaction you want that safety net you want to feel valued and there's good willll there I just I don't know I it's sad again I will reiterate it never should have been handled this way to begin with it never should have been a three-year agreement or a one-year agreement it should have always there should have always been funding for this organization rather than putting it on them to figure it out and then they had to produce a huge event Ro or dancing in the streets a huge Festival to try to generate do you know how much it costs to put on big events I know my friend does over there that's not a healthy way of becoming sustainable or doing better and doing more things for our community and I'll stop there well we we don't we don't just look at this every year and just pass it you have been under the microscope for several years now and it's time it's time for uh that to stop I remember when I got here I was on the crb board and how I love the crb board and they let me go different places and and learn more and more on main streets and what little cities were doing yeah and uh and then when you came on board it I would come over and people need to hang out with you a while and and what you do and see what you what you have accomplished and then you taken over you know uh the Green Market well it's not the Green Market anymore it's Market on Main Street and it is so successful um if you haven't been you need to go you're really going to find out something great in your little city that's right right down the street and the Riverwalk and just everything you do and I I I think we can uh handle if you get out of line we we'll let you know you know where to find you know you're doing pretty damn good girl so you have my support and no I won't uh accept uh their motion Madam mayor uh maybe you heard just for a minute um for two things number one um Vice mayor's motion has been seconded by commissioner colins so that needs to be addressed before any subsequent motions are raised um number two I think there's obviously some uh unclearness about this term that I drafted in this agreement okay um and it is it's attached to the agenda item and it's on the very first page in paragraph number two it's the first sentence um and it does say um now my understanding is this uh the prior contract expired before came on I think sometime in September or thereabouts um and and since it didn't have an automatic renewal at that point we're now uh several months into it and there is no contract in play so um if there is an automatic renewal uh on an annual basis that could help prevent what we're going through now with several months and I just wanted to put that out there but um um commissioner um McDonald pointed out that there's two areas in the contract that allow us to to terminate the contract with 30 days notice we can do it at any time uh regardless at the renewal but also in the at the renewal you have 30 days before the renewal we can notify them that we're canceling the contract and that obviously would give you an opportunity if you want to renegotiate terms um but if everybody's okay with how things are going then you don't really have to do anything and that's a question so sure I just actually I was actually just looking back at this and it also said is subject to the andal fing appropriation approved by the city Commission so whatever that is it doesn't have a minimum or maximum amount so we could actually if we were unhappy with Main Street we could actually just not fund their budget so that would be another Avenue but so and while you're in there on um eight there's a the' in there that needs to be marked out there's a what the th scratch it out on number eight all right okay commissioner so I I I feel like in our discussion we we we're finding uh consensus there with this being in perpetuity and that sort of getting on your feet thing maybe was uh a narrative that we was mischaracterized or whatever so that's kind of what I was fishing for earlier um I would like to see that even if it's not directly related to whether or not we're going to fund that partnership agreement that we do have an opportunity yearly maybe for you to come forward and and for us to talk about in in some detail you know the goals what's going because I I hate to lose having this kind of a conversation no absolutely because things just roll over and I know you would be totally for that yeah but I'd like to see that continue uh each year well I'll remind I know I've told some of you um and I'm sorry youa that we didn't get a chance to meet but we are planning to hire a consultant to come and work with our organization um hope the timing works out once we know these other bigger projects in our district have been approved um to get us on the same page and we're going to be inviting all of you because we are your program to kind of work with us on like what do you want us to do like it's a collaborative thing it's not you know so yes by all means like I said there's been so many missed opportunities that Main Street could have been of more service um and I'm I just promise you that I'm here to to be more involved with you guys so M mayor yeah I I just had one more point and and I just wanted to say that I know that these events are probably a lot of work for you but I I hope that that you don't move away from doing events because it's one of the best things what we're doing will always coming down to Riverwalk and and no so just in the now if we didn't get funding then maybe we'd have to talk about reducing some of our expenses which would probably be our events but our plan is not to do away with anything that we're already doing it's to do more mentioned that and I wanted to address please don't stop we will keep those going as long as you allow us hopefully we can end this but we're not quite I just got one little thing to add and maybe this will help one is it sounds like we're getting some consensus that understands that there's two opportunities in the agreement to cancel plus we have the funding so therefore uh and just to answer commissioner Collins I wasn't on the commission when they voted on the three years I would not have supported that I think it should have always been