Haines City, Florida

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience, if you will stand with us for the invocation, and after that, directly we'll be doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Tonight, I shall share just a brief word in chapter 13, verse 1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Let us bow our heads. Father, we thank you. We come before you, Father God. Asking for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding for our leaders here today, Father God, so that they may guide Haines City, my Lord. And just work through them, Father God. That your will be done, Father. I also pray, Father, for each person here today, my Lord. That you bless them, my Lord God. That you look after them. Look after everyone's family, my Lord God. Father God, we thank you. We just glorify you. Your word says to pray for those that are in authority, Father. And that's what we are here to do. In light of that, Father God, your word says that blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Father God, and we just thank you because you are our Lord. This nation was built on the values of your good word, Father God. And as we celebrate the 250 years of this nation, Father God, we ask you, Father, that we continue in that movement, Father. Putting you first above all things, Father God. We just thank you. We give you all the glory and honor. And we just pray, Father God, again, for these leaders here, Father, that you may work through them, my Lord. That they may do what is right and true, my Lord God. According to your will. For you have placed them in these seats, my Lord God. And as you give, you also take away, Father God. So we just thank you for them. We uplift them, Father God. We encourage them to keep doing the good work that they are doing, Father. And we just give you all the glory and honor. In Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you. I am this man, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Thank you all for that. At this time, we'll move on to item number four, presentations and proclamations. Madam Clerk. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This proclamation is for celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, whereas on July 4, 1776, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence marked the birth of the United States of America and established the enduring principles of liberty, equality, representative government, and the pursuit of happiness that continue to inspire generations, and whereas the year 2026 commemorates the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. A historic milestone known as America 250, providing an opportunity for all Americans to reflect upon our nation's rich history, honor the sacrifices of those who secured and preserved our freedoms, and celebrate the ideals that unite us as one nation. And whereas for two and a half centuries, Americans have demonstrated resilience, courage, innovation, and a steadfast commitment to democracy, overcoming challenges while continuing to build a stronger and more prosperous nation. And whereas the city of Haines City proudly recognizes the countless individuals, including veterans, active duty military personnel, first responders, public servants, educators, business leaders, volunteers, and community members whose dedication has strengthened our community and contributed to the success of our nation. And whereas the semi-quimcentennial serves as a reminder of our shared responsibility to preserve the freedoms secured by our nation's founders, encourage civic engagement, and inspire future generations to uphold the values of justice, opportunity, and service to others. And whereas the city of Haines City joins communities across the nation in commemorating this historic occasion through reflective celebration, education, and renewed commitment to the principles upon which the United States was founded. So therefore, I, Burnell Smith, Jr., Mayor of the City of Haines City and the City Commission, do hereby proclaim July 4, 2026 as America 250 Day, celebrating 250 years of American independence in the City of Haines City, and we encourage all residents to participate in activities that honor our nation's history, celebrate our shared heritage, recognize those who have served our country, and reaffirm our commitment to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and unity that has guided the United States for 250 years. And witness whereof we set my hand and caused the official seal of the City of Haines City, Florida, to be affixed the second day of July, 2026. And it's only appropriate that we present this to Parks and Recreation Director Terrell Griffin, who's putting on a sensational, along with his team, celebration of our independence. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, thank you. So now we're going to move on to item number five, our consent agenda. Are there any questions about the consent agenda? Not here. No question. All right, seeing none, I will go ahead and close that and open up to members of the public. If there is anyone in the public that would like to speak to the consent agenda, please come up to the podium. When you come to the podium, state your name and your address for the record. Seeing none, I'll close that and entertain. Okay. Seeing none, I'll close that and entertain a motion. Make that motion. All right, I do have a motion and I have a proper second. All in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carried. So at this time, we're going to move on to item number six, our public comment. Public comment. Once your name is called from Madam Clerk, you'll step up to the podium. You'll state your name and your address for the record. At that time, you'll have three minutes to talk about items that are not on the agenda for discussion. I repeat, items that are not on the agenda for discussion. Prior to Madam Clerk stating that first name, I'm going to have our Deputy City Manager, James King, come to the podium. Deputy City Manager King, I'm going to limit your time to three minutes, sir. Thank you, sir. Go right ahead. So I'll be brief. There's some media circulating right now about data centers. I wanted to address, hopefully, and rest everybody's minds at ease on where Haynes City stands on data centers. So in 2025, Haynes City did have a data center approach us through the marketing side of EDC. And just so everybody knows what EDC does and who they are, they're marketing our industrial park over there off of Bannon Island in 544. So they don't reach out to any particular business. It's any business that comes there. They bring it to the city and say, does this fit? Whether it's manufacturing, industrial, like the Carvana car lots, pods, anybody that comes over to that area, first thing they do is do an introduction to city staff, myself and the team. So in 2025, it happened to be a data center. We've had multiple businesses land there, but this was a data center's perk. So they came to us, the first question that we ask anybody that comes here, what are your capacity needs or demands? So they started out with water. That's box number one. So by saying that we need 150,000 gallons a day of water, it was a, sorry, we cannot help you with that today. So came back and said, well, if we can get additional water on our own through Swift Mud, would you commit to a concurrency letter saying that if we can get that, that's one hurdle, one step in the process. And again, there's many steps in this process. So the city did issue a letter that says, we'll send your request to Swift Mud. If Swift Mud has additional comments or questions, we'll get back with you. You'll need to answer those questions. That was in 2025. Keep in mind, in 2025, data centers was not a buzzword. It was nothing anybody was talking about in November of 2025. That didn't come out until the beginning of this year. So there was no red flags or any flags of that nature thrown at that time, other than it was a potential partner coming to the city looking to locate here. So, again, that was 2025. Moving forward to today, they have not come back to the city. Their permits have not been approved through Swift Mud. From that date until now, the governor's office has set it up to where a data center has to have a standalone permit through Swift Mud governing board. So it doesn't even go through their normal process. So, again, there's a lot of hoops for them to jump through before they can even come back and begin a conversation with Haines City. If you go online, you look up data centers in Haines City, you'll see a pin dropped up by the Park State College. We were talking to some reporters last week, Haines City manager and myself, and that's what they were telling us. What shows a data center up here? So I went on the same site she was on, and I said, well, it must be true. It's on the Internet. But it was not true. There's no data center going up there. That's Polk State College. It's near our EOC in the hospital. So there's multiple sites that I guess the data centers are dropping pins on saying we would like to go to those areas, but we don't have a data center coming to Haines City. I can't stress that enough. So I know there's going to be questions on data centers. I've seen a lot of news articles on data centers, had multiple interviews on data centers, and it's exactly what I've stated tonight. They're at step one was utilities. So there's nothing beyond that today. So if you have any questions, I definitely stand for them. I told you I would make a brief. And if there's anything else that you would like me to explain, I would be happy to. All right. Thank you for that. From this board, are there any questions for Deputy City Manager King? Enough questions. All right. Thank you. Madam Clerk, who do we have names? Mary Cruz Ruiz. Hello. Hello. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having this meeting. My name is Mary Cruz Ruiz. I am a professional artist. I am a muralist. I'm a painter. I'm a florist. Tell us your address. 1021 Suffrage's Circle in City, Florida. Yes, sir. So I only have three minutes, so I'll make this quick. But as y'all have known, I am proposing investing in more public art here in New City, Florida. And I know the CRA has done a lot of work and is currently working towards that right now. So I just wanted to share a little bit about my story, you know, just to make it quick. Me and my family run a local flower shop here in New City, Florida, run up 1792. And I recently painted a 50-foot mural across the shop in hopes to, you know, show my support to my family, you know, express my skills as an artist, and invite more foot traffic for our shop. You know, and just bring vibrancy and culture to Hain City, bring beauty to Hain City. And it's unfolded a lot of beautiful things over this past year. You know, we've had a lot more traffic coming in. We've had a lot more conversations. We've been able to get on, you know, Fox 13, Telemundo News. Our mural is now up on the Visit Central Florida mural passport. And we've been growing our roots deeply. And we've had such a great response for the community. We've had, we've made so many new connections through this. And it's been a really beautiful process. And one of the reasons why I planted that seed is to extend that through Hain City as well. And I think it's a really important thing to connect community, to really highlight the heritage and culture of Hain City, to be able to tell stories to the locals and also all the non-locals that are moving down here. They don't have any, like, any deep ties yet. And so I want to be able to invite that sense of pride, that sense of belonging to, you know, people who have lived here all their lives and people who are just moving here. I just want to piggyback real quick. I know we got, like, 13 seconds. I'm Tomiko Bennett, address 1113 F-O-K. Real quickly, I just, I met her delivery mail. I saw her, her thing on the news. And I stopped by her shop. And, is it okay if I finish real quick? Okay. And I stopped by her shop and I went to talk to her mom. Basically, arts is very, very vital. God gave me a vision a long time ago in 2024 when Miss Jane was the CRA about our, the bridge, right here on Henson. And I spoke with her about that. And that's one of the biggest projects that I really would like to help them to do with the staff, you know, and different kids, like, from the schools and everything. They're getting community hours. And I think that's a great thing to incorporate so that they can go ahead and receive their community hours while doing a big project and different things in our city. So I'm just helping them out, doing the best I can. So it's a blessing. Let's do this and make our city better. All right. Thank you for that. All right. Thank you. Renita Brundage. Good evening, everyone. My name is Renita Brundage. My address is 325, 5th Street, apartment 1. I'm coming to you all because I'm hurt. I'm hurt and I'm disappointed because I sit back and I see a lot of stuff. I hear a lot of stuff. And it hurts. Especially being around someone you done been around all your life to raise your kids in football. And train your kids in football. And to turn around and stab you and manipulate you, go around telling all kinds of lies on you. You can do it to me. But when it comes to my children, it hurts. When it comes to my children, it hurts. My son is one of the most humble child I have. And it takes a lot to make him upset. He loves kids. All kids. All national kids. He trained kids. But when you do stuff to them, you do it to me. My son never wanted, and I do apologize if y'all felt like he was hostile. But he wasn't hostile. It was more coming from hurt. When you're being around a person, you're not supporting a person. You're not doing this for a person. And then they turn around and backstab you in the bank. My son went to these people and wanted to partner with them. But they said no. So when God gave you a vision, you follow your vision. But then you turn around and then you call Denverport. You won't get a fee of them. You call the high school, the AD, who gets on the phone calls and tells people that you, he's not going to play out there because you donate money to the high school. Then you call the Volk County School Board and you manipulate his character. Marissa, but I am, letting y'all know, I am filing a complaint to the Board of Education on the dean, the AD from the high school, and Marissa from the school board. Because at the end of the day, that's my child. And no one is going to sit there and, you do it to me. It got done to me. But me, as a God-fearing child, I forgave. And I asked my son not to go and coach. But how can you say my child is this, valid, vicious, but then he coached for you. I'm upset and I'm hurt. Marissa, there's not nothing to you. Miss Anne, I can understand what you went through. And I do apologize that you retaliate by you. And I do apologize my son retaliated by you on Facebook. And LaKeel, I commend you that you didn't retaliate by you. So I know what y'all went through, to be manipulated and told all kinds of lies on you on Facebook. And, like, again, I do apologize for my son, did what he did on Facebook. But when you hurt and you get tired, you just tired. So I understand where you're coming from. Enough is enough. And something will be done and something got to be done. Whether y'all are going to do it. But if you don't do it, God say he's going to remove you. So take heed to it. All right. Thank you for that. Madam Clerk. David Gill. David Gill. I'll lift it up. 108 Brim. I'll lift it up. Can I give you all some pictures? This is Albert. Anything that you provide to the dyes, though, sir, is going to become part of the record, so you won't bid back. Are you okay with that? I don't know. It is not a lot. We won't. We won't. We won't. We won't. I know it's been like that for a long time, and it's very dangerous. If you look at the pictures, I don't know if any of y'all have ever went out and looked at it, but a friend of mine went there today, and actually the road is starting to crack on the westbound lane. I think that there's not even a barrier to keep somebody from falling in. And all the dirt is going into the holding pond. I think it's time to do something. Let me just ask one quick question, and this is the current picture as of today. Yeah, well, a couple weeks ago. Recent, recent, yes. And we should at least put a background barrier or something until it gets fixed. If y'all go out and take a look at it, the picture doesn't even do it justice. When you look at it, it kind of takes your breath away. That's all I got. I was just bringing that to your attention if you haven't noticed. Thank you for that. No problem. Rachelle George. Good evening, everyone. My name is Rachelle George, formerly known as Rachelle Anderson. I grew up here in Hayes City. I was also a part of youth sports. I participated in cheerleading for high school, middle school. And I stand before you today to discuss the youth sports use agreement for Jarvis Austin. I'd just like to speak on his behalf as his character. And some of the things that, you know, a lot of people don't know about Jarvis is that his background and his past does not define his future. And where he's trying to take youth sports and in the community that he grew up in and was raised in. Some of these coaches and, you know, city commissioners and managers and everyone around are just like family to us, like since we've been little kids. And I'm just shocked that, you know, we've gotten away from that as a community, as a family, as friends, as colleagues, whatever you want to consider yourself to each other. But our family raised us in this community to, like, stay together for everyone, not just for ourselves. They also let us know that if you have a platform that you can use to, you know, empower the community that you grew up in, the ones that come behind you or that's underneath you, like meaning, like with Jarvis, the little kids. With Jarvis, I've seen him, you know, grow into this mature, God-fearing individual for the community. Not for himself, but for the community. He loved on these boys. I have a 19-year-old now, and that's my middle child. He's my only son. He's been in so much different things, and he's got, you know, judged and things like that. And one thing I can say is that I can call on Jarvis, other than other family member male figures in his life. Jarvis is one that I can call on because Jarvis is going to talk to him from experience. He's not going to talk to him from where he is today and who he is today. He's not going to make himself better than anyone. He's going to put himself on their level. He's going to teach them. He's going to train them. He's going to empower them to do better with themselves. He's going to let them know that, you know, the right and the wrong of the situation, you know, whether they agree with it or not, you know, that's just life. You know, sometimes you have people that go against you. Some people don't go against you. But I just stand here to ask you guys to just, you know, change the atmosphere, change the morale of the community. I'm proud to see you all up here on the commission, see every last one of you because I grew up knowing you guys since I was a little girl. And that makes me proud. I've read to my kids about you all. And I don't live in Haines City no more. You know, I live in 525 Avenue H Northwest in Warner Haven. But I come here. I still come to the events. You know, I still come visit the churches and things like that. But I just want to say one more thing. Jarvis is more of a mentor than anything. Having a mentor that's been to where he's from his past to now and he's changed, that can really teach these boys. So I wish that you guys would find it in your hearts to find somewhere for him and his organization to meet and, you know, so he can pour into these boys like you all have poured into him when he was little. People do get emotional. People do talk out, you know, from their heart. But that's because they don't understand, you know, everything that's going on. But you guys do. So just, you know, make it right. Thank you for that. Thank you. You all have a great night. Mr. Merrick, how are you coming up? Commissioner West. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Renita, for coming up. And I want to listen to everybody. And I don't know if there are some other citizens may come up to the podium and speak on behalf of the youth football. As you all know, that was my life. I grew up a youth football coach. I coached Jarvis Austin, Devon Austin, two of my best players that I ever coached from sitting here. And I say that loudly. And I say it proudly. You know, and I feel sad at what's going on in the community involving youth sports. You know, I wish we can all be on one accord. And I wish we can get together and learn to live, work, and play together in the same community. And if we can do that, we'll be a better place. I think that, you know, we got to get to that. We got to figure out how we're going to retire our community. I hate to see we come here and being divided. I haven't coached youth football in 17 years. Now, I've done it for a long time, but it would have been a while. I have not no skin in the game. I don't know what's going on with youth sports or anything. And when I came on this commission, I totally got away from youth sports because I wanted to be neutral. I didn't want to be, you know, a favoritism from one sport to the next or one organization to the next. So I totally got away from football. I don't know what's going on, but I just hate to hear what's going on. Jarvis, you know, he's a great young guy going up, you know, even at a professional level. I'm proud of him. But I just wish we can get this and make this all one unit, one team, and all work together. So thank you all. And we're going to get this right. We'll get it right. Right, Mark. Caria Jenkins. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Caria Jenkins. I am his manager for the Crown Queen. LLST located at 701 East Spring Street. He's been paid with one. So I'm standing in concern for, we have taken a big loss financially since the construction has started. So I wanted to know, is there a plan in place that you guys have spoke about in reference to some type of temporary situation that can help with parking since the building has started? Because we lost a lot of business since you guys have started building. There's nowhere for people to park. So if you haven't came up with a plan, we'll also like to know publicly, you know, contact and at what point to see what will be done about the businesses in downtown. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. As we have had several budget sessions talking about the parking and what we can do about that has been one of our major concerns. I myself, many years ago when this building was constructed, experienced the same thing in 2011, 2012. So I do understand those challenges. Of course, it wasn't nearly as busy as it is now. But that is something that we're actively, you know, trying to see what it is from a commission standpoint that we can do about it. Okay. So when is that expected to have a solution or idea? Well, at this time, we're still in the, going through the budget process. We're trying to do something which will take effect maybe next fiscal year. Okay. It is still a process. There's a planning process and all that does go into that. But one thing about it, I think everybody here is committed to making sure that we can do it at an accelerated pace. Okay. That does alleviate your business, but, you know, all businesses. Understood. And when is your fiscal year, the end of your fiscal year? What was the date? So that's going to take effect on October 1st. October 1st, 2020, see? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, might I be recognized? Vice Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Just really quick on that note. And I believe Commissioner Huffman may have also received some calls from business owners in reference to the parking situation. And I know that we are talking and trying to come up with solutions. But I think that needs to be one of our main concerns moving forward. Because we're getting calls from these business owners every day that they are losing business. Some of them here in our downtown area, not just the actual business owners themselves, like the tenants. But the owners of the properties are losing tenants daily. Because if you notice, some of our businesses right here in downtown has now relocated over to 1792. So the property owners and the actual business owners are taking a big hit. And I know that the construction is not due to end until 2027. So if we could definitely put that as one of our top priorities for some type of parking, just to help them out. Try to keep their doors open. Because it is very hard for them to maintain their business every day. Like two and three business owners are contacting us on a daily basis. So that's just some homework for us to do. I really like to look to see what we can do to help alleviate some of the traffic issues. Even if it's on a temporary basis to give them some type of relief. Thank you for that. And I'll just add, you know, once again, you know, in my efforts to try to just attract businesses to come downtown. You know, meeting potential some prospects here. You know, when they ride around for ten minutes to find somewhere to park so we can actually even walk the area. You know, it already starts to give a negative perception of, you know, if I can't park it, how can my patrons park it? So I definitely think, you know, as we continue on through the budget process, it needs to be one of our main objectives. Mayor Smith. Commissioner Douth. That parking is a definite issue. It has been for quite a number of years. And although we've torn down the old Bowen TV place and we said that was going to be made of temporary parking spaces, we have torn it down. But I haven't heard of a date of when we're going to start trying to pave there. I don't know how long it would take to be able to put some two-hour parking signs in front of some of the businesses that are there on Ingram in our downtown area to put two-hour parking there. And the owners or the tenants, the owner of the business, if you would not park right in front of your business and you park a little further back and walk to your business, you leave an empty parking space there for your business to come. So what I'm finding or what I'm hearing is that employees are still parking there. Some of the owners of the arcade, the businesses in the arcade are parking downtown. So you, too, have to take accountability. Stop parking so close downtown and leave some space for your customers to get there. So just to sum it up, I'd like to see some two-hour parking there. Not that we have anybody to enforce it at this point, but hopefully it'll make a difference. And that, to me, that's something that can be done within the next 30 days since we have our own sign shop to be able to put that. Parking was so bad, we had to put a sign out there saying the first and third Thursday. We have to leave this available for the commissioners. So that would be a good help with it. And we need to find out when are we going to at least put some kind of parking spaces in that old Bowen TV place because the owners could at least park their cars over there. And that would leave more spaces available on 6th Street, 7th and Ingram. All right, thank you. Thank you for that. Just one quick note. Something I would like for this board to consider is that, you know, in an ideal world, everybody does come to work at the same time, and that would probably work. But with people coming in, you know, staggered at staggered times. Or, you know, some of those businesses like the barbershops that may have several people, you know, scheduled. We have to take that into consideration, too, about that two-hour parking. Those spaces may not be available. For those employees that come in at 10, you know, I'm here, and I unfortunately had to park in front of the business because nothing else was open. And I would before I was here, you know, so I'm there past that time. So that may be something to think about. But I am renewing the efforts of, you know, trying to, you know, see if there is some available land that the city could, you know, acquire. In addition to, because I know we're still doing, I believe we're still in the process of doing testing in that Bowen TV area. Yeah, for the prom field. Right, that may just be stolen at us. So, you know, like I said, it's one of my primary objectives. I just know one last comment, Mayor Smith, is that when I got here in 2017, all I heard was the government will go slowly. But we are the government. And we're doing it warp speed. And we can go faster with some of these things. Instead of waiting on people to call us back, let's call some of these people back at this brownfield situation taken care of and make some temporary parking space out there. Because that's another kick in the can down the road. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Sharon Garrett. My name is Sharon Garrett. I live on the private road off of Carl Boozer Road. On Carl Boozer Road, where the developer paved the road, there's a turn lane going east to turn into Crosswinds Boulevard, whatever it's called. If you're coming north on that Crosswinds Boulevard, and you go to look to see if cars are coming down the hill, because there's a rising hill. Today, there's been a semi-truck parked in the turn lane. And the semi-truck is parked there several times. You guys should put a no-parking sign up there for the semi-truck. And where it's at that you could put the parking sign would be kind of right in front of that land that you bought from Dr. Griffiths, you know, to become a park or a library or whatever, or a police station. Because it's a safety hazard, because the truck blocks your line of sight looking back. You cannot see one coming track until it's right on you there. So, I mean, I think the city has a duty to provide safe situations for its populace as well as the county residents. And I've kind of made you aware it's a problem. The next thing is over on the other side, where the same developer paid Baker. And they paid Baker, and they stopped at a certain point before they get to the convenience store. And there's that terrible, awful temporary pavement that was put there when they were putting the pipeline out back so the trucks going up down the road didn't have potholes all over the place. Well, that kind of temporary pavement has potholes in it. And there's two potholes headed east. And one of them is really bad. It's at least two feet into the drive lane. And if I was coming down the road headed west one morning, and this guy pulling a trailer, he jogs out and almost hits me. I can't get off the road because there's a big F curb there. So that's another safety issue. If you could please have somebody fill in. There's two potholes, one right at the end of the pavement and one before the pavement on the eastbound lane. And how much have I got last? Mr. Gill, he's right about that. I brought that issue up on that road and no guardrail when Garrett Kinney was in the last stages of getting a final plaque. Because they dug that side down. There was never a drop off like that in that area. I grew up here. I've driven out there numerous times. And that developer created an issue. All right. Thank you for that. Shanita Brown. Shanita Brown. Good evening. Shanita Brown, 1215 Avenue N, Haines City, Florida. I am coming. And I'm glad that I hear other citizens bringing up concerns about traffic and things of that nature. I was issued a red light ticket on 27. And I'm not sure of the road, but it's where the truck stop is heading east. And actually, I was not driving the car, although I'm the registered owner. So I challenged the ticket, came to court, and it was dismissed. But it was dismissed because the officer did not show up. My question is actually for the attorney on the red light tickets at this time. What is the likelihood of that ticket being dismissed based on case law from Broward County, citing those tickets unconstitutional? The circuit court case that you're referring to doesn't set precedent for purposes of the legal issues that were addressed. We're in the 6th DCA, so a 6th DCA opinion would set precedent in law for purposes of our enforcement. But as related to that specific citation, if it were dismissed, you will not be receiving a new notice of hearing to adjudicate that case if you appeared and there was no one in attendance in order to adjudicate or to argue on behalf of the policing authority. So that will be dismissed. But the issues that were addressed in the circuit court case, I've reviewed it. These are civil infractions. And statutorily, the legislature did provide certain fences to red light cameras as well as schools on speed enforcement action. So if you do happen to receive a citation or a notice of violation, because that is how it's originally issued, is a notice of violation, we're assuming to Chapter 162 of the Florida Statutes before the UTC is issued, be sure to review the requirements for the affidavit and things of that nature that need to be submitted to the magistrate for consideration. But hats off to you for being able to acknowledge the circuit court case. It's an interesting read, but it has not reached the DCA level yet. Okay. And again, in your legal opinion, would it have not been dismissed based on? Oh, I refrain from providing any type of conjecture or speculation. The magistrate, I have not attended those hearings yet. I know I attend them in other jurisdictions, and I also serve as magistrate for other jurisdictions as well. I – am I out of time? You are. I would love to have, you know, a sidebar conversation with you about those items. Okay. Because clearly you've done your research on that, and I would love to hear more of what you have to say about it, and maybe I can answer those questions often. Okay. And while we're on that subject, I am proposing that there is a light – I'm sorry. Uh-huh. If you don't mind, the time is up, and I do know he may have spoke during half of your time there. So if you could go ahead and phrase that question to him, but we're going to – if it's okay, I would like to have him get with you outside of this hearing. Oh, that's fine. Yeah. But I – that's fine. So are you telling me I'm done? No, no. Go ahead and phrase the question. I'm raising the question of whether or not, in your legal opinion, would that case have been dismissed based on the law, the case law in Broward County? And I can answer real quick. If the case were brought in Broward County, absolutely. Okay. But the case was not brought in Broward. It is – Polk County jurisdiction for those cases resides in the local, you know, policing authority and jurisdiction, which in this particular instance would be the city of Payne City. And it would be my advice if I were counseling or advising the magistrate that the – any type of precedent that would be arising out of that circuit court case would not be applicable or be binding on our proceeding team. Okay. All right. So it doesn't really – the presumption doesn't violate constitutional due process. All right. Attorney, if you can't – just – if you don't mind, just give with – I am. I'm going to give you my phone number. And then that way you can call me and we can talk as long as you'd like about this. Okay. All right. Well, I am proposing that we at least look at having a red light poll on the opposite side because it's a challenge seeing the light behind the 18-wheelers if you're up close on them. I don't know if you've traveled that coming out of the truck stop, but I think we need additional light. And I don't know who I need to petition, whether it's DOT or who – whomever. But there needs to be a visible pole light on the other side of the street or one on the same side of the street that cars can see beyond the height of an 18-wheeler. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. The second thing is Kentucky Street and 1792. Okay. I'm sorry. Your time is up. Okay. 1792 is always – they always have an accident. I don't know if it's been discussed. I go there twice a day, five days a week. Your time is up. Okay. All right. Thank you. Jarvis Alston. Jarvis Alston. Jarvis Alston. I'm here on behalf of myself personally and my organization. First and foremost, I want to say, like my mom addressed earlier, it's a hurtful situation that I'm dealing with. To have given so much to this community, the kids here, being raised here, and trying to give back and do the right thing, even going about doing it the right way, and to be sabotaged in a way that I'm being sabotaged, you know, my character being attacked, you know, on all ends. And it would be something different if it was the truth. As a man, I can deal with the truth. I can deal with being accountable. But it's one thing when it's lies, you know what I'm saying? It's straight up lies, and it's being done in a vindictive way. It's being done, you know, in a way that, you know, only evil people can do it. You know what I'm saying? And you're trying to hurt me maliciously because you feel like I'm a threat to whatever you've got going on here, whatever. But, like my mama stated, I didn't want anything to do with Mize and Wiley Field initially coming into the start of my youth program. I spoke with Mr. Rags and Mr. West. Well, Mr. West didn't want to meet, but I met with Mr. Rags that, you know, expressed what I was doing. And just out of respect for what they've been doing. But I wanted no parts of Mize and Wiley Field based on the conflict and all, you know, the confusion that's been going on for the last 20, 30 years, however long it's been going on. So I took the initiative to go to Hainesville High School and reach out to then-principal Mr. Tarver. I had dates confirmed for whatever reason. The AD wouldn't communicate with me or no one from my organization. Even being directed by one of the assistant principals to reach out. Never reached out. But apparently he decided to reach out the day that Mr. Tarver was no longer the principal at Hainesville High School. Reached out with an email pretty much stating that my organization was never going to be able to use Hainesville High School. No matter, you know, the confirmation that I had with Mr. Tarver, the partnership that we made to not only, you know, use the field, but to get kids to football play. Just one moment. So let me just, Mr. Austin will be given an additional three minutes. It was, it was, this item, this, what he's speaking about now, had written previously, was going to be placed on the agenda, but it wasn't the appropriate place for it to be on the agenda. So I had a conversation with Mr. Austin so he could come and express his thoughts. He had brought additional members of his organization that was going to yield additional time to him to speak to this issue. So he's going to go for an additional three minutes. Mr. Austin. And like I stated, I was told through an email, and it wasn't the fact that I was denied. It was just the way that he came across. I'm going to just be straight up honest. Mr. Austin made many attempts to sabotage my program, even going as far as sending people to sit in at my meeting. To try to see what we, you know, we're doing and what we got going on. To get on these calls with the conference and tell these lies about me being, you know, this vicious person. I tried to fight him to the point where, you know, I had to be physically restrained to the ground. Those are all lies. But, you know, I have to stand up for me. I have to protect my character. You know what I'm saying? Because I can't count on nobody else. I can't depend on nobody else to, you know, speak to me. Because, you know, at the end of the day, don't nobody really know me and my heart. Like, I'm a man of integrity. You know what I'm saying? I'm a man of, you know, honor. I'm a man of, you know, respect. And I respect everybody. But it's to the point where, like, I'm not going to sit back and continue to take what Mr. West is going to me behind the scenes. I went to Davenport to try to see if I could partner with them. You know, it got back to me from one of my mentors that he went to Davenport, bad-mouthing me, to Kelly Callahan. It's just been attempt after attempt after attempt. And it kind of made me go to, you know, the point where I felt like I had to go. I had no other resources. I had no, you know what I'm saying? I felt like my back was against the wall and I'm not going to lay down. And, you know what I'm saying, and let them bury me alive. I'm going to stand up and I'm going to fight for myself and I'm going to come up off that wall. So, starting this program, you know, I reached out to Real. We did an Easter event. Insurance was mandated certain verbiage, you know, up until the last minute of, you know, property where insurance can be, you know, corresponding between us and the company. I find it very disturbing that, you know, you have an organization and not only an organization, but an organization that's been led by a former elected official, a community leader, and not only that, but someone who has worked in the insurance industry for, you know, for two plus decades. And to put kids in harm's way, the way that he did and that organization did, I feel like that's willful negligence. And that put the city in a situation as well because upon my public records request, and I have all of the information here as well that I would like to present to the commission as well. So, we joining, you can have your own copies to see the facts that I'm presenting tonight as well. We're going to have a lot of overage kids that's been able to play in this organization. And it's proven, like I said, 2022 and 23, the city clerk, the city has no record of a contract, a use agreement, or insurance. For me to be subjected to, you know, all of this and that, I want to know why wasn't this particular organization, you know, mandated to do the same as well. It was allowed two consecutive years to put these kids in harm's way, willfully negligent, knowing the possibility of the danger that these kids was placed in. And someone of his expertise should never have done that because, like I said, coming from an insurance background, he knows the fact that, you know, the dangers that come with playing the game of football. So, I would like to present, you know, some of the facts that I have. And also, I've got to – Very quickly, I do appreciate that. You can give those items to Madam Clerk, and she'll go ahead and disseminate them to us. But at this time, and I can appreciate everything that you're saying, but I do want to just point out the fact that, while I think our interim city manager is listening, the majority of those answers that you're requesting, they're going to come because it's operational. It's going to come from our interim city manager. He may not have that information because he wasn't, I guess, the city manager at the time. But that's going to be our best resource to, you know, get some of the answers to the questions that you're asking. So, I just want to let you know that I do think everything that you're saying is important. And I'm glad that you had the opportunity, you know, to come back before us to, you know, give us some more of your thoughts on it. So, if you would hand that one last name. Thank you, man. Before I have a seat, I would just like to know, just for the record, like, what is it that I need to do, you know, to intend to partnership with the city, you know what I'm saying, moving forward? Because, you know, the dates are, you know, rapidly approaching, you know, like I said, everything that I've tried to do has been blocked for politics. So, now, as a citizen, I'm asking, like, what can I do and how can I, you know, get my kids accommodated just like everybody else? Well, and, you know, I didn't have the privilege of being here at the last meeting, but I did have an opportunity to go back and watch that meeting. And I think I'm just going to kind of echo some of the sentiments that I believe my seatmates had with that. My position is clearly, you know, your organization is, it's an organization based in Hayden City. You have a lot of your children that are playing there are from here in Hayden City. I think we have a duty to make sure that you have, you know, an adequate opportunity for those kids to, you know, participate in those youth sports right here in Hayden City. Now, once again, you know, that's not anything that this board has the authority to do at this point. But we do have a capable city manager and also a parks and rec director, you know, that I think they have a clear understanding that these kids are here in Hayden City. Your program is based in Hayden City. And, you know, one thing that we did a short time ago is we made all of our fields multipurpose, you know, for reasons like this. Because as we continue to grow, you know, it's not just going to be, you know, youth football. You know, flag football is coming. You know, I keep stressing to hear that lacrosse is going to come, you know, one day. You know, soccer is going to continue to come. And we have to make sure that, you know, we aren't pushing our citizens to go to other cities to play. So, you know, that's something that we're going to work to. But you're not done yet. There may be some additional questions from some of my teammates for you. This may be recognized. Vice Mayor. Thank you. The answer to your question, what do you need to do, I kind of tried to give you that instruction at the last meeting. Because the way that it's set up currently for the operational point of it is to go with the city manager. Now it's going to be our interim city manager and a parks director. So that was my suggestion to you to schedule an appointment with them. Not so much as far as so that you're not heard here in an open forum. But so that way you can have that sit down to find out exactly what you need to do. Let them know what your ask is. Because even then, there was not an ask at the time. So if you are looking to entertain a contract for your organization, that's going to be the first step. So that's why I recommended that you sit with the parks and right director and the interim city manager. Let them know, again, what your intentions are. And then you can all collectively work together for a proposal and to see what we have available for your organization and where you can be hosted for this season. So that's going to be the first step, correct, would be to get with them. Because they're the ones that would be making that decision. Understood. And let me just interject here for a moment, Mr. Dawson. I know when I had the conversation with you, and I just want to see, do you have your ask with you? Yes, I got everything. Okay, so we'll just make sure you deliver that to the clerk and we'll give that to the city manager and the parks director. I'm sorry, Madam Vice Mayor, go ahead. No, and that's basically that's it. That's what I wanted to say because we didn't get to that point at the last meeting, and I didn't think we, and then you just asked it tonight because that was going to be my recommendation, that you have your ask and you meet with them, schedule an appointment, and then you can go to the table and let them know exactly what your ask is for your organization, and then they can provide you with what we can possibly offer to you and your organization. Understood. And, you know, like, my biggest concern with that is, you know, being around and knowing how things work. You know, none against Terrell, but Terrell, you know, he's not going to tell hard enough. You know, it's just a, that's just the fact of the matter. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he, I don't know if it's a, you know, he's scared of his job or whatever the case may be, but when it comes down to that field, you know what I'm saying? Y'all may not know, but I know for a fact because I done spent more time down there than anybody. He dictates what goes on at that field. You know what I'm saying? Even, yeah, Terrell may be the director, but he's just the director. Horace dictates what goes on at that field, and I'm just being straight and honest with him. We all know that. He dictates what goes on with that field. Who can use it? Just like, um, these, this, this prior season, three consecutive playoff rounds. Anybody in here that know football, no one team, one organization get to host three consecutive playoff rounds. Now, the first round, Poinciana had it. The gate went to Poinciana. He got in session. I was a part of Davenport Patriots. And if my mom can vouch for it. We didn't get in the second round because the vice president, Bert Baden, told me that he didn't have the money to pay hards west to youth. I'm like, pay hards west for what? Say to rent the field. So I'm like, why would you have to pay hards west to rent the field? And I'm like, how much? He was saying 800. But the city don't even charge that money. But this is the stuff that needs to be put on record that's going on. And people like me that's been inside and know what's going on can speak on because I'm not a puppet. I don't, I'm not here to be light and all this and that. So I can stand for what's right because my integrity means more to me than anything. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going to sell a lot for nothing. I'm going to stand, you know what I'm saying, as a man and stand with integrity. But at the end of the day, I just wanted to put that on record because that's what's going on. And it needs to be known. Because, like I just said, I don't get, nothing gets too real, but I just don't have the confidence that, you know, I'm going to be treated fairly. Because I've seen how much to be treated. You know what I'm saying? For years, just being straight up honest with you. So it's a power that's, you know what I'm saying, hovering over this city and this community that I'm not going to bow down to. Okay. I'm just being honest. I'm not being reckless. I'm not being hostile. I'm just standing. That's what the word of God told me. All right. All this fails stand. All right. All this fails stand. Thank you. I believe there may be one additional question from Commissioner Hoffman. Well, mine is more of a comment. Okay. It's been a constant fight on who was going to be on that field. And ours went, he made every effort to make sure that Buster was not on the field when the Northeast Rattlers was there. I know the history. Out of the Haines City Rattlers was born Northeast Rattlers. And out of Northeast Rattlers. And out of Northeast Rattlers, there came part of the kids for the Vipers. And it's been more of a political thing. More so than anything. More so than anything. More so than anything. As to why Buster ended up being kicked off the field. Now, we've made room for three teams. There's four Saturdays that are there. And I don't want to see you go anywhere other than Myers-Wiley Field. You belong on that field just like the Vipers when they came along on that field. And I'm going to say to the interim city manager that what Jarvis is saying is true. And that is, Horace West has been able to control and dictate who can be on that field. And that needs to stop. We took it away from us up here because it was so political. But the politics still are going on behind the scenes. And so I'm just saying it. I'm just putting it out there like I've always have put it out there. So when it comes to this use agreement, please, Jarvis, you need to be your team. Your Gators need to be on Myers-Wiley Field. And it needs to be done fairly, Lloyd, when it comes down to this. There should be no fear that anybody's going to lose their position based on any three, the majority up here. And I'm not saying be unfair to Horace, but be fair with everybody. He doesn't own that field. The residents pay tax money for that field. It actually belongs to the city of Hayton City, not to any one person. And I really would like for you to be on Myers-Wiley Field. Now, I've known you for quite a while. Your integrity is there. You try to, when you work for the city, you try to pull the community leaders together to see what could be done for the youth. Nobody else has done that. This is something that you did. And I know that you have a love and a passion for helping these kids. And you have a way of being relatable when it comes to those kids. And I don't want to see you do, I want to see you on Myers-Wiley Field. And I want it to be done fairly. I want them to be treated fairly, void when it comes down to whatever the scheduling is. I think at the last meeting I asked for, I don't know if I asked the city clerk or if I asked you, I wanted to find out why in those years that the Vipers were allowed to be on that field that goes against what the youth agreement says. And to make sure that that doesn't happen to any of the three teams, be it the Vipers, the Gators, or the Rattlers. If our requirements are that you are to have insurance and a signed use agreement, fully notarized, if you don't have it, you don't get on the field. That's being fair across the board. This has been my fight since 2017, trying to get Buster on the field. So Jarvis, please, please, please, in your ask, you ask for Myers-Wiley Field. You deserve to be on that field. You grew up on that field. You coached just about on both of those teams down there. And if you were okay to coach on the Vipers, what's the problem now? Okay, you're the same person. I respect you. And I thank you for what you're doing for the kids. And as long as I sit up here, I'm always going to fight to make sure that you're down there on that field. And my fight will be with the city manager. It will not be with this board or with Horace West or with Terrell. It's going to be with Lloyd Stewart to find out why you're not getting equal treatment, equal access to that field. Thank you, Mayor Smith. All right, thank you. Mr. Hudson, if you'll bring those documents up. Let me have a quick comment. I'll go right ahead. I know we need to move on. Because some of the things that I'm listening to that I hear that's probably not true, but I'm not going to go into some of the things that Commissioner Huffman says. It's a long back story about the football uses in the field. Now, I want to say this, and I want to say it clearly. We, and the mayor said this, our fields are a multi-purpose field. It is an easy solution. No one has a right to no field. Those fields belong to the city of Haines City. And we have two fields that are multi-purpose use. I don't understand why we all got to fight for one field when we have another field that can be used. That field is not designed just for soccer. I want you all to understand that. That field is also designed for soccer, lacrosse, football, flag football. We did that for a reason. So I don't understand. These three teams, they all can't. They all shouldn't be trying to fight for one field. They should be playing at different locations. You know, Mr. Austin, like I said, I had nothing against you in football. You have a right to have a team in this city. I don't have a problem with that. But what I'm saying to you guys, they don't play soccer on Saturday. Your games are on Saturday. Why couldn't you use the soccer field some Saturday? Vipers use it one Saturday. Then the Rattlers use it one Saturday. They all can share these two fields and three teams can be accommodated. Why everybody want to play on Myers and Wally when we have two fields. It's an easy solution. I just, okay, one second. I just, I don't think that we should say only play soccer out there. I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's fair to all of our citizens. She, Commissioner Huffman said it. These fields are belongs to the city. We shouldn't just tell soccer. They, that's what, they're going to play soccer. You can't play no other sports out there. My recommendation, and I don't dictate the staff, trying to mandate and make staff do nothing. Staff should look at both fields. That's all I'm saying. And you should have the right to play on these fields just like anyone else. And I agree with you. But you should utilize all of our fields. I have no problem with it. Like I stayed at Earth. I had no intention on it. No, I understand. That's what I'm saying. But we have a field for you to play on. I grew up here. We have a field for it. All I got to this. No, I understand. I understand, John. And you know you and I go a long way, but you know that. And I want to see you exist in Haines City. But I want to be able to say, let's utilize all of our fields. And I'm not sure Buster wouldn't have a problem playing on that field a while. The Viker wouldn't have a problem playing. And you wouldn't have a problem playing. Y'all split these fields up. And our problem is law. All right. Sorry, Ms. Johnson. Thank you. Commissioner Johnson. I think initially what he said, because of culture, when culture has been embedded in us for years, how things are done. So he tried to pivot and go another way. And so when he tried to pivot and go another way, assuming that those roads are blocked. So now we're back to Mars Wiley. So that's my understanding. So I understand what you're saying, Commissioner West. But when you said they're fighting over a field, it was never initially a fight. When you already know what the culture was. So the culture was, you know, how things were done. So let me just go to another field. So when those things were blocked here, I'm again trying to get on a field. So as Commissioner Huffman, what she said, we are in full support of you. And we're in full support of all youth sports. I use things. I say things like it's bigger than me. So when you find out that it's bigger than you, it's about the children. Let's make it about the children. And how do we come to solutions, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. How do we come together? Talk about it. Hash it out. And we'll put that back in the hands of our city manager, Lloyd, that's up here now. Again, that's operations. And we want to make sure that the culture has changed, that everybody has an equal opportunity for the field. No one person has the field. It says Horace Odom on the one thing there. It doesn't say Horace West. So we want to make sure Horace West has time on the field. Buster has time on the field. Buster. The press box. And so that's what I meant. And also Jarvis Austin has time on the field because at the end of the day, it's about the children. So initially it wasn't a fight because you wanted to go somewhere else. That's my understanding. That's all I have there. Thank you for that. And I'm just going to say this, and then I think we'll probably go ahead and end this. You know, I've had several conversations with Mr. Austin. Initially, you know, his intent was to play in Hayden City. A field didn't really mean much. He just simply wanted to have somewhere for his kids to call home. You know, being that, you know, Hayden City, we do have those two fields. Of course, Myers and Wiley became an option. But in all my conversations with him, it's not about a field. It's just about having those kids here and them having the same opportunity that every other organization has to play on a field in Hayden City. I just want to make that clear for him. Okay, a little bit unorthodox, but I do see Mr. Raz, who is over another organization. Here, Mr. Raz, if you'd like to come up. Mr. Raz, 2122, neighborhood service, Hayden City. I simply listen, and I agree with Commissioner West. You know, we've been going through this thing for many, many, many years. That's because we had one field. You got two fields now. There's no reason this should be going on no more. This should have been done. This should have even came up, because you got two fields. If they want the present fields, they let y'all feel them on the field. You know, right now, I'm going to tell you right now, it would be a firestorm to try to put him on a quick field. Because the schedule is already out, and the organization I'm in already told me, we can't change. We changed the forest. Well, I can say that. We changed the last year by your schedule. And the year before that, too. And it calls us real happy. And we're not going to do it for you. If I have to do it this year, then you've got to find the forest. So, I mean, it would be a firestorm to try to do that. Three teams on Cook Field, it's not going to work anyway. That would be too much. You know, it would be too much. You've got a field sitting over here. Just like you said, they don't play soccer over Saturday. Why not let him use that field? I mean, then you'll probably be solid. It'll be solid, period. I mean, we're not, we're sitting here just beating a dead horse every year. Every year for one field. That's just one field. Man, we've got two fields now. If they have to play opposite of drivers, just like me and Wes is doing, we have to play opposite of each other. That field can be opposite of each other. Same scenario. Anybody else arguing about a field? Anybody else on that field? It's just drivers coming up now. He's a new team. Okay? You've got to feel over there, then let him play opposite of soccer. And this problem with you is going to go away. It'll be done. So I want y'all to think about it. You've got to feel. Okay. It's multiple problems. Let me use the field. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that. All right. So at this time, our attorney has asked for a brief recess. He needs to discuss an agenda item. So we'll take a five-minute recess. A little shake. A little shake. No, no. It's not. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I will call the commission first. It is. We'll go ahead and call the time is now. 3.48 PM. We'll call the commission first. Water and sewer. Water and sewer. Water. We have directed to HACES. I'll take over just for a quick intro. Just to kind of recap. The water and sewer fund. Again, this is one of our enterprise funds. All the funds collected from this are through our utility bills. I'm glad to say since 2021 when I got here, we killed all the transfers. There used to be like a $2.5 million transfer to the general fund. And again, for good reason, there was a lot of infrastructure. We're still trying to tackle all that infrastructure within the water and sewer fund. So from a revenue standpoint, charges for services, $30 million. Again, that's capturing water and sewer charges. It equates to $30,187,000. Judgments, fines, and forfeits, $1,175,000. So those are costs between late fees, charges for taps, any miscellaneous fees that we charge as part of utility services. It's going into that line item. And then miscellaneous revenues is interest income that we're charging or receiving on reserves and cash balances within our investment account. So total revenues, $32,772,000. Right below that is the expenditures of where we're starting off. Personnel costs, $5,724,640. Operating expenditures going up a little bit this year from $11,737,000 up to $12,750,413. So about a million dollar increase in operating costs. And then the last item currently plugged into this workbook is the debt service obligations, $1,946,000. At the bottom of this chart, you can see that $12 million dollar number that we talked about during capital. We started off with a, it was like $43 million dollar request from utilities. Staff has gone back and really got that number down to about the $12 million dollar number with a $5.5 million dollar number for the PRWC receiving station. So we're right in line where we need to be. But I know James will go through the operating expenses. On page three of the workbook is a detail of the revenues. And here again just kind of gives you the detail of water. How much is water revenue? That's $12 million. The sewer revenues is $15 million to get to just the charges for services. Obviously, we have a charge for reclaim on some accounts as well. That's $2.2 million. So that's just the detail that goes to the revenues we talked about. On page five is where the operational expenses begin. And the first department is finance utility billing. In the middle of page five, there are a few increases. The first one is freight postage services, about a 26% increase. This year's budget was $123,000. We're estimating and projecting that we're going to spend about $140,000. Part of that is new accounts coming online and then also doing additional mailers and files. We also have been doing the meter project and then also incorporated a leak notice letter to residents. So as soon as we're notified of a leak, we're also implementing and sending out a leak notice letter to residents, which is to increase that cost in that department. The other item is a favorite, printing and binding going up 25% from $40,000 to $50,000. Again, this year's projection is somewhere around $57,000. Just incorporating those new things that we just talked about from a printing and binding standpoint. Quick question. Why did we skip the first part of it? So the first part is just all zeros. The only thing that will change in there, there's no position requests or anything new. It'll just be dependent on the commission's desire to do a merit increase or a COLA, and then we'll make those adjustments there. I believe we talked about that yesterday. There's eight current members assigned downstairs, three on the front line, Lisa on the outside, two back of the house, and then two buildings. So obviously we've talked about this a lot of times. One of our main priorities is trying to make sure we're customer service friendly, trying to answer. Obviously with us growing 45,000 residents, new accounts with three people on the front line is very difficult, plus answering phone calls. Again, we're limited in space. Once the annex is done, we'll be able to kind of move around and add some more people. The goal is, as we project out in the future, where a building is now, use that to handle just new accounts, and then that'll open everybody up for payments on one side, new accounts on another, to expedite that process. So you wouldn't be reallocated? You would need to add more people? Not right now. No, no, no. Just in the future, right now we have Lisa and some people behind the house where they can't be, forward-facing to residents. But once we attain that division where the building department is, we'll put them there so they can handle new accounts there. So no other changes in the financial utility billing operation. Again, that's a 3.1% increase. Really about $50,000. So not much in the grand scheme of things. The next division that starts at the bottom of page 5 and goes over to page 6 is water operations. So water operations, you can see overtime is a big one, 100%. So as far as the need for on-site, can you all see that one? No. I don't know. Oh, you made that. It's at the very bottom. Okay. Sorry. I could see the look on your face. No, you couldn't see it. No. So, yes, at the bottom of water operations, there's a big one right there, a second one down over time at 400%. Of course, when the need is there for operators or someone to be on-site or on a situation where we have water breaks or mains or anything of that nature, it's after hours. I can't say it never happens during work hours because the last two days we've had two different breaks during work hours. But as you know, the majority happens after hours when they're definitely tired. It's only over time. Good question. As our systems continue to aid, do you foresee this in the U? Most definitely. Yes, sir. Most definitely. Unfortunately. And staffing for that would not benefit because we wouldn't have someone just waiting to do the on-call. They would have to have a full-time job, and then, of course, they would be on-call, and it would be a call-out anyway. The only true answer there is, as we move through every year and we identify the most critical items. Yes, our infrastructure is old. Yes, our infrastructure is old. It's critical to replace, but we have things that are even more critical than that, unfortunately. The next one, there's a professional services. Our engineering services that we use, everything from surveyors to the designing of our facilities. So, again, professional services. We look for that to stay consistent through the next several years. As you know, I think the email went out talking about $251,000, $251 million worth of upgrades that were needed and identified through our master plan. So, every year, we need all of our professional services to make sure that we keep getting these projects moving and or have them on the shelf for the following year when funding is available. So, professional services did go over about 20%. Communications, and that's pretty consistent across the board. Rentals and leases, as you know, we have lots of bypass pumps throughout the city right now. I believe we've just gotten approval to get a couple of more of the bigger pumps. And as of today, we're ordering another pump for the station 4. So, that system is down under its own power. There's one pump there. But we have to have redundancy because if that pump goes down, there needs to be another one standing right beside it ready to pump. So, that's our rentals and leases. We'll continue on an annual basis to try to purchase our own because it is cost-effective. But, if I'm ball call at one time, we have too many other things going on right now to try to purchase the pump. Promotional activities. We do monthly. We go to the – we go – what is that called? It's a lunch and learns. We do lunch and learns where the invitation goes out. People can come in to learn more about what we do in utilities, whether it be conservation or what not to flush. I mean, it's a big program that we have initiated and we continue – hopefully get to continue that program for our promotional. Gas and oil. All the stations we have out that have diesel generators or diesel pumps. We have to test run them. So, of course, the only – I was surprised to see it only go up to 11.1% with the cost of fuel the way it is right now and the additional stations that we have. So, right now we're up to almost 100 lift stations. You've got to figure that we try to touch every lift station every week. And that will come up later on when I talk about the additional personnel requests. Training. To make sure that we have team members that are highly trained to do their job accordingly, we want to make sure that every year we're sending them to all the training that's needed and or required, not just for updating their CEUs, but for the training on the equipment that they have to work on. So, we want to ensure that they have that capability. We're not always focused on that, but I want to make sure we are focusing on that. Ma'am. Why would road material come up to the road? Any time that they have to do an open cut, if they have a repair they have to do in the road, then they have to have material. It will come out of that budget because it's just the way that it's budgeted. So, at one time a couple years ago, we tried to just put an additional in transportation side. But you can't really manage who's using what. So, that's how we keep track on the funding side of it. So, again, whether it's the lime rock and or the millings, when it comes to the asphalt hot material itself, everything, we have to make sure we're coding it appropriately to the departments. And we don't want to be pulling out of general fund on something that is an enterprise fund. Yes, ma'am. Good question. Thank you. Just one quick question. I think it probably falls somewhere on that last screen we were on. At one point, there was the water conservation program where there was the toilet replacement and then the reimbursement fees. Did you go away from that? Or what's the status of that? Why are we not doing that any longer? Well, we didn't go away from it. Sorry, I was in line. We didn't go away from it. It's been revamped over all the big system, not in-city system, but the program itself. So, originally it was through the county. It is now going to be an aspect or a component of the PRWC. So, that's all been reformed here very, very recently. You'll see later on, I do have a request for a water conservation team member because it's not just the toilet rebates and those things. It's public education. We go to the schools. It's also part of our water use permit modification. You hear us talk about our WIP modification, which is a water use permit modification. SWIFT MUD requires to have that component. We're trying to do that component with just in-house staff, but it's a full-time job to make sure that we're doing everything with the whole water conservation. But, again, I'll get into that employee later. But to answer your question, yes, we're going back into that. We'll be a member. We're still a member. That whole program kind of got postponed or put on a shelf until it was reformed. So, that has been reformed now. Okay, but we're still going to be doing it in-house and not solely depending on PRWC, but just in connection with PRWC. Yes, ma'am. We'll do it just like we were with the county, except we'll be doing it with a co-op of the Polk Regional. Okay. That way it's an overall program. Okay. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am. No. All right. I don't see the same one. Or did we go to what? Okay, that's one. You want to go straight into wastewater? So, the next one, of course, is wastewater. Over time, another big one on wastewater. And, again, the old infrastructure. We have people here all hours. I know we talk about it all the time with police and fire that are always here. Water and wastewater utilities are always here. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, what holiday it is, when everybody's not here, what our wastewater facility operators are. But the overtime comes in with all the issues. If they're out there working on a sewer line, you have a rupture in the middle of the road. So, you see them out there. I know I've got calls from where people call you and then you call us, and they're out there in the middle of the night working on sewer lines as well, just like the old infrastructure and water. Some of the sewer is not self-inflicted from staff. It's self-inflicted from the community. So, that's going to go into the education side on what to flush, what not to flush, from greases to rags and everything in between. But that's why the overtime is up, of course. Professional services, same thing there. With our infrastructure, as you know, we have a lot of projects going on simultaneously from lift stations to sewer lines, upgrades, boom. Patterson Road. So, engineers, of course, we can look at it and think we know what it needs, but these things for water and wastewater have to be engineered to make sure that we're getting all of the mixtures right and the right components to do what our intended purpose is. So, professional services there is up, though. Thank you. I wasn't here for the first half of the capital. We're going to stop right there. But is something you do ask for, is you budget for something to attack that mail? Do you look at the capital? Yes, ma'am. So, it's not just the treatment. It's also the additional lines that are going to be put in the ground. And that is in our budget. Oh, that's still in there for the Patterson upgrades. It was like a... Yeah. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. It's supposed to. You're not sure. Well, you know me well enough to know that I'm not going to put my guarantee and say, by goodness, they'll never smell it again because I don't want you coming after me. But the science says that it will. That's what we're going at. I believe we have funding now to keep some of these things going. But the new budget, yes, it keeps everything moving. Yeah. Because it's getting... Yes. It's getting... And the hotter it gets, the worse it'll be. Yes, ma'am. Gas and oil. This one, of course, as you see, up to 100%. And that's more like it, to be honest with you. For the fuel that we use, we have a truck that runs daily. He has a trailer that has a 500-gallon diesel tank behind it. And all he does all day long is refill all of the stations and everything that needs the diesel. Chemicals. The more we produce, the more chemicals that we need. There's a polymer that we use. This is wastewater now. So there's a polymer that we use. It's a coagulant. So you remember when we were talking about the sludge, how you turned it into a... We call it a cake. Yeah. So the polymer is what makes it coagulate and stick together. So we've had to up our... You didn't even want to eat your cake for a week after that either, did you? Not at all. Yeah. But the polymer is a coagulate. And we have to have more polymer. And this covers all of our chemicals. So you have to have more polymer. Then on the other side, you have to have more sodium hydrochlorite, which is chlorine. At the end of the day, it's just a higher percentage. But we need more chemicals because of the process. We're producing more and treating more, so the chemical cost, of course, is going to go up with it, unfortunately. So when we go to the 6 million gallon a day and the more houses that come in and everything else, the chemicals will continue to rise. That's just the nature of it. We need more of it. Well, that's the last one with an uptick going down through until it gets to utility maintenance. That one was wastewater utilities. James, we talked for a minute about the potential that we have for needing to rent equipment for the wastewater treatment plant as we go through the construction process of expanding. That we may have those needs. Yes, so I'm going to go back a little ways. I know at least three commissioners that are currently on here. I know that Vice Mayor, Mayor, and Commissioner Johnson may not have been in the conversations early on with the developments that were coming to Haines City. So with the developments that were coming to Haines City, it was always a question of, well, can we sustain them? And the answer was, today we can, but in the future we can't. So if we approve them, we need to make sure that we're still approving the projects to move forward for capacity. So everything's moving forward. The wastewater plant, everything is being constructed. But our flows at the wastewater plant were permitted for 297. That's 2,970,000 gallons a day. That's what we're permitted there for. We're consistently about a 3-1, 3-3, which is 3 million. So as long as our effluent, at the end of the day, the stuff that comes out at the very end, as long as it still meets the quantities or the qualities of DEP, we're in there good graces. We don't know how long we're going to be able to do that before we get some additional capacity at that facility. So we've looked into renting possible equipment. So we're looking into some, it's portable units. It'll be rented. We're not buying them. But it's to help treat the additional flows. They'll be self-contained. It's an SB, as in void R. It's an SBR, which is a sequence batch reactor. It's an all-in-one. The effluent still goes where our effluent goes. But the need for renting that equipment may come up in the near future. So just want to make sure that we keep everybody in tune with that. I know myself, Lloyd, and Omar have been talking about this for quite some time. But the closer we get, so we just need to make sure that if someone sees something come across for a million dollars a year, and we don't own it, it may be that piece of equipment at the wastewater treatment facility. So I know the first thing Omar's going to do is say, I don't care if you get one, where are you going to find the money? That's what he tells me. Jane, don't care where you got the money at. But I do need you to be aware of it, so Lloyd, thank you for bringing that up. And that's the wastewater plan. Depending on the size, it could be a little less, it could be more. Depending on the capacity that we're actually bringing in. And we've had our consultants looking at that for six months, trying to make sure when we're ready for it, that it's not like we're starting today the conversation. This conversation has been going on for a year. I always want a plan B, a what-ifs. You know, I don't want to get caught with my, I won't go sit my pants down. I won't go sit my pants down out there. I'll be surprised. So we've been planning this for a while, if needed. Thank goodness. Exactly. So I just want to ask this question. With the, this is the enterprise account. Does the revenue that we bring in cover the expenses that we have? Is there any money left over? Are we negative at that point? Or just does it balance itself out? We're not negative. Omar, what's done above there? Do you mind? Yeah. Yeah. So I think right now, again, it's sustaining. It's given us the ability to invest that $12 million in capital. I think we're in a position where ideally we'd be investing $30, $40 million in capital. But to get there, that means I would have to double and triple the rates to sustain that. So again, I think we're trying to be strategic. We're trying to invest it as much as we can. We've utilized reserves as best we can. Again, trying to get that wastewater treatment plan online. That's a $60 million project. I think the appropriations have really gone a long way in helping us keep pace and not fall in a place, in a position where we'd have to start charging residents to offset those costs. I think the commission made a big stride as well on the impact side, where now new construction will be funding it accordingly to keep pace with the growth. Okay, because that's what my concern is, to make sure that, you know, this is the current right now. This is not what, you know, future houses that are going to be built using our water or wastewater. Was that a question? I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm saying is what we're looking at now, what Omar just explained, that is the current customers that we have. It does not take in consideration that we, within a year, could have, you know, another 5,000 customers, and we're still trying to service them and service our equipment and all of that. With that new growth. That's what I'm, you know, really concerned about. Yes. Because we keep saying yes, planning keeps sending stuff over saying, you know, we recommend approval. But, you know, again, can our current equipment, wastewater plant, whatever, the new one that's going to be built, you know, are we going to be able to take care of the residents that we have? Because there's a good possibility that they may see some increases, and that's going to be a question. Yes, and we are building for the future as well. So we're not building just what we have on our books today, because that's where we're not just Hayden City, but a lot of folks get in trouble is when you build what you need today and you don't plan for tomorrow. So I want to make sure that there's not someone standing at this podium in 10 years telling you that they're behind. Good, good. Utility maintenance is the next one. So overtime, same thing, so utility maintenance. The other one's out there with the operators doing these repairs as well. On the water side, when you're dealing with a water line, sewers are a little different, but on the water side, when you're out there on a repair, anything over three inches on a diameter, you have to have a licensed operator on site. So that's why you may see an operator out there and you say, well, they're not really in the hole as much. They're working, don't get me wrong, but you have to have a licensed operator on site when you're working with the water system of that nature. So you're seeing the repair in this division as well. The incentive, that's our incentive program, right? Or what is it? Incentivation HSA. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so getting their license and credentials and their certifications, that is a program we started several years ago. It's been a great program, not just for the incentive on their checks, but also for their accomplishments. So this is a recognition of that. Other contractual services on the utility maintenance side, same thing would happen when we have a meeting right-of-ways that we need to have surveyed or any issues that we need on our professional services side and for training, not for our training to go to, but for people to be here to teach us things. Traveling for Diem, it's a reduction. Maybe not this year, but I don't want to see it continue to go down because if it continues to go down, it tells me that I'm not getting my team trained properly. So this year does the same show a reduction. Postage, up 100%. Is that for the billing side? No, it shouldn't be. I don't bill any things. I don't know what that one is. I don't know. I put a question mark about that one. Because it was 65 and 500. It shows zero for 26. And then 1,000. Well, yeah, it shows zero for 26, but for this meeting it was 1,000. I do have a question mark there because I want to get some clarity on that one. I would have preferred a 50,000-hour savings, not a 500-hour savings. I know, right? Sorry, man. Every little bit. Yeah. Again, rentals and leases, it's the same story because it's all water, wastewater. And then we're going to have a lot of repairs. Repair and maintenance. So when you pull the pump out, it has to be sent off, whether it's an impeller or bearings or whatever it is. A lot of our pumps are older. They're still worth rebuilding, but there's still going to be a cost associated with it. To replace them would be tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. So repair and maintenance being close to a million. And that's not just pumps and motors. That's also pipes and fittings that we have to use during the year. Thanks. Do we have those pumps? We have been purchasing what we call pump shelves. And the reason we do that is we try to find an area that has, if you have an area that has a bunch of 7.5 horsepower pumps, we want to have a couple of them on the shelf. That way, if we know that pump and pull it out, it's bad. We go and get the one on the shelf and put it back in. That one goes to the shop for repairs. If it can be repaired, it'll get repaired and put back on the shelf. So we do try to keep some inventory. We don't have inventory for everything, of course. But we do have something to do. Is there anything? And there's a lot of things that we can do and we do in-house. If it's just an impeller, we can pull the impeller on-site because we already have the crane truck. We pull it out of the vault. If it's just an impeller, if it's shattered or whatever, we can do some of those repairs ourselves. If it's just an impeller, we can do some of those repairs. Any particular items that you'd like to point out or discuss? I can't let the mayor down. The chemicals, if I want to make sure I'm looking at it right, went from $29,000. Am I looking at it right to what we're seeing now is $140,000? Were you, why the jump from $29,000 to $140,000? I know you need whatever it is, but it's just, that number just jumps out. The equipment that we're putting in for the odor comes with additives. So there will be chemicals that we keep in the lines and the drip systems that combat all the odors and the gases and the oils. So we have to make sure that we have the chemicals installed. It runs through the system. So this is additional chemicals in that particular division. Whereas the other one was a constant based off of the flows increasing because of, like I mentioned, the polymer and the sodium hypochlorite. This one is additives that we'll be putting in the line. We also have, it's called a GATT treatment, which is a granular activated carbon. That's a different system, but this one is an actual additive that drips into our sanitary sewer. The other one is self-contained. It does have to be backwashed, but it's not the same chemical. The next one is general services. The rest is pretty much standard. Third, I did want to highlight insurance again. That is part of the liability insurance for citywide. So general fund picks up a portion of it, which was the $1.5 million that we saw. Utility picks up the other $495,000, so about $2 million total on that liability policy. I just want to give an update. That's somewhere where we're going to see if we can save some funds. The interim city manager has requested that we put that out to bid, see what the results come back of that, and hopefully we can save some money there on the city, keeping our coverages the same, ensuring all our equipment and buildings, but seeing if we can get that premium to come down on that $2 million price tag. I did want to mention that. The last thing I just wanted to discuss with the commission while we have you here. From a water, wastewater perspective, I just want you guys to be aware. I know we've talked about it several times. I wanted to show you these numbers. We were at conference two weeks ago. I was able to meet with Brett Tellis, the guy who put together the impact fee study for us. They are also one of the managing members of the PRWC, so I wanted to show you our cost on the PRWC. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, you mentioned going out to bid for the insurance. I was in no period of time, but I remember when the insurance was changed, there was a lot of complaint from the employee. Ms. Warren, I understand you said that some of the services would stay the same, but is there a particular reason why? It seems like the employees are pretty happy right now with the insurance that they have and the services that they can provide. So, is there any particular reason or does it put costs? Normally, when you put costs, you end up putting some type of services when you put costs. So, just for clarification, the bid that we're going out now is just the liability policy, not the health issue. So, yeah. Okay. And the FLC, it's a notification that they think that they can save us $500,000, but we don't know if that's the only piece. Okay. But then, I know we've been looking at cutting costs, but have we entertained the piece for employees? I know, I don't know where it will fall on that cart for expenses, but I know you offer, like, the gym membership. And right now, everyone has to go over to Waterhaven. We have one right here in our city, and a lot of the employees want to know if that could be an option where possibly we can have either a change from the current one over to our local town or even add that one. So, right now, we're getting a pretty good rate with JustMove. It's been in place for a long time. I think we pay $6.50 a month, and that covers all the employees, so basically $2 per employee per month. So, it's a really good benefit. Cigna also gives us some discounts with, I want to say Planet Fitness, Crunch, some of these other ones. I think the cost is, like, it brings us down to, like, $25 for employees, so they can pick and choose which one of those programs. Obviously, at $2 or free, there's a lot bigger benefit. We have run the numbers, and we get a monthly report of how many employees are utilizing it. I think the cost that way right now, the benefit, I think there are a lot of employees who are using just the JustMove. Something internally that we've talked about is trying to come up with more programs, whether it's six-time utilization or selling or offsetting those costs so they can go and pay for that gym membership. So, that is something we've gotten in the works from a wellness perspective on giving more options to the employees. I know JustMove is limited because it's in Winter Haven. I know Planet Fitness, we've tried to reach out to them to see if they'll do something special with us now that they're here. Have you had conversations with them to see what the group rate possibly would be? Yeah, so we're going to keep trying to work with them. I know they kind of deflected and pushed us back to the Cigna rate. But again, being a local government here, coming to Haines City, we're going to see if we can try and do something directly with them. So, I want to show you this. This is a report, and it has every city built into it. I really just want you to highlight these numbers here on the right hand. These are the annual payments that are projected for Haines City. What you'll see right now is at $1.2 million. Let's get into that a little bit more. So, right now, right around $1.2 million. Then you see it jump to $2.2 million. And then it really kind of spirals and goes to $7 million and kind of stays there. $7 million, $9 million, $9.9 million, $10 million. And I bring this up as this is, again, one of the contributions that's going to be required as being a BRWC participating member. Again, those costs, that $7 million number is not built into this budget. But I just want you to, you know, if, let's say, for this illustration purposes, we plugged in $7 million into this budget, that $12 million allowance for capital would now become $5 million if we're not offsetting that with some sort of alternative water supply fee, something to offset that cost. So I just want you guys to be mindful of we are a participating member of NPRWC, but this is what we're looking at from a financial outlook. That's going to be about starting at $7 million and then kind of sticks at $9 million, $10 million based off the debt cost being part of that and then the usage as well. So, again, we've talked about it internally. James and I have talked about doing, you know, an assessment to figure out how much it would cost for every utility bill to contribute to fund this. So, again, just bring this for conversation, awareness, education, and also some direction to proceed down that route so we can figure out funding resources for that. And are these the rates from when Payne City joined? Because I remember it personally. I don't remember the year, but I know that it was like $3 million at that time. If you became a member, if you – there was an associate member fee, but you were limited to what you could get. And so being a membership, at least you knew that, you know, you would have more perks in there and a bigger person to go and fight with swift mud to be able to get more water. This $7 million is a scary number. Yeah. And that – when we get to that number, if that's on an annual basis, that's going to be a scary, scary number, knowing that we cannot afford not to be a member, because then they're going to really penalize us and start looking at our water usage and stuff there. So it's kind of – I look at that, James, kind of like the stormwater, where it's a mandate without giving us any money. So it's $7 million and then the following year it goes to $9 million, correct? Yeah. It goes up. Longer you stay out. Wow. Those are our payments. Our payments. So we are going to have to, as it's anticipated now, those are the payments that we would have. But the cost that BRWC has gone up exponentially from day one until today, and the amount of water we're getting is going down. Yes. So originally, I mean, these conversations actually began back in 2009. Nine and ten, we were talking about this on the water side. So this is even before there was a BRWC. We had to kind of get some locations and different things for some alternative water supplies. So through the years, and Lord is 100% correct, this has morphed into something larger. I said back in 2012 and 2013, this would be a billion-dollar project for what was over with. We're in the sevens. It goes to the 800 million now. But originally, that facility was set up for a 30 million gallon a day. It's a southeast well field. That has since changed. It's still permitted for 30 million gallons a day, but the yield is going to be about 7.5 million. So it's a quarter of what we originally set up for. The only thing that hasn't changed is our contribution in the dollar amount that's going to cost us for the water. So that hasn't reduced. I haven't vocalized that in meetings over the years. However, that's just our payment for the infrastructure, for the capital. There's still going to be a monthly water bill that we're paying for. So originally, we were set up for like 2.72 million gallons a day. So 2 million and change, almost 3 million a day. Since now, we're only going to be receiving 7.5 out of the entire facility. All the municipalities have to split up that 7.5 based off of our original percentage of need. So we're going to be getting like 164 or something of that nature. So 1,640,000 gallons a day. We're estimating that water overall to cost about $29 a gallon for the project. So not for you, $29 a gallon, but for the overall project. If you look at the math and the 800 million range and how much water is going to yield, about $29 a gallon is what it costs. That's producing and going through a reverse osmosis facility and then coming to us. That's why it's so important. The 1.6 isn't going to put us where we need to be. As you remember, we're going after 16.42, which is 16,420,000 gallons a day. That's what we're seeking in our water use permit modification. Because we have to be able to sustain ourselves if the PRWC goes offline. That's a rule in the CFWI, which is the Central Florida Water Initiative. We have to be able to support ourselves if that facility is not working. So if someone looks at it and says, if we're getting PRWC water, why are we working on our own? The plan says, well, that is why. We have to be able to show that we can self-sustain without regional water, cooperative water coming to us. I'm putting you just a little advice there. I'm sorry. It's been a long day. I see if she's up there yawning on me. But it has. It has been a long day. But yes, very expensive water. But you have to be a part of it if you're going to exist. So we're going to just bring that for informational purposes. Again, that's going to be a number that you're going to see in that transfer to debt service. It's a required obligation that we have with PRWC. But I wanted to get out in front of it. Again, being able to look at our options, get the commission's consensus to do an analysis, do a study of how we can mitigate this proactively before it hits in two years. And then you guys can make a decision on how we fund it. But we'd like a consensus to move forward in reviewing options available for not only the residents, but also for utilities. Again, James and the utility department cannot afford to take a $7 to $9 million operation. Last but not least, we'll jump to the stormwater fund. Mr. Mayor, while they're going to that, I know that you all had a discussion earlier about per-dium rates. Is it fair to assume that there's a consensus to go with the 100, or is there a different number that you want us to go after? Yes. I think a couple more hundred. Yes. And I also think I can get the rest of the pattern. Yes. Is it a resolution or an ordinance? We need to confirm. However it was adopted originally, we have to follow it. So we'll confirm. Thanks, man. The reason the resolution came into the conversation is because of the time frame being August's conference, and the ordinance would take longer than the ordinance. And the original conversation was, does it wait until October? The answer was no. But how we get there, whether it's resolution or ordinance, we'll do whichever is legal at most expeditions. Okay. Resolution or ordinance, resolution or ordinance. Resolution or ordinance. No. I agree. The conference is after the first meeting in August, right? Yes. So even if it had to be an ordinance, we could hit the 16th and the first meeting in August if it has to be an ordinance. Is that right? If it has to go two reads? But we would need to advertise accordingly before the next meeting on the 16th. What is the time frame on that for advertisement? Today is. I can't wait to say it, but I have to advertise that a little later. So we'll get an answer for the second one? For the first meeting. In order to be on the 16th? Correct. If it's resolution, then it's not a cap. I mean, you have to advertise. Okay. So we're going to use resolution or ordinance. We're going to confirm, but either way, we would have enough time. Okay. Yeah. If we have to go with the longer one, we can make either one work. August 6th. Yeah. So that's still. Why don't you guys go to conference on the 13th? So we can read it at the second reading. The first reading is going to be the second. If it has to go. Ready? Yes. So page one of the stormwater is just the overview. Again, stormwater is pretty straightforward. Funded predominantly by the non-Avalorum assessment. You can see there is about 110,000 art increase this year. Just based off growth went from $1,055,000 to $1,165,000. Based off the non-Avalorum rates. Miscellaneous income, again, is the interest income that we make on the reserves and account balances. Total revenues, $1,190,000. Expenditures down below. Personnel services, $543,000. Operating expenditures, $366,750. And then the remaining amount that you see at the bottom, $280,000 available for their capital request. Of course, I don't have a book, but can you go back to, I just want to ask a question. Come on back down a little. Permits. That's part of our revenue. So with stormwater, what permits would people have to pay for? I know that that's a special assessment. Is that just added in there? Just, okay. Yeah. All right. So it's only, it's under that category, but the only item from that category that we receive revenues from is from the special assessment. It's from the special assessment. Okay. And so my question again is, will the revenue that we receive from the special assessment, will it be enough to cover the expenses? Since, you know, again, this is what the state says we have to do without giving us any funding with it. Right. So right now it's covering sufficient and leaving enough for $280,000 worth of capital. Okay. And to your point, Commissioner Huffman, under the stormwater side, we have what's, it's an annual national pollutant discharge elimination system. It's called a NEP DES report that we have to perform every single year. And it involves multiple departments from our department, building department. Everybody has to log in information. We have to log how many times we do maintenance on the outfalls, the inlets, or the storm ponds, whether they're wet or dry. Any, any illicit discharges that there may be. Also, as part of this program, several years back, they, they put an unfunded mandate on stormwater systems. It said you have X amount of years. I think it was 10 years to have your entire system videoed. So basically running cameras in, seeing everything on the inside of your system. So what happens with that is when you put a camera in there and your, your video and, and then you realize, hey, there's a major compromise. You may have set aside $50,000 for the videoing. But then when you find the problem, you have to stop videoing and fix the problem. If it's just small cracks or, or, or, or indentations or something of that nature, it's not a stop right now and do the repair. But when you find something larger, your funds don't get to continue videoing. Now you have to fix whatever you found. But that is an unfunded mandate through DEP. Okay. And do you, how often do you check the, the, the, the storm drains? Because I know they used to put some type of a netting or something in there to keep people from, you know, throwing bottles or cans or stuff like that. And I know that, uh, you definitely are coming through painting them that bright yellow, which is really good. But are, are, as, are, how often do you check to make sure that the, um, netting hasn't been compromised by our wonderful resident? The drivers who somehow drive up on top of them and break them off? Um, before a storm and after, after every storm. I don't mean just hurricanes or tornadoes, any rainstorm, they're out there immediately. The only thing, there's a, there's a positive and negative to these screens that we put on them. It's a screen to keep the debris from going inside. And it's not just from floatables. Those are simple. Those are easy to remove. The reason we put those on there is for that same report that I told you about. There is a reduction in T, P, and T, N, which is a total phosphorus and total nitrogen. That comes from all your leaves and your debris that make it into the storm system that make it to your water body. That's what we have to make sure that we're removing. Yes, it's beneficial for the trash. But the biggest reason we put it on there is for the nutrient loads that goes into our lakes. So, yes, it does help, um, with both. But, back to my point of it being, um, I guess it's a double-edged sword because, yes, it keeps it from going in. But if water's, if that's not going in, it's blocked it up, which means the water's not going in either. So, the water is stacking up somewhere, whether it's a big puddle in the road or whether it's flooding somewhere if it's not going in that great. Right. Um, so, because all the floatables from your grass and your mulch and everything else, it floats into that screen and stops, builds a dam, and then the water can't get in there either. Um, but to answer your question, we, we monitor those, and that has, I have a report that shows how many times they touch them, um, which is a very, very extensive report, um, that I would like to get you guys at some point, um, just to show you how many times they touch the infrastructure. Same way we do in utilities. Um, I get a weekly report on how many proactive inspections they do, um, and then you're probably going to wonder how do you do that with only that many people or those divisions. Um, but, yes, I'll get a report on that. Well, I know that they definitely touch, um, Valencia and Lemon because, um, there was a time that my whole yard, uh, and porch wood flood, um, and now it's much, much less because more water is going into the one right there on the corner of Valencia. Um, and I guess Temple, um, whatever that street is. So I know that they're coming out. I just wonder, there's got to be so many in the city. How do you get around to all of them? They're a very good team. They are. They're very efficient. Um, and we also, the vac cons that you see for the sanitary sewer, um, we, the commission approved last year for us to get our own trailer vac on. Um, and we use that. You'll see them out there. It looks like a massive shop vac. Um, and they'll be out there sucking the leaves out of them and using that on a regular basis as well. Um, so that's why the water dissipates a little quicker, um, because they're able to keep them clean. Thank you. Thank you. Just one quick question. I know we've asked it already for personnel, but were you asking for any, it looks like it went up, but I wasn't sure if it was going to apply it quickly. Um, any new staff or no additional staff? Not in stormwater. Stormwater, um, there's, I think there's some vacancy, but no, no additional. No additional. Thank you. Um, but I'm glad you said that because the other department, I, I had them here and I did not mention them because I had them covered up. Or utilities does have three requests that I can go back whenever you're ready. Do you want to finish this one and then go back to that one? Yeah. Okay. I had it covered up with a page and when I just moved this page, I saw my request right there, so I apologize. Um, so on these right here, the first one you see is going to be for professional services for an increase. It's 138.9%. Um, so the, the projects that we have right now on stormwater, um, we've had the, we've had engineers look at it. We'll continue to look at our infrastructure over in Oakland from the Avenue I. Um, so that's all professional services on upgrades. The one on commerce, um, we have to have drawings and designs on how to get that water, um, where it needs to go. So anything that we have on moving water about or reconstructing, um, we don't want to just go in there and clean a line that's an eight inch line from the sixties or the fifties. Um, if we need to upsize it from an eight to a 12, we want to know that. So engineer services, if it's not draining fast enough and we got it clean, but it's still not draining fast enough, we want to know why. Um, is it undersized or what we have here today in Ape City? So that's why you see an increase in our professional services on that one. Um, promotional activities. Um, we don't get out near as much as police and fire, um, as far as to the schools and different things. Um, we do get invited to the schools. We go to seven rivers over in winter Haven. Um, it's a big outdoor, um, demonstration from all the different, uh, water, from water conservation to clean, keeping the water clean. Um, so I'm sure each at some time, each of you have been able to watch the water wagon in action. Um, so that's our promotional activities there. Um, and it starts with education of our kids. Um, so we have flyers, we have little coloring books and crayons and different things that they get. Um, so we teach them right off the bat to not change your oil in your driveway or wash your car and let the suds go into your storm drain. Um, because if you teach the kids that they're going to go home and get on to mom and dad and they see them doing it. Um, I can tell you right now that's just how that works. Um, but that is on our promotional side. Um, the rest of those are zeros going down through there. Um, any particular item or line? Well, if you don't mind, I would like to go back to the, um, three positions that was requested in utilities. Um, one of them we talked about earlier. This is part of our water use permit modification and request. So we've always had someone trying to, to work on it when they could, which is our, uh, environmental conservation technician. Um, is what the position we're asking for. Um, so right now my, um, um, compliance officer who goes around to all the businesses and anybody who has, um, the restaurants and, uh, the, what's that place called? The wash his clothes over there off of wants dairy. Um, any restaurant, all restaurants. Um, we manage those with the, if you have a grease trap, um, they have to constantly be checked. Um, and we write violations, um, not so much citations because they, um, they usually come into compliance. Um, but when they don't clean their, their grease traps properly, that goes into our, our system. And then of course we have clogs and maintenance and repairs and people backing up. Um, but that, and that same person is also over our backflow program. So every business in the city has a backflow, um, of sort, every, every single business. Um, and if they don't, and if you have a business and you're going home, know what a backflow is, don't tell me you don't have one. Just get one, um, today. Um, but that being said, we've been trying to manage that water conservation and knowing that it's going to go to the next level. Um, so we're asking for an environmental conservation technician. Um, they'll be responsible for attending the classes and the meetings with the county and Swift mud. Um, our promotional activities, educating our citizens, our youth. So that's where, that's the position that we're asking for. We don't have a dollar amount on here, um, as the request, but we are requesting an individual for that. Um, I got one question. So, uh, in the witness list, the years and environmental coordinator. Is that the thing? Yes, sir. It's the environmental conservation. Well, this one says environmental conservation technician the way that they wrote it on here. But it'll be the same thing, the environmental coordinator. Thanks. So how many, um, positions do you have open, uh, James? Because every time I, um, get an email, you have more openings than anyone else. How many do you have? How many openings do you have, uh, currently? Uh, I, I mean, I don't have a problem. If you say you need these three positions, that's, that's great. I don't have a problem with that. But it seems that, um, you have constant openings. Are you that heart of a boss? I'm terrible. No, I am my team's biggest advocate to make sure that they have the tools, the training, the education, whatever it is they need. Um, Lloyd's heard me say this before to my team members, and I've said to my team members for 28 years. Um, I work for you is what I tell them. My job is to make sure you add everything at your fingertips to do your job efficiently and effectively. Um, so that's, that's my motto. So I think I treat them very well, to answer your question. So no, ma'am. Um, we get some training in people sometimes. And once they get some training, um, they may move away and find a better job. Um, and that's kind of like the song that you hear from multiple departments in the city. Um, and that's not just King City. That's everywhere. Um, for years I was training code enforcement officers to go to the county in my different life that I was in. I would bring them in, train them, um, and my code enforcement in the county would scarf them up because they would have credentials. And so it's, it's just the nature of what we do. Um, every once in a while you'll have someone, you know, they move out of state or they find a different job or they just don't really want to work in that kind of environment anymore. Um, so you got to figure when you get somebody out there that says, oh yeah, I can do maintenance. And then they go over to a pipe and they see what's coming out of that pipe. And I don't need to describe what it is. Um, they may look at it and go, yeah, I don't think I want to do this anymore. Um, so it's just the nature of it. Yeah. To be honest with you. Okay. Um, but how many vacancies? I do not have that in front of me. Um, well, you've explained why you have the vacancies. I just want to make sure that you, you have, um, adequate employees to be able to, um, provide, you know, the service, um, that's needed. That's going to, you know, positively impact the residents. That's why I was asking that. Most definitely. And, and one of the, that was the one on the water, on the, uh, environmental, um, side. The other two, one is underground, um, utility. So right now we have on a daily basis, we get what's called a 811 for the locates. So someone may say we need to locate it. It may be a hundred feet, um, in front of a house or in front of a road. The other one may be you locate for two miles. Um, but we have what's called a GPR, ground penetrating radar that we take out. We also have to mark and paint. Um, and that same person, excuse me, is going out on all new construction or inspection. So we have criteria that they have to meet from the slopes and the diameters, um, the gaps, the pressures, everything on any new construction. They have to go out and inspect the system and sign off on it. So that's what, we don't inspect inside the homes. That's what the inspectors here do. Um, but everything outside of the home is what we're responsible for, um, in the utility side. So that's one of the positions also. It is the underground. And the last one is the pump and motor tech. So the pump and motor tech is what I mentioned earlier that we have over a hundred lift stations now. So they don't just go to a lift station when there's a problem. Um, they have to touch every lift station every week. So that's everything from not just checking the amps and the voltage and the regulators and everything inside. They have to flip the floats to make sure the pumps operate properly. Then they have to pull the pumps up with their crane trucks to make sure that they're not ragged up. They're drawing too many amps. Chances are it's got something in the bottom of it that's making it under a strain. So they have to pull the pump out of the ground, clean the pump, and put it back in. That same individual, or those same individuals, also do the maintenance around the outside for the grounds. They mow, weedy, stick, edge, and blow that footprint as well. So we are requesting an additional person for that. So it's a pump and motor tech, the underground infrastructure lead, and then the environmental side. So my last question, Mayor Smith, to the deputy city manager is, what is, does this budget, maybe the capital side of it, what is our plan to increase the low water pressure? Because, you know, those are the complaints that we get. Everybody in a particular subdivision of areas trying to take a shower, you know, early in the morning, and it's just drip, drip, drip. That's coming down. So does this address that? If it does not address it, if you put on your other hat, being over development services, to see if any new developments that the developer has to do something to make sure that the water will flow a whole lot faster? Because I just, I don't, I don't have that problem. Well, I'm going to talk to you. But there are those that have that problem, and that's a constant complaint. Yes, I'll knock on wood when I say that I've only had one from an individual since June of 25. And the reason for that was that 20-inch line that we installed on Main Street that goes to 27, north on the east side of the road to Blue Heron. That's that 20-inch line that we did that you guys approved, of course, and it's showing much benefit. We do have data loggers out in the system all through that area, including the hospital. It shows what our PSI is on a daily basis. And that's not something we just take out and check in today or tomorrow. They're set there. That's where they stay. So I also get those reports from the team. They show me it's a pressure data logger report that I set up quite a few years ago because we were able to see the low pressures in the areas that it was at. So, of course, do the increases. But we needed engineers to draw it up and you guys to approve it, which you did. Now, in the future, some of the infrastructure that we're putting in, the PRWC receiving facility and water treatment plant 3, as you know, we're looking at that's going to land up behind the hospital, between the hospital and the EOC is where that's going. So that will have its own pumps, motors, and controls with high-frequency variable speed drive pumps that will also help regulate the temperature, the PSI in that area. Okay. Thank you. Y'all are wearing me out. I know it's been a long day. It's been a real long day. It's been a long two days. All right. Any more questions on that? No. He's smart. He goes last, it seems like, every time so he can get approved. I'm strategic in my placement. I have to pay Omar to put me last, but, hey, whatever. I offer a lot. Do you have any? Of course. I offer a lot. Frank. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So at this time, I think. Motion. I'll leave a second. Motion. To the chair. Second. Thank you. Just setting the dates. We can discuss it Thursday. Okay. All right. We'll discuss it Thursday. But I can tell you. Because all five of them, you know, the other people as well. I can tell you right now that August 10th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, and 3rd.

I want to make sure we're going in the with the right section here we're going to do the pros operated budget correct yes sir all right and the order in which we're going to do things today how do you propose would you like us to from the Commission go line by line we're going to have the record angels present to us items that we would like to speak to mayor Smith I would like to go section each section and then I personally would like to hear from the directors why they feel that they need that not from the finance director or the interim city manager person that's over that department I would like to know and I don't know if you are prepared I know we'll have another budget but I'd like to know what they have what that they spent so far because if they're not spending the money then we don't need to give them more money okay I think that somewhat mirrors the the uh I guess the order in which we went to last time at our last meeting so we'll go ahead and continue with that so perfect so again going off the first meeting today's intended to focus on the operational side same way we did capital each director came up and presented their capital items the commission listen to those head continue with it so perfect so again going off the first meeting today's intended to focus on the operational side same way we did Capitol each director came up and presented their capital items the Commission listen to those headfirsts like listen to those requests and again you guys are just taking in information I'd like to start off before we get into the agenda right we'll start with the general fund then water and sewer fund and then with stormwater but before that I would like to give you guys a general global view of the budget as we stand today kind of talk through some scenarios and also talk through some of the legislation that's on the table just to make sure we're all on the same page so we're gonna focus on this supplemental package that you just received this large paperclip document to start before we get into the budget book and we're just gonna kind of go in order I want to focus on starting on page three which should look like this graph that I have on the screen so again this kind of list out the total budget globally you're gonna see all the funds starting with the green fund on the left hand side that is the general fund and as we started the capital conversation you can see the top half of the chart is the revenues per fund and then the bottom half is the expenses and then I've highlighted in yellow what's available for this year's budget right that's between new staffing request operational increases and all the capital items that we discussed so for example in the general fund there's five million four hundred eight thousand eight hundred one dollars available before we do any merit increases before we do any of these operational requests that you'll hear today and there's no capital in here yet right so this is where we're just starting baseline for today's conversation so as you guys are hearing from the directors and their proposed increases just keep this in mind that there's currently five point four million dollars for the general fund as we go through this process next to that is six funds those are the impact fee funds so we do collect impact fees on new construction this applies to the developer and that's for library parks and rec fire police and and so we do collect impact fees on new construction this applies to the developer and that's for library parks and rec fire police and the transportation within those impact fee funds again those are allocated for impact fee projects then in yellow we have the two CRA funds again we're gonna have a dedicated meeting tomorrow for those CRA funds currently in district 327 there's about twenty five thousand dollars available for spending to be assigned for either capital or operating requests and then in district 328 we started off with two million two hundred sixty five thousand dollars for capital project assignments within the CRA budget going to the right of that utility fund again 32 million dollars in revenue twenty twenty million dollars in current expenditures and then we talked about the twelve million dollars that we were assigning to capital again we do have two impact fee funds for utilities water and sewer again that brings in about eight million dollars a year and then we assign those two impact fee projects to balance that out and then the last one on the right is the stormwater fund that will be wrapping up today currently there's five hundred five thousand dollars available for capital new positions and merit increases going into the budget so that's the standard just based on where we're at today as we wrestle with adding capital adding new positions and adding operational requests is there any questions as we commence the discussion from that global perspective well mayor smith i have a question um do we i i i did i wasn't here for the last half of the capital uh budget workshop are we going to have another one or was that final one yep so on the next meeting we'll start to wrap together capital and operating requests okay these are right now we're just trying to do them separately so my question so my question is um in adding some of the capital that was discussed it may be favorably among the commissioners you know um are we going to have enough money to do those things especially with the um general fund for the five million dollars do we have more than five million dollars worth of capital projects right so our first conversation where we started was 35 million dollars on the table so from there we're cutting down to seven okay plug in seven we're going to be a million and a half dollars short again not including operational requests and not including any raises so i just want to again give you guys the lay of the land there there may have to be some cuts on capital and or operations for us to balance as we get there the balance as we get there and the utility fund is that the same question the twelve million dollars for the capital things that we need done in the city this does not include any capital request and is the utility fund where the infrastructure would come out of there's no carryover money from last year so at the bottom of this chart I just want to mention as well today we'll talk about as we go through this packet new positions and merit increases part of our operating expense or annually is that the city operates under what's called a step plan or a plan within that step plan people are assigned to certain pay grades and then it goes from 1 to 15 so as you progress every year and have a performance evaluation you typically standardly jump a step at the bottom of this chart I've shown you what a step cost is that a two and a half percent again for consideration and then I'm also showing you what a cola increases from one one and a half and two percent across the board so just to make sure we're all on the same page looking at the general fund a police two and a half percent step the wages are about nine point six million dollars for police a two and a half step is two hundred forty two thousand dollars for fire six point two million dollars in wages one hundred fifty six thousand dollars and for general employees of 15 million dollars in wages 385 just for a standard across the board step for employees that will be a total of seven hundred eighty five thousand dollars if the commission is looking to proceed with that that would come out of the five point four million dollar balance that we currently have assigned going down to the cola if we did a one percent cola on in addition to or a standalone one percent three hundred thirteen thousand one and a half percent four hundred seventy thousand and two percent six twenty seven and those columns are just for that dedicated fund so when you scroll all the way across you're going to continue to see those numbers CRA utility stormwater and then we have you know global totals on the very right hand side of that chart so again just want to make sure we're all clear on where those numbers are these are all considerations being proposed as part of the normal budget process for you guys to discuss and kind of navigate as you're listening to these discussions but I want to make sure we're giving you that information if that's my policy and who all gets paid themselves? Because we have contracts for the employees. That's my policy. That's my charter. That's all employees. Because I don't think that even is in charge. Because my question is, if you get a 2.5% cost of living, and then you get a 2.5, that's 5%. Correct. 5% of somebody making $150,000 is a lot more than 5% of somebody making $36,000. So are this in the equation? Because that would be a lot more. I direct them to make a lot of money. And I don't think that that would be equal with a 5% step for a person digging ditches and then another one for someone making $150,000. I just don't think that that's equal. Because that's a lot less. I don't think everybody should be in our step. Our directors, I mean, they do a great job, but I don't know if they should be in the step. I don't know if that's by policy or that's by charge. So this is strictly through the budget process. Again, we have a merit-based system, and that's that plan. But if a step is not included in the budget, then it's not given across the board. Something that the board could consider. Right now, we're just showing you standard percentages, because that's just industry standard of how we apply it. We could also do a lump sum across the board, right, where, let's say, everyone gets $750. That's going to be a higher percentage to an employee than a director in that case. And I can show you what that number would be. That would be something you guys could consider and say, instead of a standard 1% COLA, we're going to do a flat lump sum dollar amount. And that's equal to everybody. I just don't think the step program is designed and is right for a general, everyday employee digging ditches than someone that's not. And I'm just, you know, I have to look at it from 30,000 feet up and be fair to all employees. Right. You know, in no disrespect, I'm not knocking our directors or anyone. I'm just looking at the difference because you put 5% on $150,000 and 5% on $46,000. It doesn't equal out. Right. It does not. And I'm saying that's fair. And it is one of the challenging things that we wrestle with. I will say it's industry standard across governments, municipalities, regardless of the position. I understand. The pay grade is assigned and the step is assigned. And sometimes the steps are less, right? Maybe a director only has seven steps versus a general employee having 15. That's something that we can consider. But I think it would be appropriate to have a pay study done to make sure we're being fair across the board in that sense. But typically it's industry standard that all positions are having that pay structure. The step increase. That's just the industry standard. Industry standard against governments, yeah. It's very difficult to say, you know, one set of employees gets it, another one doesn't, or gets different amounts. But, again, we can look at alternatives if that's the pleasure of the commission. Do you recall last year what was the goal and what was the step? Yeah. Because, you understand, we only got five million that we're working with. We're going to complete that fund really quickly by doing that. We have to be mindful of taxpayers' dollars. You just told us we only have that five million to work with. I'm saying we've got to give somewhere. Right. And I'm employee secretary. I mean, I believe I was one of these employees that worked. I understand that. But we, when I said we collectively sit here, it has to be really responsible for the real fiduciary and taxpayers' dollars. I just think we've got to be equal to everybody across the board. Understood. All right. Thank you. Mayor. You may be right now. Thank you. Commissioner West, last year was a combined total of 5.5. I want to say 5. It was 5.5. Was everybody? Yes. It was a total of 5.5 across the board with the step and the whole. So, all employees received that 5.5 increase with the budget went into effect. So, my question is, because I understand the step program and I agree with Commissioner West that it's not fair like across the board. But more so my concern is because what I have seen last year and the year before, when the evaluations are done, some employees who are higher rank are not just going up one step because it is the director's discretion. So, if we continue with the step in this new budget. How often are the directors going above and beyond for certain employees but then keeping some only at one step? And then I saw where others got two steps up and it was signed off on to give them, you know, that extra step. So, like, how often is that done across the board? Have you been seeing that a lot? Because I did see that a lot in this last budget that some of them didn't go up one step. They went up two steps. So, to answer that, you know, from this perspective, from a budget setting perspective, what the commission is approving, this is a one step that we would apply to everyone on October 1st. So, if there's an extra step requested by a director, that would need to be an exception within a promotion process or some other outlier that's approved through the administration process. But it would not be indicative of this. So, that director, in an example, would have to say, hey, I feel like this is justified. I'm giving you backup. I've given them extra duties. But it's not tied to this. So, I want to make sure sometimes it may happen simultaneously at the same time. Right, that's what I'm saying. And so, everyone got the one step. But then just say, for example, their evaluation came up. And then they were signed off to get an additional step. So, then they went up two steps, basically within that same budget period. And the step program is actually designed to be exactly what it's called, step. So, it's long-term for the retirement. But it seems that we are reaching the higher end quicker than it should be. Because when you step, it's kind of like other municipalities say, oh, well, you met now, right? So, it's designed that way where you get portions of the money as you step along, like in your years of service. Right. But if you look at where the majority of our top people are, it's well beyond their retirement phase of them actually retiring out. So, I would love to see that study because I really don't think that we have been in line for at least the last couple of years when it comes to the step program. So, again, I do know we've been given the cost of living. I know for at least the last two years, I think the cost of living has been increased. It's been at least 3% for the last couple of years. So, and that was like at the very high end of that hole. So, again, these are just great points and just discussion at this moment just for you guys to consider. So, in an example, right, this is just an example, a 2.5% increase for the general fund and a 1% COLA would be the combination of the 784 and the 313. So, that would be a million dollars added to the top line, which would reduce that 5.4 by a million dollars. So, again, I thank you guys. You get the point. You guys are seeing the global picture. And we'll continue to have this conversation throughout the budget process. If we can flip to the next form. Yes, sir. When was the last base study? About a year ago. About two years. Yes, sir. I think that. Yes, sir. Before we move on to the next one, I just want to say that I wholeheartedly agree with you, Commissioner West, on the fact that if it is not law and we have the authority to decide, then we should not be held to whatever industry standards are. And I think that's happening way too often, in different cases with the city. If it's not law, if it's not a requirement, then give this board, who's responsible to the residents, the opportunity to set whatever standard we, the majority of us agree with. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. So we'll always bring you best practices, again, for consideration. You guys also need to make that final decision. This next page is just showing you a few scenarios as we not only wrestle with this current year, but also next year. So this is page four. It's got three charts in green and then two in yellow. The first one is the general fund baseline. So if we used and stuck with the current amount of operating expenses that we have this year, told directors the amount of operating that you have, you have to keep and figure it out within that. We would have $7.4 million available to spend on capital or merit increases, call it increases. The second column is with those operational increases. So you see operations going from $23 million to $25 million. So that's what you're going to hear today. From every director, you're going to hear what those operational increases are. But as those operations increase, the amount of funding decreases as a result. So again, just showing that progression. The third option is showing you with all the new positions being requested, what it would look like. So it's going from personnel going from $31 million to $37 million. This year we have about $6 million in new personnel requests across the general fund. So just showing you that that alone puts us in a negative balance without any capital going in starting the budget. Fiscal year, and as we progress, I'm showing you $28 million, what that looks like, and then in two scenarios. The first one is assuming no personnel is included. And the $8 million reduction as a result of the $150 million throws us in a $2.8 million negative balance. That's not including any new personnel, but accepting the operating increases. $2.8 million negative. And then the last example is just assuming everything went in, all new personnel requests, all operating requests, and next year in 2028, the legislation goes in for that house bill. Losing that is a $9.3 million deficit that we're looking at. So again, just kind of showing you the lay of the land as we're looking out into fiscal year 28 going through this process. Any questions, comments on these charts? Thank you for this here. And I just want you all to be mindful that the fact is that there is an issue in November. And I can almost assure you, I bet my bottom foot, that those bankers are going to vote for it at homestead. I'm just sitting here. I could be wrong, but I bet you that they're going to vote for it. And we're going to be in this situation where you see the general fund, but we're going to be in a negative of that $2 million. We, when I said we, we got this, we got to look ahead and we got to think more. What if we approve something over here and then it comes November and it takes effect in January, we're going to be scrambling. But we got to, we have to be, we have to be very cautious this year in this budget. You know, and, and I, you know, like I said, this second one in the green column, but you know, I just think we got to just keep it safe. We got to be able to slide into a home base safe. If not, we're going to find ourselves in a very, very awkward situation. I just want to remind that to the commission that we got to think forward. We just got to see what if, and what if may be a reality. But when we're looking at these numbers, we got to be careful. Nothing against the employees. It's what the taggers want. And that's going to happen until we're here. A lot of employees, you know, they've got to be careful. Think about it when we are doing these budgets and he's giving us the raw numbers ready. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Well, go ahead. Commissioner Nelson. Commissioner. You sure? Commissioner Nelson. I have a question. So, help me to understand that if we should approve the column one or the column two, the green that's there, that includes new personnel requests and all of that, and we end up at the 2027 and 2028, this far in the red, then there's going to have to be some tough decisions made because you cannot keep the employees that you approved in this budget. So, is that responsibility going to fall on the commission to decide how we get out of the red? Or is that going to fall on the city manager to decide who needs to unfortunately go and be great somewhere else or retire? That's my question. Okay. All right. I guess right now. I'm sorry. I believe, and I'll let her interim city manager speak to that, but I believe that would be an operational decision. Yeah, the individual ones. I just wanted to say. The individuals that were whose employment was carbonated would have to be an operational decision. The number of positions that are approved would be budgeted. Well, it sounds to me like you're somehow pushing that back on me. If it's operational and they're your employees, then I would think that it would be your decision when the directors come to you and say that we have all of these employees, but yet the commission, the finance director is saying that we're in the red, that it would be your responsibility at that time to determine how do we get out of the red? We're not going to approve a budget where we're going to be in the red. We're still over here in the green. So that's my thoughts on it is that's going to be a tough decision that you make, that the directors are going to make on how we get there. Because as commissioner West has said, this is the residents are going to definitely vote for that. That's all I hear. They don't understand the rest of it. I don't know if legally we can do any type of a workshop or whatever to make them aware of what they're going to lose, but they're going to vote for this. And so I just don't want to see us hire someone in this budget year and then have to let that person go. Maybe you should be thinking about, you know, as we go along with this budget, not hiring anybody else because somebody is going to have to go. There's just no way that it's going to be like that. I don't want that responsibility and it shouldn't be my responsibility according to the charter to get involved in administrative. Oh, that's that's on you. I think that we're saying basically the same thing is the responsibility for choosing the individuals or an operational function of the administration. And that's why we have to be careful in the way that we approve the budget this year or even how we hire based on the approval of that budget. Because if we balance the budget this year and it passes next year, we're automatically $8 million lower than what we anticipate. Yeah, Mr. McMahon, you recognize. No question. Thank you. I agree as well. And I think you can basically set your watch to this being approved. And I'm not really concerned about hiring new employees because I really don't think we need to unless it's just a very high need. I'm more concerned with that if we don't be responsible with this budget, we're probably going to need to let some of our current employees go. So that's what you have to think about. And once that passes, I'm also thinking about the cost and the impact that most people would start to see, like impact fees from their cities and wherever they live. So things are going to go up. So the cost is going to go up, but jobs are going to be going out. So it's going to be our responsibility to be first responsible with this budget. And we need to possibly tighten up our bill first before we try to put this out to the resident. And I get it to say, oh, they need to understand what they're voting for. But the thing is, they don't understand. All they are hearing and thinking that no more property taxes. And I'm checking yes for this. Although they should be, you know, checking no. So some of this is going to have to just, you know, it's a very hard decision. And for some of those who haven't went through it, I went through it on the federal end when President Obama did a freeze for two years. So there was no increases for two years because the budget had to be balanced. And now we find ourselves here on a local level facing the same thing. So it's going to be some tough decisions, some things we want that we're not going to be able to get, and some things we have that we're going to have to cut out. So I don't even know if two meetings is going to be enough to say what gets through and what gets cut. Because this is probably going to be our toughest budget year preparing for the future. Yeah, the amount of timing that legislation have kind of dropped this in our lap with no guidance is, again, perfect storm for the commissioners and local municipalities to try and figure this out. Our ability to go out and find alternative revenue streams at this late in the game or 2027 budget is, again, we're kind of planning for the worst and hoping for the best. But again, you've got to take that conservative, mindful approach because we don't want to have that negative impact to employ. So again, the sentiment is felt on this side as well. Administration is looking at that and trying to figure out how we're going to navigate this. And again, give you guys the information. One of the scariest parts to me on this chart is it looks doom and gloom, and it is. This has no capital built in. This is the city not doing any infrastructure repairs, any replacement of vehicles, any apparatus replacement, equipment, laptops. No capitals in this in these numbers. So if I start putting in four million, five million dollars a number, all of them show up red in the millions of dollars. Right. So again, just want to make sure we're looking at this as we look through the operational budget. What I think is going to make this conversation more difficult is each director when you go through operations is really telling you we're spending this dollar like there is not a lot of cushion to absorb eight million dollars worth of cost. Maybe you can find 50,000. Maybe you can find 20,000. But eight million dollars is substantial. So on the next page, I just like, let me spare you. Go ahead. I just want to say this. You know, people are thinking that they're getting a tax break. But let me tell you, there's not a tax break. It's going to be a tax shift. Right. And what I mean by that is the simple fact is that we're going to have to shift something somewhere else. We're going to have to start looking at impact fees other places. We're going to have to start looking at raising our alarm taxes that we just lowered fast. But we got to look at all of that. The only way we can pretty much make up a lot of this different commission is that we may have to go to a higher alarm taxes whether we want it or not. But somewhere we got to look at that. If we want to keep this, the city in operation budget and stuff that we're doing, we may need to say, we got to raise our alarm taxes now. We got to do an impact fee for police. We may have to do an impact fee. Those are the things that we have to look at and look at those numbers. If we said we're going to do an impact fee for police, how much to make a difference, to help support? Because that's an essential. We need our police force. We need our fire department. So we're going to have to look at impact fees. I'm sorry. If that happens to us, and that's what we need to be talking about as well, how much of an impact be that you're going to have to do in order to satisfy the requirements and the needs of these departments. So if we turn, just segueing off that same conversation, if we turn to the next page, I want to show you what House Bill 1329 proposes. We've sent this out to all the directors internally. So again, it requires this year starting a 10% budget cutting exercise. Again, not that we have to do this, but it's a required exercise that has to be posted to our website. One of the strings and requirements of this new legislation is that police, public safety, general government cannot be, can only be funded by Avalor, right? We'll be dedicated to those resources. I can reduce services. So when you look at this, I've got a cut from $151 million budget. I've got to cut $15 million across the board, and I can include police and fire in that equation. So we've run a pro rata calculation. This is just a standard calculation across all the remaining departments, and you can see how much cuts we have to do by department. So sanitation, 2.6 million capital projects, $2 million parks, $970,000 transportation, $893,000. These are real considerations that we're going to have to look forward to if 2028 goes through with that approved legislation. So again, these are substantial cuts. This is not just saving on fuel. This is not just less paper. These are again, positions and what we are doing in the future. Again, I want to emphasize that the way it's structured right now is police and fire are not part of this equation. Jumping to page 7. Again, as we listen to each director and their request, I want to show you what the personnel requests are for this year. I don't know what's going on. But page 7 shows you the general fund listing out each new position so you can see it by department. Again, this is the listing now. We can kind of go through it real quick. My recommendation is as directors come up and present their operating, they're also discussing any new positions that they have. For the general fund, there's 55 new full-time equivalents. Police, fire, city clerk, parks and recreation, facilities maintenance, aquatics, human resources, and technology management all have different requests. And then in the utility fund, there's three positions being requested, two for maintenance and one for water. On page 9, it shows you the cost associated with those requests. And again, I know I'm going pretty quick. If you need a question or slow me down, feel free to interject. But page 9 is just a summary table of the position, the pay grade assigned, the hourly pay, salary, benefits and equipment, and then a total cost. For those positions, I have it segregated by funds. You can see general fund, 55 positions totaling $6.5 million. And then utilities, three positions totaling $276,000 in request. So again, a lot of requests on the table, a lot of needs. Again, we're growing. Every request is coming with data to support the request. But again, we're in a challenging budget season where we're having to mitigate need, growth, and the reality of what we may be facing in 2028. And this is all out of that 5.4 million? Correct. So if this got approved as an example, 6.5, we would be in the negative just with. Well, it's a simple solution, a simple fix maybe then. Maybe we can't do any after the project. If they said we need, it's a necessity that they need these positions, then we're going to have to cut out the capital funds and just go into operation and let them get their business. So the concern, at least on this side, right, just in education is I add 6 million this year, but I cut 8 million next year. What does that look like? You're right. Yeah. That's the problem. That's the problem. That has to be here. I appreciate it. I want to know. I'm going just picking out here human resources. I'm going to have one person and with at $52,000. To me, that's a bit much for one person when that department, in my opinion, is already staffed enough. And a lot of residents complain about the hiring process and the length of time with it. But $78,000 with benefits. So, my question is with all of this, excluding fire and police, have these directors, Lloyd, justified enough to you to want to approve it to go into this proposed budget? I think that in all categories that there is room for us to reduce the number of personnel that are being requested. And that we have to make some hard choices this year because of the upcoming budget. But we also wanted to present what the individual directors in an optimum world would like to get for their different areas. Well, this is not an optimal world. Your directors are asking, through you with this budget, for us to approve adding this extra staff. So, this is not optimal. This is not high in the sky. This is not wishes. I'm just concerned as to why some of this is even presented to us. It should have stopped at your level, Lloyd, to say, no, we cannot afford to do this. And I'm speaking to the city manager here, Mayor. I'm just concerned that some of this, other than police and fire, shouldn't even be on this list, Lloyd, is what I'm saying to you. And I'm not trying to beat you up. I'm simply saying that some of this should have gotten marked out by you to tell that department, y'all figure out how y'all going to work this. Because I'm not going to ask the commission to consider these new positions. Because we're not going to be able to keep these people by 2028. That's all I'm saying. Thank you for that. And I just want to speak to that. I believe that this is a part of the budgeting process. Each director knows their department and they know their needs for the department. It's ultimately up to us, after they present the information to us, if we can foresee putting it inside of the budget. So, I don't think you take away from something that you may feel is a critical need for you. I think something else we've got to take into consideration is when we're just talking about what the ask is, is over the past several years, how many people have come into that department. We may find a situation where we'll take our police force for instance. It was presented to us that this has been a critical need for several years and it just had not been addressed. So, to now, even though we know that what's looming in November, it wouldn't be, I feel, responsible to simply say, hey, I don't have this need. I think we need to know what the need is. And in the future, if we can't approve it, we can't approve it now. But at least we do know what the need is. And as money is available or things do change, we can go back and we can address that at that point. But I don't think we simply take it away, stating what is needed. Of course, we all know, and I need to speak to the last topic that we were talking about, of course, retention is going to be our most important thing in making sure that we can, I guess, responsibly bring people on if we can foresee being able to keep that person employed, which is going to be our most important thing. So, I don't want it to ever be misconstrued that my position is going to be, hey, we know you need to cut it if you feel that you need this for your department to function properly. Mayor Smith, and I don't disagree with you, but I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine. Absolutely. Okay. So, this is how I feel that we already know, I've already stated how I feel. That's my opinion. Okay. I'm not speaking for the whole board that was here. Mayor, might be recognized. Okay, thank you. On some of the personnel requests, and as Commissioner West stated, that if we're going to do the personnel requests, then we have to cut out capital. I'm definitely not for putting out all capital and doing no capital projects and not letting the city function or get what we need. Now, just looking at some of the personnel, my request, my first thing would be to take care of what's needed, like police and fire. I see a lot of other requests that definitely can be put out if need be. The HR request with the one. The clerk is requesting the same position that they just months ago decided to get rid of. And now we're back asking for that same money again. And I think I mentioned that when we went through that process to freeze the position, freeze the money, because come the next budget season, we'll be asking for a new employee. And here it is when it was stated that, no, we're going to just take that pot and spread it across the current employees and we won't need anyone else. So it's like some of these things here, definitely, I don't know. I understand the request, not saying that they're going to be approved, but it just didn't make, it doesn't make any sense to me because we took, I believe, $70,000. And now we're back asking for $60,000 in a new position. So I think we just have to go over each item. And as the mayor stated, look to see, you know, what we can responsibly approve, which for me is going to be always police and fire first. Because I do think, and I know all departments are needed, but we definitely need police and we need fire and we're already under the amount. So for any new personnel, I'm going to definitely go with police and fire to start with. And then anything else that we can add, then I wouldn't have a problem possibly entertaining that. But yeah, some hard decisions as far as what has to be, I guess, turned down or, you know, that doesn't make it through this budget season. Yeah, just a, again, recommendation for the commission. Right now you have the listing. My recommendation is as directors come up and present their operating budget, you're also reflecting this and they're giving you all the detail of why the request is coming. And then you guys can have discussion and consideration, but they're going to be able to provide you the reason and the justification for the request. The next item, if there's nothing else regarding this, I'd like to just jump to page 14. And I know we keep harping on the legislation, but again, just kind of giving you guys the information regarding what the lay of the land looks like in regards to this property tax exemption and the Avalor impact. So 14 is this chart here where it has the red at the top, orange, yellow, and then green. Green is the year that we're in this year, fiscal year 27 proposed. You can see that the total taxable value is $4,337,000,000. And across that table, total estimated collected Avalorum $30,000,000. The yellow is the 150 exemption going through the taxable value reduces to 3,237,000,000. All those homestead properties come off the tax roll. And then the revenues go from 30 million to 22 million. So you see that $7.7 million loss. And then in 29, it's going to 250,000. So it's a $10 million loss from where we are today. So again, just showing you the progression at the bottom is really what I want to focus on. Because again, part of this budget setting process for the commission is the millage. At the bottom of the chart in green, you can see I've given you in both directions what the millage impact would be. At 7.3395, keeping the status quo this year with the millage, we're expecting a $2.4 million increase from last year. That's from new growth, new construction. If we increase the millage to 7.5895, that's an extra million dollars to the general fund. If we decrease it in the other way, 7.0895, a million dollar decrease. So again, just kind of showing you where we stand today for consideration for discussion for the commission to kind of be thinking about what direction you want to go with the millage. Again, keeping it status quo, no change would be a $2.4 million, which we've already included in your $5.4 million number. It has that factored in. So if we decided to decrease, that number would come down. If you decide to increase, you would add a million dollars to that. It's 5.4 million. The number below in yellow is just a projection as we think about what's going to happen in 2028 from a millage standpoint only, right? Right now we're at 7.3395. I'm projecting a $7 million loss on the very left side, left-hand side of that column starting. And I've shown you a progression of what it looks like going all the way to the 10 mil maximum. So I don't have a lot of wiggle room right there once we get to that 9.8 threshold. 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We're going to be looking at the same. We're going to be looking at the same. We're going to be looking at the same. We're going to be looking at the same. We're going to be looking at the same. But you know, and as you all can plainly see. They're black and white here. You can plainly see that there's going to be individuals. That is the same service. And they get the same police. They get the recreation. They get the same. They're going to be in zero. I don't think that's fair. If you live in a city, everybody should be paying some. That's why I'm telling you. We got to look at a tax shift somewhere else. Yeah. Because it's not fair that I have to pay to support someone else that's paying zero taxes. It's going to be the same ones that come to that podium that pay zero taxes and complain and all of that. We have to look at some type of way to make sure that every person that lives and resides in this city limit pay their share of something to be in this city of a city. So whether it comes to a tax shift someplace, we got to, everybody should pay something. Equal sacrifices, equal giving. If you give $3 and I have to get $3,000, that may be what I can pay. But you know, police pay something. I just say that we got to look at this commission that everybody pays something to help this city function because they live in it and they get the things served. And I don't think it's fair that they pay zero taxes tonight and we paying all the taxes and they get the things served. I just want to keep that in mind. I just want to keep that in mind. They got to pay stuff. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Well, in order for that to happen, because when the Avalon goes into effect, then the only way that that can happen across the board is if we do all these impact fees. Because there's no other way. There's no other way to collect the money other than, like you said, imposing several impact fees. So I guess we'll have to go impact fee happy or crazy, whichever one you want to label it as. But that's the only way that you're going to spread the cost, if you will, across every resident that's here in Haines City, like the commission did at one point, like with the fire assessment fee. Everybody paid this year. Everyone paid their share with that. So that's like the only way that I see that we're going to recover any money and have everyone to pay. Because once the $150 goes into effect for next year and then the $250 the year after that, basically that's out of our control. And we can't change that. So we would have to look at what we have the ability to do, like the millage rate and just impact fees. There's no other way. Now, however, I do want to be clear, and this is just my opinion for the commission, that before we start to put everything back on the residence bank, we have to be responsible with our own spending first. We need to put what we can and save from within before we just continue our spending and then put everything out to the residence because of the affluent going to the bank. And that's what I would like to see, that we become responsible first and do what we can before we pass it on out to our president. Mayor Smith? Commissioner Allen. I agree with what the vice mayor and of course, Commissioner West has said. But I've also been following some of the Tallahassee comments that have been made or that the governor is supposed to have made. And that is, he is not done with us yet. That he is looking for ways to make sure that there is not a shift. That we cannot just increase stuff just to make up the difference in this. And so, you're correct. So, saying impact fees and all of this, yeah. But Tallahassee sets the rule. I don't care if we have home rule or not. They make the decision up there. There are some other ways, Vice Mayor, but I don't know that he's going to allow that. And that would be the things, the revenue streams that we do have control over, which is water and sewage. But again, from what I have been reading and hearing on TV, Governor DeSantis is already a step ahead of that with the counties and the local municipalities to try to get the legislature up there to help tighten this thing up. Because he knows that's what, that's all we're left to do to survive, like you said. Thank you. Thank you. So, these are great sentiments, great points. Again, we're all navigating these waters from different perspectives. We've had the conversation internally about non-Avalor assessments and what that looks like right now. Again, there is no guidance in terms of can we create a parks and recreation assessment? Can we create a global general government assessment because it becomes a tax shift? But is that going to be legally sustainable and not get challenged from residents? And now it's putting the commission and local government to say, I want to impose something that the state took away. So, it's just creating this conflict. Again, we'll kind of navigate through it. I think it does give us the ability and the commission to give the ability of the ones that we have in place, a fire assessment, a stormwater assessment. Now is the time where we can leverage that and really take, you know, full benefit of that, knowing the need, right? We keep saying fire and the priority it is, but we're trying to eliminate it. This is now a horizon saying we've got this benefit in place. We don't want, we didn't want to do it in an ideal world, but now we have the ability to ease. So, we're going to maximize it to a capacity that makes sense, right? 