an imp uity agreement but maybe it would be helpful if we made one small change to the giving uh the steart uh steuart commission a commission seat on the uh board of directors of Main Street and that way we're into we're all little we have we know we have we have seats on other boards the business development board we have seats on the uh Arts Council May would would you guys be okay with having a city commission having a a board seat I I don't believe that would be an issue I I work for my board so they'll have to give me direction on that one um yes we do have we do have Jordan who is on our ex officio um as a ex officio member um so if there's no conflict of interest on your end of things I don't see why that would be I think ex official you think there should be a voting member well first of all I don't I it's my understanding that that during some negotiations with the prior city manager that the main street board gave him the discretion to appoint a representative as an ex officio member I think what would probably happen if you guys appointed a commissioner that would replace Jordan rather than um have duplicative if I may I do like having staff as well um City staff and I think we would welcome both if that makes sense um we also have a crb representative too before before I go on you can have as many board members as you want and if you wanted Jordan to be a board member for any reason she could be welcome to be on your board just as any other member could be on your board I looked for and couldn't find anything in writing that created Jordan's relationship to the city as far as a board member when you and I spoke you told me that it was related to it but there is no documentation that says in exchange for this the city has an ex officio member so what commissioner McDonald's talking about is actually incorporating it into the contribution in the contract and saying as a condition of the money there's a board member if you have other members of your board that are are you know work for the city or related to the city that is normal because obviously you're a downtown board I mean that would make sense okay great so would you would that's fine fine with you she said just ask her I believe that's fine yes they can yell at me later it's fine so that's a yes um commissioner Rich do you want to amend your motion I'd like to no you you finished yes go go ahead commissioner and I we still have that motion it's been seconded I have two people that needs to speak and we still might have another motion after we uh vote to CL um the creek district is not part of Main Street right they have their own separate that is correct right does the city give the creek District any money to support their efforts I believe um that would be a staff question that would be no no um we have a license agreement with the creek District that's similar to rock and Riverwalk okay and the DPA is you're separate from the DPA that's correct right um why do you you accept responsibility for these events if they're so burdensome to you and and distract you you seem to indicate that they distract you from what you really want to be doing why why let us Outsource for the good of the community and it was was for the good of the community and at the time those events is what helped Drive the economic activity for the downtown I didn't say I wanted to stop doing what we're doing the events are going to stay the same we just want to do more larger projects if it is a capital project more projects not just events but we want to do more projects to help the city whether it's a design project or an improvement project and not just do an Earth Day cleanup because that doesn't seem to be you know of value but we want to be of value we just need to know what you what you're trying to achieve that's all okay commissioner okay okay Commissioners let's I'm sorry I one more I I'm a little Mr B I'm a little confused cuz it says we will pay them 70,000 under five so I understand the point made by commissioner McDonald's regarding subject to annual funding appropriation but doesn't this oblige us to give them the money yeah I mean we're under the contract yes it would be we'd be uh so so we're mandated to appropriate the money per year yeah right so I was so we don't get another bite at the Apple well well I would actually I think 70,000 is fine but I think that that is uh but again we could not we could not uh appropriate it and cancel their contract with 30 days notice this is on this is an annual contract I guess before you had a three-year contract this is just a one-year so every year automatically renews it unless you decide to cancel it unless during the budget you don't fund it Mr hogart I'd love to hear you speak thank you ma'am I I'd feel uh remiss if I didn't speak since I I did have a little bit of authorship in this language so I didn't want all these people taking the bullets and not me as well so um with that said the thought process and we had a lot of conversations behind you know what it should be and it's not perfect language I get that um like in Cong think of it from like a congressional standpoint by by federal law to pass um any kind of funding mechanism in Congress you need two things you need a federal authorization to do it and two funding you need to fund it so both of those things have to be done separately and exclusively we kind of took that model here where we applied it to this agreement we said hey uh you know this is the authorization resolution and then the funding mechanism every year through the CRA or the city that's a separate mechanism that's done separately and depending on what you wanted to do the year-to year it could be that you want to change the terms or the conditions of the agreement in which you would go back and revise the agreement with that you know 30-day rule or whatever else or you would just change the dollar amount if the dollar amount was was that issue you would change that through the budget process what that would allow you to do is if you just wanted to change the dollar amount you wouldn't have to go back to this agreement every time and rehash details you could change the dollar amount separately and exclusively not saying that's the perfect solution or the best solution it was just that was the model we used um the language can certainly be changed but that's that was the intent behind it is you have really two Avenues um an authorization of of the language but then also the funding mechanism so okay thank you thank you just wanted to clarify and and um now I'm going to go to the public comments first one is Aaron Hawkins Mr Hawkins thank you for being patient and waiting yeah it's all good um I just wanted to come out tonight and give some uh public support to Stewart Main Street um they uh ever since I've gotten involved with the organization I've really seen how much work and how much they actually do for the local community uh here in the downtown uh besides Dart Main Street I also work for or not work for but I volunteer my time with the Martin County black Heritage initiative and uh on the side I I run my uh entertainment business so I get a lot of interaction here in the downtown with a lot of the patrons and I just want to say that it would be the value that Main Street offers is not strictly Financial it is is more than that um I helped craft some of their surveys that they use to regularly get feedback and information from the community uh from the patrons from the businesses and uh it it's it's it's a great organization that uh you know the community sees the value in it uh the PE the businesses see the value in it uh I just I hope that everyone up here can also see the value in Stewart Main Street um I I also wanted to extend my support for item 19 uh on the list I know parking is a huge thing and if I can connect this to my former Point Stuart Main Street was a leader on that still is on trying to figure out the parking situation um but like I said before I run a local entertainment company and I have a lot of time to interact with patrons here in the downtown and um a new location would definitely be something that people are certainly interested in uh the more variety the more people that come the more customers the more money the more happy businesses are so thank you sir appreciate it Nick you're next shro Mr schro good evening Commissioners Nick schro for the record uh resident of Stewart and um past Main Street president um go to put a little color to to or a little of my history to the um to the floor tonight um when when thra was leaving the city kind of left a void in main Street's ability to deliver on what Main Street does or what Main Street had done so the concept of you know getting on your feet or or you know that that idea was a product of us not having you know anybody at that time um I I don't know that it was ever the intent that there would never be any dollars from the city to Main Street um the uh you know I think the general fund budget for the city of Stewart's something like $34 million so you know the $70,000 that uh the city contributes to Main Street when you start looking at what Main Street does I feel like like the deliverables are there to justify that I mean if if the city's operation of the Flagler Center was costing $300,000 and now it's you know $30,000 in income um I feel you know that alone is a uh a deliverable um The Rock and River Walk the uh hobgoblin Christmas on Maine a number of the things that um Main Street does locally those are all deliverables and and you know if not for Stuart Main Street would be a cost to the city so there's always been that concept of of transferring from a you know hey this is just $70,000 you just lost your director to you know these are deliverables this is what the the organization does and and this is move you know this we're there it's it's been a number of years Co was a setback but um you know in the early years of Stuart Main Street when the downtown was boarded up when Colorado was a mess you know it was real easy to see the things that Main Street could tackle and could do and that's where you know folks like an McMillan Joan Jefferson you know they played a huge role in in bringing those things to life and fixing what were obviously problems um and they were obvious problems so they were easy to they weren't necessarily easy to fix but they were easy to see what this commission and and the City of Stewart in general you know needs to recognize is that and it's always been a problem with with Stuart Main Street is that their efforts kind of get taken for granted because they just get meshed into daily life here in downtown Stewart you know rock and Riverwalk just happens and if you snag you know one of the 5,000 people that was at Christmas on Main Street and asked them who did thisone none of them would know or they just assume it's the city so thank you yeah missz thank you for your patience thank you for not saying my last name I know good evening thank you for um the opportunity to speak uh the first time I was engaged with Stuart Main Street was in uh April 1st 2000 it's when I took a job at The Lyric Theater with John ler and uh yeah you could you could throw there wasn't a lot going on downtown and there definitely wasn't any economic Vitality in any way shape or form uh the stores were struggling the stores that were there the restaurants were one two maybe uh not open all day not all open every day of the week or whatever it may be um Stuart Main Street at the time stepped up with the restoration effort of The Lyric Theater and that was the jewel of our little downtown and when those doors were able to open more frequently and not just be that open mic night on Tuesdays you might remember that um and we started bringing different acts here we rebuilt the second floor we brought in an elevator we broke out the back wall that was because of a public private partnership that we had with Stuart Main Street and the City of Stewart that would not have been possible and now look where we're at all of these things should not be taken for granted and when I speak about economic Vitality I'm just talking not just talking about whether the stores are open this Sunday whether those crash registers can you know keep clicking all day long um it's really about sustainability and resilience and this partnership will help this city keep that sustainability and be resilient for a long