75%, 80% funding. So, there is no detriment in service. So, again, just something to think about as we wrestle with the future. Yeah, I want to go to the next page. I just want to go visually, go to the one right before it. So, this is just a graph showing, I think for residents, oftentimes it gets confusing from a tax bill standpoint of how much I pay to the city, how much my taxes are, and then how much goes to the county. So, this illustration is just for Haines City. The left-hand column is where we currently stand at 7.3395. And just showing you how much they pay based off the home value. $100,000 home pays about $367 to the city. $150,000, $734,000, $200,000, $1,100,000. And again, this is not their total tax bill. This is just the city component of that tax bill. But I want to go to the next one because it shows you what's going to happen. And again, just reinforcing what you guys are saying. When someone looks at their property tax bill and says, I can save up to $734, they're really not looking at the consequence of that. They're just looking at the net effect that I'm going to save $734. So, this is just the impact of what it would look like to someone's tax bill for the city as a proposed part of this legislation. Ultimately, it's about a $734 maximum savings across the board to all residents with Homestead. The fire assessment, we've talked about that a lot. Currently, where we stand today, $5.2 million in the next budget on projected revenue. Again, we rolled that back back in January to keep that fire assessment the same. So, that's currently where we stand. That's already been two public hearings held and approved. But it is something that we can take a look at. We have incorporated that in the budget at the $5.2 million revenue estimate. The next page, we've provided you with kind of just what the assessment looks like in relation to the budget. So, just want to highlight 24 and 25 annual fire assessment collected, $4.9 million. So, it was a deficit of $1.6 million in 24/25 and 25/26 with the new personnel, new EOC station, just growth. $5 million in non-avalorm assessments. $9 million, $7,000 budget, $4 million deficit. So, we're seeing, again, growth, a need in the department, but the funding is lagging behind from the fire assessment in that capacity. So, and that wraps it up for at least this supplemental. Again, I know that was a lot of information. Hopefully, that gives you the lay of the land as we continue to start these conversations. But at this point, we can go ahead and go into the general fund and start going department by department. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Smith, before O'Mearn leaves, I just want to make a comment that, as a former salesperson myself, and I know it takes five years for anybody new coming in. I don't know what it takes for somebody that is already a homeowner here that is perhaps in a $150,000 house and had a windfall and they can afford a $250,000. But my point is, with the builders that we have, unless they start building houses at $500,000, we're going to be at a loss. So, if they just promote or say starting in the low $250,000, that's going to be very attractive, which is going to mean more people that we need to service that we're not collecting enough money to really provide that service. Not that we have control over what they do, but I just wanted to throw that out there. Yeah, what's scary from that perspective is if it passes, it's just going to become more lucrative for everyone outside to move here by that. So now services again get constrained and then that revenue is not coming in from that side because it's a homestead property. So we won't see it. Obviously, we have a five year window, but still you have to keep up that base from public safety and everything else. So going to the general fund budget book. Just hopefully, I want to confirm page eight should be the departmental where it starts with the first department city administration. So I'll go ahead and do that one. So it should start off with city administration starts off with personnel again right now we haven't built in any merit increases or any adjustments as a result of that. That'll be as approved later on down the process going down the operating expenses changes again other services $1,500 50% increase their $500 increase travel per diem again with the current vacancy in the city management position having city manager two deputies and all of them going to training. We did increase that to accommodate the three personnel in there. We also created right underneath that to separate within the administration budget a line item to distinguish the communication and marketing department. So we do have two employees in that division and that $4,500 is dedicated for those two employees, which you didn't see in years past. That's a brand new line item so we can keep track and better account for those costs separately. Rentals and leases we did have a savings there between copier leases and lease payments on existing vehicles that have been paid off now. So that was reduced in that promotional activities is one that you're seeing a difference. It looks like a reduction on the first line, but then it got moved to the marketing division. So again, just separating city administration from marketing and giving them their own GLs and allocations from a promotional accounting system. And then the other other change again fuel three vehicles inside the administration department and to communication marketing divisions and then the last two lines is professional services here. We see a substantial increase and just want to talk this through and years past. Fred Riley has been city attorney, the dedicated person budgeted there with the city growing cases. We are now proposing a higher budget for that. So it's set at 725,000 and that would accommodate two lawyers and one legal assistant to help keep pace with all city agenda items contracts, legal cases from the labor side. So again, big increase, but a lot of things are on the plate right now from a legal perspective. So that's kind of the lay of the land for the administration department. Again, I'll answer any questions in relation to that department. So looking under where it says professional services. Yes, that's the legal. That's the legal piece of it. Yes. The second line item is for CRA. So right now what we've done in the past, we can modify this, but Fred just a bill. He would send three bills all at one time. We would pay it and then do a transfer between the CRA to cover of CRA. So general fund would pick up that second line item. It was just a place where we could allocate it. We could remove it from general fund all entirely and just place it standard and CRA and have Boswell Dunlap or new city attorney create separate invoices. So it's a lot cleaner going forward before it was one cover letter from attorney Riley. So that's how we kept track of it and did the transfer between the two. Let's go back to our promotional activities. Omar, if I understood you correctly that it's now been moved to the marketing division, but I'm still looking at $10,000. I guess in this workshop you're asking for. Are you still asking for that separately and then the $17,000 for the marketing division? So the original budget in this current year was 27-2. So we're keeping the same budget. We're just splitting it between the two divisions. So no change, no increase. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. So you guys will be able to go to the budget process. We're just going to be able to go to the budget. Well, I've yet to see anything that shows what different departments have spent until it comes to the budget time. So I wouldn't know how it's divided. So that's something that hopefully will change for any of us that are interested in it and I'm going to be able to treat the promotional activities for the administration even though they don't spend 10,000. They don't promote anything other than a free Facebook ad. But this act of money is actually going to be utilized or spent through the marketing division. For the 17,000, yes. That was the one thing. And who are the administration, personnel, people? Almost $800,000 and you just got your two marketing people and are you including the two deputies and is Margie included in this as well? Is there anybody else? City manager, two deputies, Margie and the two communication people. Okay, thank you. I don't have any questions. It may come a time here for the city to base on our growth of our population that I'm looking at percentage and sports professional service and professional service theory. We're talking about a change of 120 percent and then the other one is 400 percent. This commission may want to consider in the near future is actually hiring an in-house attorney. I think, you know, for the city to hang city, it may be cheaper to have an in-house that we hire or we appoint just like our heart just like we do our city clerk in our city of Manning than to go out and get an outside. But it appears that if you look at those, that's high. And I think, I just really believe that if we have someone that we hire internally, it'll be a lot cheaper than what we're paying now for legal service. But I just think that we, that's something that we should think about in the near future is actually, and I don't know if you all ever considered that. I think it would be cheaper for the city to have our own in-house attorney. They come to work every day. They hear we need them. You know, it's just that I think it's cheap. I don't know. I just like to hear, have you ever considered ever talk about it in finance? We have a part of the conversation is getting that in succession over, you know, a timeframe. We've had conversations just again with attorney set later and kind of what that would look like over a three year horizon. I still think it would be one person alone to keep up and keep pace. So again, it would be a division. You know, part of the complexity of that is an attorney cost and a legal assistant. But then you add the benefits right for Hague City benefit costs are 45%. So you want $200,000 salary and that's 300,000. So we're going to be close. We may be able to save 100, 200 grand, but it's something we can look at for sure. It's just finding that person day one, hit the ground running and staffing them. And this is my new year and it says uniform. What would be uniform for administration? Is that like the first? Yeah, just shirts logo. We typically give city employees like $100, $125 per person allowance a year. If wore shirts, three shirts, get them embroidered, have the city logo. They can wear them on Fridays with jeans. So that's kind of standard. Okay. No, that's just my name. I just saw it. All right, thank you. That's all. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And Commissioner West, you had some of the same questions I was about to ask because I have a highlight here for the professional services with the 222% increase and then the CRA at a 400% increase. So I'm sure where it's going, but it looks like from 11:05 to 50. So what does that entail for that big jump? So I think part of that was the transition from Fred. So the numbers right now on the projected look a little bit lower. So what we're seeing now as a result of that transition is we're doing a lot more work. So I think that number is going to escalate this year as we progress through, but we don't have that many buildings with attorney set later keeping up. But a lot more work. Where? On just keeping up with things. I think maybe things were not getting addressed or not being billed. If that makes sense. So now attorney Claytor's putting in a lot more time. So we're going to see that cost go up based on everything he's tackling. We are starting to see a difference between that. But you projected to go up from the 11 five that we currently have in there. Because I think with Fred, it was that additional $11,000 on top of the regular fee for CRA. So you projected to increase from 11 five to the 51 into 2027. Right. Okay. Thank you. I just have one question. It's in reference to the legal services. So the numbers that you're projecting here, is this based off of what you've seen from attorney Claytor? These numbers that he gave. That's just one person. Keeping the same status quo one person. But again, I think the intent or at least the conversation is it's not going to be just one person or they can't keep up with just one person. So it's going to have to be two and a legal system. It's going to have to be more whenever we decide to have an attorney on staff. So I guess my question to that is the saying that one person can't keep up. Is that the information you get from attorney Claytor? Or is that just in general? I think from our observations in the past with Fred and with attorney Claytor is that Fred was having difficulty keeping up by himself. And then as we've gone through this transition, obviously the, we have had discussions to say, what do you think it looks like to be able to keep up with a slow. So some of those numbers have come from that discussion, not necessarily what he's charging us at this point. But what group we, the number of items that are on the list that need to be addressed and kind of extrapolating how that looks going out into the future to keep that up today. All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Johnson. Yes. Just what they're saying, if we can get a legal team, that team has a member on the team that has CRA background, can we combine those two, these two line items together to do that? So we would prefer to have CRA completely separate just so when they're billing CRA time, we know it's specific to CRA. We don't want to make sure we ever see a billing that they're doing. City commission agenda item and charging into the CRA. Is that the question? I think the same person could do it. Yes. The same person could do it. We would just bill it out. Mr. Mayor, might you recognize? I'm just still on this part here for professional services because to me, too, and I understand what attorney may have stated or whatever, but unless there's going to be some type of miracle that happens in CRA with production, I'm trying to wonder what two and three extra attorneys and legal aid staff and like what are they going to be doing for an additional from $11,500 to $50,000. So I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. 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I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. Right. Or someone separate. Is that right? So I think that's part of the issue. Mayor Smith. I understand y'all concerned with that. But CRA is separate. And there are legal things that come up. Placing liens on people and all of that stuff. I don't see a CRA employee that doesn't have a legal degree to protect the CRA board. Eventually will be the city with having them making some mistakes on that. I did ask Attorney Claytor to provide me with a list of everything that was has not been done. That Fred was not able to get to. Plus whatever we're asking since he's been here. And the same thing from CRA. And I don't know if you all are interested in it. But the list is overwhelming. There was a lot that Fred did not was not able to get to. So to expect one person to come in and catch up all of just what wasn't done. To me is going to be unrealistic because they're going to be busy doing that and not handling current. Or they're going to handle current. And some of this stuff that long list is not going to get done. So of course I can't commute. You know I can't email any of y'all. But I can send if you're interested I can send it to the clerk. And then she can send it out and you take a look at it. And maybe we need to prioritize and say maybe we don't need to get a procedure done on this or whatever. Because we've been asking Fred for a lot of stuff. And then that does not include what certain directors need legally for him to look at contracts and to give advice and all of that. So when I first came here in 2017 I was complaining about what we were paying Fred. And I was quickly told by the other commissioners that Fred isn't charging us enough as is. And so I don't have a problem with the $725. I do think that the $50,000 out of the $725 that they should be able to represent as somebody represents CRA. And Seth seemed to be, I don't know because I don't know him, but from being up here listening, seems to have some experience in dealing with some of the legal issues of CRA. And that's going to be important. And then my last question is, does this $725 include our contract for Tallahassee with the labor, our labor attorneys? Are we still contracted with them? It's not in this $725. It's not in that $725. So it's going to be in professional services, something somewhere? Yeah, I'll bring it up as soon as it comes up. Okay, okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. No other questions on that one. We'll turn to the next page, which begins the city commission. And then, yeah. So I'm going to let, there's not much changes there. Before you go there, so this is not an any action item, this is just information. This is just information. The same way we did capital, if there's something that comes up and you guys all have a consensus and you guys want to modify or change, we'll have discussion. Again, we're keeping notes and we're keeping track. We'll make that change. But other than that, we're listening. And then I think at the next budget meeting, you guys are really going to have to go through and make red lines. Yeah. Okay. So again, if something really blaring jumps out and you guys want to red line today, again, feel free to bring that up and make a consensus and we're keeping notes. Okay. So the next division is the city's commissions department. I'll let Sharon jump in there, but it looks like there's only two Quested increases I don't have the book in front of me I show all of mine going down no no we're in the city are you in the city commission so yes the travel did go up and that's just the cost of things is what's happening plane fares that kind of thing hotel that Laura League of Cities rates have just increased naturally so I just had to account for that I wasn't particularly the last thing is to see what's happening and in training that went down seven point five was that here I think that's the cost from our ethics training our attorney city-wide training that is dedicated you know that this city clerk's office takes that allocation on our public records request and now our records repository requests as well that we have to take care of so that's the increase there those are very small and minor that's the way that we have to do it in the house for our records or agenda management or just for you or laser fish those are the three things that the clerk's office is responsible for it in housing the records so as those programs and those software increases that's what we have to do that's what we have to do yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes I didn't really do much with pops or downs you know we have board commissioners that actively travel but still Commissioner Huffman is still doing some things you know around town but as far as the travel the hotel and all that that this time increase from Florida League and making those rates we are working with Florida League because one of the things that they are doing is they are not blocking out enough rooms and what's happening is that if you don't book the hour it's released then you're stuck with going to another hotel with no block room rate and having increase them but we're working with them as well to do better just for the municipalities and anticipate that each city is having at best three commissioners three to four commissioners that are traveling yeah just like what a clarification and that maybe I'm looking at this wrong if you look at the motion activity on page you'll see so the project is doing the projection from budget to budget the projection is just telling you what has been projected as we spent this year right now it's trailing behind it looks like there's only gonna be 7500 spent out of that 16,000 our budget but the budget staying the same at 16,000 okay so you project in 2027 that it's back to 16,000 so we don't spend all of that what you were staying correct and this year is only 7500 from that line item commission was that's a different department on 10. the commission is only on 9. yeah yeah we're on the city commission we're on promotional line finance department the finance department starts at the bottom and then goes over to 10 we stopped maybe I'm on the wrong book here no no we're on page 9 for promotional and city commission commissioner west brought a promotion and city commissioners that's right and this year is only 7500 from that line item and this year is only 7500 from that line item on 10. The city commission is only on 9. The city commission? Yeah, yeah. We're on the city commission. We're on the promotional line. The finance department starts at the bottom and then goes over to 10. We stop. Maybe I'm on the wrong book. No, no. We're on page 9 for promotional and city commission. Commissioner West brought up promotional activities in the projected column shows $7,500 and the budget is $16,000. So again, we didn't spend the entire budget from a city commission promotional perspective. That's in the middle. I kept that number the same because I can't, it's very hard to anticipate. I've only spent $9,000. I try to be very conservative and what I really do is don't go and get a lot of promotional items right away. I wait until, you know, if the mayor's having a coffee, then I spend at that moment in time, I don't go and just have it sitting. So the next department is the finance department from an operational state. So the finance department, the finance department, the finance department, the finance department, the finance director was deciding what the commission should, how much money should be spent on it when we are the ones that are going out representing this city, making sure that, you know, there's a strong ask for needed monies and stuff. So I have a couple of questions. I have a couple of questions. I have a couple of questions. One, I want to know with this life insurance and I'm going to, you answer it now. I won't have to ask it throughout. Um, life, health insurance that you are projecting. I don't have to say $43,000. I don't have your health insurance. I don't have family. I have just life. So why is it $43,000 for the other four? $42,000, whatever. Cause I pay my own. Why is this so much? So right now the city, um, the commissioners receive the same option as city employees for a city employee, the city cost or contribution health insurance about $15,000 per year. So if a commissioner elects to have, uh, free coverage for health insurance, dental vision, then it's about a $15,000 cost. So there's three to get to the $43,000 that are participating in that. In your case, you're electing out. So I don't budget for that cost. If you were to opt in, I would add 15,000 to that. So I'm really not included in this $43,000. We're not, again, we don't want to budget for things that are not going to be spent. Okay. Okay. And, um, my new, but still, why is there workers compensation and it's only $250 if one of the commissioners that actually do travel, uh, that do travel, uh, should happen to get hurt or whatever. Is that all of that's going to be, uh, paid? This is just for the policy premium. So the premium being split across the board for, uh, everybody. Now, my main thing is getting down here to just travel for a DM. I know Lloyd's been waiting on me for this. Um, I don't think that that number is high enough. As the clerk has said, you know, uh, the, the commissioners have no, uh, say in which hotel they're going to be at and about the overreaction. Overflow and all of that. But to get on down to where my concern is again, where we're going by these industry standards, instead of what is realistic, $10 for breakfast. I don't know how in Washington DC, and I've been there several times, not as a commissioner, but I don't, uh, you know, uh, uh, soda could just about cost that. So $10 for it, $15 for a lunch. What, what, what, what are you getting? Just the butter. Cause you're not going to get the roll and the butter for $15 and $30. You know, again, in DC and Tallahassee and going to Hollywood, I'm going to Hollywood this year. And I just want to stay to California, Hollywood, Florida. I'm not flying yet. Commissioner West. I'm going to Hollywood. This would be my second trip down there. I didn't have this per diem when I went down there before, but I just want to say to this commission, uh, to my colleagues and, and to the city manager that, um, what I'm using that, that, um, key card and with whatever breakfast I feel that I need for nourishment to be able to be effective for the residents. If it's over $10, don't deduct it out of my stipend. I'm just telling you that now because these are unrealistic numbers and someone needs, I don't know if it's the clerk's officer who needs to look at what, uh, some of these menus are and some of these places that we need our, um, commissioners to be at and try to get an average of it. Cause this is just, these were the numbers. Oh my God. When I was before I retired, this is just not enough money. And so I know you Omar, you try to get the money from me one way or the other. And that's just not going to happen this time. Um, um, for me going down there. And I'd like to see that number, uh, increased. Now, I don't do all that traveling. Back to the travel. you now have a fourth commissioner that perhaps will be doing this traveling. I think that there's other things that maybe our commissioners, uh, could be attending that they're not attending because of trying to be conservative, but our other cities are going there and they're able to network and be able to find out about grants and stuff. So if it should go, if we approve this and it should go up more than this $45,000, um, where would that, the difference in it come from minus my per diem in Hollywood, Florida? So I think the question would be, because again, not only will it impact the city commission budget, but it's going to impact every travel training budget. So again, the $5.4 million is just going to continue to reduce. So as we're looking at this budget and looking at where to save and cost, it's just going to have that ripple effect from that policy. Because right now that policy is standard across all departments, commissioners, uh, anybody that does travel training gets that same per diem. So, but what I think, excuse me, what I think you forget is that we're elected by the people to represent the people. And so there are some things that perhaps look like they may need to be cut, but without that, there is no presence that's there. There is no one there to make the ask for us. So I don't want to get back until where you and I were last year, because we're friendly or now with each other. Uh, but, um, we're elected. We're not hired and we're not appointed. And we need to have a seat at some of these tables. So, uh, not trying to say that we're better than the employees, uh, are because they make the city go around, you know, they make it work, but our bosses on the organizational charts are the people. So I'm not looking for anything to, I don't think that any of you would ask for anything unreasonable to go to, but I think that there are some things that maybe you can go to that will represent us. Uh, there are some other organizations, um, that have meetings in the state as well. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Vice President. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Um, so, City Clerk, um, going back to your statement, so I remember what I was going to say. So, with the Florida League of Cities, when it comes to those rooms, um, being allocated, the, the hotels only give them, a block. And, they don't do the entire hotel, so they only give them a block. Um, but, um, and then I know we have to go to other hotels. But, um, what I've always done when, um, outside of the host hotel, is to make sure that I get the government rate. Like, the majority of the time, they book us at a higher rate, but when I go up to that desk, I'm like, no, we need the government rate. so I get a cheaper rate. Um, so we need to just make sure that we're doing that. And then just looking at your travel per diem line, um, it looks like, you know, you were being very conservative with the past years, and kind of like, not allocating or asking for enough based on what we actually spent. And I do know that everything has went up. so, and I remember, um, the deputy clerk, um, did the study and pull the numbers for the travel per diem. and pain city was very low compared to, you know, the requirements. And then also what the other cities. So I wanted to know, um, was that calculated in with, um, with the information that the deputy clerk, um, provided. Um, I don't know if it was provided to the interim city manager, but I know that it was provided to our previous city manager, but nothing was done on that. So does these numbers reflect that for the travel? Those numbers do not reflect that. It was sent to the, I don't recall if it was interim city manager or city manager, but it was sent to the city manager's office as well as to finance. And I think the question was, if they were going to be bringing this before the commission, and it was this something that the commission was going to approve, or is this something at the city manager level that they can just make that blanket change for the travel per diem, because then that would affect everyone that travels. Right. To get that per diem. Right. But just, that's where it went. It was distributed, but nothing happened after that. Lloyd, you can speak to that. Yeah, I did ask, uh, Omar, to get together some numbers to have after lunch so that we could look at numbers per diem, and have a discussion in my regard, so after lunch we should have those numbers together. Okay, thank you. No, no other reasons. Okay. One, one comment. Commissioner Weston. Um, on the personal service, and just, just a thought, you know, and maybe the commission may want to consider doing this here. Um, as you travel throughout the state of Florida and beyond, and go to all these conferences and meetings, and you deal with other counterparts from other municipalities, one thing that I, when I speak to them, that we don't have, and this is something that I guess the commission could maybe look at a little bit, at a long range, is a retirement that's built in for our commission. A lot of the commissioners, all the municipalities, has a certain amount of years, just like the employees of this, that for seven years, a commission should be qualified, because we get the same health insurance, we get all of that. One thing we don't get is the retirement. You know, I'm, you know, and I, and I, and I, and I can't speak for the rest, but I know I've been here a little while, you know, two minutes, but at some point, we may want to consider looking at maybe including the retirement for the commission, and it shouldn't be like the current to have. I think we have 20 years. To get reelected for up to 20 years, and the broader talent is 34 years, you know, that's exceptional. Very seldom that happens a lot. So, I don't think we should, I think we should remove 20 years, and put it in the system here, in the budget, a little lower, you know, maybe two terms, which will be eight years, and then you get it for some form of retirement. And that's just my opinion. I, I mean, I can't speak for my teammates, they may not even agree with that, but I think that at some point in time, I know we are under a budget cut, but it's something that I think we should look at, you know, if it's feasible, if it's possible. You know, I came a minute after you. Yeah, that's right, exactly. You know, that's just something that I just want to throw out there, that we may want to consider. I know, maybe, maybe at one, one of these years, that we've been commissioned. Maybe if I'm after I'm gone, let's go for one time, we may want to consider doing that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad that's it. Director. So, going to the next department, the finance department, no operational increases. Again, knowing the budget constraints that we're up against, we're going to kind of maintain status quo, operate within that same budget. I do want to highlight, just again, finance does have a wellness line item in there for $50,000. That is a contribution that we get as a result of partnership with Cigna. They give us that. So, that typically funds our monthly wellness workshops that we give to the employees this month. We just did free NGO screenings to all the general employees. So, again, free services that we're doing on a monthly basis here. It also funds like the health fair, which we bring over 25, 30 vendors to that event. But again, part of that relationship. So, they do reimburse that. So, not a cost to the city, but a reimbursement. Any other questions? Again, I'll feel free to answer. I have one after you. I secure. Go ahead. Okay. Mayor Smith, this accounting slash auditing, is that what we pay the company for $65,000 to come in and conduct the audit? Correct. And, I know that tomorrow we'll go over CRE, but CRE has an audit cost in there, additional audit costs. So, if it's the same company, then it's really going to be close to $100,000 for them to come in and audit both boards. It is, that just seems to be a high price for me. I don't understand why there's, you know, why are we paying $65,000 for them to audit? Is that the price they just charge for everyone? Did we negotiate this price? Are we just going with the same company that we have always used as question one? And two, if they're, if they're doing the audit for CRA, which is very minimal to be done, can, why can't it be out of the $65,000? So, to answer the first question, it was a bid item, how we selected that, the auditors, they do have an annual escalation. One other thing that drives costs a little higher is single audits. Again, the city has been benefiting and receiving grants. Every time we pass the $1 million federal threshold requires single audits. And then, again, that's just increasing the cost. So, for the past couple of years, we've had to do those as well. So, again, this is industry, not industry standard, but actually part of a solicitation to get that price. And again, the CRA component, we, it's going to be $75,000. We make sure that we allocate only what CRA costs to CRA. Okay. And I just have one other question. Okay. Go ahead. This print binding, is this, this, are you charging us for the binder that you give us for the budget? What's the print binding? I understand, you know, what's sending the water bill out and all of that. Yeah. But what binders are you printing for that? Who are you giving it to? Right. So, this is all printing and binding costs, cutting AP checks, printing payroll runs, any printing costs as a result of operations are being coded to that. So, I would say binding is very small. Printing is very high as part of that operating procedure. But it's confusing. When I see print binding, I'm thinking of these books that are here. So, that was one of my questions that I had. And what is other? Other bothers me. Other in, the word other, and the word miscellaneous bothers me, because I cannot explain to the residents that contact me. What is other current charges? What is OB? So, other current charges, obligations. Obligations. Okay. Okay. So, what are those that you projected for $23,000? And now it's $18,000. So, what is that? Is that the miscellaneous? It's been called miscellaneous. Some governments use that term miscellaneous. In Hank City, it's always been other current charges and obligations. Departmental wise across the board, we try to minimize the impact of that. What it's used for typically is right here for the finance department, bank fees, any miscellaneous ancillary fees that are associated with us, and then new hiring costs across the board. So, if you see, you know, let's say police, that are other current charges, will capture a new cost to test them pre-employment, it'll be captured in that 49 to 10 account across the board. So, it is standard, but it has that other current charge title applied to it. Okay. And so, this is not going to be, I won't also see this charge to HR, who also, who does the hiring for us. does this just divide it out? So, one amount that you just divided among all of the departments. HR administers it, and then codes it back to the department. So, if they're hiring a finance accountant, they're going to do that process, but code it back to the finance department. Okay. All right then. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Quick question for the person on the board, personnel services, where it says regular salaries. So, it looks like in 2025, it was $585,000, and then the projected for 26 was $626,000, and then it shows $656,000. So, what's the difference in the numbers? Because it looks like you said a 0% change, but there is a change there. So, there's a reduction, or not a reduction, but a savings in that fiscal year 26. Part of that was a transition of, we got a new position assigned, a purchasing agent, but it takes time to do that. So, that two or three months of gap, didn't use the full 656 budget, because of that delay. But again, same positions, no extra increases, but there is savings sometimes, because of that timing difference. If we were all starting all the positions on 10-1, then we would have used all the 656, in that case. So, it went from 585, 2025, to 656, 26, because of that one new position. One new position. Okay. And, then for the incentives, can you tell me what the incentive, right now, are you looking for, because it shows 10, eight, then it goes, a big drop to six, 69, and then it went back up to 18, four, but, and then it goes back down to 69. Yeah. So, that's one that we, citywide, you'll see this across every department. The city administers an incentive program. This program is designed to do up to $4,000, and it has five tiers. Within each tier, employees can go out, and do training certificates, and depending on the tier, they get a compensation too. Okay. So, that's the incentive. That's what that is. And depending on who we staff, and they come in with credentials, or leave without credentials, it can sway every year, depending on that. But once we have fully staffed, that number should stay pretty staffed. Okay. And then my final question, of course, would be this gas and oil. So, it's at 2,900 and 2,500. Yeah. How many vehicles is this for your department? So, it's just two vehicles. For two vehicles. And who has those two vehicles? So, that seems pretty high, just for two vehicles. Yeah. So, right now, we have two. I have one. And we also have one for the meter change-out project, for the finance team. So, our staff will go administer that project, go out on site, do field assessments. So, it's capital. Oh, yeah. Sometimes, also, you know, again, this is not a vehicle per se, but it could be a vehicle that gets used, or mileage reimbursement for our wellness, if we've got to go out and pick up, you know, events, set up, go to Lake Eva, go to Best Buy, Health Fair gifts. That also gets coded there as well. Or mileage reimbursement. Mileage reimbursement, if they don't use the city vehicle, yes. Why would they not use the city vehicle, doing city business? Yeah, for sure. If the car's not available, for example, the meter change-out's gone, and wellness is going out, they'll code against that. That's a concern to me. Because if they're doing city business, they should always be in a city vehicle, just for insurance purposes, or anything could happen in their own city time. So, if there's not a vehicle, and it kind of loops back around to why I said we need to start, and really entertain the pool system with these vehicles, and not saying, well, this one is for this department, and this one is for that department. Because no employee at any time should be using their own personal vehicle, when they're doing city business. So it is, just depending on the scenario, like travel and training, right? A good example, travel and training, they do use their city business, or city personal vehicle, and they get reimbursed mileage, even though they're conducting city business. Right, but that's different, because they're traveling somewhere, so then they're actually getting their per diem, their travel fee, but you said if they needed to go to Lowe's or wherever to pick up something, they should be in a city vehicle. I'm just saying the same principle applies, because I pay for their mileage to go to the training. If I send them to Office Depot, it's the same principle of reimbursing them for that mileage, which gets coded to that expense. I have one question. How many people are in your department? So I believe it's time. It's finance director, deputy finance director, purchasing manager, purchasing agent, accounting manager, payroll specialist, AP, and then three. And a part time. I'm sorry, they're going to compile that, but that's the list. Okay. And while you get that, that was my only question. So 12 plus a part time. That includes the wellness. I was missing the wellness. Eight downstairs. So 12 plus one part time. Correct. So a total of 13. And the eight downstairs. And the eight downstairs. They're not a separate part of division of the financial. You're going to see it here. You'll see that in the water, sewer funds, finance, utility billing. Okay. Okay. So 12 plus one part time, just in finance, and then eight in water utility. Correct. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's it. So moving on to the next department. Again, this is the one we title other general government. The first line item you see there's unemployment. And we keep about $25,000 as turnover transitions happen. That funds the unemployment line. Again, we don't see a lot of utilization, but it's $25,000 allocated. Or when those cases arise, commissioner Huffman brought up about the labor attorney. So this, here's where you see that in that professional services, that $131,000, that captures the labor attorney costs, and it captures the lobbyist costs inside that $131,000 on an annual basis. Our lobbyist goes to that $131,000. That's correct. So that's what's inside of that $131,000 on professional services. Other than that, no major changes at this point. Everything else pretty much standing, standing the same within that other general government department. Any other questions inside of the general government? Commissioner Huffman. Why isn't this, all of this unemployment and this operating expenditures, why isn't it just divided in the other departments? Why is it a separate, it looks like it's a separate department altogether? Because, you know, why isn't this included in the other department, divided, whatever, whatever, with it? Because I'm just looking at the insurance, the $1.5 million for the insurance, but you've already stated earlier, that, well, that doesn't say. No, workers' comp we talked about earlier. This is the, no, when I asked about the life health insurance on the commission, and you said that it was what the city pays into, their share of it. So this $1.5 million in insurance. Completely separate. Completely separate. This is just the liability policy. On the, on the entire city. On the city buildings and stuff. Yes, that is there. Okay. That's how much we spent on that package. Okay. Okay. And repair maintenance service, each department is not going to have their own repair maintenance service, and they do. They do. This is just, again, if general government city building repair is going there, that's only $10,000. But if it's a police repair, it needs to go to police. It should not come to general government for that cost. So this amount is basically for city hall. If it needs repair. things that are citywide that we keep track here specifically. Because if, like for example, the lobbyist, where would you want me to go to the lobbyist? Would you want me to split that across 20 departments? Or would you want that to city commission? Oh, well, you know, I don't want it to the city commission. You know that. I get that part. I just don't understand repair maintenance service. It's only like $10,000. But what, where, where are we repairing? Because, uh, I'm waiting for parks and rec because I know that they will have that same line item in there. Right. And, um, they have the event center, uh, in, in other buildings in the city. Right. Uh, that need some repairs and pressure washing and all of that. So I'm just trying to find out, is this $10,000 just for city hall? I'm going to confirm there's $5,400 that was spent actual in 2025. So I'm just going to pull that and confirm that. Yeah, please. Yeah, please. Please let me know, um, that in the next budget that we have. Because if you tell me today, I won't remember and I'm going to ask you again. So I'm just looking at the GL. It's looking like those global fire inspections, inspections for buildings that we want to make sure we're doing as a citywide requirement to get them done. And they're good. Go to there. But if you guys would prefer again, split them out somehow to. Specific departments. We can do that as well. FMD or again, it's just going to be shifted somewhere else. Right now it's just capturing that global requirement to maintain city buildings, city insurance. That's kind of the design only for this department. I get the insurance part, but you still haven't convinced me yet on the repairs. I'm thinking that it is just city hall because in the fire department, I'm sure they're going to have something over there that they have, whatever their fire marshal is checking to make sure that the elevator at the city hall. So if it's city hall, I mean, that's fine. I just, that's what I'm wondering. Is it for city hall itself? City hall inspections, hospital control. Yeah, we'll confirm. It looks like that way, the 100% city hall. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it. Mr. Mayor might be recognized. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Okay. So when I look at the operating expenditures, I'm showing three different line items for training. You said the incentive part was one. Yeah. Okay. And then when I go over to page 11, I also show training, at 15 one. And then I show another training and education reimbursement for 75,000. So why is there three different? Yeah. And that's intentionally to, again, make sure we can see all three. First one we talked about is city incentives to employees for personnel costs. The second training for 15,100 is training that we do through a program called know before issue to all employees who have to comply and do so much training in order to use the computers, know the system. And based on that, then they're eligible to use the computer system and cell phones. So that's a citywide global training that we house. And then the last one is a training for education reimbursement. So the city right now has a different program that says if you go to get your associate's degree, if you go to get your bachelor's, we'll reimburse you upon completion. So that's that designated fund for the reimbursement part. Right. So when I'm reimbursing you along the way, once you get, let's say associate's certificate, then that goes and gets transferred to the incentive side and you start to receive compensation after. So does that make sense? There's two different programs. Right. And I understand that. So I want you to give me kind of like a breakdown, if you will, because I know like there was like an incentive if they got their associate or bachelor's, one of them, like they may get $2,000 for the year and it's broken up with throughout the year. So it's just for, and is this 75 across all departments or is this just for? This is capturing everybody in that program. Okay. So that is capturing everyone in that program. Okay. Not just finance. And now I don't know if I'm jumping ahead, if we haven't got that far yet, but it's just sticking out to me. What we said is aid to private organizations, $442,000. We can talk about that. So yeah, the first one is aids to government agency is our nonprofit program. So $100,000 there for the nonprofit. And then I think I can't remember what the other one is. The aids to private organization is a combination of the Audi incentive, the city established ordinance that they would give them so many credits over a 10 year timeframe. It's like $80,000 for that that would contribute to all these. The EDC is a part of that. That's $215,000. That number sticks out to me, but it's somewhere in that ballpark. So that's a component of that. And then there's one more piece. Oh, Citrus Connection is the other one that's part of that contract that we have. Okay. And then going back to the aids to the government agencies, those are the nonprofit. Yes. So have we looked into that with the proposed changes to who we can and who we cannot give money to moving forward starting in 2027? Have we taken that into consideration? Have you started looking into that and working that up? Because I would see that this number should definitely decrease because of our limitation to what we can provide. And also just, you know, in the sense of us trying to cut, that's probably going to be an area that we could as well to, you know, like some of the services that we are providing. Have you reworked that grant program where eventually they would become self-sufficient? And is there a max out? How is that looking? Because I know that there's a lot of changes coming up for, you know, that grant piece of it. We need to have that meeting in turn. I know you guys have brought that up about the legislative change and some of the requirements on grant issuances. Obviously, I think it takes effect January 1. But anyways, we want to make sure we're educating them. We do have two workshops scheduled in July for the mandatory meetings to talk about this with all the applicants. Again, they're mandatory, so we'll have to be face-to-face with them. So before we have those two mandatory trainings, we'll make sure we educate, know that requirement, and again, see how that falls through the evaluation process. You know, one of the things that stuck out was if it's effective January 1st and they're able to, you know, submit an application this year and get the funds spent before, January 1st, is that going to be compliant? And then they're out next year. But again, we don't have that ironed out fully yet, but we will before the mandatory trainings. Because I think there was a part of... I just think it's kind of hard for an organization to have those funds spent before January 1st when they're technically not receiving the funds until like October or November. Yeah, some of them have those events in like October, so those are the few, but a lot of them, it's going to be a push. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. I know that we are in hurricane season, and I'm looking at where I know we can't project how much more close if we get a hurricane. But the number in there says zero, because what if we get a hurricane event? And I know that we take that out of the reserve, but FEMA reimbursed us some 15 years later. Wow. But nevertheless, why don't we have any money there because as a projection, we put zero. It's a strong possibility that, you know, you get all these names in hurricane that we may get hit with one. So I'm suggesting that we can put the testimony aside. When I see in 2025, we only had $48,000 in the hurricane. Okay, I'm assuming that's what it costs that we had to take out of the reserve or something. Yeah, no, so in 2025, I think that was the offset. I think that hurricane ended up happening right around September, and it crossed the years for us. We had some costs in 2024, some in 2025. Historically, what we've done, Commissioner, just to your point, instead of allocating funds specifically for that, we've taken it out of the contingency, which is right above that. So we have $770,000 for contingency in the case of a natural disaster or storm. We'll pull from that contingency to fund it and keep us afloat until we get reimbursed later on. Okay. Okay. We don't take that contingency. Is that considered our reserve? That's just for the budget. No, so we sent 1%. What's in the reserve, though? Because we, by state statute, I think we have to have 18% or something like that in our reserve. The reserve is something in case of a natural disaster or some of that magnitude that we take that money and use it for that. So you said we've taken it out of the contingency, but why not out of the reserve? We could. We just haven't had to deplete into reserves. So if I can go to contingency first and use that and not touch reserves, that's going to be my first go-to. Reserves are really in mindset for you guys to decide major projects that you can't do within this budget, right? We've got $5 million, but you want to do a public EOC building. I'm grabbing reserves and getting that project completed and still keeping operations moving and not waiting for a storm or something to kind of dictate that project. What's in reserve now? Right now it's on page 30. Page 30. 30 of 30 for the general fund. And it's saying the balance was $17 million as of fiscal year 2024 budget. It's somewhere around $19 million now with the 2025 audited financials. So we'll make sure we get that. What percentage is that? That's close to... I don't know. Let me double check. I think it's somewhere around 36%. So we are to keep 18%. But by statute, we only allow to have... We only should have down to 18%. Right. So we have that much more in reserve that we need to consider doing something during this budget because we have that amount of money in reserve that's just sitting in there. And the statute said we don't have to have that amount. We need to consider putting that... Towards something else. A capital. Something we need to do with it. That helps offset that $5.4 million that we can add to that by taking some money out of reserve. That's too much money in reserve. That's too much money in reserve. We should not have that much money. Yeah. Mayor Smith. Commissioner Huffman. Commissioner Huffman. Commissioner West, if the minimum is 18% and we have more than that... Just my opinion... okay let's take a certain amount out of the reserve and then that way we can extend the help with some of our capital projects we're sitting at what if that's too much money in reserve we should not have that much money uh commissioner huffman commissioner west if the minimum is 18 and we have more than that just my opinion that if we are allowed to keep that percentage into our reserve we're going to need it a whole lot more in 27 and 28 than we are going to need it right now right that might be to the problems then that's right not the capital that we have now now yeah we weren't here in 2008 but here's our 2008. that's just something that commissioner huffman that we need to know that we do have that sit in there you know we need it we can use it you know but i just don't want to make sure that we are we're not in line with the florida statute because the statute said you only allowed that 18 and here we have 34 so we're violating the statute and i don't know so you got to keep that minimum reserve we're over that that's just the minimum that's just the minimum that's just the minimum that's just the minimum that's just the minimum that's right okay and the way they get that uh 18 percent i think in the ordinance it's an ordinance established by the city to make sure from a budget standpoint you have to keep the amount of reserves that's sufficient that number comes from two out of 12 months is 16.666 right so again that's two months assuming a bad year something happens you can sustain yourself for two months when you think about two months out of 12 it's not a lot of cushion at that 16 17 percent minimum threshold so right now we're sitting around four to five months again it sounds like a lot of money but it's right around that four or five months time uh ballpark from a reserve standpoint yeah well thank you for that i mean we can entertain that after hurricane season but we don't know what's yeah all right uh did you get the chance to get that percentage remind me which percent we've been talking about the 19 million oh uh well typically that end of the year funding will be carried over for those designated projects how much are we projecting to have for carryover projects would that be would that be connected to what those that five point four you know no because those will be carried over already assigned something else so it's about 25 for that percentage based off this 76 million dollar budget okay okay my other question is for the next meeting the next time we have this workshop because i do have some questions um that's okay um director how much more do you have to present so this is uh right now the next department is city clerk and then going after that will be planning so you'll start to see directors pretty much throughout the rest of the presentation okay i think at this time i think it's a good time to uh take the lunch break um so um we've got some sandwiches coming for y'all should be here in about five minutes okay um Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. it's just more time thank you mr. mayor I wanted to give some clarification on this personnel request last year when I came before the Commission I advised that I needed to utilize the unused personnel amount by giving additional duties to my deputy city clerk as well as giving additional duties to my afternoon receptionist making her full-time and that's how we use that button I never got rid of the position the position is still very much needed you had asked when you go into the next budget year are we going to take that money away from those two people and I stated no because there's still a lot of supervisory with the increase of public records requests what we're nearly at a thousand public requests to date in June it is definitely a needed position not only just to handle the public request portion but to also digitize and properly do the records disposition annually and that is the responsibility we have found that this is not a one-person job I currently am handling all public record requests right now Erica is working on the digitization portion project this is an ongoing project to alleviate the twelve to fifteen thousand dollars that we're spending annually in off-site storage we have the intention of having the majority of the records digitized and on site we did have a capital request that was approved last year and we already bought the equipment so that's where we are with that we have upgraded our just FOIA portal because of the amount of requests and the type of requests that we have to facilitate in off-site storage we have the intention of having the majority of the records digitized and on-site we did have a capital request that was approved last year and we already bought the equipment so that's where we are with that we have upgraded our just foya portal because of the amount of requests and the type of requests that we have to facilitate and we did training last year and in this budget year i'm utilizing funds that i have to also do that so that was the only question that when i heard you guys speaking about personnel it's not someone new it's an existing position that will still have to handle and erica will have to supervise and i will also have to supervise over public records response first and digitizing and disposition it really could be a two person but we're all throwing our hat in there to do that as well as the person that helps me that we made full time does go back downstairs so i only have her for three and a half hours in the morning so she works three and a half an hour she takes her lunch and then she's downstairs i do have her doing some scanning and some things like that but it it's also a very um what i said labor intensive position downstairs as well with the increase in utilities when we have things like uh disconnect day or last day to pay that kind of thing with the new phone system we do have five lines that ring coming in at one time so a person is needed at that seat but i do lose four hours in the afternoon of doing that work we're just trying to make it work as best as possible the other uh increase i think you did see was in other contractual we had an increase in election costs as you know we picked up another polling site that's going to be a separate workshop discussion to see if that is something the direction that the commission wants to go for the next election year where i have the percentages and the payroll costs associated with having another polling location and that is it i'll stand for questions okay uh commissioner huffman yes the last thing that you mentioned uh sharing about the polling places for the other contractual services yes this i don't know if it was this board but i know that the commission um had approved um two locations we were able to use the eoz but we had also asked about one over on the east side and so um are we to are we going to see the potential of that are you still waiting for the supervisor of elections to see if they will approve or participate in that over there because if this is for three of them we actually approve yes so this having an additional location i will need the assistance of the supervisor of elections because as we saw this year with picking the church um probably we didn't find it as convenient as we thought it would because we do not change the boundary limits of how it gets divided so basically the precincts were just divided and place with what they felt was closer i had some people that were okay with it but i also had people tell me that they you know where their house was they would drive past the glacier because their polling location was in oakland for example and so those are some discussions that i have to have with the elections office um and right now with their the primaries coming up my the response time right now is is a little harder as they're working on that but i want to have a conversation with the commission as to where you feel you know the citizens will be better served i also need assistance in just knowing what area would be better so i can bring that area for the soe to look at to say hey let's find a building a church or what have you because they they use other buildings you know outside of the municipal election so that's yeah that's a conversation definitely to be had but i don't think that's you know at this i think it's a good idea and i'm thankful that the church allowed us to be able to use that but east side is has expanded across power line you have all of those new subdivisions out there on baker avenue you have pound houses uh and you're going to have subdivisions that are out there crossing over power line going all the way down to vice road which is still in the city limits so if as long as we can use the church until we can figure out where we're going to be just know that that's not necessarily right it's not permanent location correct that is correct um definitely not centrally located and i think that before we put uh another polling location but i'll certainly do what the pleasure of the commission is we want to make sure that these um new developments have probably at least 40 to 50 percent completion i don't know if they are all done yet because if they're still empty we don't want to put something out there that's not going to get used and i think that you know uh from the clerk's perspective one of the things that um i have to focus on and it's something that i will get with marketing is some more continual outreach of getting out to vote because as you guys since see that we have 20 something thousand registered voters and we have less than 2500 people voting at any given election and then we have a runoff as well i am working also with the supervisor of elections office to cut our costs because they they really want us to overly prepare for ballots and stuff like that i just got 10 boxes of election supplies that i have to hold on to now for the uh duration of the time until they're i dispose of them and we ordered so many more than we actually had and we and we do that because you want more you definitely don't want to not have enough but at the same time i also don't want to waste the money either my last question on that is probably i want to know about this capital outlay why was 85 000 budgeted and projected and now it's zero what was that going to be were you going to get a new storage facility or brand new office from where so the capital outlay that was that was last year and the the cost of the digitizing uh product the machine was 82 000 and are and changed i think it's up to 85 with the additional training so that's why it's now zero this year i do have that in south in house that's upstairs okay thank you all for other questions all right will there be anyone else mr mayor yes may be recognized thank you okay so my concern is going back to the regular salary so back when you did the reward for your department and for those of us that was here during that time if you remember we asked the question as far as were you eliminating the position you stated no and that you were going to just spread the funds amongst your current staff we asked would you be asking for additional money come the new budget year for that same staff member you stated no you would not need that person and that's why you were doing your reward and you were spreading those funds across your current staff um but now you are coming back asking to to replace the same i guess staff or position that you wanted yourself to spread that money because if you remember i was adamant about why not hire someone right now or post for that position opposed to taking that lump sum of money and spreading it out to have someone in that position because if you needed it for the future but you clearly stated that you did not need um and you would not be asking for another person but now you're saying that you need extra people um but nevertheless and then my other question is on gas and oil um um is going up 300 to four thousand dollars so um why is that you going from looks like it was at a thousand then it says 250 now you're asking for four thousand dollars which is an increase of 300 percent so why is there such a big increase so i think finance had put that figure in there in the event that the vehicle that was asked for for myself then gas would have to be allocated for that so if the vehicle is not approved then that's going to be pulled back okay and can i answer on your previous one on personnel so i i don't recall saying that i didn't need the person i was never getting rid of the person but i had to be able to compensate my staff that was taking on the additional duties and the strain um i would just have to go back and listen i truly do not recall the position is definitely still needed there's supervision there's actual physical work there's you know filing there's training and all of that so all i was trying to do was to work with what i currently had and that's why when that person left i asked if i could use that money that was already budgeted in the year for that person towards the two people that would benefit you know that from doing the additional work i'm doing part of the additional work i didn't uh allocate compensation for myself what i do for my deputy and then my part-time receptionist you know you went full-time right okay and so you answered that um so how many employees i think we asked finances so i only feel that it's fair to ask you how many employees do you have in your department including myself would be six if i had a records person not if you had a records person what do you currently have currently including myself five and plus the well no because the receptionist she's she's the works of staff correct okay so you have her translated yes yes okay thank you quickly mr america well commissioner westdale we all we all know that what we're doing here in these uh what you all presented in front of this commission to me it is appears that it is a it is it is a one you know my recommendation to this board to this commission here that you know staff and the department heads need to go back and break these break these line items down to what they really need you know i mean you may not can get that Mercedes that you want this year you may have a stellar for us different type of money it's just that i think that what they presented to us is basically a want list but you know with the city manager and the deputy city manager need to go back to each of these departments that hey what can you live and live without you know because there has to be custom we've proven that when we first started so i'm making a recommendation that they go back to each one of these departments to stay listen this is unrealistic we've got to make some cuts make the cut bring them back to this commission with some of this some of these cuts and all of these online that we're dealing with mr i so as he brought that up since we're talking about my department i will say that my requests are not wants they are needs my minimum standards to operate and do everything that i needed to do i need six people i cannot if someone calls in sick or is a training or on vacation we are not operating effectively thank you for that um would anyone else um mr mayor might need to be recognized okay thank you um commissioner west if you remember in our last workshop i think we kind of gave that consensus at the last one um for them to go back and look at what they presented to us and what they and they went as far as cutting it out and um finance director if i'm correct they were to do that at our second meeting right they're going to come back with that list of items that they have taken out correct so we did do that based off that first recommendation for the capital right if that's a recommendation for the operating we'll do the same approach internally and bring back a proposed budget yeah if it's vice versa they know that they got to cut right this is it's not realistic we got to cut someplace and they know that so why you know you're giving us all of this here knowing that we got to cut this i mean it seems to me we're spinning wheels here this should have been cut before we came here and say here here here's what they projected here's what we already cut out you know i'm just saying it's it's back it's back to the interim city manager and the deputy city manager and department go back and cut some of this stuff they got we have to cut it you know do we want do we want to have all this and i'm not just talking about the city clerk department i'm talking about all departments i'm just recommending this for expeditial expedite time that you know you don't need to go back and cut some of this stuff and then bring it back so we'll be here till six o'clock going over this and we're knowing that this stuff needs to be cut we know it needs to be cut vice mayor you know it oh yeah this was the thought that that was the consensus that we had um i'm gonna go ahead and let me address it real quick um i guess my recollection is a little bit different here i think the best course of action um i believe is to have these directors present to you what they believe their needs are with the understanding that they're going to be cut but i think they should be able to present exactly what they need to to say that their department can run efficiently um and then we go from there so i'm not my position is i don't i don't think they should we should stop them now and then you just give us the bare minimum of what you think you know you can operate uh effectively uh would be i do agree that we know those cuts are going to be made before it does come back before us i think that those uh those cuts should happen um but because at the end of the day we approve the budget but as far as managing the people like you said that's going to be between our city manager and our deputy city manager and directors um when it comes to that but uh that's basically what i was going to say is that after the last meeting our direction the way that i understood it was to address the capital portion of the budget and then that our direction had been that the commission wished to see line by line operating items and then we would do the same thing with the operating budget after you all had gone through this exercise all right thank you i think at the last meeting it it went similar to today but just a tad bit different because at that last meeting we kind of went over line by line and we kind of gave our feedback on what we did not agree with what we felt like that we didn't want to approve and we also act each department director um what do they think they you know that they can live without and then they gave us that suggestion and then they went back to figure it out and then at the next meeting they're going to present that back to us but this time we're not really doing that because remember even with uh the vehicle for the clerk's office we all decided and the consensus at that meeting that we were we were not going to do or you know a new vehicle so i think it's kind of hard for them to just say okay what do we put if they don't even know what we would recommend or say like you know what we don't see that we agree to so i think they're going to need just some direction well so and just to speak to that i think after uh madam clerk had the opportunity to finish um i think she kind of designated it was a critical need for her department that position so i believe when if you're looking at the chart that we received earlier most departments asked for one you know one individual um where you know we had kind of that that longer laundry list uh of items at the last session so it may be like you said maybe a little bit more difficult but maybe um root questions we asked are just knowing the general direction it can kind of be addressed but it looks like madam clerk wants to say yes um at this time if you would allow i would like deputy city clerk sanchez to come up that she can give you just a few more details since we are in my department so i just want you to hear the full scope of exactly what goes on our department good afternoon um i did want to point out that the city clerk's office has a 7.3 percent decrease in our budget for last year and as far as the previous position i want to give you guys a little bit of history i was the interim city clerk when the chrome or building was torn down all of our records was in that building and the team we had at the time had to take those records and find a place for them i come to work for sharon and i have full knowledge of what's in our storage what needs to be done why it's there but that's not my role my role is deputy city clerk she's the clerk and she has a records manager understanding what's understanding what needed to be done i explained to her what's over there we need to do a major disposition we need to digitize that's not my position i was willing to take over that project of cleaning up that storage and helping in the meantime and digitizing but there's no way that we can efficiently do both growth that's just not possible i can i can work on that project because i know institutional knowledge on what's there and i know what needs to be done but i cannot take on the role of a records manager i can oversee that new position so that we don't fall back into the position that we were in so i will also add that you know the city prior to myself had a lot of inconsistency with the clerk so there was years you know with minutes alone there was years of of documents records and just that kind of work that had to be caught all up i'm really happy to say that since i've taken over we've never had one set of minutes that's not done that's not properly recorded and you know and that's just a very very small piece of what the clerk does as far as the minutes for all of the meetings that are held publicly not just with you guys but with red light hammer with code enforcement with planning division anything like that with elections and all of those other things but as erica was stating having to be able to supervise because we know what's there now because we've physically gone there and seen we have a manifesto of what's been done there no records this position was done properly or effectively for years prior to me taking over so we could not work at the pace that we're continuing to work at now okay um real quick i'm gonna um through but prior to that i just want to ask one one quick question um when uh deputy uh clerk's rose expanded and we allocated those additional funds it was to cover managing and also i guess being somewhat of a part-time records custodian correct correct but i she doesn't have i need that person for her to manage so she's right now she's working as a record's custodian right and managing her you know so she's doing all of that that is what's happening all right thank you commissioner hoffman yes i just want to um to ask uh this question and um um sharing and that is um when it comes to public record request uh i from going to some of the ethics uh i'm asking that the commission uh be aware of that fact that uh for me i thought when i first got up here that the clerk only took care of the commission uh in the cemetery things but i found out um from um city clerk linda bourgeois at that time that it was more to that department so public records we have to be able to stay within whatever the state requires of us and if you get way behind and it's 45 days or is without what is considered a reasonable amount of time um it could adversely affect the city and it comes back to us as the commissioners uh and that's that's uh planning is the next one so but that's what i wanted to make you all aware of the fact that they're you know the public record requests they're coming they they are coming so commissioner huffman i will add that they have already started coming they're not coming they're here and it's not just getting the public records requests it's receiving it reviewing it redacting it and uh thankfully the police department is handling redaction on their side but if to my knowledge they had to hire somebody just to help take on the load of redaction and it is a process it's labor intensive and it's really best to have a person that that's where their laser focus is so that it's done correctly so that we are not releasing information that should not be released we can't ask forgiveness when we're you know oh i made a mistake um we are human but for the clerk's office it's at a near perfection level that i just can't afford to not have a person directly zoned in on that and then yes there's three four sets of eyes to check after right now the digitization project that we're working on we're digitizing cemetery i have four people that look it over before it even goes before we destroy if it's reached that you know point in time and so in order to keep that up that's why i i definitely want you to understand my need it's not a want it's a need okay vice mayor thank you mr mayor not to heart on the clerk's department because this is and i don't want anyone to get in their feelings but um because we're doing each department and i'm only going to state the facts going back to the reward you stated that you did not need that person i don't know how many times and i was i was one who were was outvoted i stated time and time again to why would you not just hire someone to cover that because it was a area that you would need someone but you chose to go the opposite route which was to take the money and then spread it amongst your department versus having the time to advertise hire someone get someone in and then you had that person you stated also that the additional your current employees was going to take over that role and they were going to man that but now you're coming back saying i know we cannot man it so what was the point of the reorganization for you to only come back and now months just months later to say you can't man it and you need the person that you refused and stated before that you did not need so that's my question you don't have to answer but for me it's kind of like a duplicate you spread the money out amongst your current staff and now you're coming back asking to feel the position that you once said you did not need and i also wanted to just clarify for cemetery um i was under the impression when we reorganized from just having a secretary to have an ea that the ea was covering cemetery so does the ea not cover cemetery the ea covers the sale and the uh making sure that the the lot is properly tagged coordinating with public uh with parks and recreation she doesn't have anything to do with records she handles no records i said cemetery right so the cemetery record she doesn't handle that so once the deed is produced then it comes over to records and we maintain that that position has never done that and and just to um i remember at the when you guys were asking about it what i said was is i did not have time to hire post hire and train because we were in the middle of election and going into a runoff and that was the reason for distributing the funds when i lost that person right but you also stated that you had not started digitizing at that time because the budget amount for to go to being digitized and finance director you can correct me if i'm wrong i