time to come keeping an agreement in a perpetuous type of language is important for a couple of reasons Candice mentioned it earlier uh that trust that safety but it's also about funding granting Cycles are sometimes three four five years so you may see on the on the Ledger that $23 23,000 in 20 out whatever it may be grand Cycles don't match fiscal years or calendar years in some cases and they look at those long-term relationships that organizations have with their Community Partners such as Stuart Main Street with the Stuart city of Stewart so when those relations ships are interwoven they are long-term and established that makes other funders look at our organization our community as solid as good stewards of the funding that may come our way so I urge the city of Stewart to continue this partnership for as long as possible and I I appreciate commissioner Clark's words about let's re-evaluate the funding from year to year but don't re-evaluate whether we do this agreement or not it's something that needs to be a part of the continue to be the DNA of our of our community and look for opportunities to enrich each other's um service agreements if you will ours to yours and back and forth thank you very much thank you ma'am M you come and speak and then Tom whittington's GNA come right behind that's okay miss Helen you're special around here we all know it you uh Helen McBride um believe it or not I was at the very first meeting when Ann and Joan right here in this room and the City May m Collins was here and truthly at the time when they were talking and what their dreams were and I thought oh I don't know but was through hard work and uh they got was D I think they it was Joan and an that went down in Miami and got him up here and entertained them and that and he was they really and um Julie from um Rio and I I know myself I Vol I was and I say an if you need me call me but if you have volunteers don't call me but with f needed me she call I was here St Main Street hosted All the Other M St main streets in the state they came up with that Flagler Center and an called me and I stayed all day but when they were all even they couldn't get over cuz for lunch they all went to different restaurants and all one girl she went shopping and she was showing me all the things she bought in downtown store it's you know you get what you pay for if you know if I buy a sandwich and I don't want to pay a dollar I'm going to get a slice of bread if I'm willing to pay because I know I'm getting something good to eat that's it but we can't do I know you say $70,000 some people make that you know in the year but it it's what You' got to look through the future because they're going to come up with different things than that and like um Troy said you got the right if they they don't like what they're doing so you can call the dirt Main Street people up on the carpet and say hey we don't like what you're doing but dancing in the street that was wonderful when they first started it then it got bigger and bigger and I know I came down from one I was could volunteer I couldn't get it down in because the place was jam-packed so it we're a very very small town so no and I I've been paying taxes for 50 years but this is a great investment so please keep our story Main Street going thank you Mr Whittington thank you for your patience Madam mayor the Commissioners Tom Winnington I'm usually playing tennis on Monday night and somehow when I'm when I'm here I'm I'm sorry am not here because uh watching you guys work you folks work watching your concerns your your interest and wanting to make sure you're you're doing your job I I appreciate it um I'm not a resident of the city but I certainly benefit from the city of Stewart um I would say that uh I see a little bit of a a change a little bit of a wave a little bit of an understanding acceptance and some move which is great I think that's important for all of us I I don't think there's a question on anybody's mind that they have a value Stuart Main Street has a value here it's just figuring out how to make that work for the city and I'm sure you guys will figure that out I would just say being part of an association that comes to you every year asking for closure of the road with the understanding if I don't get that I don't have any funds coming coming in it's daunting and I just cannot imagine uh Association like stent mainship Main Street not knowing that they are being let's say funded helped um shephered Along by you guys in perpetuity so I would just welcome you guys to get with them be on their board and help continue to this make this work work thank you thank you sir okay that is madam mayor yes sir commission I mean Mr mat probably I'll fill out a green card after Meritt mat for the record city of Stewart thank you um there's some stuff that the city doesn't want to run or shouldn't have to and that's where Main Street comes in and is a great partnership um they've increased inre their workload over the years that I've seen and the next step too has to be on the Commissioners I can't count the number of times Candace and I talked on the phone or went out to lunch um or I talked to Mr Flanigan or Mr shro about what I wanted to see as a commissioner from Main Street and how we could work together and that communication happens the best not here in these Chambers just out one-on-one walking around the Flagler walking around the city talking about ways that both organizations can benefit the city and if that continues to happen you know it'll be good for all of us so thank you thank you sir okay she will answer L now we're going to take uh this motion is um uh commissioner Rich's motion this is the one we're voting on um roll call Mary um this is the motion for item two in the agreement to be changed to a one-year evaluation yes Ma on an annual basis okay um commissioner McDonald no commissioner Collins no commissioner Clark no vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner no Madam mayor yes I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve the agreement as staff recommended with the change that this uh the city commission is allowed to appoint a commissioner as an ex official member of the board second