thought we allotted for that the year before that was just for the machine that actually houses the digitized records but we have to manually take the paper records and bring them into digital all right thank you all right thank you all right can you think of no i'm sorry that's right all right so cno the questions we will go again all right you know i already have a question actually mayor let me just say one last thing with this position this position would not occur until june of 2027 so it would be half of the budget year because we are waiting for the annex to have room thank you so the next department we have uh starting on page 13 is the human resource department let them come up one thing i do want to mention is just a clarification for one understanding and expectation is that reorganization was a commission agenda item because it did not go through the normal city process if it was a normal city process we have working out of classification we have things to absorb and compensate individuals for working out of class for periods of time where there's vacancies and again that kind of fills in the gap so that position to get hired again this was kind of outside of that which is why it was a commission approved item so i just want to make sure that clarification is we do have a mechanism if there's a vacancy or someone out on extended leave that we're compensating people if they're jumping up in a category so that compensation there but it's limited and then when you feel that position it goes away so why didn't you go through the regular mechanism versus the way you know the route that it came to the commission i think the outcome is already in place yeah i don't think the working out of class wouldn't have applied in this situation because they're already supervising a man at the time so it wouldn't have been additional compensation for that time frame does that make sense if i lose an accountant i'm still responsible to make sure payroll gets done i don't get compensated more for that accountant being out okay um do we is ted in the back back there did y'all eliminate the planning no he's gonna that's that we're gonna planning yeah we're gonna skip that one because planning is actually on page okay so yeah we're gonna go to hr on page okay i want to make sure april was still with us you refer to development services okay okay so i'm playing catch up i was out for a little bit so tracy attended the budget meeting on my behalf um under my direction but i would like to start out by saying i didn't request much um when you talk about operational i did request a reallocation or the replacement of the generalist position so i like the idea that erica went and did some root cause analysis so i'm going back when i first arrived here i had that generalist position on my budget i'm just asking for it to be restored to my department not asking for a new position um just like everyone gets up and speaks about the city growing the city is growing and so are our responsibilities so um and i do thank you by the way for the ea position that you all allocated last year i really appreciate that that has helped but when you speak of hiring processes and the delays and the efficiency that can correlate with us not having enough staff we do more than hiring we do um employee relations we do risk management which is a bulk of what we take care of the attorneys are wonderful we have attorneys on our risk management liability insurance policy that assist but me and my staff also work really hard on uh wriggling in all those cases that come through and do mediations but that's a bulk of what we do as well um so i'm saying all that to say that position would be very beneficial for us to have an additional person that can work with our department outside of the home outside of the daily operation and it's not again it's not a new position in my purview it's asking to restore the position that was uh absorbed by finance a couple years ago and that's all i asked for what position is that again the generalist position that was only general generalist that's the only position that i requested and i do understand you all have budget cuts and things of that nature and i'm okay either way we'll make it work because i have been making it work but if the opportunity presented itself for me to ask for that position i did do so all right thank you for that do we have any questions all right mr mayor quickly uh mr west promotion activity what is that that was that was a typo um i saw that too um my goal was to put the 12 000 at the top and i think what it did is broke it out and added it to it so in the past we've handled the annual uh employee appreciation events that are phenomenal thank you tracy tracy's does really good with that we've had um our best place to work um uh activities you know you don't have to go i just want i saw it yeah it was a typo it was a typo yes yes i'm good with that i just i'm looking at the average has been about 10 but i will tell you we do have to borrow money or ask for money to cover some of the expenses especially that we had to pull a celebration for staff whenever we run out of money uh city past city managers have said hey if you need more money for those events just let us know we'll put in your budget but we we normally run out so i was thinking to increase it just a little bit yeah but you answered i mean you said three people so i appreciate it yes that's all i would have stretched my eyes to that too if i were a commission yes um chandra i've been the more vocal or the only vocal person to say that i feel that there are you have enough members in your department um three years ago there was uh auburn taylor was chr director and was auburn and just one person prior to her was uh candace who was the hr director that was one person um now it's growing your department has grown and i would have less of a complaint if the hiring process was shorter that is where my concern comes in at i don't know who handles risk management or whatever that is i know what that is i don't know who handles what but what i do know is the um the residents contacting me or people that have applied for jobs that may not be a resident they find me and they message me and say i haven't heard anything i'm still waiting i was told i was hired i'm still waiting to hear something so my my concern with um i i would say that it's constructive criticism not necessarily complaints uh but that process needs to be improved on the hiring side of it i've not had anybody contact me and say well you know the risk management they're not doing this or they're not doing that but that hiring is something that is optimal for uh this city to be able to bring on good employees and if um whatever the process is um it in me you lord you it needs to be looked at to see if we can start moving faster and letting people know getting people hired and if it's uh finance holding it up then lord you need to get with finance and make sure because we lose people that have been waiting and waiting and waiting they just go find a job somewhere else so that's important to me is the uh hiring process of it and if this generalist that you're going to bring in is someone that is going to help speed up that process then i'm okay with that if that is a need uh that uh uh that you say that you have but if this is just another person to replace someone that finance took that is basically going to send faxes and make copies and all of that i'm then i'm not for that um at all i i i get too many complaints about the process and not being interviewed by these directors and not getting what i call a dear john letter thank you for commenting blah blah blah we chose somebody greater whatever whatever people are not getting that so i hope that that starts so i'm old so i repeat myself so i just want you to know that that is my major concern with hr is the fact that the process is not uh working i looked at some of the expenses here i don't see where uh there's enough money allocated uh to show the employees better appreciation you have maybe one or two dinners a year i used to see where somebody was the employee of the month or employee of a quarter i don't hear anything now from uh hr so if you get that extra person approved just know what i'm looking for uh from c5 thank you so much i agree with you a thousand percent i'm kind of hold to something try to catch up with some of your comments so and i'll start going back the employee appreciation events um when i first got here that budget line was about twenty thousand dollars and it also included wellness uh initiatives that budget was if i'm not mistaken cut and transferred over to um finance at the time the manpower that it takes to do the employee of the month and things of that nature it does take a lot of manpower if we're bogged down with uh litigation and things of that nature which we get very involved in it is sometimes hard i used to go around when i first got here to every department because i've always prided myself on employee engagement employee retention um and just if i could just a little bit talk about that costs a lot of money if you're not if if i can just give you a few numbers when you are losing 224 employees the amount of money that it costs to offboard them cost money the manpower and then to retrain someone to come back in you're looking at over 200 of the person's salary up to 400 of someone's salary to replace those people not to mention if it's higher level but we got employer i'm looking at data i often try to go on numbers and not just people mentioning the hiring process taking a long time which is important but when you look at the numbers it takes an absorbent amount of time to onboard these people to train them to give them all of the the supplies they need and then if you look at our numbers we have employees out of this 224 i'll just tell you that 224 people left in the last one two three four five years out of that number 12 were 10-year employees that means all of our new employees um that's very expensive and it just doesn't cost money it costs manpower we're processing those folks but sandra does the majority of it but everybody chips in that's hard for someone to do manually walking papers up and down the hallway i've asked for an hris system separate or either or adj adg to give us access to be able to process those folks so when you talk about the efficiency if we were if we were doing it if we're doing it manually and able to keep up with the national and state and local average of 45 days or less for hiring we're doing an amazing job because it's manual when you talk about electronic processes that would help tremendously with our efficiency is that in your budget electronic i've put it before but um i was told it's capital so we're going to the erp and in the uh the uh i.t i don't understand all those so the uh the yes so it's the overall city project that also includes finance utilities but historically i heard you trace it um but historically hr is systems are specifically for hr they can look at the metrics they can monitor metrics they can look at time to fill time to hire they can be able to control position control and see what's going on you all talk about positions being added and deleted when you have position control you get a visual of a board chart and it tells you what department has what position the hierarchy is there a need how much it costs all of that can be taken care of in a system i think that that is important however the more important thing to me is getting people hired within the 45 days and for the employees that are here this recognition employee of the month of order maybe um lord can give some assistance to direct the directors of these departments to be more quicker and telling you who they are some somehow it was working i'm going to say within like two years ago not even that on facebook it would say that this person and it would have a little picture of whoever it was from utilities or whatever that was hired but um that was employee oh employee of the month or employee of the quarter that i don't see how that burden should be on you alone to get the department's directors to be able to select whatever the process is to get it to you and as far as what was taken out of your budget as far as wellness or whatever for me before i retired all of that always went under hr so i don't understand why accounting has you know some of that but that is the conference they shall lloyd and i will have with this i just thank you for your presentation but i wanted you to hear from me why what what you know and that is very dear to me too employee engagement once they leave and get hired you want to keep them you know so i appreciate you thinking all those times if there's anything else we can do let me know all right uh vice mayor thank you mr mayor um quick question for professional services i noticed that that went up to 5.2 percent can you tell me what is covered under that for professional services to be honest with the increase of 42 percent to be honest we don't use that that line i think that line item is set there for in case there's some type of legal support for the city as a total i don't utilize that budget that uh line item okay and then my other question i see that your training basically stayed the same with a zero percent increase but your per diem went up 37.5 percent to fifty five hundred dollars so how often is people in your department traveling if some trying to correlate training with travel and i want to make sure i look at i'm looking at the same numbers as you are but i'm not going to look down right now because they're all over the place but i can say this this year we put in the budget for us to go to the national conference because the first time for the first time it was in orlando and i was planning on going but i did have a medical emergency so we did not go this year um but that was the reason for that because i prefer to if it's national here instead of traveling far which will be more expensive that's why we added it this time around also um as we've added employees so tracy and i go to an hr conference here in florida as well but that's what that would be now if you talk about training for the city i think the city manager's office absorbs those costs but i did bring in some training and draws requests for the customer service yeah um i'm also working on a leadership development project where we're working on developing leaders and providing opportunities for pipeline okay and how many employees do you currently have in my department in your department i can't even think about five including myself okay and then you stated that if you did not get the generalist um this time around that you would still be able to function yes well i said that only because that's my work ethic and i'm not gonna do half work if i can help it so i will find ways to make it work and i do understand budget constraints but at the same time um it's starting to be more difficult and i heard mentioned that it was working before with one person but with all due respect they were not doing what we're doing they were not offering the level of services that we're offering and nothing against my staff going back historically um i was told that the two ladies that are in there now were not hired as hr professionals they were hired as eas that got placed there because of something that happened so when i was hired they said hey you're going to have to be doing the work and training at the same time they've come a long way they work hard but they were not and they did not have an hr background so we're still trying to get to the point where we are providing hr services i'm providing them training we have a platform where they get trained on certain things but um let's be clear we're trying to offer a lot more from the hr professionals perspective versus how things have been in the back so you have a staff of five but you have two with no hr background background and i was very strategic when i heard the ea she had risk management background so i kind of even though that's not her role and i try to be very conscious that i'm not overloading her but i have her helping with some things as well so i've learned over time not just hearing my previous workplaces you try to do what you can to get the most out of your staff i'm based on your skills and that's what i'm going to do and i can do but if the opportunity presented itself for me to request the position that's what i idea okay okay thank you all right um i'm just uh vice mayor basically asked a question that i want to follow with you so i'll be real quick um this is not a do you look at this position as a need for one it's absolutely a need and i didn't mention this early but um andrea and i are working on our departments are working to add some pieces to adg which will mean that you have to bring all those records that are in there to speed that's going to take someone cleaning up those records it's not going to happen by itself it doesn't happen by osmosis so that person is going to be responsible for also helping to bring us up to speed to get the electronic pieces working that that adg currently so it's not um i wouldn't say someone at all it's a need i've had need for a long time but i just i make do i don't complain all right thank you you're welcome thank you so much good job chandra all right uh continuing on the next department's facility maintenance i'd say flip to page 14 and that's where you'll find the operating mayor vice mayor commissioner good afternoon just waiting for any questions um i think it's right off the bat the uh just to discuss the um position request uh that fall under facility maintenance um we did request um two positions there one full time custodian but that position would be for the new edX building uh when it's built um and then there's a second uh position a part-time custodian so with the eoc building um open uh this budget here we did not budget an employee for that position um so currently i do not have a position um assigned to the eoc field and no other staff we're just kind of tag team and sending staff up there cleaning the eoc building obviously that facility does not require a full-time position um nor even with the part-time uh position it will not require that person to be there five hours a day um so that position would somewhat be hybrid um so they would start their day there um cleaning the eoc um and then leave there and go to various parks um typically kind of way we're doing things now with the current staffing levels a lot of our park restrooms are only able to clean those in the mornings so this position will somewhat serve as a hybrid as well um to check some of those various uh park bathroom locations as we continue to add our bathrooms to our inventory before going on any questions about staffing or just keep going and then you guys will keep going and then under repair maintenance you'll see a 20 percent increase there facility maintenance is a division that takes care of the hvac systems throughout the entire city so that increase was to address the additional repairs that we are seeing with a lot of those units as they age uh you may recall during the capital presentation we did propose replacing i think four or five units um which should aid in some of that but we are seeing an uptick um in additional repairs needed for units part of that is we have units that freeze up where staff may um say put them on 67 degrees forget to turn it back up come in it's frozen up so each time that happens um that decreases the lifespan of those units it causes damage to the compressors and coils and different aspects of those units so that's the reason for that increase for the repair maintenance the other increase within this division was the operating cost operating supplies that are 52 that is the account where all of the toiletries cleaning supplies uh comes out of that account um so again that's to account for the additional usage um other facilities that we're seeing across the board our rentals are increasing um event center um within recreation um as well as increased activities at um football fields baseball fields as well as adding additional additional bathrooms uh the soccer field the bathroom that's coming online um at lakeson avenue park um as well as just um the cost of uh supplies going up so that was an increase there for the operating supplies and i'll stand for a really specific portion regarding the facility maintenance budget all right uh thank you uh uh mr howard thank you uh thank you um uh thank you um uh thank you um uh thank you um i'm taking care of the hvac and all of that um um the um personnel salary is 659 000. now this is the the people that um take care of the cleaning of the supply well supply is going to be over on the other page is this a department that um i know his last name is bradbury but that he is in yes that that's okay that's his department that repairs some things for us that saves the city money in that okay so these operating supplies i don't know where you shopping that but come 2028 you're gonna have to i don't know you're gonna be no 140 000 so start looking now as we grow we gotta have please i understand i get you all of those things so i get you and to me i see that as definitely a need because there will be major complaints for someone to be in one of our facilities and there isn't any you know toilet paper that is uh uh in there so i get that part of it but i'm just saying that anytime you can um look for some good deals or be thinking ahead um please do so when it comes to some you know that particular line uh item um i know that sometimes instead of two ply tissue you know my crazy husband will buy something with a one ply and that just doesn't work all the time so and we we have been bringing some obviously when you look at the 10 exercise where i think parts of rake as a whole about 2.2 million dollars um they're about to get cut um so there are some options there that we may bring back before the commission at some point um one thing may be putting the honest back on some of our leagues because currently baseball softball excuse not softball not yet football baseball we do provide all those supplies so there may become an opportunity for us to potentially put some of that back on some of those leagues um but again just brainstorming just torn ideas out trying to figure out uh knowing that obviously cuts have to be made um to make sure we can continue to provide the level of service that's um expected well i'm i'm not in favor of cutting that part of it out i like your idea about putting it on the leagues but it's in our facilities and so if the league doesn't come through and there's still no toilet paper in there we're going to hear about it up here thank you all right thank you thank you for that uh vice mayor thank you um let me start with the easy question first gas and oil eight thousand dollars so how many vehicles do you have within your department um that's a very good question uh within facility maintenance there is a total of five i believe um actually seven because i forget that we do have custodial staff that do have that travel from facility to facility uh then i think commissioner huffman already answered my well asked my question about operating supplies um but you said that and then i see overall you're asking for seven employees yes ma'am um overall so with just knowing that some of them are going to be put um i had a question as far as facility maintenance you're asking for a full-time person as well as a part-time person yes ma'am for both of them yes ma'am so with that that part-time position uh was for the eoc so that facility now is currently online but we did not add a position for that um so right now we're here custodian um is going up there um i don't know it's every day every other day where they're going to clean up facility to clean up facility and again um understand we're doing it now um but again when staff is stretched in i think we talk about maintaining staff and retaining staff and all that um we did not again did not add that into the annex building obviously that position would not be filled i think look for the annex builders to come online maybe june or july or something in 27. um so probably the first six months or so of that position uh would be vacant but i did not want to annex build it open and then come in 28 asking for that position um with three or four floors that would need to be uh clean within that space okay and so i just want to understand like for each building do they have just that one person assigned to just that location and they don't go anywhere else so it just depends so for example the staff member that's assigned to the lake eva community center they're responsible for the community center itself the bay and shell for events there as well as the cra building right then we have a part-time staff that is responsible for the uh they cleans the armory where the office is the parks building and then they clean the parks bathroom um so we have a part-time custodial staff that covers city hall a part-time staff room that covers the library then we have a full-time staff member who covers the police department as well as the public works facility as well so we do have a lot of individuals that are covering multiple facilities but mainly only those facilities where there is a lot of foot traffic realistically city hall and the library probably should have somebody during the day because they're here coming in early getting everything clean and by 10 11 o'clock they're out but again the community center is seeing more i'll say more traffic um with the kids coming and going there's just a lot more to be done than it would be for a city hall and or the library from a part-time custodial staff standpoint okay and then my final question is going to be for and it's kind of like a two-part question for the pool tech tech and the head lifeguard yes ma'am um would that be year-round being that the pool is that pool have like the extended times now or is that going to be still just on a limited basis so the pool tech we would request a full-time position so what we're facing now is um whenever um heidi and uh chris who's her assistant aren't able to address whether it's replacing a pump or a seal in a pump or calling in facility maintenance but what they're doing is pulling them away from their responsibilities prime example this past friday um got a call that staff checked the competition for about 30 minutes before opening and it had zero chlorine um so there was no flow um so at that point that three or four of you guys are we're trying to figure out what's going on with the flow we're able to figure those things out um but you take lake eva the city was built in 2009 many of those pups and boulders we can't even replace them anymore so when they go down we're having to use old parts we're finding ways to refurbish them um we've looked at trying to bring that facility up to be more modern but obviously we're talking close to a million dollars and now it's not the time um to be coming forward and asking for that type of money for that so we're doing our best to maintain that equipment um at an acceptable level same thing with the enchanted jolly spiff where we may think oh yep it's brand new all the equipment you should have no issues but all that equipment is in a corrosive corrosive environment between the chlorine and the acid and other chemicals that are used to maintain those pools um so there's quite a bit of maintenance and repairs and different things that does take place almost on a daily basis and then the part-time aquatics position that part-time hit lifeguard that allows us to expand some of the programming operations we have but that's once where that's more of a um they want uh versus a need or more of a desire i would say versus a one or a need so okay and i know i said that was my last question but this is definitely the last question i still don't see um the event center so are we still entertaining that on cra because i don't see them anywhere here yes ma'am my understanding is that and omar correct me if i'm wrong but that will be under that okay thank you no further question all right all right are we going to go on to uh public work yeah so the next department would be fleet maintenance under public works okay fleet maintenance public works yes sir so under the um go straight into the operation so there's a total of five team members as far as training training will increase some dscs you'll notice we've not been using all of that fun but with the equipment the materials and the vehicles that we have we'll make sure everybody has the proper certifications maintain those vehicles and is there any particular items in here that you would like to ask about as far as on the operating side so those are some of the higher ones for the training you see that went up 171 percent like i mentioned that's for not been using utilizing that fund the operating supplies you'll see a higher number there as well 50 percent operating supplies has made sure we have the proper equipment to work on these vehicles as well if there's any any that's that's that's that's that's what's communication is that just for phones or is that for all of our it and telecommunications over and that category is just for all communication in general what is that answer what is that answer did here both both what he mentioned cell phones and any phone it was cell phones and what was the second any office phone bills any phone bills that are going inside the department they're recording that's the one commissioner what is fleet maintenance what what do they do they maintain all the vehicles in the city from the police cars everyone's vehicles in the city all the oil changes tire changes you need a headlight windshield wiper blades or anything in between okay so for tires rotation just keeping the all the city vehicles on the road and operation that's the department that i think john weaver yes ma'am is that there okay my my other question is going down to um the capital outlay it it's uh we budgeted 475 000 now we're projecting only 50 000 that you um did you fix well on the capital on the capital uh per the last meeting that we had we went back in and kind of looked and see what we couldn't live without so i believe that's going to be for the lift is that correct no more we just left the lift in there right for capital um for this year a lift station no ma'am a car lift a car lift for them for it okay okay okay all right but that's all the questions that i have all right thank you vice mayor no questions because they've already been answered communications and the utility service i think he explained that all right i think that's it yes sir thank you and we'll remove the information technology yes sir next part is information technology starting at the bottom of page 15 and carrying over page 60. hello hello hello so a majority of our operating is just um keeping up with normal software equipment and that kind of stuff that we have throughout the city um one of the biggest ones we saw increase was the was the rentals and leases and that was due to absorbing a lot of the software solutions that we use throughout the city that were kind of split before they're all just being put into uh it now okay questions uh mr west yeah um um um um um um um um um um um um um um uh um um um um um um um um um um it up and running. Could this be spread out over the next year or two, instead of trying to do all of it at one time and going to see something about it? Right now, PD would be the only department on within the city that would not be at 365, which kind of we're kind of trading off cost at that point because we have to find other solutions for like their antivirus, their two-factor authentications, or the AV support. That was kind of just in there as a more safety than not just because the annex being new and we're not heavily AVE. I think a right word for that one. I think my question, if we had to come back with an effect, could we lower that amount a little? Out of the professional? Yes, that's what my question was. I would need to look at vulnerability assessment. Might be able to be pushed off in another year if we needed to. Yeah, if you can, if you can look and then, you know, when you come back to the next meeting, see, if it can't be, I can understand. I'm just saying, if in any way possible, that we can lower that number just a little. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Commissioner Brown. Yes, thank you. Jeremiah, thank you for stepping in. It's made quite a difference. It made my life as a commissioner using the laptop and the phone much easier. What I'd like to know is that how many people are in your department? Currently, we have five people in our department, but we have three positions that are currently not filled. Okay, but the three that are not filled, you do have the, have them included in this 655? Yes. Right, okay. And is any of the operational services charged to the police department when you have to go over there or help them with some of their stuff? Are you referring to, like, say, police officers call after hours? That would be overtime. And their computer isn't working or whatever? No, ma'am, we are eating all that coffee. You're eating all of that? Okay. I missed your capital part, so I don't know if you're asking for stuff with that. I have to wait for that. The gas and the oil is because of all of the traveling that you have to do back and forth and all of that, so that's what that is. The training, it says, it's down 25%, but it increased to me, well, from 36,000, I guess is what it is. But what kind of training is it to work on the different softwares or how to fix the servers or...? Yes, ma'am. So we have a platform where we can learn different aspects of IT, essentially, and I assign them out to the employees now so they can learn different things that can help assist the city throughout. And like I said, it's just a variety of different platforms for them. Other trainings, it's just like in-person trainings that we might need to further learn the new stuff. Like our WebEx phones that we have now, we had to... I went to something out in Orlando. That one happened to be free, but that's just an example for other types of trainings we might go to. Okay. My last question is, if I decide that I don't want to participate in this to know before you go type thing, are you going to shut off my email? Because in the past, I was told, I'm not sure now, that I was one of maybe two commissioners that completed all of those different steps. And when Sharon sent it to me, this time I just replied, LOL. We can look into it, ma'am. Okay, please don't cut off my email, but I do not plan. Lord, I know when somebody's fishing and whatever. Okay, thank you. I don't have any other questions for me here. Commissioner West, any questions? Your name West. Any questions? Hello. No questions? Okay. Jeremiah, I have a couple questions. On the rental and leases, it says... It went from zero to 44, too. So, what exactly are we renting or leasing? So, our rentals and leases for us is actually more web services, typically. So, some examples of that is like our ESRI, which is our GIS management. We do Tenable. We move some of these out. We're trying to look to see exactly which ones they were. The printer leases are in there. So, that would be however much we print each year. Got it. I'm looking. Sorry, what's that? Civic Plus. Civic Plus is in there. That one's a pretty big one. We have to pay that annually for their... Civic Plus, Archive Social. And then, my final question. It shows that you're asking for one additional employee. So, is that a... We actually... I discussed with Finance Director Jesus and Interim City Manager Stewart. We decided that we probably wouldn't be optimal for this year. Okay. Originally, it was GIS, but we don't think we would have the data ready for it to justify that position. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Okay. Thank you. So, no. I guess you're all set. Thank you. You're all set. And we would move to... Police Department would be the next department. Right. Public Safety Police Department. Chief Jackson. Where can I find where they are at? Right. Ask them from. Oh, right here. It's 8-9. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'll do that too. Thank you. All right. So, with our budget. We're going to go. You guys are going to go behind item or what we're asking for. Any questions to go over. Ask before you. Yeah. If you can just go over everything and then we'll ask our questions. Yes, ma'am. So, on the other contractual services, that includes our Adora, our Kalia, Sailbright, Binder, and then we're asking for our staff and our staff, our staff and staff, our staff and staff and staff. And so, we're asking for a 14% increase. And a lot of times, we're asking for that 14% and that with some more investigative tools to help keep that up to the park. The next thing we ask for investigations. The next thing we ask for in investigations, it was a $5,000 that we started off with. I asked for an additional 10. It looks really big because it's a 200% increase. But, again, with our investigations, and thanks to the director, we're going in a different direction. I think the direction is a lot, a lot, a lot better than what we had. So, when we do our investigations, we have the funds to take it to the next county, the next state, and to get to the end game of these investigations. So, that's why the ask from, it's already $5,000 going up to ask for another additional $10,000. And take it to $15,000. We want to be able to pay for our officers, our detectives and officers, going out to further their investigations and complete the end, get to the end game of whatever crime you're investigating. The other asking was for a free and postage service. And this is basically all of our, you know, going in and out now, we use actually $13,245 of it. $13,245 of it. So, we only have $1,754 left in that budget. So, I asked for a 70% increase to make sure that this doesn't go in the red and that we still have a little bit left at the end of the year. Again, this is nothing that we're trying to overdo, but we're going to make sure we have enough to keep it operating. The repair and maintenance service, it started off at, excuse me, started off at $150,000. Right now, right now, we use about $104,000 with $45,000 and some change left. As for another $10,000, our department is definitely in need of some sprucing up. We actually just had the floors done. We're trying to redo the bathrooms all the way through and through. We want to do some painting. We actually have some roofing issues that we have to get corrected right now. So, definitely ask for another $10,000 on there, which is a 7% increase, and that's for the maintenance and repairs on our plan. Printing and binding. Ask for another $1,000 for that. And this is for all our paperwork that we do with incoming employees, anything that we have to put those items together to send up the HR, anything that we have to print out, to send out our staff uses all that. So, we ask for another $1,000 in that, which looks really big, but it's 20%, but we only ask for another $1,000. We actually have $5,000 in that, and we already use $3,783. So, we're almost close to the end of that budget, so I ask for another $1,000. And again, this isn't to muscle up that budget, but to make sure when we get to the end of the year, that we still have a little bit left, and we're still in the office. The next thing that we asked for was office supplies. Our office supply budget started off at $14,000. We actually use $12,853, so we have about $1,146 left, and that's almost like 92% of that budget. Again, so I ask for $2,000 in that budget, again, not to make this budget bigger, but to make sure that we don't go under, so that's about a 14% increase. we're going to get office supplies, because everything from our records clerks, what they use, our property and evidence, everything that's not law enforcement that they need to use, as far as keeping their offices functional, is what comes out of that budget. Next is the gas and oil. We asked for a 9% increase, which is only $28,000. We asked for it. Yes, gas and oil has gone up significantly, but again, we don't want to, for lack of a better term, break the bank, but we want to make sure that when we're getting the gas, and we're doing what we need to do, that we have enough to keep it operational, you know, again, my idea, the end game of this, at the end of the year, you don't want to have all of the budget used, you want to use at least close to that 88, almost 90% of the budget, so you guys can see that we are actually spending the money, using it properly. Uniforms, that's another one where I asked for another $5,000, which looks big, because it says a 20% increase, but I'll tell you guys right now, it started off at $25,000, we used $23,169, so we got about $1,830 in that budget, again, so we're living at about 93% of that budget, and with that other 5%, excuse me, that other 20% of those $5,000, I think that we can make a deal with this, and we have to definitely pay attention to what we're going, what's going out, and all this is what one of them is nice, and all this is what we're going to do, and we're going to do that. So, okay, close to that end game, it's getting closer to the end of the year, but I want to make sure this budget is well put together, and all we can have a little bit of that money. Next is books, and description of membership. this, this, I asked for $275 for this, but I think I should have asked for a little more. What this covers is, A, and all of our officers that goes out to training, and these trainers give them memberships, and that kind of stuff, that we, the police department, actually pays for their membership. We keep their membership up, and we pay for all that, so they don't have to procure anything out of the pocket bus. But that's what that's for. Training, this is a big one. Training starts off at $25,000. That's what we ask for. I ask for another 10 on this one, because now, trainings is essential. It's essential for all of our department, especially our detectives, especially our officers. We want them to have the best training, and we want to get the residuals from those, that training. So, we want to make sure that we're able to pay for that training when they're requested, or, when we need a certain person to go to a certain training, we want to make sure that we have that in the budget to pay for, and we're not, you know, robbing PD to pay for, to get our officers up and follow their training. That's about it. Our asking. Let me have a quick time. Commissioner West. What is, what was that PD sponsorship that was projected for $85? What is that? I'm sorry, sir. Murray, any sponsorship? Is that sending someone to the academy? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. That's what that is? I'm asking you to get that a different seat. Okay. That's why I'm like, hurry, yes, sir. That's what that's about. And I mean, I mean, how many officers that would equate me if 85,000 a year sending them to the academy? We're going to add about four. Okay. And then you said that, what would be rental that leases for you all at $327? That is Xerox machine, the cars, I can't believe what's the company. What cars? Enterprise. We're leasing cars still from Enterprise? Yes, sir. Of course, we went back to buying our own. We actually did. We're trying to clear that up now. We're still leasing for them. We're trying to clear that up right now. And then the training, you had 35,000, but you said an investigation, you had 15,000. That was included in their training and that, and then your 35,000 also. The investigations, and when we talk about investigations, it's one of those things where our detectives want to make sure they're able to go out and properly investigate. Again, not to get too far into one of the investigations we have, but we actually had to let, well, not let, we had to let some detectives go kind of away from our city to further their investigations when it actually led up to an arrest. But again, we don't have those funds that money to pay for that that we won't be able to do that. So I think it's most important. But isn't there an elite fund, law enforcement education, training fund that's out there that you can get them trained on the elite fund? Yes, sir, there is. We can get them trained on the net. But again, I don't want to confuse the investigation part with the training because there are some, when talking about training, there are some free training for our officers and detectives there are. But again, the major, the major trainings like the homicide investigations, like robbery and those kind of things, sex crimes, those are some of the things that we have to pay for here and there. So I want to make sure we have that in budget. And that's not just for detectives. Our officers ask for training. So some of these trains we have to actually pay for it. So all of that falls under training. Again, investigations is a lot different from training because investigations we want to be able to pay for them to go out and do the investigating stuff. So, yeah, no, just for my clarification here, so when we're talking about investigations, this is more so cost of investigation. Yes, sir. Travel expenses, like that. Travel, the cost. That's awesome. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Huffman. Thank you, Mayor Smith. Adam, I'm not going to ask you how many officers that you have because I realize this is streaming and, yes, yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. But the ask for the additional officers, is that included in that $6 million? No, ma'am, that's not it. Okay, that's in the current officers that you have now. Okay. And this overtime amount, should I expect it to decrease if we approve the additional 25 officers that you have? Yes, ma'am, absolutely. Okay. Okay. And I want to go over page 17. The red light camera, we pay them $675,000 and we get like, we get like a million dollars off of it, but we got to pay $675,000 back to them. We pay a cost because what happens with that is once the camera does this process, it goes over to, I want to say Arizona, it could be wrong, and they send it over to us, so we actually have to pay a cost for that. That's quite a cost for it with what we receive off of it. The rentals and leases as Commissioner West stated as far as, you know, with Enterprise, and you say that you're going to try to get away from that, but you're still projecting $307,000 of it, so should we, this is the last time we're going to see something from Enterprise? That's the idea. Because we're purchasing cars. We want to get them for our home. Okay, okay. And these leases, well, I don't want to ask that question. I'll ask you that differently. Okay. the repair maintenance service, you've got the $160,000, but that's a city building. I don't understand, Omar, why that would be charged to a cost to the police department when it's our building. Are we charging maintenance for the library and for here at City Hall and the other places? I may have missed that. Yes, the report is covering their repair maintenance at their building. So the library will cover their EOC. So you just split this up. The repair maintenance collisions, you projected $50,000. So do you think that we're not going to have any collisions anymore? I know we don't anticipate them, but not everybody respects the lights and the sirens that are going. Yes, ma'am. And we are. I'm praying that we don't. But I didn't shoot more than that. Again, that's what former Chief Hopwood had. And we didn't go into that as much, but I'm not anticipating anything more than that. But if you should have to spend more than that, then it will come out of one of your other line items. I just had my car. Somebody just did a fender bender and the total cost of state farm was like $14,000. You have all these cars out there and you talking $50,000. so just wanted to know about it. I don't know what these other current charges, what is that OPE again? Obligations. Obligations of $27,000. Is that just some extra money in case you need to buy some more? And I got a different key from you guys, so I'm trying to make sure I can find it. Well, it's $27,000 and it went from $25,000 in actually in 2025. I just don't like the words other miscellaneous. Right. I'm going to pay 17 if he shared the book with you. I see it on his but what I want to do is make sure that what I have on my item that I can tell you exactly what it is. Yeah, other current charges. What else I am not going to ask you what that entails again for obvious reasons but in my mind I am just wondering who are you having to pay $27,000 to? I can get you that information a little later. Okay, that's fine. And your operating supplies is that the vests that the that's $189,000 I know that the cameras and all of that is different in the car but I'm trying to find understand the operating supplies that's there or does the vest come with the uniform? the vest is actually our cameras come from the actual and this other operational and operation supplies the digital signage the life scan for any personnel and other operational supplies so yes it's part of the process but all that comes out of management so your sign that says that I'm going over 45 miles per hour is included in this 189 okay I just want to ask about the amunitions but I have to be careful with it but it's just that the number doesn't seem to change very much and I watch a lot of TV crime shows and sometimes the other people have different types of ammunition so that number did not change I actually was on the shooting range Friday and talked about ammunition our ammunition is of the bar I just had him order more ammunition to make sure that we have stock overstock and more stock so that anything happens I'm ready to know so he's actually going to order some more this week actually okay so it must not be very expensive for ammunition I don't have a gun it is but I don't think I know he kind of stock up as the year before I got in this stock okay the gas oil you've explained that but is this also gas it's $350,000 is this for gas that the city puts in the cars for the officers that don't live here I'm not opposed to that but I just want to make sure that we in addition to the car as an incentive to keep them we also pay for the car okay that's what that is for and the training down here you went over what that is but $35,000 is a 40% increase I'm fine with that I just want to know where can I look on here and see that there is some training for the detective division was this further down in the all their training is in this but I didn't specifically put anything in here to say this is for detectives because all the training falls under one if they want to make a class or take a class which is filled out of this budget so you would be able to take the $35,000 spend some of that for detectives and officers and officers okay I met you didn't get to this part down here but the capital outlay of projecting $650,000 is that too is that the roofing or what is that for for and the capital outlay tech $17,000 is is is that new laptops or something that the officers need in the car so those are that $650,000 and $17,000 is this year projected what they're going to spend this year for their capital items next year we'll bring back that list we're working through that list and once that's decided then we'll plug in the 27 capital I understand that but what I don't know is what is $650,000 for portion of that is vehicles portion of that is an axon purchase okay police scanner some of the grants that we've done let me look at that we'll look at that account yeah because grants would be part of would be a revenue not an expense no the expenses for the grant items that we're purchasing oh okay and the tech tech would be IT equipment that's there the transfer to debt service what are they paying do we still owe on that building as long as we've been in that building yeah we do so I can definitely check the payoff on that one we must pay $200 a month but it's still on here unless a long time commission always yeah and you're still on that building so down to the grants I'm not concerned with that you're saying Chief Jackson that the total police department is going to be projected to be down negative 6.8% so what that says to me or confuses me is that if I vote yes for this budget that you are able to still maintain and get the job done because you don't see where you need to increase any money other than what you're asking for for the employees I just would not have I'm surprised to see a negative amount keep in mind this is actually done just a little bit before I put the other numbers out so I didn't bring the other numbers with the other officers well when we meet again please make sure that it is the other thing that I want to ask is what is a community outreach liaison I thought that's what we commissioners were because that's who they call well so with that position it would be someone that will definitely go out in the community and keep the police department in a positive light they will create meetings and stuff that the department will go out and do educational stuff and I know our cost division they do the same but it's kind of like an extension of them where it's not an officer it's a regular citizen that can go out and talk to people and give another chance to know that just not officers all the time you can talk to their citizens that is joined to us as well but definitely someone to keep our name out there and keep us in the home what does your PIO do everything you see online on Facebook but that I'm just saying I I I I'm your officers I'm fine with I one person for a property and evidence technician I'm fine for code enforcement I think that you I I don't agree until I just don't agree with that one at this point but I certainly this community outreach liaison seems like a want instead of a need as the department grows and the responsibility to history public one of the things that we need to do is do more crime prevention and outreach community department we get a bad name because who's southern department now the officers can't do it but they have responsibility to attack crime we need to survey and go out and be in the community crime prevention as well as you know come up with the basic this law the reason why the sheriff's office is good as it is he has a crime convention infection anything in this department as well the sheriff's budget his pockets are deeper than our pockets are and so I don't have any other questions except to tell you that the cold compliance officer I just think that it needs that perhaps you look at how what zones you put them in at this time because people don't like them anyway so adding another one on there I think we're good but this community outreach liaisons I don't see civilians being the ones to promote the police department I think that between marketing on the city side and your PIO should be able to host some meetings I think you do a good job with the Monday motivational things that are there so you may not you will not get my vote for the community outreach liaisons because you just thank you all right thank you Vice Mayor thank you quick questions and a lot of the stuff has already been asked I'm not going to ask again I want to just focus right now on the positions because of our possible cuts that we are facing now it's just to be realistic that some of this request is not going to get through this particular budget year and I know you're asking for 25 sworn officers position and then 20 patrol vehicles so I don't know if you know offhand how many vehicles did we purchase last year I'm sure offhand I mean we purchased last year but I will tell you guys this we're looking at an actual grant a cop's grant where they were paid looking at an 80-20 they'll be 80% of his salary for an officer so we're actually looking into that right now try to have more officers so we'll bring that up because that's an option that we can actually use and actually look at so we are actually okay thank you because that was going to be my next question that if you are unable to get the 25 what would be an ideal number and that would be for the sworn officers as well as the patrol vehicles because just being realistic I don't think the 25 at this time is going to go through I honestly don't think the community outreach liaison position is going to pass just because of the budget cuts that we're facing and then the police department facility may have to also unfortunately take a backseat maybe for this particular one we don't know because I think fire well no fire not fire I'm sorry I think police had the largest one of the largest budgets that we had to look at as far as maybe for you guys coming back with some type of cuts and I think the police department was what like 20 million or something that was on there so yeah so I'm just trying to see realistically and the public safety director said around maybe about 13 around 13 to 15 I think we can still get the job done and still be effective okay again it'll help with overtime like you mentioned which is really really really got to get some more officers in here too okay hopefully when we have the new officers in we can go back to utilizing the cops because at one point the cops was doing that educational piece of it crime prevention and everything out educating the public and having those one-on-one interactions and different activities and that was a good thing so maybe when we can get our numbers back up we can go back to taking advantage of what that unit was actually designed to do it was definitely an advantage so definitely something that we will make sure happens once we get everything the numbers up yes sir okay so 13 13 to 15 possibly it'll be effective yes sir thank you vice mayor is no commissioner i just want to say with the cops and i won't count how many chiefs that have stood there and said that they're going to i guess y'all call it stand up the cops but we keep losing them and it hasn't been functional in a while but it was very effective when it was functional down there i know that tomorrow's meeting you'll hear how CRA contributes to it but then the officers get called away to replace somebody that has called in sick not an emergency where everybody needs to go so you just told the vice mayor that you're going to get the cops unit going we get the numbers i get it right and you can look at all of our officers as cops officers technically they are they are they are they are not just for the best cops for the entire agency and we still have a problem that never went away some folks may have gotten moved because of that the cops the cops is still happening so if anybody didn't win away it never went away well i i i hear you i hear you but for the perception and the optics of the cops unit the community embraced them they did a great job with it it wasn't some of your other patrol officers that did these things or came down there to do these things and we have one of our tomorrow's meeting you'll find out that we committed to paying for a certain number of officers to be in the community to service some of these liaisons as well so i know what you're saying but we used to have what we considered was really cops and that and that was really started by commissioner west when we built that building it was called some organization but you were the chief at that time and that's where the cops unit started at but it's been effective so i'm not disputing what you're saying but your patrolmen don't do the things that the cop unit does and the cops are often pulled away so the only ones i see now is maybe two or three that's down there our cops unit is still active commissioner huffman they're the guys and gals that are doing all our community engagement so all the stuff that you guys see us down there doing that's all our cops unit that's doing that so they're very and extremely active in the community still now they're just not down in one area but they're very much so engaged with the community they're still working so the flops and the whatever the pool was just the cops unit not the entire police so any of our community engagement programs that you see it's extremely just all cops we're there to support and to see our community and that is our caution and that's out doing that okay well that's good I have one last request from Mayor Smith of the police chief and that is the your facebook page will hopefully get close to being as popular as the fire department they do an excellent job on that fire does really really well but what went away was two things that were popular Lake Wales started the 9pm your PIO started doing the 9pm and would only do it on stories and what the 9pm was a reminder to lock up your car your whatever whatever that has stopped at this point and another thing that was very popular was when your officers were being videoed I guess as they patrol I forget what all they were saying but it was good information and it just humanized them on the beat that was a series that we used to do yes Zach was the guy that did Zach is in Michigan somewhere so I'll look into getting that back up and running we'll see what we can do with that but in the 9 o'clock lock up we still do that I just approved three of me just sitting in the back but they only do stories instead of posting it on your police page because I look trust me I go to fire and then I come to yours to look and see so if you want to get good publicity out there and you don't get this community liaison just know that the police department the things you're doing on the Facebook page is giving some positive feedback with it thank you thank you for that commissioner one last comment quickly commissioner what I just have some concerns quickly first of all how many vacancies you all have nine so right now we're actually and I'll explain it to you right now we're working at about 57 officers which has higher force and that's going to take us up to that 61 and we have three in the category which will take us to our 64 which is allocated for us right now okay and you was asking for additional officers but and this is maybe just homework for you how many calls of services non-emergency calls did y'all respond to because you know instead of maybe trying to get 25 you know that's a sticker chocolate for Hayden City to say at one time I want 25 officers you know what happened over the years why haven't we been increasing you know maybe one to keep up with the growth in the population and to come to the city at one time I need 25 that's a shocker to the city and I can't speak for the other chiefs on why they didn't when I ran the numbers I saw that we were extremely low but I can tell you last year we answered about 17,945 calls but for the chiefs before me to not ask for those I don't know why I can't explain that but again like I said when I ran the numbers to look at the consensus of per thousand what the officers should be I saw when we were extremely low and again I heard some people say well that was never brought to our attention well I wanted to make sure I brought it to you guys attention that way something happened next year it's like well we knew you've heard community service officers correct yes sir I have they respond to non-emergency calls it frees up the officers to respond to emergency calls why not act for some additional at a cheaper rate of some community service officers to take those non-emergency calls you know somebody got a cat in a tree or a bias was deaf or something like that that frees up the officer then you can probably lower your numbers because of the constraint and the we may have to lower the officers number but maybe give you some community service officers to make up the difference but I'm saying that's something that I want you all to take in consideration because like you're saying up here we may not be able to accommodate that many officers but maybe some community service officers to help the department I hear you and we actually had a discussion on that and we can bring in more CSOs we can bring in more but it still doesn't negate the fact of the number of citizens or officers so when you really look at it you can do that but it really doesn't fix the problem what it does is it creates more problems because it's going to keep us pushing us back and forward so we didn't look at that I'm sorry that's all alright thank you for that chief I just got a couple questions and I think you spoke to one but I just want to clarify so when you're saying that it doesn't speak to the issue I guess with the ratio per 1,000 residents so bringing those community service officers service officers in that still wouldn't speak to the actual number that you need for that race no sir what it does it does it does free the officers up to respond to different calls and things of that nature but again it frees them up but it still doesn't change the number okay and then just for time sake I'll just ask you this if you can get that information with the number that was stated by the public safety director if you were able to get if we were able to prove that number 13 if 13 if then if you give me what that would look like for the number of residents that we would have I know we would still be at a deficit but we could at least have a better idea you don't have to give it to me now but at least then we would have a better idea of where we would be moving forward because we still going to grow so I know the number is not going to stay anything else you off the hot all right we will be moving to development service building and inspection fire fire fire yeah I'm dating myself commissioner that's right you are good afternoon if you'd like I'll just start a professional services and start working our way through stick to increases if you'd like feel free to stop me okay so first we're looking at professional services the increase there was 28% that was due to the life scan annual physical for our members and again there was an increase just on that cost per member on the hand also with the additional supported staff that were asking for so that is the increase there travel for diem did go up so with that we did ask for an increase to start sending members to conferences we haven't had the availability to send members to different fire conferences around the state or in the southeast and we're going to try to start doing that as well that was brought up by our members and we're going to request that communication we did have an increase there mainly due to fire station 3 the EOC through spectrum so with that we did have a 16,000 requesting for that and again that was additional boxes throughout the EOC freight postage again a small item there rescue for limits 1200 increased from $950 utility services did go up slightly and that is for mainly for additional fire station so big increase there is for Duke energy and we're still getting a number on fire station on average repair maintenance so again most of the increases that we're looking at are either due to fire station 3 additional apparatus on the road or additional manpower repair so repair maintenance did increase again you have more vehicles on the road more maintenance office supplies we did double that again additional stations so more members needing weather hands pads different things operating again this was either due to equipment additional equipment on the road additional equipment on the apparatus or additional needs for the members and the new hires 13% decrease uniforms large increase there again we've got information but you're looking at whether it's class A B and C uniforms so they're normally day to day or it's higher so we have an increase there again that's what those additional requested members for this year there's 15 that we requested and then training you see a large increase there again that was for FD sponsorships so we asked for three sponsorships with that we actually did find out last week that the state over the last three years has been paying for members when they apply to go to fire academy or FD school or local academy here members are attending for free with state funding so that is something we can reevaluate and that is all I have any questions thank you commissioner thank you mayor smith you know me so well well chief Cody already knows how I feel about the fire department I just have questions for you to clarify for me are all pretty much all of your employees hourly that they would be able to qualify for overtime for me anyone that's not exempt so there are a couple of office members that would qualify inspectors things like that they do work occasionally on the evenings teaching CPR or on the weekends and all of our operational personnel do qualify for overtime and this repair maintenance service is this for the existing building that you have or that shed behind the police department with the small boats yes we have both and no longer we do not have a marine unit over at the PD we don't no more boat no more boat we're working on getting that corrected okay just the shed anybody hasn't seen it go back behind the police department and you'll see where the fire department is on that side for the training that's there is that where does that cover you sponsoring your new hires to go get their training so with that training we have equipment and props so it could be extrication things like that we try to send our members throughout the year to different it could be locally to do practice on vehicle extrication and also career development so whether it's state certifications fire officer inspector things like that okay okay and what is the difference between a explain to me the difference between you as the chief and a division chief of operations yes ma'am so our division chiefs they would cover so if it's operational they would cover all of the on shift members administratively when it comes to fire prevention we're looking at a life safety division chief and he would cover as the fire marshal and the life safety could be smoke detectors CPR things like that same thing with training they handle all the training requirements for the department and that would be their division responsible for and the three lieutenants that you're asking for you're talking about people that are experienced or are you going to promote some people and bring them if members are qualified we actually have an assessment happening right now preferably we try to promote within if members are qualified but yes that would be that's the company officer on the engine typically okay and I have two more questions one is out of the captain of support services and the division chief of operations is that something that your deputy fire chief can do yes ma'am we currently handle all of those again as you add personnel different stations more equipment again that workload multiplies so we are doing that now yes okay and the six firefighters that is good are you trying to put more on the EEOC side because we have the new building over there but you still had the same amount of fire staff so right now we do have a couple of vacancies again we have to promote have all of our promotional assessments for these officers driver engineers before we can hire additional firefighters so once we start working our way through that we're basically working our way down again we are looking to not run fire engines to medical calls and our high acuity calls so with those personnel we're looking to add a second rescue throughout the city we're thinking that rescue would be up north but again we've got to look at the data and we'll determine that okay all right well I think that you're doing a good job with the community relations because of putting in the smoke detectors you know the only thing I ask is about the grease fires if you can find a way to do that and hopefully in the supplies you don't run out of the fire fighter hats and the badges for the kids thank you thank you you should be very proud okay all right thank you okay well my very last question mayor smith for chief is are we competitive enough in our salaries that you're not training people and then they leave and go to other cities like with the police department we need to be competitive I think we've definitely come up I think over the last year we've had one member move out of state you're not going to stop that and another member leave the fire service and overall I think we're definitely in the right direction okay thank you all right thank you commissioner west there's probably there's a question on the retirement which I'm looking at 586 thousand is that the contribution just from the fire department and I think we match their retirement correct so that's just the city obligation that's the total amount even what the city what 9% or whatever it is that we matter so for the fire department it's close to 20% that the city has to contribute and a lot of that's dictated by the pension board the fire pension board this year we have seen a large escalation it went from our usual contribution was somewhere around 14% and they made some modifications one to mortality rates different things through the pension board but now it's like a 20% contribution so it's kind of that double-edged sword right we want to be more competitive we want to pay higher salaries but now I also got to contribute on that so it's kind of just pounding itself but my question is this including our percentage in their budget as well which we match their retirement correct that is our 20% match so when I see that 500 plus thousand that let me know that that's the total overall including the city of Contributory correct okay I just wanted to make some clarification on that quickly my next question I understand with the fire department you want like six firefighters and three drivers a driver and I may be ignorant to this here a driver couldn't also be one of your firefighters I mean what are you going to drive to the fire and don't combat the fire right so with a driver engineer that's additional state certifications right and with that you pay on more it's not necessarily driving it's when you get there it's the pumping so running all the calculations and formulas to run water in water water out and things like that okay that's what you mean when you say correct it's a driver engineer you know when you say driver like you said is it they're driving a truck anybody can do that right it's when they get on scene and that's the real work and that's when it begins so hey it's a fire is on the sixth floor and you've got to calculate all the percentage and friction loss and a lot of formulas okay and thank you for educating me on that because I'm you know I don't know if they knew exactly what that was and I ain't ashamed of that right and with that you know you want higher trained personnel with the with the you have a million dollar apparatus driving up the road you want to make sure they're doing it safely okay okay well it makes sense it makes sense I just needed some clarification I don't have much in the name of a mayor so I'm good yes Commissioner Johnson Chief I'm looking at the training and I see the big jump 535.6% can you just explain that a little bit more yes ma'am so we requested yes we requested so the biggest jump on that was the additional we were asking for three sponsorships and with like I said new information we found last week with it being compensated through the state we may be able to remove them so so you said you've already is there an application so they go through the local academy if our local academy they've applied through FAFSA and from what I understand the last three or four years anyone that's applied has been confident they will okay one quick question on that and that's at 100% sir as far as the going through FAFSA from what I understand anyone doesn't matter how much they make their parents make or do not make 100% absolutely okay great news alright Vice Mayor thank you Mr. Mayor just one quick question Chief so you have I believe around 15 positions that you're asking for and would all of those positions need to be a necessity in this budget period with with again the operational staff I believe so when it comes to the administrative staff we're asking the former inspector logistics captain and operations chief if they really need to be cut I would say the operations chief will continue to do what we can but again with additional everybody needs clothed and the medical calls need to be re-equipped and all that so that support services captain definitely needed and with the inspector again more buildings the short term rentals those are going to have to be inspected once they apply that fire inspector is going to be very much needed and also I know you are going through a change of accreditation did we ever yes ma'am so we did we have submitted all of our ISO documents we are waiting to hear back it could take several weeks to a few months hopefully we'll hear something but I believe it'll be good news thank you all right thank you thank you all right so now we're going to move over to development services inspection the money maker I thought I was going second good afternoon good afternoon so the first first division is building and inspections I'll just go through under other contractual services you see that's up 30% that is our fire plan examiner fire plan review angle on that rentals and leases up 6.9% that's mainly due to the new annex so that will cover the first three months in the annex you see printing and bindings down 50% you'll open go paperless you'll see and then gas and oil up 60% that's for our five vehicles the building inspectors use and then training up 70% what we're trying to do there is make sure everyone on that side of the office that's an opportunity for training including the permit techs and everything that's the that's the building department side you want me to skip over you have questions on that side yeah we'll go ahead and entertain those questions now Mr. Huffman whoever's watching the streaming is saying that mayor certainly knows his commissioner I want to know with these building inspectors I don't know someone said that we use contracted ones as well but the salary for just that department is 1.1 million dollars now I know that y'all make the money for the city with the permits and all of that so I'm going to give you credits you know for that but I just want to know is this regular salary do is it all contract or is it contract and then do we have our own employees we have our own employees and that regular salary reflects the five building inspectors that we have plus the birth tax and everyone else so there's 12 people on that side of the that go under the billing and that okay all right so that was really it I'm hoping we get to the planning because it seems like it was eliminated so I don't have any other questions for our mayor thank you Commissioner West Vice Mayor thank you Mr. Mayor just a quick question you say you have 12 employees and then plus the contract employees so my question is for on the gas and the oil it increased by 60% and you have is that because of your take home vehicles from your inspectors or I should say four of those five inspectors do take their vehicle home okay so you have four out of five that's taking the vehicle home now is it deemed necessary for four out of five to take the vehicles home like how often do they need to come out do all four of them come back out in the event or is it an emergency probably emergency case right okay thank you that's it right ahead I'm sitting we're going to skip the plan it's not the next one on the list but while he's looking Ted do you your department pays for their own cars city cars right yes because I don't recall ever seeing in the consent agenda where development services has asked for cars so that comes out your home budget so yeah I think we brought back two years ago we had four I want to say Tacomas that we brought to the commission and approved there were like 38,000 a piece but the commission did approve that within that building department so planning you can do planning planning starts on page 23 and then we can jump back and come back to sanitation if you guys would like to do that just to complete with Ted yeah let's go ahead Ted acts like he wants to get back to work I think that's good so under the planning division the big change there is professional services going down 49% that's due in part to development slowing down part of that was our traffic impacts study review study review consultant and our surveying final plat review consultant that we contract with so that has slowed down we're not having as many traffic impact studies come in we're not having as many final plats being reviewed but that number has come down rentals and leases once again that increases due to the annex repair maintenance and service went up $1,500 part of that is annex part of that is vehicles gas and oil we doubled from $500 to $1,000 uniforms is down 20% training is up 25% once again we're trying to urge the younger staff to get out and go to these conferences hopefully that happens all right thank you any questions any questions I don't know okay yes yes yes I do the professional services you said that you're not getting as many requests for traffic studies and for the planning of whatever I want to talk about the traffic studies is this just the same company that we use over and over again we're contracting how long are we contracted with them or is this just who we I believe all that's going out because my concern with that is and I've shared it at some of the commission meetings is the person the company that we are contracted with that does the traffic study normally always is in line with whatever the developer is they do the traffic study for that particular development and from my perspective they're not taken in consideration that there's five other developments that is on that road and so the one that we're working on now or they come to at that meeting they're only saying you know the traffic is going to be fine we don't see any issues with it at all maybe not for that one development if it was out there in the wilderness by itself but they don't seem to include I don't know how they say that it's fine when that's the number one complaint that the residents have I do know they use the background information from the other subdivisions in every traffic analysis so they keep up running database of all those so they say that there's not a traffic problem so is that you know never mind I know your extension so the next time someone complains about all the traffic on the inside of our city roads I'll have them give you a call thank you tab I don't have any other questions one quick question I thought the developers that they pay for their traffic study do we do one and they do one also they pay for their traffic study submit it we send it to our consultant to review to make sure just our consultant but we don't we don't do the traffic study we just send it to the consultant to review the traffic all right I'll see you no other questions so jumping back to page 20 we'll pick up on the sanitation department okay sanitation so other contractual services for the 9.3 billion that's republic services so that's a pass through I don't believe we other than an admin we don't hold anything on that that's quickly a pass through with the contract that communication has entered into with them communications it did go up 130% same thing with landlines so other devices the next item uniforms it did go up 166% so we're making sure that all team members have the high-vis equipment so when they're out on the streets that they are visible and safe not just something that says ain't city on it but we want to make sure from the vest to the normal t-shirts and wear that they have keeping them safe on that side that's it on the operation all right well thank you any questions yes thank you this other contractual services you say that that is republic that's what we pay to republic services from what we collect from the residents right is anything else in that one no more it's strictly republic services just now it's strictly that so with the sanitation the regular salary 169 thousand dollars is I don't know how many employees that is but republic services is going to be the main reason that we have this sanitation department which I would have thought would have more employees and that it was over sewage but maybe that's further down in here um yes ma'am that sanitary sewer is a different category there's a different one so what do these people in sanitation do well the we have one person that's dedicated to that as far as on the that's team member that drives every street every day of the week visits every home in the city every week make sure that they are they're trashing being picked up properly if it's not being picked up they report that probably I see in excess of anywhere from 75 to 125 emails a day where he's communicating with republic services for whatever reason if they have oil or hydraulic fluid on the ground he's reporting that to them it's also on the code side so if someone leaves their trash can out back past the period that's been set up an ordinance he's the one that does the warnings the written the verbals the violations he keeps track of that as well so when I call you or send you a screenshot of something that's another 50 a week to add to this person's emails anything that I get where someone says they missed me for whatever reason we have photos as you know that our requirement to republic services is if they missed somebody or if they didn't pick somebody up I need a photo that says why so if there was a car in the way or there was no can there if there's not a photo I always air on the side of my residence and I send them back to pick it up if they do send a photo that says James we were there this morning car was in the way so we notify the homeowner and say listen they couldn't retrieve it the game was not accessible and then of course our team member the city staff member goes out there and verifies it as well okay I don't have any other questions all right thank you Commissioner Winston thank you Mr. Mayor not really a question but more of just the statement I know that republic service got the five year increase contract or whatever a couple years back and it looks like it says an increase of 5.5 for the upcoming year so basically I just want to say that we are going to have to hold fire to their fee for the pickups because it is becoming more and more of an issue every week and especially with the residents going to possibly see an increase in their bill coming up again and then plus this is also increasing on our end they are going to have to just do a better service provide us with a better service provide us with the service that we are actually paying for and like Mr. Huffman stated we are getting those calls we are getting those emails every single week and just last week I got two new subdivisions added to my list that they just did not pick up what they should have and you know I call you sometimes and tell you hey this person was missed that person was missed this stuff been sitting here for three weeks for a month so we're just going to have to hold them accountable for the services that we're paying them for I would like for us to start actually receiving those services and that's that's basically I don't have a problem because I understand that you know it was already agreed upon through the commission previously for that increase for them and so we're just seeing that increase yearly for up to five years I don't know what year we're on now but I know prior to me being elected here that was already voted on so maybe probably year four I'm thinking now of that five years so yes so I would just love for them to start providing us with the services that we're actually paying for and we don't we don't hold any punches and we let them know when they've done something wrong when they need to improve right because I think we've accepted all the excuses about you know the lack of having the trucks and they were ordering new trucks and all of the trucks were leaving more trash on the streets than they were picking up so at this point it's kind of like okay we've heard all the excuses but now we need to see some results and what you should be providing us okay thank you all right let's see if there's no more questions we'll keep moving forward where are you going next you get cemeteries up but it's only got twenty thousand dollars obviously some of that is the processing fees this is a brand new division that we started this year just to keep track of the cemetery so there's four employees two for each right now designated to this division and then again just the operating cost which we took out from the clerk's department and put here so we can track specifically those cemetery costs commissioner huffman thank you now this cemetery with some of the concerns in the complaints that the people have had thank you to real for coming up here to real and I think he had two people at that time and he was going up there trying to help them to keep the grass mowed and repair some of the damaged I'm going to say mausoleums but you had two so now you are adding two more for a total of four or you getting rid of those two or I'm just wanting to know because before we didn't have $150,000 in personnel for a cemetery that was coming straight from parks and recreation so what's the deal with this one with this now so basically that 150 was a part of the parks but I think to better track it to show exactly what's being spent on the cemetery it was just removed from the parks division and put in its own division on the cemetery right okay so but it was only two people so currently now out in the Oakland cemetery we do have two there's three positions right now that we have a lot of for there but we still have not filled Albert Hall when he retired we still have not filled that lead position we're looking to fill that in-house but just want to be 100% sure that in-house is the way we want to go before going up to the public okay so I'm good with the four people we have what three cemeteries but are you still going to be out there helping them as well or are you so now because I was counting you as a third person I couldn't figure out how you have time so that was an exercise one of those things that you get a better understanding of exactly what your staff goes through and that was one of those that was several years ago we were trying to play catch up we actually took several crews put out in the old Oakland Cemetery and I just went out to assist those guys again just to see exactly what they're dealing with you have a greater appreciation for what they do when you're out there alongside of them getting dirt slung on you glass slung on you just dealing with what they do so no ma'am I do not intend on but if there's a need to I have no problem oh I know I just you were just the third person and I just wondered about that my last question is commissioner west was the one who made the cemetery his project and he asked for benches to be out there I think to add some more benches I know some trash receptacles being out there and we had the problem with the aunt and he gave us some company that would come out and help us to lift up those so is that in the $20,000 of expenditures with that or I would say no generally what happens the ants we control that in house we have spray tanks that can take care of that the benches we did add benches and additional receptacles I'm not sure if there's a desire to add additional benches but if there is that's something we can do as far as the repairing of the headstones there's been a lot of talk whether it's the city's responsibility or if it's the owner the family for that particular headstone if there's one that is unsafe or in danger of falling over then we do bring in the companies to address those and I think it's paid for through the perpetual care fund if I'm not mistaken but there again just some more conversations surrounding is that the city's responsibility because there is just throwing out a random number there's probably hundreds of different headstones that are leaning one way or the other not about to fall over but leaning obviously we're here in Florida if it's not installed properly from the start then that's the majority of the issues these headstones are being installed but not being properly the ground is not being properly compacted before they're put down so I guess just deciding if that's a project that the city wanted to delve into because you're probably talking thousands of dollars to address all of the headstones throughout our cemetery and tour that

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . so we're going to also allow time for commissioners comment yeah we are as a city council and we just like to you can you can stay right there we just like i am from from my seat i would say i think when dj mo contacted me when i was in mayor a couple months ago and actually could we recognize recognize you for the outstanding work you've been doing throughout not just you know when you left here you hit the ground running and you've been an outstanding job but when he when he called me it was a no-brainer for us to recognize you and i think it's i think it's more befitting that it's also doing june team you know that we recognize you so i am so proud and i speak on behalf of me and the other commissioners there the work you're doing and keep doing and make haynes city proud and keep us on the map in california and wherever your travels may take you sir so thank you so much sir thank you i appreciate that thank you thank you i know some of our other commissioners are down low would you like to say anything you got three minutes right there listen i have a little boy right here is it's a long right now he's pretty just to see what he's doing now it's just amazing his parents set the tone it's good to be a tribute right and so see that just what he's doing now he's humble he's humble and the other thing is to have the boys and girls club here as well as to see someone not as he's not in the NFL but he works i just want to put it out there so you want to support your drivers and other things because you're always kidding right and so on behalf of my fellow is the commissioners team throughout school you're just going to write i'm just going to write you do what you have done parents it's amazing amen you're welcome commissioner huffman thank you now tonight is definitely extra special for me because i know miss need mr larry and t so all the way back from when miss need used to do my hair just right up the road and then on my biggest day ever back in 2015 t was my personal barber for my entire wedding booked and busy he was so um it goes back that far and even further like i said because miss need used to do my hair so yes so and start with what you showed him and he followed in your footsteps and i know you guys are even prouder of him than we are but we we salute all of you and we thank you for always just thinking of haynes city and making it your home and giving the residents somewhere nice to go and just keep it up t we're following you on social media although you are not here in haynes city but we have not forgotten about you and we think that you always remember us no matter where you are so thank you so much that that key don't mean you can run all our traffic lights in here okay so next up we have the juneteenth proclamation thank you vice mayor so juneteenth is really not just a holiday and it's not just an organization but we have people that we need to recognize before i actually read this proclamation into the record sure me the street are you here she's not here tonight well i want to publicly say she was the visionary behind creating the juneteenth celebration along with vice mayor kim downing back in 2019 also in 2020 commissioner west was the one who actually made juneteenth a holiday first in pope county in count pope county so that we're all off tomorrow so i probably want to say thank you because i appreciate that holiday paid and so that's a nice thing so here let me read this proclamation whereas juneteenth observed annually on june 19th commemorates the day in 1865 when union troops arrived in galveston texas to enforce the emancipation proclamation and ensure the freedom of enslaved african americans marking a defining moment in american history and whereas juneteenth has become a powerful symbol of african american freedom resilience and cultural pride honoring the generations who endured slavery and those who continue to strive for justice and equality and whereas in 2019 the city of haynes city began hosting major juneteenth celebrations led by community leaders betty white northeast community revitalization group strong support of vice mayor kim downing the northeast rattlers king's lodge 48 sharmin the east reader commissioner morris west these vibrant events known as be out day were embraced by the community as a celebration of freedom unity and empowerment and so whereas the haynes city commission and the mayor vernell smith jr enthusiastically support these celebrations recognizing the importance of juneteenth as part of the city's cultural identity and historical awareness and whereas in 2020 and whereas in 2020 under the leadership of then mayor morris west haynes city became the first municipality in polk county to officially designate this holiday as a paid holiday for city employees setting that example that has since been followed by other cities in the region and so whereas the city of haynes city remains committed to recognizing and uplifting the values of freedom inclusion and community pride that juneteenth represent therefore i mayor vernell smith jr and the city commission do hereby proclaim june 19th 2026 juneteenth a celebration of freedom in the city of haynes city we encourage all residents leaders and organizations to reflect on the legacy of june t- participate in the commemorative events and continue working toward a more just and equitable future for all in witness hereof we set our hand and seal the official seal of haynes city florida to be affixed this 18th day of june 2026 we have multiple proclamations here for those that i mentioned some that are not here will definitely be holding on to them but vice mayor if you could certainly take your place down below thank you and if the commissioners could carry please have a look please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited that Wynn, North East, New Mount Zion, Outreach, and all the other auxiliaries and nonprofits came together to make this a very special, very special Juneteenth. We've had two great, just fantastic programs so far, our Miss June King, and if our two queens that are here with us tonight would stand. They were crowned, and Wynn took the leadership on that program, and then New Mount Zion took the leadership on our first ever gospel explosion, and I will tell you that it was a melting pot. We had singers from the Haitian community, singers from the Hispanic community, and we just had a hallelujah good time. Sorry, I'm going to church. So that was awesome. So that was awesome. And we're looking for a fantastic time this weekend. Please come out. We're having a gala on tomorrow night at Lake Eva Events Center. We have some awesome entertainment lined up. All local vendors, we're using a local caterer, and so we're just excited about what is happening. And on Saturday, on Saturday, our very own international singer, Coffee, will be our headliner. So we're excited about that. She has teased us for a very long time, coming in, doing a song or two here, a song or two there, but she's going to do a whole set for us on Saturday night. So we're looking forward, looking, looking at the weather. We have made a determination to move that event inside so that we don't have to cancel. So we will be inside the Lake Eva Event Center for that concert. So if it's not canceled, rain or shine, the show will go on. So please join us. Thank you. But I want to just personally thank the city of Haines City and all the awesome commissioners that have come and gone and worked with us over the years that continue to shine a light on this very special holiday. So thank you, Commissioner Huffman. Thank you, our Commissioner West. I thank all the commissioners. And our newest commissioner has had her feet on the ground for a very long time doing this work. So I'm really excited about her and what God is going to continue to do through her. So thank you very much. Thank you. I'm Wayne. And I just want to say thank you. Per our Commissioner West, he told me all I had to do is just say today was Thursday. And thank you all. But I just want to say I'm happy and very excited about what's to come with the Juneteenth Coalition. And we were glad that we were partners this year. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Northeast realization. Anyone would like to say something? Samika, Tiffany, Sean? I'll just make it short and sweet. Thank you again for the city to honor and recognize Juneteenth. Northeast, we've been involved in the community for years. We just carried the torch. And so we do thank you for the recognition. All the members here, our vice president on their behalf. So I just want to say thank you. We're going to celebrate on Saturday. So please come out, even if you have to run inside with your umbrella, with your poncho. We're going to celebrate freedom and liberation. So thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next proclamation would be the Boys and Girls Club. Okay. The Boys and Girls Club is an organization that has been around for, I don't know, decades. My kids went through the Boys and Girls Club just forever. And we're going to celebrate this week, which is Boys and Girls Club Week. This is the positive impact that the Boys and Girls Club has on the lives of our young people. This proclamation acknowledges the organization's commitment to providing a safe, supportive, and enriching environment that helps youth develop leadership skills, build character, and achieve academic and personal success. So whereas the Boys and Girls Club of Polk County are at the forefront of youth development and serve as a safe haven and the opportunity hub for all young people, and especially those who need us most, whereas the Boys and Girls Club of Polk County recognizes that the health, well-being, and future success of our children is a shared community responsibility, and whereas children's abilities, confidence, and aspirations can be nurtured through supportive programs and positive environments that prepare them to thrive physically, emotionally, and professionally, and whereas the Boys and Girls Club of Polk County help ensure that our young people have access to resources, offering them a safe and supportive place to go, and providing them with a quality program. Whereas the Boys and Girls Club of Polk County will celebrate National Boys and Girls Club Week 2026, along with 5,000 other clubs and more than 4 million young people worldwide, in an effort to promote great futures for our youth. So on behalf of Vernell Smith, the Mayor of the City of Haines City, and the City Commission, we do hereby proclaim the week of June 22nd through the 26th as Boys and Girls Club Recognition Week. In the City of Haines City, we call on all citizens to join in recognizing and commending the Boys and Girls Club of Polk County for providing comprehensive, high-quality services to the young people of this community, and witness whereof we set the hand and seal of the City of Haines City to be affixed this 18th day of June. And we have Curtis Reddick, who is the representative for the Boys and Girls Club. And I just feel like we just need to give a clap here for our kids, because they came straight from the zoo, they thought the meeting was at 6, and they have been sitting here ever so patiently to be recognized. So let's give them a hand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We have no questions. We'll open it up for public comments. Anyone has questions on the consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll close the public comments and ask for approval. Motion for approval. Second. Second. There's been motion and properly second. All in favor? Aye. Next, we would have public comments. Public comments is anything you would like to discuss that is not on the agenda. Please, when your name is called, step to the podium, state your name as well as your address. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone? Our first one is Sue Suther. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please, ma'am. Just state your name and address for the record, please. My name is Sue Suter, and the address is 1701 West Commerce Avenue, Lot 70, Haines City, 33844. Yes, ma'am. You can proceed. I'm asking that Haines City commissioners reconsider their approval of the proposed CALO digital infrastructure, a 300-megawatt hyperscale AI data center, and pause the project until the public receives clear answers about its long-term impacts on our community. Here are just some of the issues that I feel need to be addressed. First is our water. Haines City is one of the fastest-growing communities in Florida. With these added communities comes higher demands on our already stretched water system. Add to that the annual droughts that we are in right now with lawn watering restrictions put out by our local water department. Huge amounts of water are needed to keep these servers cool enough to function. Midsized facilities can use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day, while large facilities can consume as much as 5 million gallons daily. Residents deserve to know exactly how much water this facility will consume and what that means for future residential and agricultural needs. Approving a facility that requires huge amounts of water, while our neighborhoods are already under water shortage protocol seems a little redundant. Second is the energy demand. Second is the energy demand. AI data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity. The proposed project is reportedly a 300 megawatt facility. That's enough electricity to power entire neighborhoods. If additional substations, transmission lines, or utility upgrades are needed, residents deserve to know who will pay for those costs and whether local ratepayers or taxpayers could ultimately bear the burden. I personally think that these data centers should pay for their own dedicated electrical substations and water lines. That way they are not putting a strain on the residential sector. And when they need a bigger grid, they pay for that one too. Thirdly, we need transparency about the true economic benefits. Once construction is complete, this estimated $2.8 billion, 74-acre, 300-megawatt AI data center will only employ about 50 permanent, highly specialized technology and operations jobs. Before dedicating our land, water, energy, and financial resources to this project, residents deserve a clear accounting of the actual long-term jobs. The total welcome-to-the-neighborhood fees that taxpayers will be asked to pay, which I figure that total to be about $2,520,000,000 a year for the next 10 years. And what, if any, are the community benefits, other than they hire 50 highly specialized technology and operations workers? The fourth would be privacy and accountability issues. AI data centers are not simply warehouses full of computers. They provide the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence systems, including technologies used for facial recognition, predictive surveillance, mass data collection, and data processing on a massive scale. While these technologies can have legitimate uses, they also raise very important questions about privacy, civil liberties, and oversight. Before moving forward, Haines City residents deserve to know what and who the eventual customers will be, what types of AI workloads will be hosted, and what safeguards exist to ensure this infrastructure is not contributing to systems that undermine privacy or civil rights and health risks associated with this type of technology. Transparency should not be optional when a project of this scale is being proposed. It should be required. Thank you, Ms. Souter. Well, just so you know that the commission hasn't approved any data center, and our inner city manager does have some information he can provide to you. Yes, this particular item has not even come before the board because the first step for this would be that they would have to get approval from the state to get the water concurrency with the city. We don't have enough water to do it, so that's the very basic level. But we've not received any plans or anything from them. We have had a discussion with them about the water, and we told them that that was their first step. So there has been nothing that's come before the commission, and at this point, we don't even know if it will. You're welcome. Thank you. Madam Clerk, you have a moment. Our next one is Becky McLaughlin. I hope I said that. Hello. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Becky McLaughlin, and I am coming because I wanted to share with you something that I'm doing that I feel will benefit the entire community of Holt County. Excuse me one second. Yes. Can you state your address for the rest, please? Yes. 470 City Center Drive, speak. 1203 Winter Haven. No, 35880. Thank you. But something that I really believe will benefit our whole community, one, as I've talked to many people around Holt County and Auburndale and Anne City and other places, there's such what people feel is a lack of information when it comes to what's going on in the government and locally, what's going on in each city and county or within the county. And we have so many people living inside of unincorporated county places. And so what I've done is created a publication. And it's going to be free for readers because what I found is most people are finding their news on Facebook. And unfortunately, there are a lot of loud voices in, that's not the unfortunate part, a lot of loud voices in Holt County, but they're not being heard in the right places. As you know, this is a great place for people to come and have their voices heard because, you know, being able to share to the leadership of each city. This is my sixth commissioner meeting that I've been to. And I want to partner with you as a commission board because you guys are doing great things. One thing that, one of the struggles with Facebook and getting news from there is there's a lot of complaints. And people don't know. And they say, you know, just different issues coming up. Well, you know, there's road work and traffic and this and that. And, you know, they start doing water lines again here and there. But they don't always understand the reason behind these projects and then having impact on them. And so the publication is called The Citrus Tea. I'm coming from an education. So I've been teaching here in Holt County for the last four years. And stepping out of that to do something that I feel is a bigger mission for me and also to benefit the county and to the residents. You know, we have news. There is some news in Haines City. There's news in Winter Haven. There's news in Lakeland. But we are 17 municipalities and we are a lot of unincorporated, upwards of 200,000 to 3,000 people that are living in that unincorporated area and almost a million people in Holt County without the local news bringing us together as one county. Because you guys are doing beautiful things. That's why I love coming to the commissioner meetings, because I get to find out about all the really neat things that are happening in those communities and the incredible impact that Haines City is having on young people. And as an educator, that, like, just blesses my heart to see these kids come up with Boys and Girls Club and they do teeth and I was at Winter Haven. They were giving scholarships to their two Juneteenth awards that they were doing for some high school graduates. And so I just want to partner with you. I've already, I think, heard back from the city clerk this week. But if there's another media person or somebody that I should be talking to, I'd love to be able to just get connected with them and keep posted so that we can partner together. Thank you so much. And our media person, a couple of communications, is going to choose in the back. Can you raise your hand? Okay. Okay. And then you can speak. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'll leave you guys here. Yes, ma'am. Sharon Garrett. My name is Sharon Deer and I live off of Carl Boos and Road. I would kind of like to ask, I know last time I asked a little bit and I was kind of in the wrong category. Mr. Keene mentioned that you had a system that was going to go around and evaluate the various roads as to when they get paved, so forth and so on. And it measures the density and how much is degraded, so forth and so on. Is there any way that we can move 30th Street up on front from 544 to Hanson, where it runs along in front of the school and everything? It's a patchwork of what the developers have fixed and potholes that have been patched. On and on and on. I mean, the pothole patches have patched. And I don't drive it as much as, like, my husband drives it going to the post office, but when you have to drive it, it's pretty bad. And there's a lot of traffic on it. You've got a lot of truck traffic. And I don't know what rotation it is in Mr. Keene's planning for the various roads when they do it. But that one has so much traffic, school traffic, buses, and kids going to school that you would think that should be kind of moved up. My next thing, on the next portion of 30th Street from Henson on through across Johnson to Vancouver, is do we have a paving date? Have we specialized the water line yet, if there were leaks? And maybe Mr. Keene can address that after I get through. And right there where the Mexican food store is, at the stoplight, could we smooth that out a little bit? There's a piece dug through the pavement where they ran the pipe on the other side. And it was smoothed out some on the wider areas, but it could stand some more work. It's pretty rough. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garrett. Thank you. And Mr. Keene would be with you on that. Jarvis Alston. Good evening. Jarvis Alston, 2216 North 13th Street, New York City. I'm here respectfully. I'm going to just ask, because this is not a three-minute issue. This is something that the city really needs to be addressed, because this is something that can't continue to be overlooked. I did everything in my power to keep from going this route. But I would not be bullied by Horace West under no circumstances at all, because he's in fear of what, as a young man, I bring to the table with the youth program that I have in place. Respectfully, when I launched this program, I went to him and Buster personally to have a talk with them to pay out of respect and homage of what they've been doing the last couple years and stuff like that, which I didn't have to. But respectfully, I did, to see how we can all coexist in this town, you know, to serve these kids. Buster met with me. We talked. And to this day, I have no issue with Buster. Horace didn't want to meet for whatever reason. And typically, it's because he wanted to control everything. He wanted to dictate what goes on in that field, who can use it, and things of that nature. So, me, I took it upon myself to reach out to the city clerk and request public records. I requested the contract for the years of 2022, 23, 24, and 25. Upon that request, picking up these papers, the city clerk can correct me if I'm wrong. I only received the year of 24 and 25 of the contract from the city and insurance. Nothing from 22, nothing from 23. I called back up here and asked the city clerk why didn't I get the paperwork from 22 and 23. She notified me that if I didn't get the paperwork, then the city has no record of it. I'm here to get clarification on why is a program allowed to put kids out on the field, participate in a physical sport, but one, no valid contract in place, no insurance in place. Me, I just had an Easter event with my program. And if I'm lying, Terrell can correct me. The first thing that was mandated by the city for me was insurance. So, if I'm obligated to give insurance and submit insurance, why is it that for two years that this program don't have, the city don't have a record of insurance nor a valid contract? Now, the two contracts that I do have, and if I may misunderstand, Terrell, correct me if I'm wrong, he told me that the contracts typically run from June to June. The 24 contract says August 13th. August 13th. So, I'm trying to understand how is the contract dated August 13th and officially the season has already started. I think that proves negligence, that proves that this man would do anything as far as, you know, go as far as jeopardizing these kids' safety. The 25 contract is completely blank. No signature from the city manager, city clerk, nor the city attorney. So, how is it, again, that this organization was allowed to use the city facility with no contract or, you know, no valid insurance? Now, my thing is, too, in 2022, I stood at this same podium, and the conflict came up because Horace West launched the A&C Vipers, and he wanted the Northeast Rattlers off the field. I stood at this same podium to speak for Omar Johnson as the president, and if I'm not mistaken, Commissioner West was the mayor at the time. And it's kind of crazy that, you know... Okay. Mr. Austin, I apologize, but the three men... But I've been asking to get on the agenda for the longest. Okay, so... You know, I did everything that I could respectfully, but I knew y'all ain't going to want to hear it, but at the end of the day, I got the paperwork and everything that I need, and I'm ready to go to the Editors Committee and all that, because right now I feel like a lot of nepotism is going on, a lot of backdoor stuff is going on, and I feel I'm being discriminated against. My program ain't being treated fairly like everybody else. I worked for the city for almost two years, and I've seen multiple nonprofit organizations come through and use those facilities for free. Here it is. I paid for everything that I got. I ain't asking y'all for nothing, but if y'all don't want to work with me, that's fine. But my thing is, I'm trying to do something positive, and this man is going out his way when I specifically wanted nothing to do with Miles and Wiles. I was going to the high school. I had dates confirmed through the principal. Okay. Yes. So we're going to definitely ensure that you are treated fairly along with anyone else, because every resident here in Hayes City will be treated fairly. Just to adhere into the three-minute time frame, and as you stated, it is more than three minutes. So I'm going to ask that you meet with our interim city manager. I want everything on the record. The city and the community need to know that they've been bamboo for 30-plus years behind this field. The man making money on the field, a taxpaying citizen in the field, just like last year, three rounds. I know y'all don't want to hear, but this is what's going on. And the city is going to be liable right now, because you've got a lady with a lawsuit at stake right now, because he can't present the insurance that they need to validate that he had insurance. Okay. So the field is going to be handled through our interim city manager and our parks and right director. So they can get with you, get your contact information, set up a meeting where you can discuss. I want everything on the record. Well, that is still a record. So when you meet with them. I want to hear in the form, because that's why I asked. That's why I asked. I called. She can witness this. I called and asked to be able to get on the agenda, because I knew this wasn't a three-minute issue. This needs to be heard, because at the end of the day, kids are being put at risk. Kids are being put at risk, and at some point, the city needs to step up and say something. Y'all going to continue to allow this man to run and wrap it through the city and do what he wants to do and bully people. And just being real, you know what I'm saying? I had a great deal of respect for you up until now. Okay. So, wait. One second, please. I don't want to get the truth. And Commissioner Huffman, you wanted to make a statement? Yes. I just want to say that I, too, am very concerned about the things that Jarvis has mentioned. But as the vice mayor said, the decision as to who is responsible for making sure that there's insurance and that there's contracts signed by the proper people is not this commission board. But what I would ask interim city manager is that you meet with Jarvis and come back to this board and give us a full report on exactly what he's saying. That way it is recorded by audio. And it won't be verbatim for minutes, but it will be in the minute. Because some of what he's saying that I know of is absolutely true. And we need to put a stop to this at this point. So, thank you. Vice mayor, may I be recognized? Yes. Quickly, you know, this has been a circus for the last several years. And I do mean what I say, a circus. It's been a problem with these fields and everything. And it appears that it always ends up that the commission has to make the decision to play. You know, I strongly have confidence in our parks and rec director and our interim city manager and our staff on making the appropriate decision on who plays on what field. I don't think that that's down in the north for the commission. And I don't think that we should be determined who plays on it. I think that's why we have people in place to make sure that they're treated fairly and equally. Now, my next comment or question is that you say you came to the city clerk to get on the agenda. But we all know that item has to be in to the city clerk within a certain period of time in order to get on this agenda. You can't come to the city clerk on a Tuesday and say, I want to be on the agenda for Thursday. It don't work that way. So, I just want to make sure he understands that. It's not that we don't want you on the agenda. It's just things done by a timeline in decent and in order. And she just can't just put you on the agenda. So, you have to understand that. But I want this thing to be, you know, handled internally. And the contract will eventually hear. All we do is vote on the contract. But that should be handled internally, not by this commission. Thank you. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Johnson. Yes. Go. Commissioner West said it's a circus. And that's why you have the commissioners being a part of it now. Because some things aren't supposed to get out of order. So, we got to bring some order. And so, with that being said, our city is growing. Pretty big. We have 47,000 people. With that being said, there are going to be multiple teams. There can't just be one team. We need multiple teams. Because we can't put 200 children on one team. And so, there is a lot of disorder. There's a lot that's going on. And I'm not going to get into the weeds of it. But what I do want to see that we have to be a part of it. Let's make the right decisions. But we have to understand we are a growing city. We are a growing city. So, more teams will come. And we also should encourage our local heroes, our local coaches that have been putting in the work with the students. So, yes, I do feel that commissioners should be a part of it. Because how things are done now. To bring some order back. And then when the order gets back, let's talk to interim city manager and also director Griffin as well. And give it back to them. It should be back to them anyway. But right now, we've got to be a part of it to make sure things run a little bit more smoothly and smoothly than what they have been. Thank you. Thank you. And just from my seat, like I stated before, I think and I hope that every resident feel like they can come and they can be heard. I had no idea that you wanted to be on the agenda up until, like, right now. So, but as Commissioner West stated, the cutoff period. So, I don't have a problem if everyone is in grants and then he get with the city clerk and possibly be on the next agenda. But I would love for you to, as I stated, meet with our interim city manager, our deputy, Parks and Rec, Director Griffin. And I also agree that the city is growing. So, we have multiple teams across football, basketball, baseball. So, I don't see where there is a problem. We're also getting more fields. We can share the field. We just need to get that, you know, approved or whatever. And then, as far as his contract. So, I know that there should be a contract on file somewhere. So, if you can definitely try to get that set up with him to find out where those documents are. We can get those documents to him, to Mr. Alston, and set up the meeting with him. And then, we look forward to bringing him back possibly. If not, the next meeting, you know, sometime next month. Yes, ma'am. So, I just want to say for the record that when Mr. Alston did request to be on the agenda, yes, that cutoff period had already passed. The agenda was already prepared at this point in time. We have been talking back and forth. But I also told him that the one year, the 2022-23 year that he is requesting, I was going to get with the president to see if he had it in his records. We did not have it here. However, he's out of town. So, I have not been able to connect that. But we have been working together. So, now that he's given more direction after interim city manager speaks to him, we can probably have more time to gather more contracts. And he can bring some more things. So, and this is a question to my colleagues because, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the contract was being solely handled by the city manager and the parks and rec director and not from the commission. So, has that since changed or is that still the way that it is? If I may, Vice Mayor, the contract, all contracts come before us to approve. Right. But the negotiations and all of that is between the city manager and Terrell, the parks and rec director. You all decide who's going to be there. And that's why I ask that you all get together. Find out where this information is. If the clerk can't get it from the president, maybe you can get it. We commissioners used to be involved in it. But we wanted to get out of it. Right. And that's what I was under the impression that the commission was removed from that decision. Yes. But not who plays on the bill. Right. And all of that. And is there insurance? And, you know, all of that. But once we approve, once you bring it to us, that everything is in order, that you've gotten announced, the level two background and all of that, and we're satisfied that you have done your due diligence, you bring that contract before us, and then we decide whether or not we're going to say yay to the contract or we're going to say nay. It's not enough room, not enough room for three people. But that's how that works. And that's why I was asking the city manager to get with, because there is some responsibility and accountability for us. And when our clerk cannot find a file, and our parks and rec director cannot find a file, that's the problem. That means that the contract did not come before us to be signed. And so I don't want to get in the weeds with it. I just want to know the answer to why this was not done. And let's find it. And let's get this straight. One step for all is not being a service, as Commissioner West has said. And one thing I'd like to add to that, and thank you for it, Commissioner. As long as I've been sitting here, and I can remember every year that comes before that contract, I don't understand why we don't have records of it, because it comes here and we vote for it every year, whether it's baseball, football, but they all come before this commission. And I think Terrell is back here. He probably can attest to this here, that all of them come before this commission. So I don't know what happened. If they didn't have one last year, I don't remember. But we need to make sure that every contract is approved by this commission. That's in the chart. All contracts are approved by this commission. Okay. Commissioner West, before I became elected, I can remember sitting in the audience, and it was removed from this commission, that the commission no longer was involved in who played on the field, how many teams were there. No, that's not what I'm saying. No, we're not. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, and so with that, once the commission was completely removed, then those contracts also no longer came before the commission for signature, because there was no need. It was then, at that time, if I remember correctly, and Director Griffin, you can correct me, or interim city manager, it was then placed in the city manager's hand for the decision, and he worked alongside with the parks director. It stopped coming back to the commission for quite some time now. So I know at least, probably, what, at least four years ago, I'm thinking, at least three years, four years, somewhere up in there, but I can remember vividly that the commission no longer wanted to deal with it back when we used to have to sit here for hours with a debate on just football alone. So, and now, that's why I stated at the beginning, if something has changed since then, then I'm not aware of it. But I think that it's still the same way, that it no longer was brought back to the commission. So, that's my understanding of it. Well, all I'm saying is what the charter said, any and all contracts are supposed to be approved by this commission. So, I don't, if that happened, they was going to formulate everything, and then it comes back here for approval. The charter, it clearly states that any and all contracts is approved by the commission. We have been doing it. We have been doing it the way that you described that we are approving the agreements with the teams that are out there. And there is one instance that I'm aware of, and I believe it was last year, that when we got the contract signed that it went, it was not notarized at the time that it was signed. So, we sent it back to get it notarized. We did have insurance, but we did not have a notarized contract. And then we did not follow up with that contract. So, we do not have the contract from last year. We do have insurance for it. Okay. Thank you. So, just so that we can go ahead and move on, but if we could definitely, you know, meet with Mr. Alston, and so we can be able to address his concerns. We will. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And Sharon, do you have a contact number for him? Yes, I do. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? The last one is Anjanetta. There you go. Okay. Hello. Anjanetta Santos, Breeze Freehance, Florida. I was actually coming to indulge in the conversation about the use of the Myers-Wiley Field as a concerned citizen mom and now grandma, who has some football players back there. Just wanted to ask some questions now that you all brought this conversation up. You all mentioned that last year. Okay. I do recall that last year, you say the commission was removed from making the decision. I do recall that last year and the previous year, because my grandson played with one of the teams where the commission decided that a particular team was not going to be playing on the field. So, I do know that this commission was involved in making the decisions. Also, definitely, like I said, as a concerned citizen, who my son, who is in the NFL, came out to work out with some kids on the field. And the police was called on them, and they were made to leave the field because they said this field was designated for a certain team. So, that concerns me as a citizen, that only certain people get access to the field. If it is a community field to be used by citizens, then, you know, I'm in agreement with this whole thing about someone deciding that the field is theirs, when it's taxpayers' money that's paying for the field, and that everyone should have access to that field. So, all I want to also say is that you all should have minutes for your meetings to confirm whatever decision you all made. So, look back in your past minutes to decide if the commission was still making that decision or if the commission was removed. So, that's my take on this whole review, and I just do pray that you all make a decision where it benefits the entire community. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. Anyone else, Madam Clerk? No. Okay. Thank you. But we'll go ahead and close the public comments and go to new business. 7A. Resolution number 26-1923. This particular item needs to be pulled. The developers requested that it be pulled, and we also need to pull it. We'll put it back on a future agenda once we get the conditions worked out that need to be done. Okay. Thank you. And we would open it up for public comments. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this particular item. Come to the podium. State your name and address, please. Sean McCoy at 504 South Pine Street, Kansas City, Florida. So, I actually wrote a letter to the commissioners earlier this week, and I hope you guys had the opportunity to read it yet or not. This particular development sits directly across from the Lake Eva event center, which, as you guys can all recognize, is a chronic background, backdrop, for a lot of events in Payne City. The developer has already cleared out much of the shoreline, and when he submitted his preliminary plot in the HOA documents to SWIFT MUD, SWIFT MUD has not aligned or approved those documents yet. They have some environmental considerations. In the letter that I sent to the commission, I included that same SWIFT MUD request for clarification. All I'm asking of the commission is, as the process for this development continues and goes on, that you guys keep in mind that this is a backdrop for the entire city, right? Every event, every park goer that goes through the Lake Eva park sees the scenic character of this shoreline right now. And if we have a developer come in with masquerading and clearing, there's going to be a significant change to the backdrop of Payne City. I'm not against the development. When I bought my house just to the north of this property five years ago, I knew that in my lifetime, there would be houses on 16 acres in downtown. Like, it'd be crazy not for that not to be happening. What I am concerned about is the quality of the water in the lake. I was on the lakes advisory board here in the city for five years. And it was actually a little bit of the shoreline clearing and lack of clarity around who was holding this accountable. It made me step down from that lakes advisory board in order to act as a private citizen rather than representative of the city in talking to the SWIFT MUD about this. Additionally, directly to the north of the project, there is an unmitigated outfall that belongs to FDOT. That an unmitigated outfall is polluting the waters already. So as we look at this development and the shoreline that we're going to expose to the care of private residences, I'm just asking that the city commission take a thorough look at the design and development long-term nature of what we're allowing to happen right in the middle of downtown across from the park. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. McCoy. And I'll go ahead and anyone else on this particular item? Seeing none, I'll close public comments and ask for a formal motion to remove this resolution number 26-1923. I'll make a motion to remove this resolution number 26-1923. I know it is not. I will second your motion. Uh-huh. I just would like to know when, because you should have an idea how long it's going to take you, if it's three months from now, if it's six months from now, so that Mr. McCoy doesn't have to come back and say, I'm still waiting, how long do you think it will be? It won't be the next meeting, Mr. Chairman. It will not be the next meeting. I can't tell you how long it will take to get back onto the agenda, because we need to make sure that we're working both with the developer to ensure that they understand the conditions that we're putting on, and we also have to look at the Swift Mud. Okay. So my question to you then, Commissioner West, if you would amend your motion to say that it's being pulled until we hear from Swift Mud or whoever it is, because pulling it, to me, the person comes back in 60 days, and we don't know anything about it, and now we're asked to vote on something. Yeah, but Commissioner Humpman, this agenda item has more issues, and if you read the backup, then just Swift Mud. Oh, no, I just called Swift Mud. Okay. That was there, but all I'm saying is to make sure in your motion that it's clear so that we don't have him. Come, go ahead. If I could assist in making that recommendation, what we could do is, because one option that we, or one thing we have to work out as a municipality with the developer, is it has to deal directly with concurrency issues. That's right. And so what we can do, both the interim manager and I, is we can provide the meeting immediately preceding when it would come. We can provide notification to the commission that it will be coming at the next meeting, and so that way adequate notice can be given to the residents within that community so they will know to attend unless the interim manager has any objection to that recommendation. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. No, that's fine. Okay. Vice Mayor, you know, you've said yourself how many times we don't get any contractual information, and then they show up at the meeting, and now we're voting. That's my second stands. So let me amend the motion to say that. I amend my motion that we remove this item until we hear back from staff prior to notifying the community that this item will be back on the agenda. Second. Okay, it has been motion and properly second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. We're going to go. Vice Mayor, may I be right back? Yeah. Interrupt, Mr. McVenadry Lloyd. I want to make sure that we talk to Sean, right? That we talk to Sean to determine what's going on because he came up very passionate and definitely in detail. In regards to our background, I want to make sure that we reply back to him. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioner. You're welcome. So we're going to go move along to Resolution 7B, Resolution No. 261939, and that is going to be with our Parks and Rec. Director, Griffin. Good evening, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. I stand before you this evening to request the approval of Resolution No. 261939, authorizing the installation and construction of gateway signage. You may recall back in April 2023, sit-in to the contract to designate locations. We're going to work with five different gateway signs. As of today, there is one gateway sign that has been installed. That is the Aldi location. This particular resolution is required by the Florida Department of Transportation. And it's for three sign locations. One is on North 27, which would be Highway 27 and Holly Hill Tank Road. The second would be 1792 and Bates Road. And then the third would be on Highway 27 near Bebo Road. But this is a requirement of Kepda in order for us to move forward with those signs. Okay, thank you. And any questions? Who's going to be paying for this? Because it was CRA who actually paid the money for the signs. So is the city going to pay for the installation? No, ma'am. What was approved for the purchase of the signs also included installation? So all of that was approved on the CRA a year or half ago, whatever it was. It's coming from the CRA. But that was included in what was already been approved by the CRA board. So this, you're just letting us know because then at CRA, that's who really needs to be the one to approve it as far as money, though. I just want to make sure that this board is not making a decision on somebody on CRA's money. So at this point, that has already been approved. Okay. This is just to satisfy the updance requirements in order for us to put those signs on their property. Well, that's good. That's why I said who's paying for it. What's already been paying? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Mr. Vice Mayor, you mentioned three locations, right? Yes, sir. Can you repeat those locations again? So one is on North 27. It'll be at 27 Highly Hill Tank Road. The second is 1792 and Bates Road. And then the third is Highway 27 near Deebo Road. There was a total of five of those. The fifth one coming into Hayes City out of Lake-Calford, where we had attempted to put that one. There's a fuel line that runs through there. So we're going to have to find a location for there. I think at one point we talked about putting it in the median, F-DOT, the size of the sign, all that. But the board at the time did approve for five gateway sites. That's right. So, but this includes three. Okay. Then there's one, like I mentioned, at the Aldi property. Right. That has already been. Okay. Yeah, I just want to be clear. I thought it was five. Yes, sir. You mentioned three. Okay. That's all I have. Commissioner Johnson, any questions? No. Okay. Okay. So, no questions for me on that installation. So, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comments. Anyone wish this up to the podium? Seeing none, I'm close public comments and act for more. Madam Mayor, I'll introduce resolution number 26-1939. Resolution number 26-1939, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Haines City, Florida, approving the installation and or construction of gateway signage, approving and authorizing the execution of the State of Florida Department of Transportation Community Aesthetic Feature Agreement, authorizing the City Manager to take any necessary further actions to effectuate the intent of this resolution, providing for the incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for the administrative correction of governor's errors, and providing for an effect. Move for adoption. Move for adoption. Aye. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And then we will go on to 7C, resolution number 26-1947, and that would be Interim City Attorney, District of Lake. I'm sorry? 7C. No, 7C. 7C. 7C. 7C. Pursuant to instruction that I received at a previous meeting, I had reviewed the charter and I had looked at applicable codes within the City of Haines City in order to determine the appropriate party to receive service of process on behalf of the City of Haines City. The charter does not specifically identify the City of Haines City clerk as the city clerk as the party that would be responsible for receiving service of process and the applicable statutory requirements reference a registered agent of the municipality, but as we all know, there's no agent for municipal corporation. So, after speaking and the clerk's office as the clerk's office, I have crafted a resolution that for purposes of interpreting the statutory provisions and the receipt of service of process for the City of Haines City, Florida, the City clerk will be the designated party to fulfill those obligations of what is referred to as a registered agent in the statute. Although, not making the clerk's office as the clerk's office, but the party being responsible for and authorized to receive service of process for any litigation matters that are served as a public duty. Thank you. And I'll ask for an introduction. Let me ask a comment. I have a question. I want to make sure we use a clarification because items that is served at the police department don't no longer don't have to come to here, being that they do accept these on behalf of the police department. If the city is named a party, the statutory requirements are that, one, first the registered agent of the municipal corporation, which obviously that is, that could use some touch-up on the state side if they were going to make that more accurate. And then it has, it identifies, as the statute does, the parties as it goes down a list of who can accept the purpose of process on behalf of the municipal government. Now, I don't know if service has been generally accepted on behalf of the city at the PD. However, this would identify the city clerk. If the city, Haines City, Florida, were named as a party in litigation, the clerk would be the authorized agent in order to receive the purpose of that. Okay, because my question, and you can confirm this with the police department, that, you know, when subpoenas are issued and brought to the police department, it is served to the police department and not to, like, see the clerk. Well, the summons and the subpoena are two different. Well, subpoenas and subpoenas are the same. You get a subpoena, it's a subpoena, it's a subpoena. Well, yeah, so a subpoena generally is a subpoena deus tecum for documents. Documents. Yes, or it could be a subpoena, an individual or a specific party in order to appear and provide testimony. The summons is the complaint. It's a charging document. But that is generally going to be served on whoever is serving process will generally come to the main administration building in order to try to effectuate service of process. But, no, the subpoena will not come to the clerk. Only the summons and complaint would be served upon the clerk. And if, for instance, if there was also something that needed to be served on the man individually and not only. No, I understand all that. I'm just, because they do get, they get subpoenas, they get subpoenas, they get subpoenas, do some take, and they get all of that at the police department. And in the past, they have accepted at home and out of the city, you know, and the police department because you have officers that work the night there and they're not there, so they accept them. The chief here, do that happen still now, chief? When they come and bring summons and documents and stuff, do y'all accept them there? Commissioner, I believe that the process that served at the police department is normally related to criminal cases. Okay, I just want to make sure that that's what I'm saying. If the city is named as the person in the case, then that would come here and those don't go. Right, I just want to make sure that we understand that criminal will be over there and all other subpoenas and documents will come here. The summons should come here, yes. Okay, I just want to make sure that this is in line with what we're saying. And the reason that we wanted to identify the party is because in any type of proceeding, if the summons is not properly served, we can file a motion to quash service of process. And we lose that ability if we've accepted and now we're actually participating actively in the litigation, whatever it may or may not be. But we want to preserve our defense, our procedural defense in any type of litigation that if it's improperly served, we can quash the service of process. Yeah, I understand. Okay, no problem. All right, thank you for that. Thank you. Any other questions from the dial? Not on here. Okay. So I'll ask for an introduction. Madam Mayor, I'll introduce... Did you do public comment? I'm sorry, I apologize. I'll open it up for public comments. Seeing none, I'll close the public comments and ask for an introduction. No. Madam Mayor, I'll introduce resolution number 26-1941. Resolution number 26-1941. A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Haines City, Florida, authorizing the City Clerk or her, his designee, to accept service of process on behalf of the City of Haines City, Florida, providing authority, providing for the incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing more severability, providing for the administrative correction of scriveners' errors, and providing for an effective date. Move for adoption. Fall in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Going to 7-D. And that is our Dippy City Manager, James B. Yes, good evening. So this is a request for approval on an additional work authorization, number one, for the Integrated Water Supply Plan with CHA. So even though they've been working on this plan since 2023, due to the regulatory and technical developments that have occurred, there's additional funding requests to make sure that our Integrated Water Supply Plan, I didn't just use the acronym, Mr. Huffman. I WSB. I actually said what it was. But we have the fund transfer at the back of this item and request approval for the $19,100 transfer for this project. And this is for our Water Use Department that we're currently working on. Okay. Any questions from the Diane? I have one, Madam Mayor. Do you anticipate that there might be additional, if it were, authorization? I just ask what you said, number one. To me, that sounds like it might be. And that's how it is written, of course. And it is number one. We've been working on this permit with Swift Bud for several years now. And as they learn more, they request and require different information. So I'm not going to tell you there couldn't be another one. Well, all you have to say to me is Swift Bud, right? Oh, I start sweating at that point. I don't have any other questions. Okay, thank you. So if there's no further questions, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comments. Anyone wish to speak on this particular item? Seeing none, I've closed the public comments. And? Thanks for motion. Second. I accept public motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Motion. Going along to 7E, the lift station, number nine bypass. And that is going to be also Deputy City Manager. Yes, ma'am. So right now we have a lift station over on Lake Engineers, the lift station number nine. We currently had $250,000 budgeted to start some engineering and some studies that work on that facility. We're going to need additional land over there for this system. Interim City Manager and myself will set up meeting with the property owner in the very near future. We're going to shoot for next week to get more property. But in general, we've requested the purchase of a bypass bump that we own. Right now we're spending approximately $103,000 a year just renting one. So we would group this up, what this request is for, at $143,574.51. And that will come out of the $250,000. It's already been allocated for that list station. Any questions? No. No questions. Okay, saying no questions. I'll go ahead and open it up for public comments. Anyone wish to speak on this particular item? Stand on our closed public comments and act for a motion. Motion for it. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion. Aye. So, this is going to 7F, ServTech Agreement for the Holly Hill Cutoff Road Surveys. And that is also Deputy State Manager. So, the request here is for ServTech, an agreement for the Holly Hill Cutoff Road. We're doing looks throughout the city, which loops our water lines together with existing lines, where now there's gaps, which causes increased water flushing. Also, it will help for the pressures and the quality of water and less flushing, which puts more water back into our account. So, instead of putting it on the ground, we can send it to the end users, the customers of the residents and the businesses. So, this is in the amount of $5,345. We need to do a survey. If we don't do this survey, the line won't, again, have a dead end. We'll have to stop it at a fire hydrant next to Diamond Acres Road. So, it won't really achieve the end result. Without this survey. So, that's what the request is from the commission. Okay. Any questions from the guys? Madam Mayor, I just want to make one comment. I think that the city manager has, you know, that kind of money in his pocket now. So, we don't need to pay anything. Whatever we need. Okay. No, I don't have any questions. Okay. So, if you know for the questions, we'll go ahead. I have a couple questions. Yes. Because I saw you said it was how much? How much you said it was? $5,345. Okay. And the amount obligated for that was $161. I don't know. From the overall? Yeah. And I'm sorry, Commissioner, I didn't see which pay were you at on that? This is on the capital project fund. You transfer and you said out of a one account. Oh, you're talking about from the transfer side. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you. So, yes. That was, that leaves a balance in that particular fund. You'll see that number in the bar column. Budget revised. Right. What's left in there will be $1,938 after this transfer. Will it be $1,000? $1,938 after this transfer. Okay. All right. I see it now. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. I appreciate it. Are there any other questions? Okay. We'll go ahead and open it up for public comments if anyone wishes to speak on this particular item. See you now. I'm going to go ahead and close the couple comments and act for it. Move for approval? Second. All in favor? All right. It's Garrett. What's the left? Thank you. Thank you. Tonight. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that motion was passed and will move along to 7G City Clerk Evaluation Discussion. And that is us, City Commission. That's the mayor. Vice mayor. Okay. So we would, I guess, open it up first for any questions, comments, concerns with the evaluations. I was the one who volunteered. It was my first time. But that's the next. That's the next. Yes, ma'am. This is just the evaluation discussion. Oh, okay. I think everyone should have received the score sheet. Yes. Yeah. And I do notice that the score sheet was corrected for a total average score of 3.93. So is there any questions? Yeah. I have a question. Is this an action item? I mean, what are we doing with this? Are we taking any action? Or are we making a motion to approve the evaluation? Looks like just a motion to approve the actual evaluation being that it was corrected from 4.72 to the actual 3.93. Okay. Yeah. I just want to make sure that those are what we're doing here. Well, I just have one comment, and that is with this evaluation that I know how we arrived at the overall average number. But moving forward, if a commissioner does not complete all of the sections that are on there, it really doesn't give an accurate account of what the number is. But we need to make sure, whoever it is, we only evaluate two people, the clerk and the city manager, that we fill in every one of those blanks with a number, if not a comment, and that we all complete the evaluation. Because when you don't, the numbers are not going to be correct. It's going to be based on what was turned in and what was filled out. Well, Commissioner Huffman, from looking at it, it looks like everything was filled out. I know I had questions on the part for additional duties as assigned. And so, therefore, you don't see a score there because when I reached out, I didn't get any clarification of what those duties are as far as additional duty. Like I spoke with HR. They said there was no additional duties. I spoke with the city manager's office. I was advised that there was nothing additional outside of the city clerk. So, to attest to that, I didn't feel like I really needed to score something if I was told that there was no additional duties to do, you know. Well, Madam Mayor, I wasn't told that you didn't do it. Well, no, no, no. I'm just saying because... In general, speaking that, that's what we need to do. Right. And maybe the city manager definitely, if our directors should know, some of these answers so that we can go ahead and finish everything. I'm just talking about moving forward the next time we evaluate, you know, running the next city manager, you know, after the year or whatever. And I completely understand that. It's just that I would say if there are any additional duties, then maybe that should come along attached with the evaluation form. So, that way we automatically know what those additional duties are that the city clerk is doing. But I did reach out to several departments and was just simply told. So, that's for when you look at, and I'm only speaking because if you look at the evaluation sheet, so that particular column I did not score because I was advised that, oh, there is no additional duties like that. She's assigned, which I do completely understand that the city clerk office is pretty much within itself. It's not under the city manager's office or anything else. So, but I wanted to know, like, hey, what additional duties maybe there was. So, in order for me to fairly grade, so therefore I did not submit any number because of that. But it looks like everyone else has graded her in every column. Yeah. Just as a comment or a joke. One of the other duties, city clerk, is making sure that we have food in the back. We have some meals. And, you know, now that I have a restricted diet, I'd like to see more fruit on there. So, that's other duties. So, you know, from seatbelt. Here's my question then. You know, if she doesn't have, which I think there's some additional duties, but if it doesn't qualify and meets the evaluations, who put this evaluation? Did this come from the HR department or did this come from our city clerk? You know, she should know her tasks and her duties. And, you know, if it doesn't fit the category, why is it even on there? When I look at additional duties, I look at, you know, maybe going to the rich legal cities, dinners and things outside the scope of her normal daily duties or doing other things that she don't do on a day. That's additional thing that she's doing. That's going to be in my eyes. And that's how I see it. But if it doesn't apply, why are you going to put it on there? That's it. This was exactly one of the comments that I had to both Commissioner Huffman and also to our city clerk was that when we have evaluation forms, especially for charter officers, you should probably collectively, whether it be HR, come up with an evaluation sheet that is tailored to the critical tasks and roles in which that charter officer is responsible for performing. And when you have – that's the problem when you have general forms is that you run into those questions or those situations where – and I completely understand where you were coming from. If I don't understand exactly what you're saying by additional duties, if there are none, how do I score them? Right. Right? So I can't give you a real score on something where there are – nothing exists, or at least at the best of my knowledge, it doesn't exist. And that might not be a category for a charter officer anyway to have. I mean, additional duties could be showing up at fundraising events. You know, who knows how you're going to define that without a definition. So that might be something that we look at as we move forward for certain positions within the municipality as potentially coming up with a specific set of criteria for that particular title, having it approved by the commission, and then incorporating it appropriately, whether it's HR, the agreement, however you go about doing that. That would be my recommendation. Thank you. Commissioner Johnson, any questions? No, I just want to say that Commissioner West, you brought this up. About two years ago, on the city manager, there were some of these questions that made absolutely no sense at all. And I forget who was the HR director, but I don't think it was Chandra at that time. But it just didn't make any sense at all. You had to, one of the things, how well do you get along with the city managers and other towns and all of this stuff. And you made that same comment then, and evidently it hasn't changed. Thank you. You're welcome. So if there's no further questions, I'll go ahead and open this up for public comments. If you would like to speak on the city clerk's evaluation, please come to the podium. Seeing none, I'll close public comments and make a motion. Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, I'll make a motion that we accept the evaluation of the department review as that is printed in front of us at 3.9.3.3.1. Second. Okay, properly motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passed. So going on to 7-H, First Amendment Agreement of Employment. And that is our interim city attorney. Thank you. Pursuant to the direction from the commission, I had multiple opportunities to have conversations, both collectively and individually, with both Commissioner Huffman as the liaison for the commission, as well as city clerk Sharon Louther. Based on those discussions, I provided a First Amendment to Agreement of Employment. I had to recreate this agreement because, unfortunately, we didn't have a forward version of the previous agreement that was entered into. So I do apologize for presenting you with something that looks completely different, although there is a great majority of the original agreement that is merely copied and pasted and incorporated herein. But when you review this, I'm sure that you were able to identify some of the more substantive changes. There was some discussion in regards to the use of a vehicle, having a city-owned vehicle available for use, as well as how much if the vehicle was not made available for use, of what would be provided in the form of a stipend, so to speak, or a monthly allowance. What I had done, in addition to changing the severance requirements, as discussed previously, that got changed to 20 weeks, which is statutory. You cannot exceed 20-week severance. But in addition to that, what I have provided as an exhibit to that agreement, and I'm sure that the interim manager is well aware of my Exhibit A, it is a release. So in the event that severance is paid to our city clerk for whatever reason, this release will essentially prevent any subsequent lawsuit from being filed against the city of Haines City once that severance has been accepted. And this is a condition of the severance being paid. There were a number of changes made throughout the document, but I stand ready to answer any questions that you have in regards to the document that was presented to you. I feel that this is, for a charter officer here in the city of Haines City, I feel this is a very well-put-together agreement. No pride in authorship, but we did have quite a number of discussions, and I received a lot of very good input and recommendations from both, the liaison as well as the city clerk, and this agreement reflects the requests that were made during those discussions. Okay, thank you. So we're going to go ahead and entertain discussion here. And since Commissioner Huffman sat in on the... I sure did. I was the liaison representative, first-timer. Let me just say that again. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. First-timer. I think that the first-timer is good. I realize that the city clerk has provided us what the salary range and all of that is. And I will tell you that I know that the $160,000 that she's asking for may not be passed. May not sit well with some of you wondering how my, you know, our liaison is talking about that amount. I believe that's 18%. But if you don't start where the others are, you'll end up keeping the same amount that you have. And I think that that is a discussion. One of the discussions to have is regarding the salary. Now, regarding the -- I just want to, Madam Mayor, hit the two points that is there. Regarding the vehicle, there's only -- and I can really appreciate what Terrell said, that he does the pool thing, whatever maybe development services does. But there are three charter officers. If we're expecting them to share a vehicle, you can't share the attorney because he has his own. And so that would then come to the other two charter officers being able to share a vehicle. I think -- I don't feel that it is unreasonable for a one-time payment of $45,000 for a vehicle. And I wish that Omar was here because he lives in Sebring and the city has been providing him with a vehicle as well. And he's not a charter officer as well. And those two vehicles -- not that I'm an expert on what they cost, but I believe they cost more than the $45,000. And the clerk would be able to pool within her clerk department for the car. So if we're going to be -- if we're going to follow the charter, then we need to recognize and be fair with the charter -- one of the charter officers, which is the clerk. And if we're going to be fair with the city. And if we're going to be fair with the charter officers, who we as a city purchase vehicles for and how far they live and the fact that we pay for the gas in it. We should not compare directors perks that the city manager gives them that we approve in the budget to a charter officer, which by me -- which the charter officers certainly -- the two charter officers certainly are -- I don't know the best way to put it, but I'll try to be nice -- is the fact that they are above -- a director. So that was my thought process with that car. So one time investment -- and again, not to keep repeating myself, but I'm old and that's what old people do. They just keep repeating themselves -- is that the finance director to be able to have a car, and he's just a director and a charter officer, to not be given $45,000 for a car. Okay. Well, Commissioner Huffman, at our budget meeting, you had to leave. So I'm not sure if you were aware that the car for the clerk was basically voted out. So it did not pass. They decided to strike that part within the budget. And I did mention about the pool cars. I also mentioned that all the commissioners should request, as I have already requested before and also requested again, to get a listing of everyone that has a vehicle here in the city. So when we go back into our budget meeting, since it's not on the agenda tonight, I don't want to get into that. But just to see who has the vehicles, how many vehicles we have, and who those vehicles are assigned to. And then we can decide whether or not, you know, if we're going to continue to buy vehicles, if we're going to go into that pool system. But that was the thing. My stance on not purchasing the city clerk, a vehicle, hasn't changed from last week to tonight. I'm still saying no to the actual car. And I don't think that the car piece was even in this because I believe it was probably drawn up after the fact. And because I went over it and I didn't see the car here. I did see a stipend in here, but nothing about the actual car itself. Now, and also in our charter, our charter doesn't state that we must provide our charter officers with a vehicle. There's nowhere in the charter that states that. So I think it's kind of been just the preference that, whether or not we do or we don't, as far as I think the city manager. But if you look back through the history of our city clerks, none of our city clerks have ever had a car before within the city. So this was, I don't know if it was even the first acts, but I do know that there has never been a city clerk that was provided their own car. Well, Madam Mayor, what the city clerk office had was an old, it wasn't, it was like a van. Do you remember, Commissioner West, if it was a van that the clerk department had? So the clerk department has had something. And you're right, I had left when you all had the discussion, but that was a workshop. Right, right. So it shouldn't have been any voting done at it. But when we do meet on the 29th, that's the time that we're going to vote on whether or not the $45,000 comes out or not. And I know you've asked for this before, who all has the cars. But hopefully we can get that list before the 29th. So we all will know at that point who has the cars. And you're absolutely right. The charter doesn't say that charter officers shall, could or whatever the verbiage is, have transportation. But that is what has been happening. The past at least three city managers that I have been here have had city cars. And that's, Jim has had a city car. Derek has had a city car. Dean has had a city car. So the city managers, I know that they have as charter officers. And I think that was like a van or something of some sort. It was really old that the clerk department did have. Okay. The clerk department currently has a Camry. They have a Camry now. So we'll move on. I just, and maybe that's for the attorney. And as I sit here, you know, I want to caution us that if we go forward with this without being the fifth person here, and we take action, and it becomes a two, it's going to fail. And then nothing's going to pass. So we have to be, that's why we have five of us. That way that the mayor is usually the deciding factor on which way it is going to go. So if we may take action, and if it ends up being a two, two, then nothing, no action can be taken on this item. I am requesting the way that we get, leave five of us here because this is an action item. It's a very serious item. And I'm quite sure she would like to know, have this action either pass or fail, because if it don't, we can't take no more action. And then it can't be brought back up because we both are on the losing end. And if I yield to the attorney on that, we have to be mindful and very cautious on what we do with this item here. That's a very good point. In the event of a deadlock vote, it would be a failed item. So if you're having discussion tonight and you feel it appropriate to continue this matter until the next public meeting, you are certainly welcome to do that. And that might be a safer, more conservative route to take. You don't want to take action. You've got to be careful here. What we're doing here is very dangerous because I'm telling you, it's very dangerous to the city clerk. You know, if it don't, we can't bring it back up. So I'm just cautioning you guys here. And my advice would be, we need to, and I know it's like kicking the can down the road, Fred Riley will always say. But I'm telling you, it's more important to kick this can down the road until we get five of us here than to have four of us. Because I'm telling you, it's going to be a disaster and we don't want that to happen. I did have a question. What he's saying is true. So I did have a question about something that she wanted and agreed upon, but you know, you can ask the question. Your allowance was $3.50 for a car, but it's increased to $6.50. So are we saying we want a $6.50 allowance and also take a car home or just a $6.50 allowance? So the way that it's currently drafted, it would be the $6.50 allowance. And then the clerk would have the right to use any available vehicle in the company or the municipalities fleet if it is available. It says it would be subject to availability. So what is being proposed alternatively is that there be a vehicle for the exclusive use of the clerk without limitations. And then the $6.50 allowance would go away. So it's one or the other. Yeah, because you can't do both. You can't do both. You can't do both. You can't get a line to get tickets. That's my way. Yeah, right. Yeah. I'm John. My recommendation is that if it's up to the pleasure of this commission to make sure we have five of us here when we make this decision, it's only fair to the city clerk. Because I have a lot of questions, but why ask the question and we really don't take any action tonight? You might as well say your question to all five of us here. We can't predict that, you know, that he wasn't going to be here. We didn't know that, but I think it's only fair to this body and to the city clerk and the hard work they put into it. They spent hours putting this together and then we can't, we take no action because we got a 2-2 or something that's just not good practice right now. Well, and I completely agree with you, Commissioner West, because I also have tons of questions. And so if it is at the liberty of the board, we could pull this item until our next meeting. We can just move it. Yeah, move it to the next meeting. Move it to the next commission meeting. Okay. And then it's best. Madam Clerk, can you see what they, would that be the second or second? We have to get, we have to get consent. We have to get the consent first. Yes. Well, I agree totally with you, Commissioner West. But waiting until the next commission meeting is going to be after the budget meeting. We can call a special meeting just to do this, to go over that. It don't have to be a commission meeting. We can call a special meeting. I'm just saying, like you said, kicking the can down the road, but we're going to be making a decision. Well, no, it's another workshop. We're not even voting on the budget until, what, the first meeting in September. That's right. So everything that we have is going to be a general discussion of a workshop. That's right. So by then, we should have the information, Madam Mayor, that you've been asking for, for the longest, to be able to know. We all should be able to get that information. I think that's a good question. My only exception is you can exclude fire and police on the page that you see to be. Because, you know, I got 911. Somebody had to get in the car and come see about me. So I don't care about the police and the fire. I'll just scratch mine off if some of the other ones want it. But that's not a concern for mine. It's more of the directors that are getting it. And you can put the charter officer in there, the interim city manager and the deputy city manager, but the charter officer won't take it. Anyway, police are fired. I don't want to, I don't care what y'all have or what y'all drive. Now, if you show up in a stingray, Chief Jackson, you're going to make me look bad. Just tell it. Okay. That's it. You can do it. It can be a fork. So we need to just get a consensus to move this over to the, is it going to be the July 2nd meeting? Because our budget meeting again is just the workshop. Right. Yeah. We don't take action. So we don't take action. So we would have to go with the July 2nd. I would recommend the commission. Right. Right. We're just discussing it right now. So, okay. So can we open that up? I think we're going to open that up for audience comments. Yes. And anyone in the audience would like to comment on this particular item, step to the podium. State your name and address. Seeing none, I'll close the public comments and ask for a motion. I'll make a motion that we move this item, move it to the next city council meeting at the next, I don't have a date, but the next city council meeting. July 2nd. July 2nd. Commission meeting. Second. Okay. It's been properly moved and second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. So this would be moved to July 2nd. Next on the agenda is the city manager's report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple things. First, the governor, I don't know if y'all saw this, but the governor put out a memo just recently that they're giving state, all state workers off extra days for the 4th of July. Since it's the 250th anniversary. I've gotten some questions about it. They're actually giving Thursday, Friday and Monday off. Obviously, we have a meeting on the 2nd. And I don't know that we want to consider or not, but I thought I would bring it to y'all's attention and see if y'all wanted to make a recommendation that way. Okay. And we're closed on Friday the 3rd, right? We are closed on Friday the 3rd. Okay. Well, I'm not going to interrupt you by the vice mayor. You know, we get June to June 9th. We do. Right. Some cities don't even give that off. Then we, last year, we approved September the 11th off too, which was another day off. So they get extra days. They just, you know, and just because the state's doing it, should we follow suit? No. But we give days that the state don't even give. So I don't, you know, I just think that, you know, we get extra days. And just because the state's doing it, should we follow suit? No. But we give days that the state don't even give. So I don't, you know, I just think that, you know, we get extra days. And just because the state's doing it, should we follow suit? No. But we give days that the state don't even give. So I don't, you know, I just think that, you know, we get extra days. And just because the state's doing it, should we follow suit? No. But we give days that the state don't even give. So I don't, you know, I just think that, you know, we get extra days. And just because the state's doing it, should we follow suit? No. Well, the July the third, they're off, though. I don't see no reason to have. The day, the, what, is that Thursday or Wednesday? They're getting Thursday and Friday. I don't know. I don't know. And Friday and Monday. They're getting Thursday and Monday. They're getting Thursday and Monday. Yeah, but the commission wants to do it. I'm okay with it. But I'm just saying, they get, our employees get other days off that other cities don't even get off. My, I'm sorry if I said it. No, no, no. No, no. I would pose this question to our director of Parks and Rec because I know they have to do a set up for our 4th of July. So having our employees off the day before, I would love to do that. But I know there's a set up that has to take place. So maybe it's a week long set up. I'm not sure what that looks like. We are a discussion. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. We all have to do it. Exactly. So that's what I was looking at. Okay. Okay. And, direct to Griffin, one quick question because the 4th of July celebration this year, the time was pushed back. It's also correct? Yes. Okay. So it's going to start at what time? At 5:00. At 5:00. Okay. Thank you. Well, Madam, does this apply to the fire department, people in the police department? I'm not talking about the brass right there, but I'm talking about their employees. So, if we give a holiday, if they are scheduled to work, they still have to work, but then they get paid for holiday time. If they're an employee, a general employee that doesn't have to work on that day, then obviously that is not an emergency worker that they would get that time off. So, it depends on their assignment. So, you and your deputy city manager, do you all plan to take that day off? Take those days off? Are you going to call me more? Well, we will be here on Saturday for sure. We're taking Friday off because that's a holiday for the employee. Me personally, we already have a meeting that's scheduled for Thursday the 2nd. So, I don't think we can take that off for sure. And as the commissioner stated earlier, we get several days that other communities do not get off, including even the county doesn't get it off. So, we do get a lot of days off, but just wanted to bring in everybody's attention. Well, I agree with what the other commissioners have said. I just want to make sure that you or James Keene is going to be available for my call on that Friday. My Facebook, we stream it for sure now, right? Together. My wonderful residents of the city of Hink City that messaged me with their concerns that I have one of you that I can reach out. I think both of us answer our phones. Okay. Okay. All right. So, Madam Mayor, I'm fine if we're doing the polling thing. That's the one. And for the employees, you know, that's all. I'm just agreeing with them because the majority rules, okay? I don't know. If I could do my one, you know, it'll be a little different for y'all that'll stream it in. And then, Marissa, Jeremiah, just so you know, I'm with you, but the majority will arrive, so I'm going to go over there. I just want to make sure. I don't know. It may be a 2-2. It may not be. The majority can be a 2-2. It's going to pass. I'm just joking, but no. That's it. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. Anything else? Yes. Just real quick. The flags that were purchased by former Commissioner Arroyo will be going up next week. And I have a short presentation that Chief Donna is going to do. We made a notification about the borderline. So when are we going to make that notification on the borderline that's going to be interrupted? For PRWC borderline? Yes, we need to. PRWC is working with Marissa to do that. Marissa, do you have those dates yet? No. We are going to be working with them to address that. Because I'm getting calls, and I'm quite sure the other one, and what's going on in that full counterferlough? They think we can read it to build up there. And you have to explain to them that's what I'm thinking there for our borderline. Right. We want to make sure we keep them informed of what's going on and put it on some of our schools. Well, Madam Mayor, I know you can't talk to the Mayor, but you have a Facebook page as well. If you can, I think you're all going to vote. Just find out from James or whoever. Who are you James? Oh, and that must be here. What the deal is, so you can at least put something out there, at least about the fertilizer plant. Yeah. All of the real details would really come from Commissioner West, because it's been on it the longest, but at least answer that question. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners. Good evening. In terms of city manager, I wanted me to provide some updates on the department. So just recently we received the new brush unit. So it was out front. I don't know if anybody's seen it, but it'll be in service in the next few weeks. It will double as a high water vehicle as well for any flooding incidents. Last month's incidents, we were at 721 for the month, and that was a 10% increase from last year at this time. And that we're projected to run about 8,500 calls this year. That's about 13% more than last year. Most of those calls, 60% were roughly medical, 3% fire, and about 30% were public service, hazards materials, things like that. Average turnout times are about 52 seconds. So that's time they were dispatched to time there on the road, meeting standards. And then average time to arrival on scene is about 7 minutes and 39 seconds. 51% of the calls are being run by a station one downtown. 36% are station two over by the police department. And station three of the new station at the UOC is about 13%. Regarding public relations, I know we were speaking last meeting. Our life safety division had 15 inspections, and they arrived to 12 different locations to install smoke detectors. Other than that, and that's not it. We did complete our ISO review, and that should be coming out in the next few weeks to months. Definitely is some improvement, so that will be to be determined. That's all I have. Thanks, Chief. Hey, on June 24th, you were doing a CPR/AED class. Yes, it's a hands-only, so there's no certification. Right. But it's an instruction. Good. I think that's great. We've run several, and we're getting some very good feedback. And the classes fill up like that. That's good. Very good. And the preliminary feedback that we got on the ISO is that we should be dropping, which means what for our citizens? So, with a lower rating, obviously that's reduced insurance premiums for the citizens and businesses. So we are currently a four. We don't have an exact number, but basically it's a picture of our department, whether it's training, firefighters available, equipment such as engines, aerials, things like that. We met all of our standards that is in our control. With training, we're 100%. We did some changes last year to begin that. I prepared for this. So it was a lot of work put into it, but we should see some improvement. We don't have an exact number. And I believe I was told that if we get a one-point drop, that's about a million dollars overall. Yes, we can run the numbers on that, and we will. But it will be significant savings spread out. We'll see. Be good. Now what is ISO? It's the insurance service office. So all the fire departments need to get rated. And that will be our score for that time period. Well, hang around. I'm going to blow some sunshine away from my comment. I hope so. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay, thank you. City Clerk's report. Yes, I just have one item. With looking at the budget, the city commission voted to have the voting module. Remember, two years ago, so that you could have two individual votes on your iPad, and then the results would show up on screen. We never got full training done. Some of you wanted it. Different commissioners now in the seats. Some of you did not. So I wanted an consensus as to do we want to keep this. It's a very large cost just to maintain it and we're not utilizing it. Madam Clerk, I thought, and permission was correct me if I'm wrong, but we discussed that and we voted against using that. So, we already made that decision. Okay, so I just want to make it clear then I'm not going to renew that portion of the module. Okay. Thank you. That's all I need to know. Thank you. You're right, Madam Mayor. Because I was one that said, I can say yeah or nay for free. No. I just wanted to make sure that we were already in the middle of the year. But, Madam Mayor, she's right. We did say no. Okay. But you can have my iPad or whatever. Got it. Okay, thank you. Anything else? That's all I have. Okay. City attorneys. Oh, no, I have one more thing. I'm sorry. Yes. The closing for the city manager applicants is next week, the 26th. I have faded a spreadsheet. Right now we're at 41 applicants. Most of you have received the majority of them. Some of you have even given me your top five out of what you've received. I just wanted to know if you wanted to look at the calendar to start setting up a date to discuss what you have, pulling your top five, where you're going from that, or you just want to wait until the closing date and then have this discussion. Okay. Thank you. And you want to insist on that tonight, or? You can just think about it. You can reach out to me. We still have time. You know, we're still a whole week and a half out before it closes, but I just wanted to kind of put that on your radar that that closing date is approaching and then the next step. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. On the city attorney's report. I have nothing substantive to add to the nice people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Commissioner's comments. We'll start with Commissioner Hoffman. Okay. All right. Get that sunshine ready. I'm going to blow toward the fire department. Thank you so much, Cody, for Chief Cody. I want to say Donna Hughes so bad, so that's why I just say Chief Cody. So your Facebook page is so exciting to see that you are doing things all over the neighborhood for the kids and the fact that you're also giving great customer service with helping install those fire. Don't expect me to blow sunshine your way, Chief Jackson. It ain't going to happen. But to see the actual pictures of your team, you know, installing those smoke detectors, that definitely could save some lives. So y'all just keep doing great things that you're doing. I'm so proud of you. I'm glad nobody has been hurt. And if, you know, my husband is the cook in the house, if he has a grease fire, my car catch on fire, first thing I'm going to do is dial 911. The second thing is call you because I know I'm going to get excellent service from your team. But somehow I just think that if the boss is there, it's going to be extraordinary service that is there. That's what it tells me. Jeremiah, God bless you. Trying to fix this stuff that we have been complaining about. And you were the hero at the ethics committee to be able to come in there and take care of things there as well. And to the police department, to the public safety director, I want y'all to know that I'm glad to know that, you know, the numbers look good. I've already had a conversation with Chief Jackson. And I will tell you, Madam Mayor and Commissioner Johnson, do not expect to get pictures with Chief Jackson until maybe you are the mayor or the vice mayor. Because he don't put on his stripes for anybody. I took a picture with him at the last meeting and I haven't seen the picture since then. So I wanted to let you know that. Chief, Deputy Chief Moran, thank you for the information that you gave me about Alta Vista School that people had been asking. I wasn't going to blow much sunshine your way until I remembered that every time Sheriff Judd would come to Haines City for an evening event, you stood at those doors like you were his secret service. And so I knew if he called on you, you must be able to really shoot so you get grace and blowing sunshine your way. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Now, my last thing is to the city manager. I don't, I'm not, I don't know how you, you, you, and I say you because you're over the finance director. How do you expect any of us as representatives of the taxpayer can go sit at the table at these meetings to pay $10 to allocate $10 to us for breakfast. And I'm talking about the diplomat or whatever. I can't imagine what y'all have to pay going to Washington, D.C. But $10 for breakfast is not enough for me. And so this needs to be increased. We still have time at the next meeting to let's bring this up. Let's be realistic. Call down there and ask them to fax you their menu and you'll see what's going on. Cause this is just, you're not that I eat a lot, but $10 just is not going to get it for breakfast and for lunch and $30 for dinner. Really I'm going to have to almost break the sunshine line and, and you know, go and split the dinner with, uh, with Madam mayor or one of the other commissioners here. Cause $30 is not going to get it for, I eat a lot for dinner. It's not going to get it. And I would like for you to talk with your finance director to see how this can be, uh, corrected and not just for, because I finally am traveling going to, the diplomat, but I'm concerned about the other commissioners going to these cities where they have no control over, uh, what these restaurants and stuff, uh, cost. It's time. I, so I've said enough of that one. Thank you, Madam mayor. Thank you, commissioner Huffman. Um, commissioner Johnson. Oh, I have much to say, but I definitely want to give some kudos. She threw sunshine. Fire department is where I gotta, I gotta, I gotta throw it to people. I gotta throw it the PD way as well. I was at an event at the Lake even event center for an amazing, a wedding. But while the wedding was going on, there was, uh, cops and flops or flops and cops or something like that going on, which was, uh, standing room only because the kids were everywhere and we reached a capacity and I was in a ball gown, but I want to be in flops and shorts as well to join. And so I just want to tell them. Thank you. Thank you so much for thinking of, uh, the children community. I'm not sure how much it is to get into the pool, but to get into the pool free that day was, was an amazing feat. I think they wanted to come again. And so, uh, thank y'all for what y'all are doing. And also, um, had a conversation with a fellow fire chief and he asked me, did I support our fire department? I said, definitely. And he just raved about, uh, fire, uh, our chief of fire. So I want to thank you all. And then our director of public safety. Um, I see that he sees the vision of our fire department and our police department. He's pushes them. I always say, you know, I use little colloquialism like a tush push. So thank you for, um, for doing that and making us look good. Cause when we look good, you know, y'all look good. You know what D on center says about that. So we want to make sure you guys always look the best and you always make us look good as well. So thank you for all that you do. Um, you're always in my prayers. Uh, all the staff are always in my prayers as well, as well as our admin staff. I call the admin staff upstairs the penthouse people. And so I just want to let you know that. Yeah, I said it. The pent, the penthouse people. And so, um, you're all in my prayers and all that we do. So that's all I have. I speak for today. Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner West. My name is Sharon Garrett. I live off Cobb. That's a good one. And I have three minutes. Okay. Um, no, I just want to, she always, I have to miss with Ms. Garrett, but you know, I just want to say in echo off what Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Huffman said, you know, it goes all the way back to just the staff in general. You know, I, I, I, my heart goes out to a lot of them and we can't pay a lot of our, our, our staff that's down in those manholes, those out there mowing that grass and all, you know, and it's hot out there. And I was looking at the weather where heat indexes at 103. You know, it's, and I'm, and I'm thinking in my prayers that, you know, these, these individuals that, and I always look at them as the grease in the middle of the machine. They keep this city going, you know, and I'm really, my hats off to them and I know we can't pay them what they're worth, you know, and it's sad to know that maybe in November we'll be facing a crisis when it comes down to the alarm taxes situation where we're going to even be in a bigger crunch and bigger situation that we got to handle, you know, and then we got to still maintain all of these employees here to make sure that they don't jump ship because we have to cut someplace and we don't want to do that. So every day, you know, my heart's impressed goes out to our staff, their family, you know, insurance is through the roof and a lot of them here just, you know, they work for just insurance, but believe it or not, whether, because that's how they got to keep their, their family going. Yes. So keep in mind, we, it's a lot of things going to be happening within the next six or seven months. And I just want y'all to keep that in mind. We're not going to talk about it, but y'all know what I'm referring to. So, but that's all I have and y'all have a happy and safe, you know, tomorrow you're off. We should celebrate the Juneteenth 1865 Galveston, Texas. So we'll see you and take care. Thank you, Commissioner West. And I also feel the same sentiments as everyone else said that police and fire is definitely moving in the right direction. And believe it or not, we are getting more compliments than complaints. And I'm always happy to hear that. And just on Saturday at the Hispanic Expo at the Lake Evo Center and just heard so many great things. And then I'm following you on Facebook as well for the events that I was unable to make and just seeing how the kids are having fun. So just thank you guys and definitely keep the momentum going. Keep moving in the right direction. And as Commissioner West stated, we're going into some trying times. It's going to be the commission has to make some tough decisions up here within the next month or so. So, so our prayers is for everyone. And that's truly it. Nothing else more to say tonight. Again, just as a reminder that there is the Juneteenth Gala on tomorrow night. And then there's the Freedom Festival that is a free event on Saturday. And that's, is that going to be, Commissioner Johnson, is that going to be, she said inside. So is that Lake Eva? That's Lake Eva at 4:00. Okay. So it's being moved to the inside at Lake Eva for those who would like to attend that particular event also on Saturday. And then I just wish everyone a safe weekend. Enjoy it with your families. And if we have nothing else, I'll have a motion to adjourn. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Madam Mayor, I think you did a good job tonight. Thank you. I know you were a little nervous, but you warmed up. Okay. So I just wanted to give you your photos on that. Thank you so much. So motion to adjourn. I'll hear it.

. . . Good morning. Today is June 9th. The time is now 9.03 and we will call the City Commission Budget Workshop to order. First on the agenda is the Capital Project Workshop discussion. And we have Lord Stewart presenting. Good morning, Vice Mayor and Commissioners. Welcome to Workshop No. 1 for this fiscal year. You guys are up for a challenging season ahead of you, obviously with all the legislative proposals and requests that are coming up. And we'll continue to just kind of go through that process alongside you guys through this. For today's workshop, we've created an agenda. Again, just as a guide, you guys will kind of dictate where we go through this conversation. The intent of today is to go through capital requests. So beginning with the general fund, we'll go department by department on all the requests that we have for this year. Then we'll transition to the utility fund and then end up with stormwater at the end. In front of you, you should have two packets. The first one has this large 11 by 17 page. And I want to just reference the third page of that document real quick. And that just gives you an overall summary. So it should look like this as yellow at the bottom with red numbers. So this right here is where we're starting out the budget. So you can see here the general fund, utility fund, and stormwater fund. Each one of them right now starting with a deficit. General fund right now, $29,010,199 in deficit. Utility fund, $34,830,000 in deficit. And stormwater fund, $319,750. Obviously a big bulk of that is this is including all of the capital requests and operational requests submitted by the directors. As we go through today's conversation and you hear each project, we'll be listening in and kind of tracking with you guys items that you agree with, items that you disagree with, items that you want to cut. And we'll continue to keep a tabulation as we go through today's workshop. So again, just kind of wanted to set the stage of where we 're starting and then where we need to go is to get to a balanced budget. One of the legislative items that came out this year as part of a house bill is now every season we have to post a 10% budget cut scenario, right? And for this year, it kind of ends up being a perfect storm for us because a $10 million cut to the general fund is $7. 8 million. And it's the same amount that we're expecting to lose with the homestead exemption. So going through this scenario, my recommendation is let's try to balance the budget first. And then once we get to that balanced budget, let's go through that hypothetical $8 million cut and see which items you guys would like to, again, is that operations? Is that capital? Let's kind of have that conversation as a phase two because it will kind of lead us into next year. Here's my question here quickly. So now what you're saying to this commission that we're going to probably need to do two budgets. Correct. You know, go do what if. In November, we don't know. Right. So January 2027, all of this we're doing now, maybe no more because we have to do a total. So we're going to prepare two budgets now. Basically correct. And now it's legislative required. Before it wasn't, but that 10% cut scenario has to now be posted on the website before final adoption, 14 days before final adoption. But just to be clear, we do not believe that this current budget will be affected by that vote in November, that it will take effect. It said January 2020. Right. It takes effect in January, but that means you've got to be preparing for the next budget year that's coming up. So that is what it looks like, but we've not gotten confirmation on that yet. Right. Okay. So the hypothetical, again, will be for a future year's budget. This year, phase one should be let's balance it based off what we have and the revenues. We've gone ahead and included, you know, as part of this packet, phases three and four, and we'll come back to those , is the millage increase. We received uncertified values June 1st. And based off those values, we think there's going to be about a $2.4 million increase in taxable revenues this year . So we've gone ahead and built that into these numbers with the deficit that you see here today. So. Or you really think that 10% of our tax, our ad valorem, comes from $150,000 and less? So right now that would be about 30%. So our total ad valorem right now is $30 million. So $10 million of that is we're estimating we're going to lose up to the $250,000 exemption. We'll lose $8 million at the $150,000 based on our calculations. I thought the $250,000 was 2023. Correct. So we're projecting $8 million first year and then another $2 million in that second year in 2028. So $10 million loss overall. Right. But I'm just concerned that the houses that they're ad val orem, that the value is $150,000 or less. And hypothetically speaking, in case the county property appraiser is listening in, I seriously doubt that there is going to be in 2028 that many houses that are going to be valued at $250,000 or less. I think they're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. I think they're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. They're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. They're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. They're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. They're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. They're going to be valued at $250,000 or less. So that the county doesn't lose much money as well. My house was built in 1978 and is valued at $275,000 now. Right. And so hypothetically speaking, if you're watching the county appraiser, I can only see that going up. I do not see them reducing property. Right. And I agree in that scenario. Your $280,000 home, by the statute, it could go up a maximum of 3% per year. So the property appraiser, even if it wanted to assess it at $350,000 or $400,000, it cannot legally do that. It's capped by the Save Our Homes Act within the legislation. So it's maxed at 3%. But for your bill, that $280,000 assessment will remain the same. You'll receive a $150,000 exemption. Year one, $250,000. So the taxable value will go down to about $30,000. And that's what you'll pay tax on. So our formula kind of builds those factors in. And because there's so many homes in that $200,000, $300, 000, and that revenue is now going to be lost, we're projecting that $8 million loss in year one, which is next year, right? It's not this budget season. It's next budget season. But by doing that 10% scenario cut now, we can go ahead and know what's the commission's direction and desire as we forecast for that next fall of the year and those impacts that are to come. Well, have staff looked at and talked about how we're going to recruit the difference when we get to that $250,000? Because we've got to make that money up somewhere. Right. But if not, then we're going to have to cut staff or can't hire police or fire. So have you even talked about maybe how we're going to reca pture the money that we're going to be losing after the $250 ,000 coming into place? So right now there's little guidance from the state. Obviously, they're pushing this initiative forward without giving municipalities a lot of guidance on what to do. Obviously, sales tax has been a conversation, but we don't know how that's going to be distributed. Internally, we've had conversations about non-avalorum assessments and what that looks like. Again, is that a desire of the commission that they want us to pursue these different revenue sources like a non-aval orum assessment, right? Because now, again, all it's becoming is a tax shift, not a tax savings in this case. And we're kind of contradicting what the state's doing. But, again, there's a funding deficit that we need to account for. So we're kind of looking for direction. Obviously, internally, we've been thinking about that. We have the FGFOA conference next week. I would expect that this is going to be a large conversation at that conference for all the finance directors. I know Terrell had a FBRA meeting this week as well. It was just telling me how concerned all municipalities are with this legislative proposal and the impacts that it's going to have. Not only that, I just came from the Florida Legal Cities Board of Directors meeting, and that is a huge concern for all 411, 12,000 municipalities. So it is a big issue. It's something that we can't take lightly. Just, again, today's conversation doesn't include CRA in any of your documentation. That will be on its own budget. Obviously, we'll incorporate that at the end as part of the overall. I say that just to say that, again, that $8 million loss to the city, but there is going to be about a $4.4 million loss to the CRA if this goes into play, right? Because all those homestead properties that are in the CRA also will take a hit. So just trying to paint the framework right now for you guys to have this information as we continue to go through the budget process. So today, I think our biggest challenge is trying to get the capital in line to balance this budget. Obviously, in the next budget session, we'll talk about operating line items and what that looks like. But we're going to start with the general fund. We're going to go department by department. We're going to be in this general fund capital workbook that kind of gives you department by department and has page number references. Which one of these books? There's the one that says general fund. Say it. Say it. Say it. Both of them say general fund. But before you get started, I want to tell Commissioner West I absolutely agree with him. This is like 2008 all over again. Correct. So where you all are just hiring all these people, Lord, I think that you need to be thinking twice about hiring extra people that you may have to stay as great as you are. You're just going to have to go somewhere else and be great . Because that's my concern. That's my concern with what I see now. That there are some departments that are hiring all this extra staff. And I personally do not feel that it is needed at this time . So I agree with you, Commissioner West, on hiring people because you feel you need an extra person to stand in line at the cop machine that somebody's going to have to go. And I don't want to see anybody go. But it's going to be a tough job for you, Lord, to have to let, you know, some of, like, your good people, your favorite people, the ones that you like, may have to, like I say, go and be great somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things with this budget cycle that we did last year and the plan is to do this year as well as every position request will come before the commission at the next meeting. So you guys will be driving right now the ship of which positions get included and which ones don't, which was the way we did it last year as well. So you guys are dictating what new positions get added. Again, taking into consideration, these numbers right here do not reflect any new position requests at all. So just starting with the capital requests, I think the easiest page for reference is page. It's in the table of contents and it begins with page 12. It's capital improvement plan by department. So here this, again, this shows you the general overall look of all the capital requests showing right around $34.5 million in total requests. First department on this list is the police department and they have two items. The first is a public safety complex for $20 million. And the second is vehicles replacement for patrol at $595, 000. Each one of these items has a individual page that kind of gives more explanation in case you guys, again, if you are comfortable with it, we can move on, ask questions. We can bring the police chief up to have more conversation or we can continue to proceed through the capital requests as you guys see fit. Walmart, they want a public safety complex. Where is this going to be? And what are they going to do with the existing police department? I don't know. Do you have land that? I don't know where this land is. So this actually will go, we're looking at between power line and Baker Dairy, you know, where the new public's is. Right behind there where I think we have about, if I'm not mistaken, 30 acres. So we're asking for 10. But keep in mind, this is a complex, not just for police department, also fire department. So we're looking for 10 acres out of the 30. So 20 million is your part of it and 80 million is the fire department. No, ma'am. So I guess I kind of spoke for Cody and myself as part of this building. So it's basically the 20 million votes into that one building for police campfire. What are you going to do with the existing fire department? I mean, police department. Right now there's been talks of making it one, maybe a substation. And that's another conversation that we'll have to have with the director and also team manager. We're looking right now making it a substation. And this will help with also response time on Highway 27 and everything else. So one of the biggest parts of the substation. Mayor Smith, I have one last question. Yes. And that is, I think that it's good to have a new complex out there on the east side because there's so many developments. There's about, I don't know, 14,000 homes that are there. Yes, ma'am. But I am very concerned at the fact that you're going to make the 127 a substation when you have Chandler Ridge, West Ridge, Fredo Grande. You've got all of those that are there. You've got Randa Ridge that's there. You have the new super center area that is there. You've got a lot of commercial that is there. And the response time coming away from our line, it concerns me if you're going to make that a sub. So I think. It's different. Okay. But while he said it's a substation, there still will be folks there. Now more than likely, you may have a detection from that. Maybe it's somebody in other areas. In the new area, we're looking at putting fire and the police there. Apparently, fire is having a common form of the police there. We know that you have a specified time that the fire has to make it to the scene where you're going to die. Apparently, we have a question about that now. It's 45 minutes for police. That's what the dispatchers did. No, no, no, no. It's like firecrackers. That's the other hardest thing. We've got to get you there within eight minutes. We're on the last one. It's kind of agreed. And where we're at now? Let's start. We've got to agree with our parties. The police standpoint is we need to kind of put police in that area. We're going to be able to do that. I was there for them. But is police working out there? Because there are a lot of homes up in that area. I think I'll public safety directly. Speak to this, but at this time, they are not. No. We've got no police working out in the U.S. And I think one of the things that's different about fire and police is that fire response to something that's in progress from the fire station unless they just happen to already be out on the road working something else. Whereas police, they're in their cars and that's their office. So their office is spread out all over the city. So their response time is based on where the administration has put them throughout the city to respond to those. I don't have a problem with police. I don't have a problem with police. I have a problem with, I mean, with fire. I don't know if Cody's there. I can't. He's there. Oh, okay. But I do have a problem with 45 minutes for police. Because if someone is breaking into my house or somebody has shot half of my family and they're looking for me, next in a closet somewhere, 45 minutes is a long time. And if you are way out there on power line and Baker or Johnson or wherever this is, your response time is important as well. Absolutely. Because if my house is not on fire but my life is in danger , I don't want to hear 45 minutes to get to me. And we understand that and that's the reason why it. Give me one second. If I may, I think to speak to that point, I don't believe, and Chief and Director can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe the request is to completely remove law enforcement's presence from the current station. I think with the growth that we have, the number of officers that we currently need to be able to accurately protect and serve our city with the land that we recently purchased, I believe during those initial talks when we approved it, it was that it could be a future home for law enforcement, being that we have so many residents that are coming up in that area. I think that one subdivision alone is almost the size of a small city right now. So I think it's extremely important, number one, to make sure that we can accurately have a command center up the place for all of the officers, for training and other things like that. But we still have that presence on Highway 22. So it's not to eliminate that. It's just to expand, to accommodate, you know, the growth there. Yes. For the record, let me state that as a law enforcement professional, if it takes us 45 minutes to get to the emergency call, we 've got a problem. We have a big problem. Okay, but that's what the dispatcher says. I'm going to be surprised to say it takes 45 minutes before we get there. Commissioner, I think that just dispatcher, they say that on all those calls that, you know, because I think what happens when you call the county and they tell you, you know, give us four, they say that because it will be like, hey, they said four to five minutes, but they got there in three minutes. But they just give you that. But I don't think, it should take four to five minutes response. No worry. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. But, Mr. Mayor, can I be recognized? Yes. But, quickly, you know, like I said, I'm from the law enforcement profession as well, and thank you for your service. I know what it's like on the other side, wearing that uniform. But, have you looked at the stats and how many calls for service have you all responded to in the east side of town? I haven't heard. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. I haven't heard of the police. department out on 27. Many years ago. For a reason. Because that's where all of our traffic was. But we didn't anticipate the growth being. You know on the east side of town. Not saying that you don't need another location. You do because response time is the key. I would just like to know from my seat. How many calls have you responded for. Police and fire in that area. Since you know we've started developing. East of the Payne city. That's some information I can get to you. At a later date. I don't know. Yeah. And I think that helped us to say. Hey. We've had 800 calls over there. That's justification. You need to be over there. You know. And I can understand that. But if you only had. Four calls over there. And we're going to put a whole public safe. In some place. You only had four calls. Well. I'm just using that hypothetically. No. We've got it. Yes sir. I just discussed that right there. Okay. We know. The calls to the surface. There is a need for. And that's what we said. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And we're going to do a lot of things. And that's what we're going to do. And we're going to do a lot of things. And we're going to do a lot of things. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this last year. And it's a 50% increase this year. Yeah. But in reality, you understand, because you all respond to EMS calls also. The majority of them could have been ES assistant type calls. And it wasn't house fire type calls. They were just EMS assistants. Yeah. And in any situation, house fire is only going to be true. Right. That's right. No matter where you're at. 80% of what we do is medical. And currently, we'll be at BLS. We'll move it to the EMS. We'll take care of our staff. I understand. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Mayor Smith, may I be recognized? Amen. I think what Commissioner West just said, that's why they needed it. Because we didn't anticipate the growth for 27. And now, that was when we probably had 11,000 people. Right. So now we're up to 50. So I don't want us to be reactive. I think we need to go ahead and plan ahead of time and be proactive. Because we're not going to stop growing. If we have 2,500 families a month coming to Polk County, can you imagine what's going to happen? And over there, what is that, Massey Road? That is a whole little city by itself. Oh, that Powerline Road. I'm talking about Massey right now. Oh, hey, on 27? Yeah. That's a whole little city itself. Then on Powerline Road, we see the leaps of bound and growth that it has. So I do applaud them for seeing the vision ahead of time. And we don't want to be reactive. And we want to be proactive in all that we do. We're definitely growing. I'm not saying you don't want to just anticipate. No, let's go ahead and get it. Yeah. And we'll thank you. Another piece of that, the building that we're in, it's definitely outdated. Our property and evidence area definitely needs to be rev amped. We have some ventilation problems in there. I know when the director first got there, he smelled something that I didn't smell because I was there so long. So we're definitely outdated. I think it's time. Well, I can tell you what's outdated, the fire department behind the police department. I think that was a terrible location that we operate out of a trailer. That's why the fire calls there. That is, I'm being real. I was embarrassed when we did the tour. And I don't know about my count, my seat mates, when we went out there. Did y'all have witnessed that? Yes. We should have been relocated our fire someplace. If I may, just one quick question here. I know before we acquired that land, had there been any due diligence done to see if there was any additional property on Highway 27. No sir, not for fire. No, are you speaking for police or fire? For police. No sir, not for fire. But Mr. Mayor, I'm not against that. I think it's proactive and I agree with Commissioner Johnson that it's proactive and there's a vision and it's going into a capital project. You know, we can expand our capital project over. That's what we did with the Lake Eevee event center. That became a capital project that we have for the next 20, 25 years. So, in this need, we're growing. We're not going to stop the growth here. We're not even probably landlocked. We're surrounded by other municipalities, but I think our growth is going to be anticipated on somewhere. I read by 2045 we're going to be probably 70-something thousand people here in the city. I don't have an issue with the public safety building going over there, but I do have an issue where we're going to have all of our administration over there. I think that if we did anything, you split your administration over. You have the chief over here, but you have your deputy chief over here. That's a big building. That's the plan, sir. Sorry to cut you off. That is the plan. We're actually looking at some report right now. Okay. So, that's also part of the plan that we just built in. Okay. Yeah. I'm not opposed to them going to get a public safety building. I think if you have a city here, we're going to continue to grow. Mr. Mayor, may I be recognized? You may. Okay, thank you. And I also agree to move forward with this because I think you mentioned it as well, that when we discussed and we purchased this property, we entertained the ideal for police, fire, and also possibly an event center on that side of town. I am all in favor of police and fire going there. I know we do have 30 acres and you're only standing for 10 to be police and fire, so it still gives us opportunities to do other things. But rather or not, even if we need more, just to house police and fire there and then whatever else, I think we definitely should move on because move on forward with this because this is something that is very needed. During the tour, I got a contact while I was out there and just laying. But we didn't smell it, so we do know that we need something bigger and better and also for fire like Commissioner West stated. So if we can definitely get this rolling and I'm all in favor of police and fire going on that property. Mayor Smith. Mayor Smith. Yes. I never said I was not in favor of this. I'm all about public safety. And what I said was my concern that there's not going to be police, enough police sent, enough police to cover 27 up to the fire station. And there are quite a number of houses and townhouses that are behind the hospital. And just think about Lake Heather Hills itself and all the businesses that are up there. So that's where my concern is that there is, you say you're only going to have detectives there on 27. I just, that's my concern is that we also need to, maybe it 's going to be next year, Omar, but we need to have some police presence up there on 27 for all those houses as well . Um, because, um, trying to make that left turn and go north off of 27 from where you are now, all the residents don't always stop to get there. And everything is not burglary that is there. Now I'm not saying the building was old where y'all moved into that building. But I want to see something up there on 27 because that's where we have a lot of our businesses. Uh, speaking of the hospitals, somebody had a gun. Are you saying different from the area that's on 27 now? Different from power line. Approved power line. But something needs to be up there on 27. Let's not forget it. The plan is to keep 27 again as a substation. That comes with the reward. That will bring us more officers as well. There will be some detectives. There will be some detectives. There will be some folks as well. Now remember, as you said, the gold officers don't work out a station. They work out a different home body. And we want them to be out on the road and road men preventing crimes from the curb. Now you said you want additional friends, stay tuned. Because we intend to ask for additional resources. Not because we want to. It's because, most of the day, quite frankly, I'm new here and looking at the population and what we should have. We're behind because we have max laws as they should in the last five years. So we're asking for some to really justify more if we get to serve them. Thank you. Okay, good. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you. One additional question for the police patrol vehicles. How many vehicles are you looking to purchase? Because I don't show that here. On that one, it says 10. And that was actually was implemented before I actually got to see what we do. We need those. And it's, you're talking mileage on old vehicles. So we're looking to swap those out. And also with that, we're looking to outfit all the vehicles with decals and lights and everything. That's just one of the things. Okay, thank you. And that was going to be my next question. With this amount, the amount that you're asking, does that entail for everything for outfitting the vehicles? Yes, ma'am. Or just the purchase? Yes, ma'am. To include the radios and everything else. Okay, thank you. Quickly again, Mr. Mayor, can I be recognized? Thank you. I understand a necessity for law enforcement and for public safety. But you know, public safety don't generate money for municipalities. You know, it's a cost. Fire and police don't generate money. What I'm looking at, if you look at it, I think it says $34 .5 million that go into public safety. You know, and as we don't know the what is, what's going to happen with the avalorm taxes. You know, I know we want to get all the bells and whistles, but we got to be face reality. We may not be able to now. You know, because to me, you know, you may look at parks and rec and say they're not important to the police, but we got to fix the rolls. We still have a, we can't take our entire budget and put it all in police and fire. We'll love to, but they don't generate income. It's a cost. That's our biggest cost is police and fire. 34.5 million of this budget. That's more than almost half of the whole budget. So, and I know what, it's a one. You got to understand, it's a difference between a one and a need. You know, I may want 15, 20 more officers. Is there a need or that's just a one based on the stats. You know, that's why I asked earlier, if you can come back, give me some stats to see why we need this many officers. Then we can justify that because we're in a crunch time now that this commission got to figure out where they're going to cut or where they're not going to cut. Are they going to stand still for a little bit? So we got to be, we have to be commissioned. We got to be very careful on what we, decisions that we make here because we have other departments that we got to satisfy. We can't, and I love to, I'm a former law enforcement officer. We can't, but the 34.5 million, that's just the total of all the departments. No, if you look at the blue, look at the blue dot on each department. It's blue. You see the blue that's shaded? And then the remainder of the other one, they color coded. Right. But if you take a look, there's a breakdown. Right. I'm looking at it. Right. So the 30, 34.5 million, that's everything for all the departments for the total capital. Because they don't get the base job. Right. Because they have the base job. I understand what you're saying. So, but, but, but the whole budget, you said that's 34 million. The whole pie is 34.5 million. Just for the capital. Okay. But how much is that? Yeah. That blue is law enforcement and public safety. The blue is all law enforcement. It's 24. 20 million. Oh, 20, 20. Yes. So it's 20 million. 25, 95. Correct. 25 million. Okay. I just want to. I just want to go by the percentage. It says it's 59%. 59.6. Of the budget. Of that 34. See, that's what I'm saying. That's over half of this whole budget. And we got, we got public, we got public safety. We got to keep pumping when they flush them toilets. We got to make sure that stuff is still functioning. I understand that we need police and fire, but we also need that toilet to be working for people. Certainly. May I also add, I know you're, you're saying that it's a one, but this request is definitely beyond all the people. Beyond a one is definitely a need when we're looking at our population. Right. Every thousand. That's why I'm asking for some stats. Give me something to show me. I can tell you this right now. For every thousand, we should have 2.3. Okay. And that's what I'm looking for. We're looking at right now with the city, we're looking at about 44,000. We actually should be operating at a number of about 109. Yeah. Looking at a population growth for next year, about 47 feet . So we should be going up significantly with that number. So now with our actual ask and request, we should be requesting about 45 officers. We're actually looking for 25. Can y'all give us some, can y'all provide, I don't know if they may not want it, but I'd like to see those numbers in real time. Can y'all send them to me? I have it right now. Yeah. So the reality of this, while the request is looking at the current population, it's going to be 109. Currently we only have 64 officers. Right. I just didn't have that to look at. That's what I'm saying to you. I needed something to do to comparison to say, hey, this is a need. Right. You know, I'm just going by phone number, but I don't know the breakdown on why you need these. That's my name. And real quick, just a moment. And while Chief is passing that information out, because we don't know, we know they're going to be cut more than likely coming in this upcoming budget. So I think right now, the question you asked, are very well structured there. Because since we don't know it, while we do have these funds available, I think it's important that we go ahead. Number one, I think we need to assess whether it's being deemed for our residents right now as far as the safety goals or is it because of growth. If we think about it, we know that the growth is still going to come and may slow down. So, but we're still going to have that growth. We need to make sure that we're allocating the funds for it while we do that. And Commissioner Huffman, you may break it. Thank you. I just want to say that I believe, Commissioner West, that if we were able to have an accurate poll of some sort, I want to say what is important from our constituents to say what's important that public safety is going to be number one. No doubt. It's going to be number one. And we need to prepare for that now. Yes, I want my toilet to flush. Yes, I'd like to be able to take my grandchildren to the park. And I'm not downplaying any of it. But I believe that if we were able to get an accurate number from the constituents, public safety is going to be the number one thing that they ask for. And we need to provide that for them. So, Chief, I did have one question. So, I know when you provide us with an in-depth report at our last meeting, the question was asked, so with the actual number of officers that you need to, as we'll say before this happened, this number of residents that we do have, what is a true percentage in comparison to what we have right now? We're significantly down. I can't percentage wise, but we should be right now. We're allowed it. We're allocated for 64 officers. We should be operating at one on one with the population that we have. And just to clarify that, I'm glad you did that. We should operate at one on one. It is projected. I got it from the city clerk that we're going up to 47, 800 . So, from that one on one, we should go up to one on nine. So again, we're significantly behind where we should be asking for about 45 officers, but we're asking for 25. Try to get that number up and also save the city a little bit of money on the budget side. If you look at what I gave you guys asking for those 45 officers, we'll be looking at about 6.4. I don't have that in front of me. I gave it to you guys. We should be going to cost the city about 6.4 million. Now we cut that in half. We're looking at 25 officers. We kind of almost cut that in half by 55.5% asking for the 25 officers. So I think this is a big, big need. Not just a request. It's a big need if we want to bring our police department up to part with what the city is doing as far as growth and expansion. I think this is not just a request. It's a need. Okay. Thank you for that. And then just one follow-up question. And then when we're talking about these vehicles, the 10 vehicles that you're talking about, I do understand the request for how many of you were there. Is this to replace or is this just to make sure we have the inventory there so we can hire these all? This actual request is to replace vehicles that we have now . The request for the 25 officers, there's a different request for vehicles as well. And I think we can, again, make that work with a different request. Not as far as asking for 25 if it was maybe 15 to another 10. I think we can make that work. So, thanks. Thank you. And my one last question is, you've got to understand this finance here. You know, when you add law enforcement officers, it is just not adding them. You have to understand from a financial standpoint that you 've got to pay for them. Yes, sir. So, you've got 10 officers, you know, you've got to pay all the, everything, you know. So, you can probably tell how much that's going to cost us with the 10 officers, you know, instead of, you know, just hiring them. Then that's another amount that we have to pay. But it's very expensive for a police officer, whether you know them. I can tell you, to bring in one officer, it will cost the city $142,814. Okay. So, how many do you anticipate you want to bring on? I request 25. 25. You have to add that in as well, you know. So, we've got to look at that amount. That's in that report. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. That's what I'm saying. So, it's just, it's more than just, you know, we're going to hire police officers. It's a lot more goals with that. Because their pension and all of that is involved. And I just want to bring that up. Vice Mayor, you have it. Okay, Commissioner. Yes. I would just like to say to the Director of Public Safety, for the police, for the police department. I got quite a bit of feedback from the last meeting when the chief gave great reports, letting us know that whatever types of crimes it was that we were at 1% or 3% out of 100 %. And the feedback that I got was, if we're so safe, why do we leave so many officers? I think that's a big question. While our folks are working very hard and diligent and being primed down, they're working at high school. How long do you continue to work at great? And, you know, we all really have the top staff, the top staff, as we put it in the officers. And we're going to be doing this issue. We're going to be doing this issue. That's what we put our resources. Quite frankly, that's the reason why we've been able to do what we're doing. Otherwise, we did traditional policing and it wouldn't work . And so we're having to do some things different, even from our perspective, in the effort to do it. One is we're hiring a crime analyst who will work with the scarce office to give us more real-time things so that we 're not waiting a week. Not waiting a month, you know, because the private space is just to follow up. No, it's going to be real-time. As a crime is occurring, we're going to look at the data and maybe the bar reach one. It's top. If they've committed one, that's one crime to commit. You know, and so, but yeah, we're proud about those numbers . But there's some other things, like, for instance, homicide . We have four detectives. I don't know if you can see it. We have a hundred percent criminal homicide. We have a homicide and studies have shown that if you've deployed a lot of resources within the first 48 hours, the chances of solvability of that homicide is very great. Four people. That's unreal. They're working homicides. They're working sexual batteries. They're working burglaries. They're working with men. They're working with men. And we think that they're doing a such a good thing. They are. But the reality is that I know there's something that we're going to deserve. That's why we need additional resources in OTA. You know, now we were able to go back. We got a lot of experiences on the side. And we saw them on the side that happened here. I don't know. But I can tell you that had we had the adequate resources at the time. That should have been solved here. Well, thank you. I'm just saying that when the chief said we only have 1% of this and 3% of that, that people that were watching the screaming was saying that if we're that low, they're not thinking about what you just said. So when the chief comes back, like it's nice he's giving this to us. I hope it's on our website so that the residents can see. And you've just explained how less of a detective that you have. And now the people streaming in hopefully will not message me on Facebook to say if we're that safe, why do we need extra offers? I support extra offers. Thank you. One quick follow-up question, Chief. Those stats, the percentages that you gave, those were to show that there was an increase or a decrease, right? From that month of last year to this month. Right. Just comparing months. So it wasn't to state that we only had 1% of the price, it was just showing a decrease from the year you had. Okay. Mr. Mayor, may I recognize? You may. Okay, one additional question, going back to the vehicles because I don't see it here. And I know we're talking about money and we need to be very careful with it moving forward. And I know we're looking at some cuts. So what type of vehicles are we looking to purchase? And I say that now because I said it again last year. I said it first last year in the same bunch workshop. Are we looking to purchase a $40,000 vehicle or are we looking to purchase $80,000 vehicles? Because that makes a big difference. I know now we have some of the bigger utility like Tahoe's and Yukon's and things of that nature just riding around. Now, we're, yeah, the city looks good, but, you know, we really need to focus on what we're spending. So are we looking to do more like smaller patrol cars like what they currently have? I don't know if the chargers are still in or not now. But are we looking to go to more of those, more bigger SUVs because that's more maintenance, that's more gas. So what are we looking to purchase? So what we're actually looking for is, and when you look at the capital project, it shows like Explorer Tahoe. But we're looking at the FSA and usually we go at the lowest price, whatever is the lowest price vehicle now. What we usually do is piggyback off who has the lowest price. So if the sheriff's office is going with Tahoe's and they got the lowest price due to the FSA, that's what we would go in. It could be a Ford Explorer, whatever the lowest price vehicle. So if the Ford State contract does what we would go in. And then just kind of follow up on that, most recently the Ford Explorers were running about 35,000, which was a really good price when you compare it. And it was cheaper than what Dodge was offering up on the cargers. So if you go forward, the Ford's going to be a good price, and the Ford's going to be a good price. So if you go forward, the Ford's going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. And then you're going to be a good price. I'm going to make a joke with the public safety director. I hope that these new cars can catch you all. If not, we might as well go home. Thank you. No questions. Real quick, Mayor. I just want to, again, kind of put this in perspective. And again, not negating anything that's been said. I just, again, try to give you guys the framework. In your packet, there's this page with red numbers at the bottom. That includes all the capital requests. Right behind it is what I'm showing on the screen in black numbers. And that eliminates all the capital requests. And I'm just showing you this as a perspective for the general fund. With no capital, we have about $5 million in funds available for capital expenses. With the 25 officers, as an example, I'm not saying, again, not needed, not needed. That's not the intent. But the number is $3.7 million, which would come out of that, which would leave you with $2 million for capital. Which basically means, right, we're not even having a capital conversation going forward, even before we set in the $8 million loss. So, again, I'm just giving you this information so you can kind of analyze. We're looking at operating eventually, which will be part of that $4 million request. But there's only $5 million on the table. Again, past practice, we've usually set aside 10% of the budget for capital because, again, roads need paving. Projects need to be done. Repair and maintenance on. IT equipment. Vehicles need to be replaced. So, I'm just trying to give you guys enough information to say what we're up against. Not only this year from an operational standpoint. Again, the need is there. But the funding is also going away. And we're going to have to wrestle with that. So, just wanted to put that in perspective of what's currently available. And this includes the $2 million increase for Avalor. So, you're saying how much in capital do we actually have for police? This is no capital. And we have $5 million in the general fund to spend. Not including new positions yet. $5 million. So, if we approve all the new positions as a hypothetical. How much is that total? $3.7 million. Out of the $5 million. Correct. So, then we only have about how much remaining? $2.7 million. Correct. And that's before we talk about fire, before we talk about parks and rec. Right. So, if we approve all new positions, there is no capital conversation. So, again, I'm not saying that you guys are going to do that. I'm just trying to give what's available from a funding standpoint. How we wrestle with balancing the need operationally and capital at the same time. Because you cannot. And that was my concern. I'd love to give them all the bells and whistles. But we've got to consider. We just said one department. We've got to worry about all the others. The city still has to operate. Right. You know, then we do that. We only $2.7 million left. We've got to spread that amount. Right. With the other eight departments or nine high-mortem we have here in the city. Right. That's my concern. It ain't that I don't want to do it. Right. It's just that the budget don't allow us to do it. It's definitely understandable. Yeah. It's just that it won't allow us to do it. We're going to, you'll get something, but we may not be able to get you 10, but we've got to be able to operate. Our job as the charter said, we've got to be responsible for taxpayers' dollars. That's right. And we've got to be mindful of that. You know, not that we, I don't want y'all to take it personal that we don't want to do it. Because I come from a police background, but now I sit in a different seat and I have to look at it from a different perspective. And I understand the response time. You know, you want 10, you may have to get five. We may not be able to do it right now because we have to be responsible for the entire budget. Right. We understand that. Today, I mean, we're just going to bring awareness. Yeah. And then, you know, others, you do a good job. Okay. I ain't going to be really cool. But the understanding, if we go forward, it's still going to be replaced. We understand that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's no doubt. Yeah. And then, and thank you for that. But I also think as we do move forward, I think just a couple things we need to do. We do need to think about it in respect to these projects. You know, are they broken? You know, is it all the need that we have right now from this plan? And I think that's what we need to kind of just take into consideration. Is it mandated that we got to do right over the project right now? Okay. Understood. So just moving along, page 20 of the capital. Hold on. Do we need to take any action on this? Right now, this is just you guys getting information with all the capitals. Again, if you guys want to cut something right away, we're ready to do that. If you guys want to say, hey, table it or approved, we're also willing to take notes. But this is just informative for you guys as we wrestle through this process. Okay. All right. I'm good. We could jump to fire, but I was just going to go. The table of contents has it in order 20 and then 22. I don't know if that makes it easier as we just flip through the book. So jumping to page 20, that's the city administration department. There's one request this year for $60,000. Thank you guys. This is page 20 and 21. It says administrative vehicle $60,000. This is in preparation or forecast of a city manager employment contract. That's currently up in the air. But that employment contract typically has a beer. It's about page 20 right here. Page 20. It's 21. It's 21. Why don't we skip 12? Where's 12? You have a downtown parking garage. 