um think it should be do we have to wait until we hear back YX offici just commissioner yeah know a lot of times board me we make it a standard straight board member I'll just change it I'll move as a we approve move the agreement as a as drafted and add the uh that we get a city commission gets to appoint a board member right I have a motion do I have a second second second by Miss Clark uh we have any uh comments from the public all right Mary roll call please mayor Bruner yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Clark yes thank you gentlemen and ladies very good thank you commission congratulations where's that easy button and I just want to say I know sometimes we're we we disagree but I think there's a lot of value in US going back and forth and sorting it out I know it can be difficult and sometimes we want to get out of here but I appreciate all of you being willing to talk if you were my son no Madam mayor you wouldn't be able to handle me oh yes I would Madam mayor I must say that um uh they don't know Mom Albert sometimes I just I'm I'm probably somebody who speaks under my breath or says something sometimes so I'm not saying that um um Mr Collins is the only person who interrupts but when it's something like that and we know that it's there and Mr baggot is there he's capable or if we need to have something clarified and I just wanted to be sure that I could at least speak without somebody going in if it was something that I was saying against something that he said and he had said it and it was incorrect but it's already in the in the the thing and it's I just wanted to say that I didn't mean to be um over something to you but I just want to know that it's very clear that when it's something like that I just don't appreciate it that's all I said it and I hope that we can continue to work together tough woman Miss Clark I appreciate that okay we're going to go to 18 support of the half cense sale all right thank you mayor resolution number 21-22 24 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida supporting a referendum on the November 2024 ballot for a 10-year duration half-cent sales tax to purchase and conserve natural lands in Martin County being voted on by the Martin County Board of County Commissioners on February 20th 2024 providing an effective date and for other purposes move for approval second we have a motion we have a second um we have com is there any would would you would Mr mats like Mr mats I'm just here on behalf of Martin County forever to answer any questions for the record Meritt mat on behalf of Martin County forever city of Stewart if you all have any questions about the initiative be happy to answer them no I I just would like to say I know how hard you've been working on this probably two years I'm not sure but I'm very proud of you and every time I see you put something on Facebook and all the things all the places you've been going and all the hard work I don't think anybody has any idea how hard you've worked and I truly believe you have got the county all of the people not just the city but the county this whole County that is going to vote for this I really truly when we put it on the referendum that this is going to pass and it's all because of your hard work and I thank you well thank you Madame mayor and I just want to remind everyone February 20th there's a preset at 10:30 where we'll be going before the county yes um but that's phase one phase two is to get it passed by a majority of the voters you know so as as I know all too well and everyone does up in those seats you cannot stop someone from doing what they have property rights to do and if you have a passion to preserve Martin County's quality of life and that's what this initiative is overall not just an environmental initiative but a preservation of Martin County's quality of life we need to take some more land and put in preservation and I hate to say it but the best way to do that is a sales tax and the best way to generate money is to have other people pay for almost 40% of it and that's what this will do that's thank you any questions M mayor I just wanted to yes I just you know you've you've made it difficult for yourself because you're this is going to be on the ballot during a presidential election I would push the presidential election off if I could yeah but uh most Mo most people probably aren't aware Martin County is one of the highest voting counties in the country I once did exit polling for MBC and the Martin County came in at 93% and I reported that at NBC and they said that's not possible and so and obviously this is a very controversial election everybody's going to be out so you you yeah you have a big hill to climb even after you agree to get on the ballot and hope hopefully we can find ways to help you thank you I'll need all the help I can get um it won't be easy but the time should have been five years ago I probably shouldn't say this it's not coming from the mayor of Stewart um it's a personal citizen that will probably will vote for this but are you having people come and sit in that audience at the county and waving signs I am encouraging everyone to come again February 20th we have a preset of 10:30 um but I already know people will be be there between 800 and 8:30 to show up support we'll be passing out stickers and signs and we need all the help we can get so everyone please come and show up I thank you sir look forward to seeing everyone there okay and then we begin phase two that's right educating every voter in the county thank you you all right now we're going to uh we're going to move on to um is there any yes I apologize for this resolution um any comments from the audience all right commissioner Collins yes vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner McDonald yes and on the last time I move to continue the uh date certain item to March 25th the restaurant second all right we have a motion and a second do we have any comment from the public anybody want to talk about it for an hour I see none let's have a roll call Mary mayor Bruner yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner McDonald yes commissioner Collins yes vice mayor Rich yes I move to journ I don't know