12 is just a summary. It's just listing all the departments, but eventually we'll get to the downtown parking and table of contents. But why aren't we skipping now? Those are just summary pages. So we're actually going to the request in order, but that's just a summary. So that shows you probably safety downtown, but I was just, if it's easier, we can just go. And why did we do police? I know I was trying to do it in that order by department, but now I think because that starts at 165, 166. So again, just trying to make it easier for everyone. But we can, again, if you guys want to do it that way, we can do it that way as well. And go parking garage. So are we not following the order based on page 12, like police department, developmental service, fire department? So for police department, we can. So police department pages were 165, 166. If you guys are fine, jump into 165, 166, depending on that listing. We can do it that way as well. We have the numbers. Yeah. I agree with the commission. I think this is important to me. It's just a follow-up. Okay. Okay. Well, the downtown parking. And I can check it out. No, no, we've already talked. Okay. So the downtown parking garage is on page 25. We can jump to that one next. That's right. That request is the parking garage to go alongside the annex building. Part of that is the current annex building is funded by building excess reserves. Right now we have about $13 million in excess funds in that account, which covers the construction of the actual building. As part of that project, we also took out a $10 million loan. So this would be funded as part of that project for the annex parking garage. Again, based on a four story estimate, it was estimated to be about $5 million to do the parking garage downtown. So again, no impact to the general fund. It would come from that loan that was taken for the annex project. What about the permit? The permit fund is going completely for the construction of the building. But isn't that where development services made their money to be able to have that annex? And I thought the parking garage was a dead issue. I did too. I did too. You did too? Yeah, I thought it was a dead issue. I don't know why it's a back issue. Well, if you want to go ahead. Sure. So the parking garage originally, the issue with the parking in general was that we had an agreement with Beltram to take up half of the plate, half of that parking lot. But now we have the whole parking area. And originally, when I came over here, the plan was to use that half area for a parking garage, because we don't have enough parking downtown in general. The problem was it was easy to see that it was insufficient space to get a real parking garage on that half of a lot. So we talked with Beltram and they agreed to take properties off of 9th Street, I believe. And in exchange, we got that property back, got the whole parking area back. And the thought is that we can still use funds that are coming in from the building department to help construction of the garage or use it for the annex. And we also had a $10 million loan with the annex as well. So nothing's coming out of general fund for that, but it helped increase parking for downtown in general if we do that area. We had talked or I had specifically talked with one architect and he had said they wouldn't even be interested in doing bidding on a job that was half of that parking area because he said basically you can get little minis in there, but nothing else in there. You said this is not coming out of the general fund. Correct. It's coming out of permits and fees and all. Correct. The permits and fees are going to pay for the building and we also had a $10 million loan as part of that. So that some of that money would be used towards building building of the garage. Has this loan operated approved by this commission? Yes. Yes. I just don't see where we need to have a downtown parking garage. The space that we have, you can make parking spaces out of it. It still puts the employees and any of the contractors or whoever, I don't know who I was going over there, but closer to the building versus parking right out of time here of city halls. So that to me, that's, I just don't see a need for parking garage. Thank you for that. Thank you for that, Commissioner. I have a different view on that. I think grossly, we just don't have enough parking. If there's an event here right now, we have employees parked a couple blocks away to make sure our residents that visit our facility have somewhere to park. I think this solves not only the employee issue, but I think anytime we have something downtown, I think it's a need. I know in my experience in trying to have businesses and in the process of people to try to have businesses downtown. The one thing that they often say when they ride through the downtown here, just looking at traffic, there's absolutely nowhere to park. I think this solves a lot of that and we can try to reinv igorate like that. And Mayor Smith. Yes. I agree with you that there's not enough parking. We've torn down the old TV thing. We haven't done anything to it. So evidently, staff doesn't feel that there is a need to turn that into parking spaces until they find out about the sun rail that's going to be there. But $6 million, $5 million, I just think. Mr. Mayor, can I be recognized? Thank you for that, Commissioner Hoffman. You know, if you think about it, and I'm not against the parking garage, but if you think about it, if you look across the TSA's tracks there, we own land that's across from the cigar quarters and I don 't know how many acres. We bought that land for parking. You know, and that land goes next to Hainsey to CGA, it goes all the way down to the bottom of that hill. You know, that is for parking. The boys' TV, we got that for parking. That was all to get the sun rail here. You know, but I still think that there may not be enough parking based on the projection that we're looking at in years. And you're talking 70-some thousand people. The problem that I have is that, you know, really we don't have enough businesses downtown to attract all of them. But I can see on every other Thursday, if there is an event that's something on our agenda, I have a hard time finding. We had to, you know, the proof is in the pudding. We had to identify locations. I see the whole, but it's commissioning, can park. And we couldn't find no parking. But parking is an issue, whether it's a parking garage or add an additional parking someplace. Downtown parking is a concern with me. And I'm not against, you know, if it's not coming out of our general fund, if it's coming out of the, you know, different revenue stream, then we can do it. But I just don't want to take it out of the, if it had to come out of the general fund, I'd be totally against that. But being that it's not coming out of general fund, I think that money can only be put back in proceedings like this that are coming out of that parking, correct? Correct. You know, you can't take that money and do something totally different. So we can't, it's in there. It has to be used for the building department. That's what I'm saying. It has to be used for that. So let's take advantage of it, you know. That's what it has to be used for. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Duff. Yes. Just what he said in regards to what we own across from the cigar bar, you said. Are we going to turn that into parking spaces? But if not, we really need to look into having the parking garage. Only because we're trying to be a place of a destination. We have to project those things. And I understand what you're saying about the monies that we're spending to do so. But how can we be a walkable downtown, a walkable community if we don't put it there? And I come down here for my nails, hair, and everything. And I have to circle the blocks for at least 10 to 15 minutes just to find somewhere to park. And then when I do park, it's far. It's far away. So I do understand what you guys are saying. And I'm conservative as well. But we have to think futuristically. Because I'd hate for us to see that we need this and we don 't even have it. That's my whole thing. But if you're saying we can have parking spaces. Then we have to forget the safety of people crossing the railroad tracks and trying to walk downtown as well. But I think that should already be in a phase to turn that portion of land into parking spaces for those businesses that sit right there now. Which is the cigarette corner. And again, if I was a business owner, I'm going to look at if they have a parking garage. Do you have parking spaces? Because I can't sit there and fight every day for my patrons to come to my business. We don't have it. So they're looking at all of that. So you said we don't have the businesses. That's one of the reasons why they're not going to come up if we don't have things that are simple for them. Right. And then Citrus Connection has mobile golf carts and things that they will bring, but we have to show why we need it as well. But that's it. Thank you. Ms. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I think I agree with everyone. But for me, it's like if it's a need and really not just a want. So, although it's not coming out of the general fund, we still have to look at though with the loan that's creating debt. So there's a lot of things that we still need to take into consideration. We do have property that we've owned. We've identified those properties. We were in talk before about making those locations and turning it into additional parking just for the downtown. You know, I don't know if it was just a thought because we talked about it and then it went away and it never came back up. So I would be more so in favor to see what we could utilize now what we currently have versus just saying, okay, yes, let's spend $5.25 million on a parking garage. I think the garage itself is more of a want than a need. I know we wanted it at one point. We were all excited when it was coming and then it just fell through for whatever reason. So I know we're just in discussions now. So for me, I would rather for us to really look at what's a real want, a need versus just what we want. And just because this is just conversation discussion, one of our internal conversation has been obviously this would come back. It's a $5 million project. We'd have to bid it and go through that process. Right. I think phase one, if we leave it in there again, there's no general fund impact. We can go ahead and start some design planning. Part of us, as we've talked about Lakeland and different parking garages in different cities where there's a mixed use component to it retail down at the bottom level. Again, is that feasible? I can't tell you today that that is, but being able to do a conceptual for you guys to say, yes, it's not only parking, but now it's revitalizing and bringing some more retail businesses. Part of the conversation we've had internally is does the city want to be in that position to manage and house the retail components of it? From my perspective, I don't love it. That's something that we can do. Obviously, CRA also has a component downtown that could be incorporated into that. So just bringing this as just conversation of consideration that we could continue to move forward and, you know, six months from now, eight months from now, you can still decide. And we don't want to move forward based on the conceptual at that point. A quick information about the space. How many levels are we talking about? You said parking. You're talking. Yeah, originally, I was proposed that forward kind of to match the annex building. So it kind of looks seamless going across. I think four levels is pretty high. You know, I mean, I just, you know, you're going to do it. Why couldn't you do just two levels? And we can bring it cheaper. You know, it wouldn't be that. It wouldn't cost that five million dollars. It'll be a lot more cheaper to do two levels. And I remember parking it just said, why four levels to match the Andrew, uh, Brett Riley building? I remember during the conversation on the annex, there was a count that was done by the engineer of how many positions would be going to the annex for employees, but then creating enough parking for potential residents. And there is a position count and parking count for. But that's when we was going to build a condos down. Are the condos still coming in the downtown? No, that's why it was four levels because there was going to be condos and that was for the parking for the country. We did a way with the condos. So why would we still need a four level parking? And that's what we were saying. If we do retail on the bottom, let's say, you know, restaurants, then that may create additional need for parking. But again, that's all depending on what you guys want to see at this location. And if I can add, I think what we don't want to do is do something not thinking about the road, right? We want businesses to come downtown. We want to make someone come with this vibe. I think when you talk about just two levels, when you have a mixture of compact cars to large vehicles, you can grasp the limit of what we can do in an almost be kind of just waste. And Mr. Mayor, for me. Yes. And also on the Bowen property and property across the street, the Bowen property obviously is still having the Brownfield study completed, which is obviously a time consuming process. We don't know whether it's going to uncover, but the plan is to request that the board allow CRA money to do design for the parking area that we think we could incorporate, not just that property, but the street there, right by railroad. And then the property across the road so that it's useful today and going into the future of Sunrail and income. So it is possible, I mean, to get that done based on the timeline of Brownsville and then prepare the parking surface over here so that in the future we could design it so that it's easier to build a parking garage if we don't want to do it today. Well, why can't we use the same funds from the planning, but we use it for the parking garage for the Bois TV property? That's what that money is worth. Why would we take it out of CRA? CRA can be used for a better purpose. And that money is, that can be used for that. We're doing it for the parking garage. Why couldn't we do it for the parking and the Bois TV? I think right now just again building reserve funds are just so restrictive based on that statute. I think putting that parking garage right next to the building seamless makes sense, easy argument. Putting it halfway across downtown. It's not doing about maybe three. Again, I'm not saying it's not doable. It's just trying to keep it with it. Part of the structure, part of the need. It's just that we seem like we're up here that we go to CRA funds for everything, you know, and we're going to deplete that funds a little later. We're going to go to everything. Everything is all right. Go to CRA and get it out of there. Yeah, and CRA, and we need to also keep in mind that CRA funds is just the same as the building fund. We cannot do everything out of CRA. It's restrictive as well. We cannot use CRA funding, none of CRA funding to house any , like, thing dealing with employees. That's not what CRA is for. Right. So if we're looking to build this parking garage for the building department to part there, then CRA funds is off the table. Right. Because we cannot use that for that purpose. So just like other things are restricted, CRA has even more restrictions than the norm. Yeah, for sure. We would only look at CRA if that retail component, because now we're trying to drive revitalization, economic development downtown. But if that piece goes away, you're absolutely correct, then it wouldn't even be a funding option that we would consider. And again, downtown CRA is only $370,000. So it's not like we would be picking up a large tab of the parking garage. Just throw that out there for conversation, because it could be something that the CRA wants to be a part of. Again, marketing, trying to bring businesses downtown. I could see that collaboration coming into play if we went in that direction. Mayor Smith. Go ahead. I agree with Vice Mayor Downing. And, you know, I don't want to say too much, because I don 't know who else streams in here. But the businesses that are used more are on the bottom of 6th Street. So maybe we need to look on 7th Street to see if there's any property that perhaps we can purchase that is going to be more of an asset to the 6th Street businesses. Because putting this parking garage on 7th Street in the business you want to get to is at the bottom of 6th Street. You really haven't done any asset or favors or whatever to the residents that are there. The ones that are going to utilize that are going to be the Central Florida Health Care that sits there on Ingram and city employees. And as the Vice Mayor stated, you can't use CRA dollars for that. So take a look at 7th Street because that's going to be more of a need and a location for the businesses down there . There's more businesses down there than there are on Ingram . And just to that point, this was probably about a year ago, I was working with Deputy City Manager King to have some talk on some of the properties in that area. Right now, it's somewhat of a King's ransom. It's the current prices that they're asking. It may not make financials. But Commissioner Johnson? Yeah, there's definitely restrictions using the CRA dollars . But there is a program CRA Fort Myers has that does public parking lot. There's a public parking lot program that they use. And they do a buy-in with the other businesses in regards to that. I think CRA was part of the parking lot that's over here in Miami where the barbershop is. Yeah. They're part of that little thing right there. And so there is a program if you guys want to look it up. And we can definitely let our CRA know that CRA Fort Myers does a public parking lot program. But they put the other businesses and the businesses have buy-ins as well. I just want to throw that out there. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to say that I don't know what the King's grave is for 7th Street. But if it's more than $5 million, if it's less than that, then that's something to look at. And I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. I think that's a big deal. 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Good morning, commissioners. So with that tower platform, that is a replacement. So we have a unit right now. It's 2016. As we discussed last week, the build times for the aerial trucks are three years. So we're doing some proactive planning with this one. The current unit has. It's 50,000 plus miles on it. We have begun to experience a few different mechanical issues with that. Nothing that can be corrected. But again, we're trying to fund half of that truck this year, half next year in order to receive that truck by 2031 . So. Have we ever at one time we was able to get some financial help with grants? Have we ever, have we applied for any of the grants since we got those last? So with, with those grants, the only, um, grants that really would apply for us for apparatus would be the state money. Um, and we have been successful in the past. I know we did get trip two vehicles, um, over the last few years. Um, we had some federal funds too at one time. So with the federal funds, um, we, we are applying this year. We're actually about to submit a grant for 225,000 for equipment, um, which would help offset the cost for the operating. Um, again, we won't find out until next year if we're successful. So, um, with the apparatus, they are very, uh, it's a very competitive process to get that. Usually they're looking at vehicles under 25 to 30 years plus. Um, again, we wouldn't qualify for that and our vehicles would never make 20 years. Um, we're lucky to get 15 years or even 10 years with the amount of call volume we're proceeding for the last few years. So, and we did put in for a tower truck, um, this past, um, a few months ago. I think I got some of the letters from you, you all, um, but we wrote it to the test. And we also, um, took it to the state, um, last or year before last asked for funding and the legislature approved it, but the governor did not approve it. That was two years ago. Yes. Mary Smith. Oh, you made a break. Correct. When you all go to, um, the Polk County days or you go to T allahassee, is our lobbyist up there? Yes. Yes. And so they're lobbying as well to help us to get, uh, whatever they're called it. Um, well, hold on, Commissioner. The only lobbying or what the appropriation that we give them to lobby for us, and we don't give them appropriation for lobby for a fire something. They don't lobby for that. You know, we've been having them use for what, uh, uh, uh, public, uh, no, for, uh, for James Keene. Yeah. That's the only thing that they've been lobbying for. And I think that's what the problem is for public works. But the waste water, that's what we get. We did receive money. We just got, I would, I told you a lot we got the other day . I was, I told you two points on me. Uh, James, I told you right. But we didn't lobby for fire. And that's why, you know, but we need to, and that's what we need to do when we go up there again. It's an important fire. It's expensive. Those apparatus is not cheap. And with the, you know, you've seen the buildings that are growing up right higher and higher. Um, so those are more important now more than ever. Um, you know, it might be a 95 foot platform, but by the time you park away from the building, 95 feet, it's taken up very fast. Um, but in order to get those three and four story, five story elevated, um, windows or, or openings, um, to make the rescue if need be. So, or if you have somebody working on, we've used them to do roof rescues, uh, with workers or, you know, cross the street here. Um, you know, you, you know, you get to the point that you may not be able to get your equipment up through stairwells or elevators. Well, Cody, when you get to your, um, water tank and your, um, boat thing behind the police department, let me know. Cause I, I don't know who is with this. Okay. Do you want me to tell you why? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um, because one, I don't think that it is, um, able to handle the new growth and the new commercial business that is there. Right. I don't know anything about the fire except I want you to put it out. Right. Um, but you have a lot of new, uh, developments that is on Oak Oak City Road, um, that is Grander Ridge, Chandler Ridge. I think the other one is West Ridge, uh, and, and to expect this pinker or whatever to get there before your engine can get there from Main Street. What really can they do? And the last time I was there, you had a little boat and I don't know, it looks like only one person can fit in it. If you were trying to go to one of the lakes that, um, are back there, um, um, the one that is, um, behind the new hammock estate or whatever. It just seems that, uh, it's inadequate to be a starter until the engine comes. So I, I'd like to see if it's not on here or definitely next year to do something that something better than what we have, um, to be able to, you know, start something until you can get to Main Street. Um, um, um, to be able to assist it. There's a lot of growth that has taken place down there. Um, and that's where our main commercial buildings, um, are . So I don't know who thought of that. I can't even call it a trailer from what I saw back there. It did serve a purpose. Um, we've been there over 10 years now. Um, it's starting to have some wear and tear like normal. Um, we definitely have our, our use out of it. Um, you have your use now? Um, we're making it work. Um, I think with, you know, added personnel, we are limited . We'd like to put another unit out of there, uh, specifically a rescue vehicle, uh, to reduce that wear and tear on the bigger apparatus. Um, but we're, again, we, we only have facilities for three , three members. But you're saying a bigger apparatus you're talking about. So. Talk to me in late times. So, so we have the fire engine there right now and we can only, uh, staff three people out of that building. There's only three bedrooms. Um, we would like to, eventually we would do have a brick and mortar building to add a, a, a, a little pickup truck rescue with two people. Um, and in, in order for them to handle the majority of those rescue incidents that we were using the fire engine for fires and rescues, things like that. So you no longer have the truck with the water. The brush truck. On the back. Um, is it, you talking about the little brush truck? I guess that's what it is. We do, we do have a brush truck. Cause when I went there, that's all I saw. Right. That was back there. And I just did not feel that it was enough to get started on trying to put out a fire until your. Regular fire truck. You must be speaking of the mini pumper. It was a smaller. Right. Yeah. And that was an engine. Um, it was a different type of engine. Plastication. Um, yeah, for a frontline, um, unit that, that would be, um , you would have to have other resources around it. Like you said, to be protected appropriately. Um, right now we do have a fire engine pumper. Uh, that is, that is, um, um, optimal. And, uh, officially once we do to get that, that building, uh, facility, we would add a rescue vehicle to supplement the personnel and to add that rescue opponent. So you'll still be there even when the police, um, leaves, um, or downsides is there. Correct. So we're going to be able to, um, to, um, to, um, to, um, we just need to make sure because the area has really grown . And with this new super target to hotels, restaurant, uh, and all of that, is that going to be sufficient to be able to at least start putting something out until you can get more, you know, fire trucks there. Right. Yeah. Um, right now it is sufficient for fire coverage. So we have a pumper that covers that zone. So. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Um, question chief. Um, is it just the standard practice? Because I see like all the vehicles is roughly around the 50,000 mile mark, um, for the replacement, um, on those fields. Right. So traditionally, we have a lot of people that are not going to be able to do that. Um, we have a lot of people that are not going to be able to do that. Um, we have a lot of people that are not going to be able to do that. Um, we have a lot of people that are not going to be able to do that. Um, we have a lot of people that are not going to be able to do that. Right. So traditionally, um, aerial trucks are around that 15 year mark, which that tower truck is at that. Once we receive delivery in that 2031, 2030 timeframe, it 'll be about 15 years. Um, fire engines are approximately 10 years. Uh, but again, that's all dependent on call volume. So if you have a red light dart downtown, we run that rescue unit. We are looking to add a rescue up at the new station, station three, and that's going to reduce and expand that lifespan of those fire engines. So station two right now is only running out of that fire engine. So they run everything in their zone. And that, that three year old apparatus already has 50,000 plus miles. So it kind of depends on the station zone and what equipment supports that. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I have one last question, Mayor. Commissioner. Do we, um, have, um, I don't know what you will call it, but the agreement with Davenport and any other town. Mutual aid. What is it called? Oh, mutual aid. Um, with the other towns where, um, you would take our fire engine to Davenport, Point Siena, Lake Hamilton. And would you still have a fire engine in case while you're helping somebody else that can also take care of something that pops up in King City? Yes, ma'am. Um, so we are, we do have a mutual aid pact with the other, uh, jurisdictions, but we also have an automatic aid agreement with Holt County. Um, so we basically every day they're either helping us or we're helping them. Depends on where the calls are. Um, if for instance, we get a, our downtown station goes over to Point Siena for a call, which happens periodically. We bump up our other units to kind of roam that area. If it's a Point Siena, that's the Osceola County. Uh, you have a mutual aid with Osceola County. So, uh, traditionally be the whole county jurisdiction that , that covers that Point Siena, um, whether it's the north or the south side of Point Siena. Okay. All right. Thank you. No other questions. Okay. A quick question, Mr. Mayor. Okay. On your admin vehicle that I think you want to replace for yourself, what's the year and the mileage on that? So, so with that admin request, that was for an operations chief position we are asking for, and that would be a new purchase. For a new position? Yes, sir. No, I always short on, on vehicles like admin things. So, yes, sir. We were basically, um, we don't have any spare unit. We do have one spare unit. We are asking for a logistics captain, um, for this year as well. And that our one spare vehicle would go to that position. Um, it's a 20. It's the chance to be 20. 20? No, it's 29. Um, but yes, sir. We, I'll give you an example right now. Our battalion chief, you see that request as well. That vehicle's out of service. So, you know, we're asking for a logistics captain, um, this year as well. And that's the chance to be 20. 20? No, it's 29. Um, but yes, sir. We, I'll give you an example right now. Our battalion chief, you see that request as well. That vehicle's out of service getting repaired. Um, so they are in a 2015, uh, our reserve rescue, which is , is very rough. Um, so we're kind of, it's part of, uh, we're kind of making do to shift the vehicles around as needed. Um, that battalion chief vehicle, if approved, would go to frontline service. And then that spare battalion vehicle would be used as a battalion spare or a rescue spare because it kind of, they're both big of trucks and toppers. So if we had, if we had to cut something out of your budget , you know, in the category, what would be something that you, you can probably, you know, live without or a, another budget cycle if we, you know, have a minute. Right. So, so it's either these great big purchases because these apparatus are very expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. Yeah. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. And then we're going to have to be more expensive. So you're saying the tower truck that we can? If need be, I think out of all these, you know, if we don't get approved for these extra administrative positions that we're looking for, then obviously we can cut those vehicles . And if we do get those approved, that would be those admin vehicles. But I think right now, I think if you take that tower and just push it back another year, that would put it at about that 16-year mark. Yes. Not saying that that's going to happen. Right. Just saying, you know, based on the time that we're living in, that it could happen. That's why I'm taking questions from you, okay? That's just something that we need to keep in the background of our minds. If the finance said, hey, we've got to come on this threshold because that's all we have to work with. We've got to find out how we've got to make the work together balance. Yes, sir. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And Chief, just one follow-up question. When you talk about if something does have to be pushed to power trouble, would be it? That's taking into account when you said that would put it in year 16. That's because when you try to place these orders, it's going to be a couple years. Three years. Yes, sir. And that's the current production times. Again, those costs do go up. It's anywhere between $2.5 million, $2.7 million from the W ulper gathering. But, yeah, it's about three years in wait right now. I don't anticipate that going up or down. So. Yeah, just. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? I just have one. Over at hand. I just have one. Over at hand. Because I don't understand when there's a call or say, I don't know, just for the police to come that the fire trucks come as well. Why is that? So it could be an assault. So not only do you have that police component, but you have a medical issue of victim. So if we're there, it's because there was some type of medical emergency that took place. And in addition to that, there are some areas where you see the problem is those people who are involved in the fire. They have an axe. They have an axe. We don't have that many firefighters here. They're the ones who go to jail. Okay. Okay. Okay. And if you see a staging, usually if it's an assault call, we have to wait until law enforcement signatures that scene . You might see a staging a few blocks away. That's it. Right. We don't want them to go run it up. It's not fine. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. All right. Any other questions on just the fire department? Again, they've talked about the admin vehicle, Lucas device , bunker gear, ballistic protection, and then extraction. Would you like them to go to each one of those or are you guys comfortable? No, I'm good. We don't have to do line item by line item. For me, I mean, I would in the back of that's my question about other items. Yeah, go through the fire department. Yeah, go through the fire department. Go through the fire department. No, I'm good. Okay. So we'll jump to the next department, which is other general government. I'm going to ask the IT TMD director, the infamous Mr. An holm. Infamous. Yes. Okay. Okay. So replacement program starts on page 77 all the way through 98. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we're going, yeah, we're using the 12 page 12 guide by departments and all the items going down that category and then jump into the page. But again, if you guys want to do it differently. So my question is, so is the department only presenting one item from their acts? And then if the commission has other questions that's listed. And we're asking them that because I'm seeing that change. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and do that. Okay. 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So we're going to go ahead and do that. So we're going to go ahead and do that. So the only reason why I asked because with that, it starts like in our book, I guess. Yeah, it's kind of mixed up. That's why I was trying to make it easier. And you said page 75, but that's not where I see IT starts on 75. So that's why I was asking. Are they only presenting one item to us and then whatever other questions we have for any additional items listed? So, for example, this one's other general government on the table of contents. The software line item is page 90, which is that first item . So it's under general government, but it's IT related software. Okay. So we've got a little bit of a mix between the table of contents and that page 12. Gotcha. Okay. So are we 75 or 90? Well, actually we're on the other then, right? We're on other general government, page 12. Okay. All right. We're going to go down this list. If there's one that you say, hey, let's talk about more detail. I'll reference that page and we can jump to it. But I think for right now, let's just hold on page 12, that table of contents, and you guys can make notes there and then we'll jump to that page. Okay. So first one is software. The request is $1,040,000. Yes, this one's going to be quite loaded. This originally was supposed to include the ADG cloud. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. What page? Because we've heard three different pages. Right now, we're going off page 13. Correct. No. Which is the top right? Yes. Correct. If you want to go to the actual information, we'll give you the page reference going forward. Just to make it simple, yes. So what happens to the non-computer and related technology equipment? So you're saying that we have a question, we can go to that line item page? Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. So we're just going to do the categories here. We're going to go each line item item item within the department. Right. Then we have a question, then we can go to that. Exactly. Do you know what page that we're storing on? For example, for like a software? Yeah, on the other general government. Software specifically is number 90. Page 90? Yeah. But if like PCs GG is page 85. So again, table of contents is alphabetical ones. I understand. So they're all over the place. Yes. I got it. Okay. Yeah. I just thought that I didn't go to another. Okay. Stop. Okay. All right. Okay. Ready? So yeah, software. This one again was intended to be ADG cloud component, $1,0 40,000. ADG and LaserBish cloud, which is our records management software. ADG is actually a different project that we were already working on and it somehow slipped past me on this one. So this numbers can be extremely bloated and I'm still waiting on the laser fish number though. So we didn't want to actually change it to an estimated number for that because they were trying to find our exact services to match exactly what we would need before we get it. When he says ADG, I just want to specify too. When he says ADG, I just want to specify too. That's our internal program software, also known as ERP that houses accounting payroll, HR, everything that's operationally in the city is within this ADG software. So part of the conversation has been trying to move development services and upgrade our ERP software, which we can go ADG, keep ADG and upgrade it to the cloud. That's option A. A full blown proposal would be going out to the market again and bringing back. I think the last time we brought that to the commission, it was like a $2 million price tag to make that transition. So again, part of that is part of this line item. Again, is that the direction that the commission wants us to continue to pursue to enhance our software and go more electronic based? Or do you guys want us to, again, just deal with what we have and upgrade to the point necessary within a certain reason? Let me ask you this, and this may be a little bit brief, as far as that price tag that you're talking about with the $2 million, I know that the initial setup is always going to be a higher cost. Is it going to be comparable to, I guess, the $1 million range moving forward if we can go with something else? Do you have any insight on that? I think it depends on which platform we go. ADG, I think the $1 million is sufficient. I know, for example, we're looking at a sell-off for the building department, which is separate. But that one's got about a $700,000 price tag to implement and then software costs. So to your point, implementation, I think, is going to be around $1 million one time and then ongoing $1 million software cost is the expectation. I guess it kind of boils down to, you know, moving forward if what's going to give us the most bang for our buck. Okay. Okay. Anybody got any questions based off the bat? Go ahead. And this is said, Mr. Mayor, 2027, that software program, how often do we have to upgrade our software? You know, is it every six months, every year, every two years? How often do we upgrade software? So upgrades like this every 10 years, I would think is expected, 10 plus. So again, when we do these type of big transitions, it's very labor intensive. It's making sure every GL matches, boarding over documentation and records from a financial standpoint to make sure I can go back and look at 2020, 2021. So again, very labor intensive. Once you do this, you do it one time and you don't look back for 10 years. So the license is good for 10 years, what you're saying to me, the software license, that's a long time for some license on software for 10 years. That's what the license is going to be for. So typically, yeah, for ADG, for example, we do pay annual licenses now, which is required just to, again, do updates and keep the software in program compliance. But yeah, right now, ADG, at least the current software is very inexpensive, but again, it has limitations where it's very manual and paper based, not electronic. So, and one of the benefits of moving to the cloud based system is they become, um, not reliable, responsible for keeping those updates to the system, security patches, any new features, anything like that. And that's all included in that price, an annual price. Well, how can it be secure in the cloud? They're responsible for securing their data on their site, essentially. So they would put the extra money into hardening their servers on that site, because the cloud is just based on somebody else's keeping track of it, and then they can essentially, you know, update and... So the chances of getting hacked and getting all of our information is what? What percentage that if it's in the cloud? That is a hard thing to say, because it's all going to be dependent on the data center and the practices they have in place already. And, and, and... But... No. With that said, we always have that risk here, too. Right, right. And that's my biggest concern. That's what... So, there's my back question. Oh, go ahead. For Jeremiah, I don't know what the GIS stands for, but is this included in this one million companies? The GIS is not included in this one. GIS is Geographical Information Systems. It's heavily used in public works utilities. It's essentially like the location of our utilities underground. More, lately, it's been used for more public facing information. For example, like, we've been working with a vendor from last year where they... They're essentially mapping out all of our streets within the city. And they're creating like a public view portal where they can say, this is the city street, or this is, this is the county. And it's someplace where the public can essentially go and get that information. So, the truckers will stop. We can take our sign down to tell them that the, um, oh, the street information is wrong and they need to make the right to go down to the freezer company. Does it replace that? It would... I'm not familiar enough with that one. No, the... Yeah, that one's based off Google, I think, is why they have that sign there. So, that wouldn't be based on ours. So, for what you said, a customer would be able to do that? I meant like citizens could go in there into the portal and look up that information and stuff. And it's not just limited to streets. That's just the one we've been working on most recently. So, in your budget, your capital expense, you don't have anything that should be charged to public or public utilities as in the past. I just don't want to pay for it twice. Mm-hmm. Uh, the ones that we all have in here should all be based under, shouldn't be moving for other departments. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Mr. Johnson. Yes, it says replacement. So, what we have now is not working for you. Or have we used what we have now to its full advantage? Essentially, that's what it is. Essentially, that's what it is. We've used it to its full extent. Um, we try to replace things. Typically, technology is about five-year cycles. Because at that point, computers start getting old and it will slow down. And we can only take so many phone calls in a day saying my computer is going slow. But that's just part of maintenance, essentially, just to make sure we're up and running with as little downtime as possible. Okay. And we've shot this price around. This is the lowest? What would you tell me? Uh, which one are we looking at specifically? 1,000,040,000? Well, I'm -- This one, I imagine, will be lower than this. Okay. I imagine it will be lower. But I don't have definitive numbers yet, so. Okay. Oh, thank you. Um, and, Omar, I know you, you, you, you really touched on that. I guess this is still, I guess, a paper-based system. Um, you know, from my seat, I would, I would really love us to possibly explore, um, more of a, I guess, cloud-based, you know, the next product system. Yeah. Um, if that's something, especially if it's a variable in price, just to kind of move forward, so we can have that seamless technology all the way through. Yes. Okay. Does anybody else come in? No, but you'll come back, uh, on a different avenue? Yes, ma'am. Project. Okay. Is this after other people? Because I keep saying the same thing every year with IT or TMD, where we're, we're at, we're replacing this at Myers-W iley Field. You know, we're doing this, we're doing that. Yeah. I mean, this is a nine month, you know, it's only good for that time or whatever, or Windows. Um, share of mine, come back. So he's got, we've got general government, transportation and IT department. But like you said, if that one's under, if Myers-Wiley is under Parks and Rec, it may be another department down the road. Uh, I don't know if there's any this year. I don't know if there's any this year either, but typically like our switch equipment and such access points for the wireless and all that fun stuff is typically placed under replacement program. Uh, either network or wifi depending upon which one it is. I probably won't be here at that time. I have to leave Jeremiah and, um, Omar, but your, um, internet connection at the, um, Oakland Auditorium and at the Oakland Neighborhood Center does not always work. And that's where we're sending kids to be able to be in the parking lot to go online on their computer to be able to finish their homework. We've been talking about this almost as long as I've been up here in 2017. And it's been talked about, we've been approving the budget and every year there's an issue. It's not stable. And I don't know, uh, maybe the vice mayor knows because she goes to the, um, um, uh, Piler Enrichment Center where it's not stable, um, at all. And on the east side, you've been talking about doing something over there. And, um, um, the Larry Parish to allow the kids on the east side to be able to have access to internet. And I've been voting for that for years. And it still comes up. So, um, um, I'll be watching it on my cell phone on my way to the doctor's appointment. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. And I'll be watching it on my cell phone. I'm tired of voting for something that we're not getting. I will look into it for sure. Another thing with the auditorium, though, is it is late with power issues. It drops out all the time. And we have UPSs over there. We've been trying to figure that out. But that would also contribute to the connection issues. Well, we have you now, Jeremiah. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Mayor, can I be recognized? And this is for the finance director. These are capital projects, right? Yeah. Why do we have something in a capital project $60,000? So our capital threshold, everything that we capitalize is $5,000 and up. And making sure it has more than a useful life in one year. Yeah, but that's just a projection, right? We don't know this could be lower. So it could drop off a capital project. Correct. If it comes in at $3,000 or the director thinks it's only $ 2,000, don't put it on capital. Don't even have part of the conversation. But $5,000 and up is the threshold. Okay. So that's the threshold. I just wanted to make sure. Yes, sir. We're seeing stuff for $6,000. We'll put something in the budget every day for $6,000. It's not a capital project. Okay. That's just the threshold. Okay. This is -- you've got a networking scanner. Is that GG or GG? Is that CG? It's GG for general government. Okay. So it will essentially be for any department that requires their replacement for their scanner is -- it's been kicking the bucket along. It doesn't want to work very well. And it just needs replaced. Okay. All right. And that's all I had. I'm just looking at this amount and wonder why they were in capital. But then he explained it as the pressure. So thank you for that. I don't have any other question. Thank you. One quick follow-up question. So if we do explore the more desolate-pronic-based system, would -- and you probably don't have the more right now, would that be all forms or desolate-pr onic-based system? Are we talking for the document management? I'm going to be talking about all the -- Okay. Yeah. So essentially we would still have to scan it for some way to get it there. One of the nice parts about that one, though, outside of all the other cloud benefits of updates to security and all that, that they take care of, is it would be more automated and it should be more readily available. Right now we have to buy individual licensing for each user . But to my understanding, that's not quite the case anymore. We're paying for the storage and then the users can use it from there. Just to piggyback on that and give a real scenario where we could actually eliminate paper altogether. When a director has a request to purchase or they want to buy something at $7,000, what happens right now is they create a document. It's called a request to purchase. They sign that. They attach three quotes to that paper copy. They send it to City Hall. I review it. Lloyd reviews it. It goes through all the chain of command. It goes back to them. They actually buy it, invoice it, and then they submit back an MPF paper form with the invoice and it goes through that same chain of command. What an electronic based system is now those quotes can be attached. We can go through a workflow. I see it. Lloyd sees it. It goes through that process. All electronic. They buy it. And then the invoice gets posted right back to that too. So all that paper would be eliminated. And that's just AP. You know, that's just one process that we're doing that all paper based that would go away. Right now, ADG does not have that functionality within the platform. So again, that's just one scenario of what we would be trying to eliminate from a paper based man. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Mayor Smith, I just have one question. Will this be the same thing for the police department? In terms of the process? Yeah. Are they still paper? Everyone. We're all doing that right now. Every department is doing that way. So we've already heard from the police department. Is it going to be on operation that they asked for some software so that it's not paper based? That might help. Yeah. So police would be covered in this request of this $1 million. If we move forward with this, it would capture police, fire . Every department in the city would now be under this new umbrella for that software. You wouldn't see it twice for being separate. Okay. Anything else? All right. Good. So just going down the list again, this is all part of the replacement program. PC's Jeremiah, part of his proposal is he attaches like a schedule. How many of these laptops or desktops are 2017 and need to be replaced. He's got an ongoing cycle that supports each one of these requests. So he sees 250,000 servers, 150,000. My understanding is servers, about two server replacements. Each server is 75,000. Jeremiah came to me screaming the other day saying these servers used to cost us 35 to 40,000 and now are 75,000 costs. So what we used to be able to get three or four within a $ 150,000 budget, now we're only able to buy two on this replacement schedule. So we're seeing costs go up. AI is a piece of that where all this technology and software costs are just going up. So just want to bring that AB replacements 100,000 telephone throughout the city 70,000 surveillance 48,000. A.B. Lake Eva Center. The event center, yes. The event center. Yep. That's for the screens that have been falling apart at this point that desperately has changed. So does your computers for $75,000, is that just IT? No. This department is for the entire system. So does your computer for $75,000, is that just IT? No. This item is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is for the entire city. 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The whole department is for the entire city. The whole department is within the city. Okay. So I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm here again for parks and recreation, but I did talk with Lloyd about there used to be a paper on the computer, the library that said out of order, not working, whatever. Have we replaced them? Are they upgraded at this point? Because those are very important to our resident. So those computers that had the out of order papers on them are actually not the city's computers. Those belong to the library co-op. I believe they have been fixed since then, but there's not much we can do on them as they're not our property. But it's, the library is our property. The library is, yes, but those computers in there, the co- op even has their own network in there, so they don't touch anything on ours. They're all on their own. So we can't have our own computers. We could. I'm just saying it's going to be our residents that come to our library to work on what they think is our computer. And to tell them that this is somebody else's computer, I don't think it's a good look on our own. Yeah, but I think that because we received tiny money from the library, that's the co-op portion of it because we do get fined. I understand that part, but I'm saying the resident doesn't know that. So you said it should be two sets of computers, one for the co-op, one for just the city. I'm saying that something needs to be identified or next year we need to spend the co-op money on something else and we have all that's our computers that are in there. Because what we know, the five of us and Jeremiah and the finance director, the average person that comes into the library doesn't know that. And so I get a message, what kind of library is this that you got all of these things on it that says out of order and not work. Right. So please, we'll look at that. We'll make sure we look at the co-op agreement and make sure again, if there's something that we can do internally and take responsibility and not affect funding, we'll take those actions. If it's again, if it's going to be some sort of contractual breach, we'll make sure you guys are aware as well. And then you guys can make a decision on adding those units to it. Or if there's something else that this co-op, you can use this for, there are the special computers in the back of the room or the front of the room that says that this computer is owned by a co-op versus the paper that says it 's not working because it looks bad or not. I understand. We'll have that conversation. I know the co-op has been going in a direction where they want the municipalities to take more control versus them being the custodian everywhere. So we'll go ahead and bring that conversation up to the co- op. I saw Terrell run out. You want to go make that call right now. I'm so sorry. Yes. Two follow-up questions to the commission conference. With the co-op, we know that they're supplying the computers. Do they allocate funds for us and we purchase those computers or is it we have these computers and we deliver them to your location, et cetera? They deliver those computers. Okay. They are entirely on the co-op. They're not the same. And then when they do go down, do you know what the reporting process is to report? When we are made aware of it, we reach out to the IT contact over at the co-op and they tell us we'll send somebody out right away. But you know how that goes where sometimes it can take some time for them to come out. Right. But we report it to them. And then they would, as far as those technicians that you 're talking about, it would be basically everything paid off for every life period. And then we'll just get to schedule. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other specific questions in that? Again, replacement program, other general government. We want to make sure we're not skipping anything, but we want to make sure we're highlighting the ones that you guys want to have a conversation on. Real quickly here for the surveillance, the 48,000, is that for a thing of equipment? Yes. Those would be replacement cameras for major computers. And we have quite a few around the city right now. And my final question, I sent a question to the fire department on this list of our line items that you have in front of us. What would be something if we had, if this permission hadn 't, think I was done with what we think that we have? Because we are under a certain amount that we have to improve. Honestly, at this point, I think servers would be the best thing to remove due to their inflated cost. Okay. As finance director DeJesus mentioned, essentially AI is running the cost upon all these components, and it's astronomical at this point. Okay. Servers we could continue to keep using for the time being. If we need to do extended warranties, that would be an alternative to replacing the actual servers. Yeah, and so then you said we can move this to about the next year or so? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Let me ask one follow-up question. And so we remove these services. I guess my biggest concern is if we are removing anything, does it kind of nullify something else that we've been approved? You know, we wouldn't want to approve one thing. Right. It's a domino effect and cause the issue. Right. Not for this one at this time, because the reason for a replacement is essentially to keep it up to date, but there's kind of a buffer room in there if that makes sense because we don't know when stuff is going to be delivered or stuff like that. So these should, the servers we have now would still be good to continue doing their functions as they are. They just wouldn't be able to indefinitely for years and years and years. But if we can keep everything in and still be within our fiduciary responsibilities here, then we're good with that. But if we have to, then we'll just let you know the reason being. That's the first thing you and you. Yes, sir. I just wanted to clarify. There's an item in there, a replacement program, AV 2027, 100,000. I just want to highlight that one. So that one is for this commission chambers to make updates to the projecting and the AV audio. And the streaming functionalities. Yeah. So I just want to highlight that because again, direct impact here inside the chamber. $100,000 per hour. A quick question on that. Mr. Mayor might be recognized. You may. Okay. Thank you. Um, didn't we approve that in this current budget and it never happened? So now we're going to ask for the same thing again to be approved with, um, the screaming, the projectors, the microphones, um, everything was supposed to been updated and that was approved in the last budget. Okay. Thank you. I have to go back and check. I know we did a component for the streaming, um, which we were doing with the camera, but as far as the microphones and the actual system that operates and we hear that, that sound that comes back, this will take care of more of those components as part of this project. The streaming, I think was something separate for, uh, just getting live and doing that, the commission request, but I 'll go back and confirm in this year's budget that line item was already approved. Okay, thank you. I'm going to submit you $100,000. Uh, go ahead, Commissioner. Thank you. This is the third microphone that I have had since 2017. When is it going to get right? And I know that this is for your time, Jeremiah, but I'm just letting you know that this is the third one. People cannot necessarily hear us out there in the audience . I've had the one where we can turn it off and not be the hot mic thing, but how, how many microphones are we going to buy? Are we going, are we ordering from T-MOOL or what are we doing? I just want to know. I think they just mute your mic. That's what happened when you're on your mic. And I agree with you, but I just want to know what is the deal with it. I've complained about the streaming. And I think, Jeremiah, you saw that it is, it can be improved. Um, but these microphones, I mean, I just really hope that this time we get it right and we order from the right person. And if we don't know who to order from, let's ask Winter Haven, let's ask the city of Lakewood, you know, put our pride aside and ask somebody where things are working. Bartow does a really good job with it. But we have not, Lord, this will be the fourth microphone that we have had. And I hope it's the last microphone before I leave in 2029. Thank you, Leil. In a statement. So we did have a company that we brought in who did an assessment of the current condition of everything. And the system, I think it's called Restron, that runs the system in here. And it is very outdated in the system. Whoever set it up originally, the way that it's set up is a proprietary setup where other people can't come in and even make adjustments to it. But the wiring that they put in for the whole system creates interference for the online streaming that makes the audio even worse online than it is in here. And here it's gotten a lot better, I think, sitting back there and noticing, being able to hear people speaking up on the dais. But it's compounded, in fact, from the old equipment to the wiring and everything. So the company that came in and did the assessment has actually done quite a bit of work for Lakeland. And it has a really good reputation. So it won't necessarily be that company that will do the final because we have to put it out to bed. But we will see a noticeable difference on that. Well, the chief is not always the best. No, I agree with you. I think that's why this is the third microphone that is here. We keep going with the cheapest. We need to go with the most reliable and where people can hear. Because I normally, and I see the vice mayor, sometimes we pull the microphone closer for people to be able to hear what people -- Hear us on my earlier. Okay. That's where you went. Okay. So people can actually hear us. I don't always remember to do that. But I, again, Lord, I hope this is the last one that we have to get or the company upgrades it without charging us, you know, too much money, you know, maybe $1,000 or whatever. And whose budget is that coming out of? Is it coming out of IT? Or is it going to come out of the commission's budget? I learned my lesson the first time putting it in the commission's budget. That's what I think happened last time, that it was not approved in the commission's budget. Yeah. So right now it's inside of other general government, which is just the entire city trying to take it off. Okay. Okay. So the only other thing to take out of our budget is what James King charges us to put the water in if we go to the rest of them, you know, every two minutes. Okay. That's it. All right. Commissioner John. Speaking of what Commissioner Huffman just said in regards, I know this is just discussion and suggestions, but definitely looking to a sound engineer. I'm not sure if that's your expertise, but if not, there's nothing wrong with getting a third party here who actually, this is what they do day to day. Even if you're going to a guitar center or somebody there that does that type of work, getting a sound engineer in here definitely will be a bonus to you. And also streaming it, it is hard to, it is difficult. I know you're trying to do something about that as well, but I would definitely tap into it. Again, these are just suggestions of looking at a sound engineer. So again, we don't have a third and fourth mic. Like she said, you get someone here who knows what they're doing. It comes down to sound and rooms and acoustics and things like that. So that matters. I know you do the tech side, the information side as well, but look into that as well. All right. Thank you for that. So, and I know we got to move on, but you know, if for the $100,000 when we just come out of this room, and I understand there's a lot of areas that need to be improved. Like, you know, for that $100,000, I guess my biggest question was, is that just for the streaming portion of, so you know, when we have residents on the stop bar, you know, what actually, you know, because like they said in the past , we have approved different, you know, items for this room. But you know, it's still like it all remains the same. So, you know, we're going to have an iPad to do the streaming, you know, to the camera in the back room. So, when I said streaming, essentially what I was referring to was just making that process better. The streaming process we already have back there would likely stay, it would just be placement of those cross wires, the microphones we have up there, the stronger projector. You could tell they're starting to get a little bit. Just items essentially in this room, not necessarily the streaming component itself. I don't have it. You know what I'm saying? No, so we were able to confirm it was presented. I just want to say, Jeremiah, I think you're doing a good job. Thank you. And you had to step into a lot of heat, especially coming from me because I just got tired of paying for the same thing from your department. So, I'm glad that you are here for the good of the job. So, moving on, we'll jump to the transportation department. You already here. He's already up front, ready to go. You feel it? Yeah, while they come up, I just do want to mention we did look at the 26 budget. It wasn't in there. It was in the 25 budget, but did not make the cut in 25. So, it was presented as 100,000 back then and just did not get approved at the time. So, real quick, I know on the utility side that Commissioner Huffman, the comments you made, finance director wanted to go to a coin operated system for commission. So, you just have to, he'll give you a roll of quarters. That way you're good to go on that. So, we want to start on the Citrus Avenue MLK roundabout. Is this what we want to start with? Yeah. So, that's something that we know is needed, has been needed for many, many years and it's even more so now. And with the future development over at the properties that we have on MLK, it's going to be beneficial for traffic control. Right now, it's almost like a figure eight race. You just close your eyes and hope for the best when you're maneuvering around that area. So, what's being requested now, the $450,000, that's for engineering, design. We're still looking at anywhere from one and a half million to two million for the actual construction. But what we're asking for this year is the engineering side of it. We will have something to bring back the next budget year to physically get the infrastructure in the ground. So, it's $450,000 just for the design phase? Just for the design phase. Great. Let me ask you this question, Mr. Mayor. Let me ask you this. Have we, and I know we probably don't own this road, but I 'll, you know, we travel these roads every day when I say we don't talk in the commission. And you go to base and that needs a roundabout there. That's terrible. I don't know if you all never noticed that. That four way stop is okay. But if they have a roundabout also at base and 10th, I think that'll keep that traffic going. They can get backed up really bad. I don't know if y'all have seen it, you know. And I don't understand how those individuals that live on the metro can even get out of their home because of that fact that's backed up. So, in the near future, I'm not saying right now, I think we also need to look at a roundabout at base and 10th. I would agree. And even if we're part funding with the county to enter into a partnership. Because we have 10th all the way up to Bates, as you know. That's right. We did that over several years ago. That's right. Yes. But get into an agreement with the county to co-fund that. But I also agree with the Citrus Avenue and Railroad. That is a straight bullet waiting to hit somebody quickly there. You know, you have to shoot across the 13th to get across because somebody may be coming across that's right. So, you're right. I think that's very important that we put around a lot of that. And the design feature we're looking for also has the pedestrian foot traffic aspect of it. So, we want to, because we've got the new sidewalks now on Lee Jackson or 12th Street. Right. We want to put the new sidewalks off the MLK. It'll go fluid right over the tracks as well. So, we're working on that with this engineer design. Would that be an eminent domain problem there? We own the properties all around it. Right. So, we have the fertilizer. There's a property where that marquee sits there. I don't know if we own that or not as part of some Mr. Timm ons yard. And you are correct. I don't know if we would do eminent or we would just try to work out an easement arrangement before we ever go the em inent route, of course. But it would be, you know, this is our plan. We would speak with the owner, get some surveys, and then come back and have conversations with you guys, of course. So, the $450,000, James, for just a plan on it, this is something that you have sent out the RFP or RF requests for bid or something that's on it. Because that's really expensive, I think, just to design it . I think you can buy some more trucks. Well, this is just, this is the estimate that we're looking at. So, once we have the actual vendor and it's been approved and it comes back to you for approval, it could be $450,000 , it could be $650,000. Will it be $350,000? I have no idea. But that's just the estimate that we're working on right now. That's okay. So, that's the best level? Yes, ma'am. Well, that's the best level based off of that size of a project at the time. I think it's a good project to have, it'll take some experience in getting people, you know, to understand how to do it. Because a lot of people may not experience a roundabout. So, it'll take us a little while to get them to understand, but I think that it'll make it a whole lot safer for people . I don't drive, but I hate when my husband comes up 13th Street, Railroad Avenue. And I think that Mayor, I believe that what we do own that, I don't know, Mayor, if it was you or Commissioner West, that's what I think, Mayor, that we do own that except for the Timmons project. And I think that we shouldn't have a hard time talking to him because we've been very relaxed with some of the things that he's done to his property, to his other property where that house is. And he's a good guy. Look, Commissioner, quickly, I don't know if you realize this, for that fire station up by Advent Health, that design phase was $750,000 just for that design phase. So they can get very, very expensive, you know. Design and engineering is a... Oh, yeah. Well, the EOC was a million dollars and we got a $750,000. That's right. Exactly. We got $750,000. Yeah, just for the design of that fire station up there. So that's what I'm saying to you. It can get very expensive. Yeah. I know it can get very expensive. Lord knows, I know that it can't. Woodley told me he got ChatGBT now though. That's the case. Yeah. Exactly. So he'll have it designed by the end of the day? All right. Exactly right. That's it. Exactly right. I did want to mention, Woodley and I talked about this. So this is the design phase. I think the estimated construction was somewhere around $1. 6 million. I just want to bring this to the commissioner's information as you'll see this again on the CRA. So they're also proposing this, not because it's a duplicate, just because it's a potential project that they 're proposing for you to partner with. Again, this is not a CRA conversation. I just want to bring that to light that you'll see this and you can decide combination one or the other. You guys make that decision, but I wanted to bring that. That is a two year project with a construction cost to follow once the design is completed. Do we have to get with the state or is it going to affect Lee Jackson Highway? It is not. It is not. It is not. It just helps the flow coming off of Lee Jackson. Okay. Okay. No further questions. We'll go to the next item, the Paul truck. Go ahead. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the grapple is everyone knows what those are. You see them come through. I think they're on Wednesdays. Um, with our public services, it's the truck that literally has the big claw that comes off and picks up, um, debris, and whether it be, uh, limbs or brush or whatever the damage is. Um, and after storms or during any issues, um, that's something that we have an agreement with Polk County and we wait on all of their vehicles to come through from the vendor. So on a weekly basis, you can ride somewhere in the city and find something on the side of the road that's not on anyone's property, um, that we have to end up removing. So the claw truck will make us more efficient in that division. And that's why this request is in there. Do you have staff for them? We have staff and it's not that they won't man that grapple truck on a daily basis, but we do have staff to operate it. Well, basically during her season. On a, in a weekly basis. Um, so if you, like right now I'll get an email or a phone call that says, Hey, there's a pile dumped out on the side of the road, um, wherever it 's at within our jurisdiction. Um, if it's not something that Republic is going to pick up without a fee, we'll go pick it up and we'll put it in our open costs. We should have come to my house. Now that will all stay the same. That we won't be changing our process. If someone has something out by the road, we won't go pick it up. That's, that's still going to be under the Republic services contract. So that was the intent is not for that. So if someone has something out by the, by the road, they'd have to get a quote from Republic. That's part of the normal contract that stays the same. This is for that, for those rope dumpings that we see all around the city. city. I just want to, I don't know if I'm the only one. I can remember last year that you came in for us for some type of vehicle that was sweet. Did we ever purchase that? I don't think we, it's not here yet. We're working with the vendor on it and we're getting one that does not require a CDO license. So that's another benefit. Okay. I was just, I was just wondering, I knew it was something else we approved, some type of truck, like not that, but something we approved last year and I haven't seen it yet. Yes, that has been in the works. So I think, uh, what's the guy's name? Craig Whitmore? Craig Whitmore is with the service that we're dealing with, um, with that vehicle. And that is still, we haven't ordered it yet though. Yeah. The procurement process. Omar's strict on us. So even though that he's got a good price, we have to get to, we have to get three quotes for it, of course, but that is coming. Okay. I'll just, it just crossed my mind. Yes. Talking about the program. Okay. Thanks. And when we do that, we'll also cancel out what we have with Republic services through that vendor that's now sweeping the streets. Um, that puts us on our own sweeping the streets. Why not? Omar is strict . Definitely. He's not supposed to take shots during the budget season. That was a good shot. You want him to be strict. Quick question. Um, as far as that goes, um, I guess you're still in the process in the other additional vote. Yes, sir. Does the money roll over? We will carry it over every open project. Uh, again, we want to roll over. We'll bring that back to the commission and all that money will come over. So how often will this truck here be used because, you know , once you, you know, I mean, it is some trash that are we going into the county and picking up their trash that some people dump beside the county roads? We are not picking up outside our jurisdiction. We have enough trash within our city limits to generate a truck to make this, to pick up that, you know, you said we're going to still maintain the Republic service, but this is for an easy legal dump and then they just dump. I don't, I don't, do we have enough to generate this? Is it cheaper to pay Republic service? They come in and say, Hey, can we, can we pay you all for this to pick up or do we pay? How much is this truck here? For, uh, 300,000. And this is, and this is exactly what this particular budget meeting is for, for these types of questions and the data that come back and either say, yes, we do, or you know what? We don't. So we'll have that data provided. Is it cheaper to just use Republic service? Because not only do we have to buy this truck, we have to make this and service this truck. It just, you know, it's not justifying it. And I just think that it could be in the long run, cheaper to say, you know, maybe Republic service, go pick it up. You know, I just don't, you know, it just be, you know, this is a lot of money and we got to cut something somewhere. We all know that we keep talking about this here because of that. Is it worth spending $450 or whatever that price is? What I'll add to that is, you know, what, why we can't enter into agreement with it. You know, them actually carrying it out. It's just the other. And, yes. And, Mr. Mayor, might be right now. Thank you. My concern would be the price tag for one. But more so when I saw it, I thought that it would probably be in talks of taking this portion back from Republic service. Because, and I know you stated that we would not, you know, we'll still utilize for public service. And as you know, because I call you practically a lot, that 's one of the things that they're not doing within that contract. Like, every week we have residents reporting items that's left in front of their home that's not being picked up. So then I have to generate, and I'm sure the other commissioners as well, generate a phone call to either you or to Republic Service or to Republic Works and giving addresses and say, hey, come pick this stuff up. It's there three weeks, a month at a time. So I would definitely be more so in favor if we were going to eliminate something. Over true. Right. Being that we had our own trucks. Right. But to spend $300,000 and then to still use Republic Service for a lack of a service that we're already not really receiving based on our contract. Vice Mayor, you've got to understand, we've still got to pay the dump fees on this. Exactly. You know, we don't take it to the city park or city building and dump it down there. We've got to still pay a dump fee. So we have to, I agree, we'll have to eliminate Republic Services on it again. We're going to use our own. And we're going to pay Republic Service for that. Use our own. We'll get the data together that shows what we pick up outside of our contract with Republic for the next week. Right, okay. Yeah. That way it's either going to be justified for us or not, and then you'll be able to make the last decision. They do a terrible job when it comes picking up bulk stuff. I'll just tell you right now. And I'm quite sure my situation is probably going to have. I get complaints all the time. I don't want bulk stuff from Republic Service. But I'm not going to pay them that. We're going to have a trouble. No. Mayor Smith. Yeah. If I may. If you come on Valencia Avenue in Tangerine, where you have the yellow, I guess. The storm drains where they're painted. The storm drains. You're always going to see a whole bunch of stuff that's there. And I'm not sure why I agree with you, Vice Mayor and Commissioner Wimbley, all of you, that by taking that away, that is going to lower Republic Services because they've already held us at Concord. But the last thing. So I don't know that taking that away is going to make a financial difference. Well, not so much just completely taking it away, but also in a sense of because he stated that it would not replace what they already picked up. And that's the problem that we're having, that they're not picking up. So if we're not going to use the truck in conjunction to what they pick up, it's kind of like we have our own truck, but then we're also paying them and the items are still not being picked up. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Okay. It makes perfect sense. I just don't see Republic. And to your comment as far as the drain system, what I've been advised of by some of the residents, that they are putting the items out by the curb, right, in front of their home. But they sit for so long, two weeks, three weeks, and they 're fed up with them sitting in front of the home. So what they have started doing is now saying, well, I'm going to put it on city property, and maybe they will pick it up faster. So that's why now we're seeing a load of all of these items next to our drainage system because they're like, oh, well, I'm not going to keep looking at it in front of my home. Like one on Valencia, matter of fact, it just was picked up three weeks later, and they came out on yesterday and picked it up, which was a non-route day for that area. But the resident had been complaining, and then they finally said, well, it's getting out in front of my home, and I'm going to put it on city property, and then maybe they will finally come pick it up. And that was almost a month that it sat there. So that's just some of the problems that you're seeing while you're seeing those right next to the drainage and everything because they, hey, put it on city property, maybe they'll pick it up faster. We'll come back with stats on it. Unless you just want to strike it now, then that's fine as well, of course. No, we can come back. We'll come back with stats on what we do outside of the contract or Republic's responsibilities. Right. The citywide lighting. Can you also give us the amount that we carry the favor of the board in our contract? Just this. Break out the bulk component? Right. Yeah, we need to know how much we're paying now. Okay. Then we can compare it with the three of the people we do. Yeah. And keep in mind, if we wanted to take over all of the bulk , it would be about $1.2 million because I'd want four trucks because as you fill up a truck , it'll have to run to the dump, and you'll always have them basically in and out. So it wouldn't be the same request if we were to take over the full public services side of it. It would escalate, of course. One truck would not handle the city. The citywide lighting improvement program for $275,000. The last commission meeting, we had a light program for $17 ,000 that was approved. We've got the lights on $27,000. What's the percentage on those lights that are now operational? Is that the 80 percentile? 85 percent we have been working on for quite a few months. So we don't want to take on more than we can choose from a bunch of cycles, so that $275,000 needs to come out of this year. Unless you have another reason for it to stay, we want to make sure that what's been approved, we work on. But that $275,000 that's in the book, we're handling that through other avenues at this time. Unless that's a funding mechanism, it is, then we need to leave it in. We are recommending to go ahead and pull it from the capital listing. One thing that we did, and you'll see it when we do the operational budget, is we're receiving $160,000 maintenance from DOT. So we've created a line item for Woodley to go ahead and monitor that. So as repairs and maintenance are needed, he can pull from that and keep the lighting up to speed in real time versus waiting for a capital request. Because, again, it's contractually required for that maintenance agreement. Are we pulling this, you're saying? We're going to pull this, and you'll see it in operation. He'll have a budget line item for maintenance. So you'll see it again. It just won't be in capital. Correct. Mayor Smith, I have a question, which you already know. I'd like to know if we can contract with the state to be able to have our lighting up in part of our city limits. Why can't we do the same thing with the county on Johnson Avenue and Bates Road to be able to put lighting there? So if we wanted to put lighting down that road, I know, in conversation with the county, since we have annexed both sides of that road through the areas where the developments are, they would probably not, and this is all conversation knee- jerk, they would probably have no issues with us putting up streetlights and managing those streetlights within that right-of-way, all on our expense, since we have annexed both sides. So that would just be a conversation that we'll definitely approach the county with. But the state is paying us, so I'm talking about the county paying them. That would be a conversation with the county if we, so you 're saying put them up, and then they pay for them for us to manage them like we do the others? Understand the conversation. I'll have that with the county. Do you know everybody down here, Dave? I'm sure it'll happen. Yes, ma'am. Well, the conversation will happen. I have confidence. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. That's that. So the meridian barrier system, you remember after the New Orleans situation, this goes back to one of the last big events we had other than Christmas. We went to a place in Tallahassee and brought in some mer idian barriers. That's the same barriers as the ones you saw there. They will stop a vehicle. They will stop a box truck. So they're a very good barrier system. This particular $130,000 comes with eight barriers, the trailer and the equipment to deploy. That's just to get us started, basically, to build upon. So every barrier after that is around $6,500. So if it was something that we wanted to find the money to share, you said, James, let's order a hundred of those things and let's just find the money. They're around $6,500 apiece per barrier beyond this $130. The $130, you get the trailer and the equipment for deployment and eight barriers. How often will we use the barrier? Depends on the event. I know we didn't use them at Christmas. We used them for MLK. I remember because we, well, you guys had to go and bar them Tallahassee. Yes. Tallahassee runs and pick them up and bring them back. So MLK and what else do you see that we would have a need for, like, for a big major event to block the traffic? Now, on the Christmas parade, that was the fencing that was put up this past year for the pedestrians, so to speak. But as far as the side roads, I think they were just blocked with barricades and or vehicles. So if we would have had them, we would have had them on those side streets. But the fencing would stay the same for the pedestrians. And I believe we're looking into some more of that, aren't we, for the pedestrians that fence you put up? Yeah. So that's great for the parades. So the MLK was a little different because that was – it wasn't a city event, but it was still a city-approved street party. And so you were going to have lots of people in the streets for multiple hours, literally in the streets. The other ones, it's the parade routes, of course, are veh icular traffic and just, you know, keeping the pedestrians safe with that fencing that Frederick Griffin had put out. But the side streets could be used on the meridians as well . Right. So my question is because due to the event in, I think it was Louisiana that year, and we brought in these for that particular year, not this past year, but the year before. So other than MLK, where do you see the city actually meeting the barriers? Would we use them like Christmas bread on the streets for Thursdays? We would do. We would do. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, I'm sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. No, no, no. That's my question. Like, are we going to plan to use it for more events? All of them. Do you have a number of credits to meet it? Okay. And I noticed that other cities like Orlando, they started using those meridian barriers a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So just for that one event that you just mentioned, that's close to $500,000. That's strictly barricades. That's not additional trailers. Right. Right. Right. So $800,000, $487,000 just for the 75 barricades. So it'll be. How many of those, Jay? You don't pick them up and move them by hand. There's a custom dolly that comes with them and moves them around. But if you look them up on the videos, the videos are quite impressive on how they stop vehicles. And it even shows a box truck on there that's a full-size box truck. It's not animated or AI. It's true demonstrations. So they're a great system. And just to add, actually what they use now, pretty much all of these important things. Oh, yes. So if you're saying you want to give us more money this year instead of the $130,000, that would be wonderful. We'll start out with the $8,000. Okay. The next one is the CIC LED sign. That will be a TMD conversation. The light towers. Right now for that $40,000, we're looking to try to get the price so we can get two light towers. With that $40,000, we'll find the best deal we can find to get two of the light towers. That's for the night work, the events and different things that we would have in-house. We do night work on streets, night work on storm projects. So that gives us safety out there for the team members when they're working out in the field. Mr. Mayor, can we do this here if you don't mind? You know, I'm looking at like the city and the light towers and all. So they're not a big major amount, but they are expensive. What I'm saying to you, if we don't have any other concern about the other ones, instead of doing each line item by line item, if we have a concern, we'll just jump to that one. If we don't, then we can just, you know, you're going over each line item by line item. I think the main one that I'm concerned about is the one where I see $450,000, $300,000, $275,000. Well, I see some for $5,000 or $6,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 . It really doesn't concern me as much as the bigger chicken ones, you understand? So, you know, unless we have something, you know, I don't, I mean, a stump grinder, I mean, that's an necessity. I'm quite sure. So, I mean, I wouldn't have them go through the whole spill on a stump grinder. You know, just a lot of times. And I think that's what we have been doing. So, yeah. I don't want to have to go through every one of them. You know, there's something I'm concerned about. It will say, hey, I got a question on this particular one. All right. So, from this guy, is there any questions about the remaining items? Mr. Mayor, I just have one quick question. Go ahead. For the message board. Is that down at Public Works or where would that message be ? That's a portable message board. That's a portable one? Okay. Okay. All right. Any more questions? I have one. You know I do. So, we have, I think, two now that the police use this to check whatever the speed is or to say that the road is closed. Are you sharing the cost with the police? Are you going to buy them? And, you know, James, you charge for everything. I have to. I have to make the money back. Chief, you want to split this with me? Where's he at? He ain't got no money. So, the police doesn't get to use them because I've seen them at Bates Road. Well, we have borrowed theirs since we're all under the one big umbrella. I think we have used yours in the past. So, if they needed it, of course, we wouldn't charge them rent because they haven't charged us rent for it either. I don't use the restroom, but you charge me a water bill. I understand. Okay. No other questions? Okay. All right. Thank you. Anything else? No questions. Okay. Director, Jason. Burkman, that's the time. Buffman is going to be leaving us here shortly. Can we, is it possible, I don't know if Director, but he is very advanced. Can we go ahead and jump to Parks and Rec. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I think you did a great job, Parks and Rec. I'm looking at the first one, man. $270,000. Well, it kind of burned out. Last year we had about $8 billion in Calvary Ports. It is what happened. And we're still working to complete those, so we went fairly light this year. But I'll stand for any questions, if you're going to follow the same model, just any questions that you guys have. We're headed to the line items. We're starting with Parks first, and then go to Rec. integration. So I think that's according to the list of all the whole other facility is there anything under facilities maintenance that you are expecting CRA dollars to be spent. So I'll echo. You looked at the right person. I'll echo what I said in the past. Mr. DeJesus decides on the funding source so I'll defer to him. So right now everything is again general fund. We're going to propose nothing from CRA. Unless it doesn't make a cut and you guys want to reconsider or the CRA board wants to reconsider then obviously those things are up for grabs at that point. My question is I don't know where this would go maybe on the recreation and I spoke to director Griffin about an upgrade to the community center there on lead with. Thank you. The question I had was flooring to make sure that it is like the Oakland auditorium and not putting that vinyl back down there to do something to make it look better so that it will be rented more and the acoustics that are there and the length is going to have in the way that it is going to be a lot of work. The fitness equipment. Are you talking about the signs where they can stop and stretch or whatever? We're jumping around to different divisions. Are we on the facilities? Okay. I was just trying to get to the facilities. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I can speak on them. Okay. No problem. No problem. Okay. So this heating and HVAC replacement, how often is that replaced and the one on the Oakland neighborhood side, does it cover, I call it the old band room. I don't know what you call it now. The innovation lab. The innovation lab. Yes, ma'am. So with this particular request, what we've done in the past is staff has not necessarily had HVAC units on a replacement schedule. Typically, you're talking 10 to 12 years. We got some of these units here are 15 to 20 years old. So city manager's office has requested that we get on a scheduled maintenance plan with them or replacement schedule. So kind of what we started on, there are certain gases that are going to be available. I think it's the R22. So we started with those units. So now if that unit goes down, that gas is no longer available. We're having to replace it anyways. Our model has always been to try to make those repairs whenever we can. However, since COVID, we're seeing even with some of the newer units that are simply not lasting. So the likelihood of us being able to maintain that unit for 15 to 20 years like we've done in the past will simply not happen. So the first three or four this first year is based off of not being able to get that gas. And again, some of these units here are approaching 20 years old. And of course, there's been maintenance done on. There's been parts replaced. But oftentimes, if we're looking to replace, say, a compressor on these units, you could potentially replace the entire unit depending on the tonnage, say for 15 to 20 thousand dollars. And that compressor alone may be 10 to 12. So we're waiting options to see what we're looking to get on a scheduled replacement plan every year to where we can upgrade all the units throughout the city. Well, the Oakland neighborhood center, you are saying two four ton units and one two ton. So that's six two ton units there. And it's $25,000. But the Oakland center, I think where the men hang out at, theirs is more. It is smaller. So your tonnage is what determines the size of those units. So if you look at the Oakland neighborhood center, we're looking to replace two four ton units and one two ton unit. So that's why that amount is lower. And then at the Oakland senior center, that's the original since that building has been in place and that's a seven and a half ton. So therefore, that's why that one is higher than the four units or excuse me, the three units for the Oakland neighborhood center. And I think I had my last question or comment on Mayor Smith. I spoke with Lloyd on this as well. I don't know if I spoke with you, Terrell, about the Haines City Community Theater facility upgrade at $55,000. So they get a $10,000 or $20,000 grant from the city. And now we're going to spend $55,000 on it. I think it is good to have, to want to have it. But is it a need to spend that kind of money because we've been given $20,000 each year for at least two or three years. So now we're talking more of that Senate. And if they decide to leave, I don't see us putting someone else in there because that's a CRA building. So Terrell, I just don't see $75,000 total. And that's dividing the two with the $20,000 grant that's there. I think they need to do some fundraising to try to get something because they're collecting money. But they're like you and the event center. We're covering the expenses of that and personnel. But no money is coming back to the CRA fund. So I'm good with the $20,000 maybe splitting this in half to $25,000. But they need to either give some money back to us or they need to start having some fundraising. So from my seat with that particular piece, and I don't know if that document was included in your guys' packet, but they provided me a wish list that probably had real $ 400,000 worth of improvements to that building. Obviously, we're going to kind of identify some of the low- having fruit to place in here. From a Clark's right standpoint, I think what they do from the arts and all of that is extremely important. On top of that, it's the city's buildings, what they left there today. It's still our building to maintain. Part of that, many, many years ago, the same situation with boys and girls. That building was kind of abandoned. No work was being put into it. And now we're facing what we're facing today where that building needs some major upgrades. So I think if we're able to maintain some of the things that need to be taken care of now, then address some of the basic things. I think some of it included ACs in their dressing rooms. And some of it, like I said, slow-hanging fruit. There were some other pieces in there. Removing, I think there's a metal pole in the center of the building there that would potentially cause some structure issues. So that's going to require some engineering and different things. I did not include that. But I did include the entire wish list just so if the commission wanted to entertain more money or less money, whatever the case may be. I did include that in there. But I think it is very important for us to do our best to try to maintain that building. So if or when that day does come and the CRA moves out and the theater moves out, then that's another hub on this side of town for us to expand our summer camp programs, our team programs. So the building would definitely still be utilized if both current tenants do they key the facility. Well, I'm not, like I said. There's only three in this, the three largest city that has that. And that's Lakeland, Winter Haven, and us. And we're giving them $20,000. We used to give the Boys and Girls Club. We went from $10,000 to the $20,000. And now we're back to $10,000. And I feel that the Boys and Girls Club needs more money than the money that is on the wish list for the Haines City Theater Group. Because more people in the community are utilizing the Boys and Girls Club than they are the Haines City Theater Group. That's just my opinion. I don't have anything else on the facilities. Great. Commissioner Johnson. In regards to, I think Commissioner Huffman said that the community theater receives $20,000. Yeah, so $10,000, I think, for the city's grant program. I believe they received $10,000 over the last two years. I believe. I think they've gotten $10,000 for the normal grant operating process. The non-profit grant program does allow for a one-time, like, special project, additional $10,000. And they did participate in that. So they got $20,000 the year before, $10,000 this last year . And that doesn't go far. I just want to say that being in a musical theater myself. So that doesn't go far. I think, for me, you already said it, Director Griffin, is that it's our building. So we need to maintain it and preserve it. That building has a lot of history. Again, it used to be our library as well. I remember going there as a kid as well. But the community arts and community theater needs to be something that we need to, we can draw more people. The way this community is growing, we need to draw more people to the theaters as well. And then also get our children involved. I think Winter Haven has a summer program that they have. So that's why they generate monies as well. So we can look into that as well to how they can generate monies. And then also assist them, being a tush-push for them, finding a partner, a private partner, who wants to partner with us and pour money back into them. And then to see salt back with Boys and Girls Club, it needs to be on another level. When I go and see the Boys and Girls Club in Lakeland and Winter Haven and what they're doing, it needs to be on another level. I'm just saying it because we have somebody on the board sitting here to see those two go to another level. But I do believe, and again, that's an opinion from my seat , that those city buildings that we own should be up to par and upgraded. Especially when we have guests coming in to come to the theater to see shows. Because I've been there and I'm like, yeah, it needs a lot of love. And then last year the commission approved $40,000 so we did replace the carpet within the theater. And we were able to do that, I think, for about $22,000. So there's some funding left over there. And I know the theater also is making some investments back into the theater with some seating and different things. I know we paid for it recently for the installation of those chairs. So they are trying to do certain things on their behalf and not just asking the city to cover every single thing that they have. And again, it's the squeaking wheel that gets the oil. So sitting down with Curtis at the Boys and Girls Club, sitting down, whomever is the special one of contact at the community center, and finding how we get to the yes. We may not have to always use our monies for it, but we need to definitely help them find it. Because it's for the future. I'm truly about the children. That's right. I want to quickly, Mr. Mayor, to get back off Commissioner Johnson. I want to thank you for the support of the boys and girls club. As I represent on the Boys and Girls Club Board of Dire ctors, and Commissioner Huffman probably contested this, for many years that we was giving the Boys and Girls Club money , we thought that the money was earmarked in going back into our own center. And what we realized, that they was taking that money, and we were giving them $20,000, and they were spreading that out amongst all of the whole county boys and girls club. And we had an issue with that, because we said that the money we, the commission approved for them was for Haines City Club. Yeah. And they wasn't now, they've changed that, and any money that we, they get from the municipality to the city here, it goes directly back into that particular club. Because it, you know, they had outdated stuff in there, and we knew for a fact that we was approving $20,000. We went, where's the money going? But now they've changed their projectory, and now the money is being dumped back into that club. So you should see a difference there, and I'm going to make sure as long as I'm sitting there and staring at the pool. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Weir, thank you. And another thing, and I know we're not just harping on the Boys and Girls Club, but the Boys and Girls Club is currently having some renovation done to it now through CRA . And for the Haines City Theater, I totally agree that the building definitely needs some upgrades. And as our building, we have started now upgrading most of all of our city facilities, such as Boys and Girls Club, the old train depot. So now I definitely see the need to go ahead and do the theater. But as far as community partners, there's a lot of different community partners with using just the Boys and Girls Club as an example. I even partnered with Amazon being a partner with Boys and Girls Club for years where we came in and we painted the inside. So everything you see inside of the Boys and Girls Club that was all community partners through like Amazon with paint. One year we even painted the outside of the building. So it's just for them, because it's not necessarily, you know, for us, but it's for them to go out to research those community partners, Lowe's and other companies that's willing to do those projects for them for just additional needs outside of what the city can actually do for our own property. So, but I'm definitely in agreeance with the, and I would like to see that stay in when we go to striking things out to get those repairs done for the theater. I agree with the Boys and Girls Club at some point. And I didn't mean to cut you off from here. I apologize. There are additional repairs that are still even there. Right. You may recall last year we had the care of funds from the CRA and there was $200,000 allocated. So once we get through this funding mechanism with that, we 'll re-identify what other upgrades or items that can be addressed in that building to continue to put the Boys and Girls Club at a level that's acceptable to the community and the board as well. All right. And thank you for that. In this board, I just want to make sure that we, and I understand that the Boys and Girls Club, it may come up at the future time. And right now we just want to ask people both of the two that are on. So I just had one additional question, Mr. Mayor, for, and Terrell for the vehicle replacement program. Yes, ma'am. So that is for two vehicles. Let's see. So actually there's a typo. I don't know if the system carried over a request for a future years, but that very first vehicle there, that one should only be in the amount of $40,000 instead of $70,000. And that particular replacement vehicle will replace one of our Ford Explorers that we currently have in the fleet. It's a 2008 Ford Escape that has 42,000 miles. Now the mileage on it is extremely low. However, it's in 2008. So just the aesthetics of it, the looks of it, it's in poor condition. So we're just looking to, again, get our fleet on a schedule or actually replacing them and pretending to over use versus just keeping them until the wheels fall on basically. And then I also noticed that you have one with only 29,000 miles on it that you're asking for replacement. Yes, ma'am. And that one is a 2015 F-150, again, with the 29,000 miles on it, again, to try to get in the habit of replacing those vehicles, getting on that 10 to 12 year schedule of replacing them. Because again, this is one of those vehicles, granted, may have low miles on it, but we've got to start seeing some of those needed repairs. So we're not getting any money off of them from the auction . So again, just trying to get on that schedule. And obviously that's one that, if needy, it can be taken out and we can maintain it for another two or three years and maybe move that request out from a few years to where we get 13 to 14 years. And then with my final thought on that is because with all the new budget cuts that we're facing, have you ever thought about going into like a pool where, because since I 've been sitting here, honestly, I've seen more vehicles requests than anything. Like every year, there's a large amount of vehicles being purchased. And I can't tell you if we have them. If we don't, who has them or what. But have you ever thought about doing like a pool? And I think that would cut down on the vehicle requests and what that pool would consist of. Because not every single person or department needs a car. You do a pool and then whenever they do need a car, they check the car out. They log in what the mileage is. They log in with the gas that they use. They check it out and they check it back in. I think that would save us a lot of money because we have a lot of vehicles. And I know you're only asking, I guess, for these two now. But I'm just saying, have we ever considered it not just for Parks and Rec, just for the entire city that doesn't, for a person who doesn't require a vehicle every single day , there's no need to do like a pool. So we have something similar to that now within Parks and Rec. We have vehicle number 42 that's used pretty much on a daily basis by my EA coming to City Hall according to the bank. However, that same vehicle is utilized by the library as well on the days that they're going over offering the internet classes. So we do kind of have that system in place. The majority of our vehicles are vehicles that are being used on a daily basis for the most part. The one Ford Escape, that's one of the vehicles that's used by our custodial team. So we do have custodial staff that maintains several facilities. So traveling up to the EOC or going out to Bend up the ground park to maintain those bathrooms. But for the most part, all the vehicles that do parks recreationally use on a daily basis by each of those individuals. So we do have the one vehicle, 42. And typically what we try to do is, even for the custodial staff, is to get a vehicle off the surplus list. Because again, the custodial staff is driving that vehicle, say from the community center to Bend up the ground park on a daily basis. So they're not traveling very far, which is why the mileage is extremely low. But we've received resident complaints in the past about the condition of vehicles and different things. So again, with that 2008, just trying to replace it from an aesthetic standpoint. But to the point, that's an excellent idea. And maybe that's a model that we can use more often because I know there's a vehicle requested for the events center. Very similar situation to where. You're three minutes up. Sorry. No, it's not. I'm sorry. But that is definitely something we'll look further into to see if we can incorporate that into more areas within the department. Okay. Thank you. And quickly, Mr. Mayor, I want to be recognized. Now, I'm hoping the vehicle with the 29,000 miles on it, because it is an embarrassment of two of your vehicles you have. They got rushed at the top of the head of the floor and I see them and I'm like, you know, why are we, if it's only having 29,000 miles on it, even though, because you can't compare your vehicles to a police department vehicle, because you probably only driving maybe 20, 25 miles a day compared to a police car that's driven about, you know, 80 to 90 miles a day. But, so your life expectancy on your vehicles can go a lot longer than a police car that's driven a lot longer, a lot more. But, why couldn't we take, even though it's a 2008 and it has 29,000 miles on it, would you think it would probably be cheaper if we could just get those vehicles, ain't it? So it's the 15, the 2015, the '29, and the 2008 has the 42, 000 miles. Okay, so one of them has 29,000, you said, right? Yes, sir. And that's the one I think we'll just scratch that one. But again, to your point, we can repaint them. I'm perfectly okay with that. If the board is okay with that. So, again, I don't want staff to end up coming to a commissioner going to the city manager. Hey, Terrell is refusing to replace vehicles. No, we understand it. No, we understand. I'm just saying, you know, I just don't think that 20, even though it's an older car, but it's only 29,000 miles on it, you know? If you want to get rid of it, bring it to my house. I'll buy it from you. That's no mileage, you know? Because right now, with the parks, all of our vehicles are being used, so we don't have that really a spare vehicle. So that's one of those vehicles where it will be put on a surplus list and it will remain in the fleet. So when we do have to drop a vehicle off or an oil change or a vehicle is down or something, we have that extra vehicle there when it's needed to. But that's not one that we would be sending to auction because that truck is still in pretty good shape. So we would definitely maintain that within the fleet as they back up. Okay. All right. Thank you. Do we have someone to handle fleet management? Is there someone you have specifically to handle fleet management for you? So, yes and no. We've kind of went to this past year where we did an RFP, RFQ to solicit to get the better price. In the past, it's been, I think, each department is off the state contract or whatever. Maybe go out and get your own quotes. But I know by that seems all the benefits and if we need 10 vehicles, putting all that on at one time versus each department going out and getting their own individual quotes. Okay. So we've started that process. And I don't want to speak or say something out of terms of misspoken. These are the right things. Well, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing. He's mentioning fleet management. His mind went to procurement and purchasing. My mind went to the actual software system that says your vehicle needs an oil change and who's keeping that. I think as an organization, we're now trying to funnel that through the fleet maintenance department. And John Weaver, I believe in this year's request, there is a request for a $40,000 software for fleet management is one of the requests this year. So, again, hasn't been efficient, hasn't been operating at a high level, but is a direction from administration to improve that. Because it is a high cost dollar impact to the city on making sure their oil changes, make sure we're keeping them in good condition and being able to address them. And again, I know 42, is that the 2008? Is that number? I remember it was 42. That's not the 2008, but that one has been around for a while. Yeah, that's been around a long time. I know we're not just based on aesthetics on cars, but we need to look our best and put our best foot forward. Excellence is what we want to do. We can slap lipstick on a pig there, the commissioner of the West, and paint them, but you still want them to be effective and use. And again, they're only using them, but they're used quite often. That's my thing. I think, although they may be used quite often, but as long as there's no mechanical issues with it, and it's only aesthetics, then, of course, it's just like if it was your own car. You'll take it to a paint shop, you'll have body work done, you'll get a nice paint job, versus going out spending $50, 000 or $60,000. If there's no mechanical issues. Now, if we're having mechanical issues, and every week or every other week it has to go to the fleet for something, then definitely you would look at it as far as replacement, because now it's just becoming hazard or whatever, right? So, but if it's just for aesthetics, then I agree with Commissioner West, let's see about doing, you know, sometimes less is more. We can spend less, but it's going to give us more that we can do something else with, versus just keep replacing cars every year, or, you know, that's just my opinion. But I know you said strike the one, the F-250, I believe it was, but we'll move on. Yes. All right. I'm in the green side. I think, you know, this needs a little pain, you know, so we don't have any issues, or, you know, we're not having a team. But, you know, that, I think it's the most possible thing. Is there anything, any more questions about the facility? All right. We're going to move on. One item to point out, the second vehicle on the list there , vehicle Chevy 2500 4x4 replacement program. Again, I think this was a future year's request that somehow got built on the 27, so we can scratch that second $65,000 request there. Which one, Terry Arnold? So, under parks, the first one, the Ford F-250 service body . Yeah, second one, thank you. And that's a request there for the Ford F-250 service body. That replaces a 2006 F-250. That has approximately 40,000 miles on it. Again, I think this particular one, yeah, the miles are low considered for a personal vehicle to drive 100 plus thousand miles. But again, this is one that's starting to have some mechanical issues. And what we try to look at is to see if those mechanical issues are going to outweigh the actual value of that vehicle. And then that's when we look to start replacing those. So that's kind of where we are. With that, the F-250 service body there. And I can answer any other questions about any other requests that you may have. All right, looking at the list of items that we have on the park, are there any questions? Yes, Mr. Mayor, I can recognize. Thank you. Quick question on the shade replacement for Lake Eva Park large playground. Yes. So I remember the large playground was kind of like resur faced a little bit. Yes. So did we not replace the shade at that time? No, ma'am. So last budget year, I think there was $320,000 budgeted to replace the equipment as well as the PIB surfacing there. The problem we're having with some of these shades, the hardware on them, rusted out. Some of them, I think just different storms now are very saggy. We had a situation probably a month ago where the train is on the large playground. A kid got on top of that, stood on the train and was up on top of the shade cell itself. So just for some of the hardware, we're not able to tighten them up anymore to make the cells tight so they're sagging and just kind of waving in the wind. So we're working with the company. So we're not going to be replacing all of them. We're going to start by replacing any of the hardware that we can. That has been there since the park. I was built in 2009. So a lot of it's rusty. It just no longer turns what we can tighten up. Okay. And then my other question would be for the holiday angel. Yes, ma'am. So it's a $15,000 request. It's a very small request. But how many angels are we looking to purchase within that? Do you have an estimate? I want to say, so what we did, I think last year the board also approved $15,000. So instead of coming with a $200,000 request, the thought was to space those out to gradually replace those. I want to say, because this past year with the $15,000 we purchased new, I forget ornaments or something that we put along the MLK, as well as I want to say 15 to 20 different angels to replace the ones we had. I can get you an exact number. I feel like they were $500 or $600 a piece. So we can replace a fairly significant number of those angels to each year. We obviously put them up. We have bits and bobs that have been around for 15, 20 years or so. But I can get you an exact number on what the replacement costs would be. Because oftentimes, typically October, November, a lot of these companies come out with sales right there before Christmas. We can sometimes get them at a discount rate. And I remember last year during the budget season, the commission discussed as far as extending the angels down on Henson all the way to, I think he said whatever street it is by the 7-11. But I think Commissioner Huffman said as far as 30th street . So are we looking to maybe if we're only going to add 15, are we taking that into consideration or would these be for Highway 27? So public infrastructure, I believe, is always budget for Highway 27. Parks and Rec has always been in the downtown area, down in Lake Ewa area. We've always done New Orleans out on Henson as well. But I think what would be prudent if we could maybe come up with a map as far as where the board would like to see angels placed. Obviously, as we're expanding, we've always done downtown. We've always done Lake Ewa. We've always done Henson. We've always done the Oakland area. Maybe identifying some areas on the east side of different areas around wherever. So at some point, I think maybe work more importantly in this team to develop a map for an entire city for the board to say, this is where we'd like to see angels and kind of base it off of that. Okay, thank you. Mr. Mayor. I'm looking at the list here and I know you probably already got pictures and calls as well in regards to the bathrooms. So, I'm sorry. Go ahead. So, it's ironic you mentioned those bathrooms. So, last week. I think that's on the next section. Oh, okay. That's on the recreation. Okay. That's what I was looking at. Okay. Well, I think what she's referencing is, are you talking Lake Ewa Park bathrooms? So, we actually did some upgrades last week. I got a call this morning from staff to ask me to come down and look in the bathroom. So, we repainted the interior of both men's and women's, the exterior doors, replaced the sinks, replaced the mirrors. Got a call this morning. Went in there where I guess at some point yesterday somebody set off fireworks. So, the new paint job that we literally just finished Friday of last week, this morning, got in there. Sinks are ruined. The paint job is ruined where they left the fireworks in the garbage can. They just set them off in there in the men's bathroom. So, that's kind of what we face. We address things and fix things and within five days of putting that money into those bathrooms, somebody's came in and done that. So, it's a constant struggle. But we are fully aware. And then with that, the commission had budgeted or allocated $50,000 for those bathrooms. That was just one piece of it. We'd be ready to add HVAC units to those. As well as starting tomorrow on the B&W Grand Park, the commission had allocated $40,000 for some upgrades there. So, we're starting with the flooring. They were painted last week as well. And then we will be adding HVAC units to the bathrooms. Thank you. Let me spare a quick quick. Can I be recognizing something? Go ahead. Dealing with the parks in Nile and Lake Evil, you know, I noticed that in the Great Lawn, and I don't know if this can be done or not, but, you know, it gets quite often out there in the summertime. And then when we have events and they put up the lawn chairs and all, those people are sitting directly in the sun. You know, I always vision that we could have put up some type of shade, you know, because even if it's raining, they got to the end scattered because it's raining. But, you know, if there's something going on on stage where it's covered, and these people are sitting out there, the event can still go on if they had something covering, you know, the guests are sitting in the Great Lawn. I don't know if we ever thought about it or looked at it because it's just hot sitting out there. And I'm surprised that somebody passed out. We had to go around passing out water to people sitting in that sun. Have we ever thought about maybe putting some type of cover over that and they can sit out there and, you know, don't have to sit directly in the sun? Commissioner? I'm sorry, Eric, if I may be. Yes, sir. You can definitely start with this. And I definitely understand what you're saying there, but I think we just got to put that Great Lawn is an area that most people are going to come to. You know, that's the thing. I don't know. I'll be waiting at 4 o'clock before I come out there, man. It's hot. You know, and you're right. It's designed. I get to sit in the sun, but I ain't used to sitting in the sun. You know, I just thought maybe there's some type of we can probably, you know, I don't know. I don't see many people sitting in the sun, but they do. And that Great Lawn serves multiple purposes, multiple events. So that is definitely a possibility. Whether it's kids throwing to friends, be playing soccer, football, whatever it may be. Typically, when we try to put up pop-up tents for some of those events, obviously, you're talking a 10 by 10 or 20 by 20, so you're not covering much. But to that point, 4th of July, typically we've always started that event with entertainment, say, 3 o'clock or so . And the bands are just playing to the grass because it's too hot. Nobody's going to sit there. Nobody's going to sit there. I know that. So we've got to push the start time. And the band is just wasting money paying a band there, and no one's sitting out there because it's too hot. And I don't blame it. I don't blame it. I'm not going to sit out there. I can get some quotes and bring it out for the next. And just that you have push the start time back because of it. Yes, yes, sir. Yeah, I have to because they can't start in there earlier because of the sun. But my next question is that we talked about in our parks placing markers of someone that made a significant difference in our city when they're walking around our parks that they can read. I don't see anything in your parks budget about maybe markers, you know, identifying individuals. We may have a building name out of someone, but like I said in the council meeting, some of these younger kids don't know who the heck is that person. It's just something that you can read about. You know, Lake Evil. Can anybody tell? I mean, I know why Lake Evil got his name, but I guarantee you probably someone else sitting up here doesn't even know how Lake Evil originated and got that name. So we got a part called Lake. We got some called Lake Evil. But somebody asked me how do Lake Evil get the name? I may be able to tell them, but I don't know if Commissioner Johnson can tell them how Lake Evil got the name. And it's like, y'all got a partner in Lake Evil and they don't know how his name. We got to educate our community. And I think that we should have something that just means we should have something in our part to say, you know, Ben Graham. How did he get a name? How did he get Janet John to a quality center? Nobody even knows. So we've got to start putting markers on. Yeah. So we've talked about this and we've started that process. But again, I think getting that information together. I know the board has also talked about finding a way to recognize people. So we do have a program that has been approved that we've had in place for almost three years now. And it's on the city's website. We've advertised it in the past where basically you can purchase a 12 by 12 plaque that will go along the trail. You can either choose the trail in Lake People Park or Bend up the ground park. In those three years of the existence of the program, we've had one individual fill out that application for that program. And usually it opens up every year from January, I think January 1st to like the end of February. So that's why you don't see anything in the budget for that because I've budgeted for it in the past. I've not gotten any applications. So we do have a budget for that that we pay for it. Just someone has to submit the name. So yes, that was approved two or three years ago. It's up on the website. And like I say, typically it's January, but I'll give the staff. We'll just go ahead and do another push now on their social media. I think it needs to be, you know, I mean, it needs to be on social media because I'm quite sure there are some folks that would be glad to submit names and information, you know. I like to submit Mayor Smith and say, well, you know, how do you became the mayor? You understand? Can it come back before y'all for the final approval? And also just know that it's not part of the break. So at some point those applications will come back before the board for that. Can we bump it back out there to social media and let people know that you're going to finally do that? And I think that's important. That's all I have to say. That's all I have to say. I would like to know when are we going to really, when we say downtown for some reason, these angels can make it on Ingram, but there's very little Christmas on the bottom of 6th Street. I don't know if it's a lighting problem. If the building is too old for you to nail something to put a wreath on it. But the bottom of 6th Street, and when I say the bottom, I 'm saying from Main Street to Henson. There's very little for Christmas, and that's where more of the commercial stores are. Yeah, we can add more. I know in the past we may have had some issues with the receptacles on the poles, but we'll definitely look to increase the amount of angels or ornaments or whatever. I don't think there were ornaments, definitely not angels. And I think there was some poinsettias at the request of some of the businesses that was there. So when I think of downtown as far as commercial businesses , I'm thinking Main Street to Henson Avenue. I'm not excluding Ingram, but there's more commercial businesses. And I think that map will help that because obviously I just tasked my team with going out, put them in areas that they think they should be going. And if they're going to establish that map, then there's no question. We know that where they're going to be, or the direction for the board. Okay, thank you. Anything else? The parks. Okay. Is there anything else? Yeah. Tell them, there was a question. All right, good. I think this phone was over. We're going to talk about it. I don't think it's not the recommendation. Do you have any questions? I have some questions. I'd like to know with the Oakland Auditorium restroom rem odel, is this something that just your staff that may be you and your deputy director are looking at? Are you getting input from some of your other female staff from the Oakland neighborhood to go in there and look and see? How often are you remodeling the restroom? So with the budget process, I allow each facility superintendent to provide whatever it may be to provide me their list. We discussed that list and then I may add or take away from that list. So these particular requests came from our recreation superintendent. Who is that female? My staff would tell you when it comes to aesthetics and big line colors and all of that, that's not my forte. So typically I'm going to stay as far away as I can from that to allow them to add their expertise and trying to follow the current trends. So that is something that will be considered and it won't just be on the Toronto and Gerald making that decision. So I have two other questions for Parks and Recreation and of course, Meera Smith will be leaving. And that is, if I remove for the old concession stand. What is your long time goal maybe five years from now for that old concession stand? So you may recall this past year with that old concession stand, we converted it to a storage unit. So we break them in. The issue we run into with the programs at the new con cession building, simply not enough storage for the two programs. So what we did, we still have storage underneath the old press box. So Mr. Rags has that storage as well as the storage in the old concession stand. Between the two programs, I gave the option. You can have the new storage room. It's not as big if you get another two. So between the two programs, they work it out to where Mr. Rags got those two. And the Vipers got the new storage at the new concession building. So you just use concession stands so we would know. Yes, the old concession. Yes, ma'am. What you're talking about. Yes. Okay, versus that. Yes, ma'am. I'm going to look to replace the countertops that are extremely outdated and in some cases damaged and look to address the flooring. And that work as well. Hopefully the entire building somewhat matched throughout the banquet hall areas, some of the bathrooms, as well as the kitchen. Okay, and my last question is one that I have heartburn over it each year. And that is what the library, $100,000 every year for books , what books are they buying when we have friends of the library. But $100,000 in books is a lot of books. And that request is made every year. And I started asking this, I want to say in 2019, might have been earlier. Are there some books for African American children to be able to see themselves as a fireman, as an astronaut or whatever. I also asked about books for Hispanic kids as well. And I think I saw, maybe I'm going to say a dozen, and I'm being nice on each one. So, I know those dozen books didn't cost $100,000. And so every year it's $100,000. What books are she buying? I don't have a subscription to Vogue, so I have to ask Commissioner Johnson and Vice Mayor Downing, do those subscriptions cost that month $100,000? They do not. It doesn't. No. They do not. I can ask for it. They do not. I'm just asking them because, you know, I'm still looking at the old Essence books that are out there. So I just want to know because, Lord, I have harbored every single year the $100,000 in books. What books are we buying? If it's subscriptions, you know I like the pro whatever that is that I'm able to go in there and look at some research on African Americans from back in the 1800. But $100,000 worth of books is what books are she buying every single year? And understand with that request that's pretty much anything that's in circulation. So it's books, it's DVDs, it's the games for the Xbox, it's all of that. So each year we're purchasing new books, replacing some of those older books. But I'm more than happy to give Maryland to get a list of the new books that we've purchased this year or all those things that's in circulation to show what we're doing with that. Typically, Black History Month, we're putting out a display with books. We're probably the same thing with Juneteenth as well as Expanding Heritage Month. So additional books are being bought for those particular occasions just to make sure, just based on feedback from the community and the commission in the past. But I'm more than happy to get a list together of the new books that were purchased this year. And understand we get approximately $250,000, $300,000 a year from the library co-op. That some of this funding goes towards that as well as salaries and other things that the library is doing. Thank you. I'd like to see what books she bought last year and what books are she buying this year. Yes, ma'am. Because that's $100,000 is two trucks for you. I'm going to have to read a lot of books. And I'm going to have them myself. Okay. I'll spend a few weeks. Yes, ma'am. I have two things now that Commissioner Huffman has said that. But the first one was, it's already answered. I found the page with the Oakland Neighborhood Center Aud itorium. It's in there. It says flooring. So I was going to ask about flooring and things like that being changed. But that's already answered. The other one is, I know you mentioned that the book displays are pretty much seasonal or would that, if they can find a way to have a section for those different ethnic groups that she spoke of that's year round. I know some libraries do it. I know some libraries do it. I mean, every library is different. So if they can kind of push the culture. And again, I know this is discussion and suggestions. So this is all this is from my seats, discussions and suggestions. But to have a section where that is not just, you know, in October where we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, but there's a section already that a group of children want to go to that's already year round for us. Love the displays. I love to see that all the time. But that's all I have. The flooring was in there. I answered my own question because you already had it in here. But that was it. And I'm pretty sure those books are in our normal inventory . Yes. I'm purposely taking them out and put them on display. Yes. Yes. That's funny. But I'll make sure that there's an increase in those offerings. Quickly, Mr. Mayor, can I recognize? Yeah, ma'am. On the, with the library and the books, they're like an e- reading system. You know how you can read it online or it reads to you. And we're talking about going paperless, but then we're also talking about $100,000 in hard paperback type books. And, you know, it's going to a digital system. So why are we still going out and getting hard books instead of trying to go to a system where they can read it online or inside the library or it can be read to them, the ones that, you know, disabled and they can hear if they're reading back. So it's two-fold. With a lot of these devices, most people are trying to get kids away from the devices. Although, hey, you're on your device to read unless you're, and I face this with my own kids, you're supposed to be reading. I look up, you're playing some type of game or something. Also, within whatever I send you guys about the books, I'll include the circulation numbers to give you an idea of the number of people that walk through those doors on a daily basis. I know there may be people reading online and those different things, but there still ain't a lot of people that prefer to come and actually pick up a book and sit down in the library and read. So, yeah. I want to go back a minute back to the parks. I know we love those things, but I didn't see anything included here for cemetery. Would that be under the city clerk or would that be under the cemeteries on the parks? Yes, so we're responsible for the maintenance. The city clerk's office. But I didn't see anything budget any of this about our cem eteries and upgrade of the cemetery. I didn't see anything. So are there any particular upgrades? There's a system that we use online to give you your loc ator and stuff. So that would be through the city clerk's office. So I'm just cutting grass, making sure everything is maintained properly. Mr. Okay. But I think you didn't put a lot of stuff in here that I don't have a lot of concerns in. And I'll ask this question to you. There's something that you can cut, but we have to probably cut something. But you might want to keep in mind that if you want something you can live without and wait for the next budget cycle, and then we can bring that back and keep in mind if there's something we can take out. We're going to have a good something. Yes, sir. We'll do it. Mr. Mayor, might we recognize? You, ma'am. And, Tana, I have a couple of questions. And I know, I believe, Commissioner Huffman kind of mentioned it, but I want more clarification on it. On the Mars and Wally Field, the old concession, it says fiber new for 38. And I do understand that now that's just for storage. Yes, ma'am. So do we need fiber in there just for storage? That was the budget. That's for the camera system. Because we currently, we got cameras installed at the new concession building, but they're not connected to it. We don't have to try that. That is correct. That is to the new concession. For the old one, this would also be infrastructure for security cameras. Eventually, if they want to put door locks on there, have the infrastructure there for it. Right now, they're using a wireless bridge. There's this radio signal from the top of the OZ gem. I think it's on the gem. And that thing gets struck by lightning left and right. It doesn't work half the time. This would just be a more steady solution. Okay, so it would be for the security systems, pretty much. Combination of both. Combination of both because currently, like I say, the cameras are installed at the new concession, but they're not connected simply because there's no fiber connected. So it would serve two purposes. It would also be beneficial for wireless access points off that building or anything else that uses camera. Okay. And then my other question, and I don't know if this is on parks and under recreation, but it's somewhere in parks. I have it here on my notes for the portable generator at the youth enrichment center. Yes. So I know a couple weeks ago there was like a wedding and then there was a baby shower at one location, a wedding at the other location. And I received the calls from the families that rented those facilities because there was a power outage. And it kind of ruined their entire event because the power did not come back on for like an excessive amount of hours. So are we looking just to get a portable generator there because I believe when I went down because there was two rentals. There was one at the auditorium and then there was the other one at the enrichment center. And both locations lost power. Correct. And so do we not have generators anywhere like a backup generator? Because that's what I thought. I was like, hey, what time does the backup? I'm asking staff, what time does the backup generator come on? And they're like, there is no generator. So, so, so our facilities do not have backup generators typically the library is fortunate to be connected here. But that request I think is, was for a future year request. And the thought process behind it was during hurricane season. Nowhere throughout the city or in Oakland area has power. Now that generator is there. Now people can come and cool off, charge phones, potentially feed people. And then they're like, I'm doing those type things that also would serve an additional purpose. To that point, if the power does go out, it's a Duke energy mission. Power is not coming back home for three or four hours and now I've got this event going on. What do I do? Right? So then it would come on. But if we're going to do it based off of events, I would suggest we start with the event center. Simply because most likely somebody is not going to be doing a wedding or something out of the auditorium. They could, but most likely it's going to be that event center. You're paying a lot more to utilize the event center. So maybe if that's the direction you want to go, maybe look to add one in the future to the event center. Therefore, if the power goes out, you've spent $4,000 or $5 ,000 on your wedding and that occurs. That would be my suggestion to start there. But my request for that generator for that facility was more so if we have that natural disaster to get the community somewhere to come in again to cool off charge phones and do those type things. So I think the event center is a great thing. So I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. I think the event center is a great thing. The auditorium is something next in line to the event center. Believe it or not, it's booked all the time for weddings, baby showers, whatever, graduation parties. And I see more so than often, and you probably could contest, where there's so much going on there, like loss of power, and then we're having to refund the rental. So it's like we're losing money because of. So if we were going to do even a portable generator, maybe we should look at maybe the auditorium versus the enrichment center because it's used more than the enrichment center. So that was just how I feel about that. So I think that would be a better location than just the enrichment center itself. Yes ma'am. We did the lake before, right? So. Oh, and then to the restroom part, I know we talked about that, and I'm glad to see that we could finally possibly be getting it done. I think we talked about it for the last two years, and we also entertain it going under CRA, but if it's within your budget that we could have that remodeled on in both the ONC as well as the Lake Eva one. And I think in this particular request, the ONC building itself is not in here. It was submitted by staff. But again, just realizing that there may be some budget cuts. So just to get clarification, is that something that the board would like to see me put back in my request? So the request is there, so the Oakland Auditorium, the bathroom is there. But again, staff did submit to me to do some upgrades at the Oakland Neighborhood Center itself. But I removed it, again, just thinking from a financial standpoint, knowing that there's only so much money to go around, but if that's the desire, I can add that back in there. Well, just for me going, if I have to compare the two, the Oakland Neighborhood Center is worse off than the actual auditorium. If you go in and review, that's best from what I see going to both facilities, that the Oakland Neighborhood Center is worse than the actual auditorium. That's right. That's very interesting. Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that. The only thing I would add to real, I know we kind of stayed with, you know, between the portable generators and the back of the generator. I think it's a wonderful idea if we did have them. I know this may be shooting for the stars right now, and all of a sudden, if we ran out. But not only for those reasons, so we don't have to do those refills, but also, you know, in the event that we do have a disaster, you know, we would have a place. I know we're not designated shelters, but there's no spots right now, but we would have to do that in the back of the power. Do I find a question, Mr. Mayor? I'm sorry. I did notice the events that are on here. So is that going to be under CRA, or is that going to go under you? Yes, I think that's under CRA. Where are we? Yeah, correct. So that's going to fall strictly? Yes. Okay. No problem. Thank you. Anything else from recreation? And we did go with the providers. No? All right. All right. All right. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And -- All right. Yep. All right. So at this time, we're going to take a recess here to let everybody kind of stretch their names and, you know, make calls and grab a bite. Grab a bite. Have a bite. Great. What's the first call? You're fine. Um, excuse me. Uh, 15 minutes. Yeah, we're eating 15 minutes? Yeah, that's good. Okay. All right. We got to go get food. We got to go get food. We got to go get food. Y'all think y'all can wrap it up by 2 o'clock? I understand. Well, I think with general fun, utilities is -- we can probably do general fun and stormwater. Utilities, we probably have to leave for another day if you want to hit that 2 o'clock deadline. What is that? 3 o'clock. I thought it was -- No, it's not until the 3 o'clock. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. So let me update that. The city manager has told me that he is requesting a 30- minute -- but we're saying that it's 30 minutes. 30 minutes left. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know we're doing CRA. Is CRA tomorrow, right? CRA tomorrow. Is it noon? Is it noon tomorrow? Good afternoon tomorrow. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, and the all right jumping I'm gonna skip aquatics until he comes back the next one city clerk no we had real quick I think we covered aquatics I don't think we had any questions okay so we'll just go ahead and keep on okay perfect thank you the next department city clerks department so this is a new request the clerk asked us to go ahead and put this in as part of her employment contract considering a take-home vehicle for the city clerks again $40,000 budget set for that we had discussions on like a Ford Explorer at the time was 35 so that gives us something some wiggle room in case prices go up but that was the expectation is $40,000 for a take-home vehicle so we're currently paying a per diem vehicle for the city clerk at this time right now they in the employment contract there's a stipend like I believe it's 300 350 a month so we can we get the exact number what that is y'all can look it up and let me just say so with this request if we did approve it it wouldn't be the vehicle plus the site no it would be contingent on her on the contract being modified to remove the stipend and add the take-home vehicle okay and then for the vehicle and I understand that I think we said most cost effective was the Explorer correct but I do have some vehicles that are regular car yes we'll say sedan right if that would that fall within the same range if that was more I guess from a dean's perspective we could I know we purchased a Camry for the clerk's department uh previously and that was somewhere in the $28,000 um I know the clerk did mention to me personally that she would prefer an SUV she currently drives an SUV um just feels more comfortable in an SUV but to your point from a fiscal standpoint we could make that and make it a Camry or some sort of uh sedan I would be cheaper but Mr. Mayor I don't understand but I and I just want to get some understanding because if the city clerk department has a car already why would we pay uh and buy another car when they they only use that car doing business power right so if the city clerk department has a car already why would we pay uh and buy another car when they they only use that car doing business power right so if the city clerk department has a car already why would we pay uh and buy another car when they they only use that car doing business power right they only use that car doing business power right city clerk is probably one of the least traveled person unless it's election time going to the the supervisor of election office I don't know outside of that I don't know any other place where city clerk would really have to travel but why would we buy a car why can't you know we just turn that car over say hey take this car it's already in place like you know we're buying cars because we just can't I just think my and just me now I could be wrong I think that the car that's assigned to them now why can't she use that car we already own it right so is that and I understand with that department there are you know many needs for a vehicle is that not an option for them to use the current vehicle right I think it is for sure well Mr. Mayor may I be recognized thank you um I'm not in favor and I'm going to tell you multiple reasons why I'm not in favor of a city clerk having a take-home vehicle for one again we have to look at the cost and I know 40,000 is a basic part right but again when we purchase these vehicles we maintain the vehicle we supply the gas for the vehicle um so so we start out at 40 but what is the outcome at the very end there's a current car now the camry um and I honestly I don't know in the history of haynes city where the clerk has ever had a take-home vehicle um I think her siphon right now is 350 dollars um a month we just confirmed it is 350. okay so that's I believe that it was 350 and um to me that's plenty um as far as gas on her own vehicle um when you look at reasons for the clerk as the commissioner was stated um the city clerk is the least travel employee or person rather because she's not employee um here um if there's any type of disasters the city clerk doesn't have to come out right um so during the most time of her travel is during election which is once a year going from here to the supervisor of the election office in winter haven and possibly will be moved to our toe later down the road a couple of years from now but um i'm just not in favor of the forty thousand dollar cost for a new car um if she wants to take the stipend off of the 350 and use the current car that we have um i don't have a problem with that but as far as purchasing a new vehicle um i would not be in favor of a new vehicle for um for those multiple reasons i think she already uh vice mayor downey has already answered the question um what years of camry i think it's up to date um not saying again it's not a need um it's just a want of course um and we definitely want to make sure that all of our um staff members are accommodated because they're putting in the work but if they already have a car that's suitable um then also not to get in the weeds of things i think when like she said you've never seen a um a city clerk having a take-home vehicle um but when you you get into the weeds of thing that goes back to me saying about fleet management who does take cars home so when you're looking at who takes cars home why can't i take the car so they're looking at that as well and seeing well what was their need to get getting the car and taking a car but i agree with you on that the car that they have now should be fine especially we want to make sure we you know we have a physical responsibility so that we're not spending money that we don't need to spend but i don't see a problem with her having the car she has for a take home but again back to the weeds of things when you're seeing other people it goes back to fleet management to see a war taking cars home and i'm seeing that but i want to take the car home too well commissioner johnson i can tell you that i have raised that concern for two years and i will say that some of the departments have been back and took away vehicles from some of the people that were just taking them home and it was on the emergency need basis like for example if they were on call on call of duty for that particular week then they took their vehicle home if they were not then they left here and they only drove the vehicle during the hours that they were actually working and providing the service so um there is a list and maybe they can give all of us this updated list again of all the vehicles and everyone that takes them home i did receive that and um i did notice that some of the changes in some departments were made with those take home vehicles and quickly mr mayor uh my last thought thank you you know and and i don't have an issue if you're gonna if you are a person that had that respond to being outside of normal business out you know and and and you have a car and then you go to that go directly to that site or something going on but just for someone that has an office job here and then you come to the office money you 're not gonna you're not on that uh just to be called out for something that's gonna happen and it's a different you know so and i don't and i've been here a while i go back to 2016 and and you're right i don't recall any of the prior city clerks having a uh uh car you know i don't even know and i can't speak on i don't know i don't even know that we even paid them a site before a car we didn't i don't think we even did that because they didn't need a car so uh i'm okay with them using the current car that's a car that's there you want to use that car that's fine but i think that you know we already in a question where we got to cut someplace and now we added another 41 000 car and we may have to cut things so so right now i don't think the city is in you know that we should be getting an additional fleet car but something we really don't need right now and i just think that we've let them use a car even different they didn't have a car there's a car that it can be used already all right uh thank you for that so is this an item uh from what i'm hearing is this an item uh that we leave yes but are we going to leave her stipend in the end though that's what i think it was either or i don't think it was the takeaway that will be during the i guess the renewal of the right correct this would just be striking striking this request here all right all right so yeah i think that we also want to make sure that that we've let her know that you see the car you don't have but we're not going to approve an additional car right now and just for clarity so if she's going to use the vehicle that she has or take home do we take away the sniping or does she do that be a no they do the contract you have to take away the sniping you can take that car and we want you to yeah doing the contract yeah it wouldn't be all that man no no no that's what she was asking that yeah if she elects to take the car then will that remove the sniping and that answer would yes yes you cannot have yeah yeah that would be double dipping right you can't get your stipend and you got a car exactly you can't do that yeah i guess what i'm what i'm stating here yeah all right so the next department uh fleet maintenance and so there's one request for a two post car lift i'll let woodley come up in two posts um all right good afternoon um this is for um fleet maintenance to be proposed for our two post apartment right now um with our current situation um our fleet department kind of outgrown um their capacity so we're looking to get another post um outdoors it will be currently underneath the awning by our fuel station um that post will only be used for smaller vehicles so vehicles that are the size of a charger or a camry s so to speak that will be one of those quick and get out kind of posts so oil changes tire fill-ups and that'll be it so that's what the two postcard will be used for and it will be it will be outdoor but it'll be underneath an awning so it will not be subject to any sort of rain or sunlight or anything of sort you know uh thank you for the thing i want to uh well the good thing about is that um for the future of public works eventually build out this post will be able to be reused indoors as well it'll be the same quality of what we currently have right now uh are there any questions for this time no but if you would have caught me a couple months ago it gave you that tool that's what she bought a call for you no listen this my mom got rid of all my dad's equipment yes but i'm in favor of it no problem i'm good i'll have it perfect then i think the last department that we have going back to page 13 is it for me uh uh uh thank you and this the backbone is essentially creating redundancy for for our different city campuses essentially it'll create a second second ring so if a fiber gets cut on one of our current ones this would just be back up this is just part of it this would be the full ring this is all over the city we will have it all over the city so everybody would have a secondary connection just in case of a fiber cut let me ask you is this something that will do you foresee this with something that we're going to carry over this is something that we can actually the portions that we had planned out for this year i think it could be done within this fiscal year not the full ring though again uh anybody anybody i don't expect any questions i'm back home and this is capital five how long would it take us to be uh for this bank more is 500 000 as a capital project how many years do you think that we'll take it this will be a one-time project depending on again the segment we would expect for it to be paid within the next fiscal year oh really we wouldn't expect for it to no that's not the question he's asking he's asking this is a question that this only does one second how many segments do we need to complete the circle i mean one second i have the answer for that that's an answer is that for 500 000 right yeah how many segments and how long is going to be looking at it yeah but that's just that one yeah so you also said 27 28 29 30 31 so it's five years correct that is the plane rate so the total capital project is not just five 500 000 that is correct it's 25 it's two it was 250 um get my math right now two point yeah nobody likes math but yes and this isn't an absolute necessity per se but once it's one of them things that you know you don't think you need until you need it no i understand i just want to make sure that they understand that this is not and they come back again because you're saying if i read this it's 500 that's not true it is more than five it's 500 per year correct okay so we'll so it's actually 2.5 million dollars over the next five years what we're going to be a capital project mr mayor correct me if i'm wrong on this jeremiah but um eventually it create we would have two service providers that would say i'm making it up frontier and at&t and so if if we had a storm and the fiber got cut on this end that was frontier then the other end the other service provider could still provide it and we actually do have that now what we're referring to right now is the city internal fiber oh from from building to building we have internet connection over at the eoc now so if city hall goes down we have to make a quick configuration change but eoc internet would take over for the city internet's a little slower but it's better than nothing so but that's all i have a question on the next one for the uh the fiber for the hang city trail that's the one off the opposite drive we said that goes over by ember park over there yeah and it goes up to robinson and all by yeah and it would go around the trail there over to the fire station and we're going to run fiber over there why do we need fiber there so part of the reason would be part of a it's also part of the redundant loop for one it's kind of just being added in but the other option for that is for like areas that we might have issues we can put wi-fi out there we can put cameras out there if we need to just different equipment it would have that capability to have it there okay the same reason why people walk correct and it would also provide a connection point for ember dog park which right now is running off a cellular cradle point from the camera out there so that would give me a good one to cut yes if needed one quick question about this so in running and i know right now i would just kind of be there um if for you know some some reason we have this structure for the moment that would that give us a connection that you need to so we wouldn't have to come back that's correct if that connection is there we just have to run from that connection to the new building i'll yield back i don't have anything else so uh i think that would be the best bet yes sir so where are we at now so this wraps up the general fund again we've gone over all 34.5 million dollars in requests between all departments for just the general fund so at this point we can transition we can go either storm water which only has 600 000 worth of requests we can knock that one out pretty quick and then end with utilities which has 47 million dollars or you can go right into utilities with 47 and leave storm water for last you can kind of decide which one you want to take yeah but here's my question before we move on how much you said earlier that this commission you know that we have that we can have that we can spend in capital project so we 're recommending that you budget right that we have to look at all those more than came before us because i think we how much did we have over eight million dollars in capital just we were at we started at 34.5 million 34.5 and we only have eight million yeah we got a long ways to go yes sir are you going to come back up with something that's been cut in the capital or you want you want this commission to to say hey cut this out how do you want to do that it's at the pleasure of the commission again we've done it both ways in the past years we've done where we've come back with proposals and recommendations based on ranking last year the commission kind of went through and cut from different departments so we're open to whatever you guys would like to see i'd like to see you come back for us and say i met with the department really and say hey this is what they can live without you know so i cut yes i cut that now we're at you know now we now we're at 12 meals do you understand what i'm saying because and i think that's under the finance department you mean we're going to say listen we got to get down to eight meals what can you live and live without and then you come back and i'm just fair and then you come back and say hey i met with them and this is where we're at now if you all want to go in and look at some other stuff that you all want to cut much stuff and we get it we got to get to the same meal we could do that as well with um and again we haven't got there yet but obviously the village is a conversation that we need to discuss and review we did provide some options there for you guys consider you want to go up down keep it the same projections but we can definitely give you guys a recommended proposal with options so just so just so we have some some definitive uh i guess answers towards um and i do agree with commissioner uh west i think we we had the opportunity to hear what's the most important uh from there and we've asked those questions about you know items to leave but um i think you know being that you're fine um if you could come back with something being that you know there may be something that you know that you're proposing to cut that we can say well hey we're swapping this evening we swap things yeah absolutely yeah it'll be an example with the uh public safety complex they asked for 20 million man for five million out of that you know right i'm just using that example and say hey then next year we can add five more million back it's just that you have to have that conversation with them and bring it back up because you got the balance you got to do it all right so um with benny i think we should move to uh uh uh this is page six um again just kind of i'm going to walk you through this main page and page six at the the same time stormwater is a again dedicated enterprise fund completely funded by non-avalorm assessments this past year you guys worked with attorney mark lawson to keep the fire assessment the same which basically was a reduction in order to keep the same amount of funding so for example this year we made five million and it was projected to go to six million the board the commission's decision was to do whatever it took to make it five million again so there was a reduction to keep that revenue the same with stormwater assessments we didn't make any change it's just naturally growing as a result of more homes being built new construction so the prior funding was somewhere around 980 000 this year non-alarm assessments is going up to one million one hundred sixty five thousand

. . . All right, we will go ahead and call the CRA meeting to order for June 4th. The first item of business is going to be the consent agenda. Do we have any questions on the consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll open it up for the public. Members of the public, if you have any questions about the consent agenda, step up to the podium. Now we will do my left, your right, if you have any questions. All right, seeing none, we will close there and I'll ask for an approval. Move approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carried. All right, we will move forward to item 3. Item 3 is going to be a presentation. There will be, this is for informational purposes only. It is the Ignite Foundation, Inc. Downtown Haines City Business Incubator. It will be presented by our Director, Alex Abraham. Yes, thank you. Good evening. Apologies, I did have a letter in drafts a couple weeks ago , so my voice is still coming back. So bear with me. The Ignite Foundation is a community-based incubator that is actually located here in downtown Haines City already. They will present tonight, the founder and owner is here this evening, Mr. Junie Delgado, who will present an overview of the organization, the facility, the programming to the board. The presentation is intended to introduce the foundation's mission and its services and to explore the potential of a future partnership with H aines City CRA in support of small business development, business education, entrepreneurship within our CRA districts. So with that, I welcome Mr. Junie Delgado to the podium. Hi all, my name is Junie Delgado. I am very excited to present you guys this business incub ator. It's been a passion and a dream mission for me that it's really, really important that we finally get in front of you guys so you can kind of see the vision and see the reality that it's becoming. Really what we're here to do is present it. Perfect. Present who we are, present what we do, and what we're trying to accomplish here in City Paint City. More than anything, what my belief is, is that strong local businesses create strong communities. And so whenever I see and visit any communities that are exterior to us, Orlando, Tampa, Lakeland, one of the main things that has those people that are there is that they have ties to local communities. They can remember their first date 10, 15 years ago when they had it at this restaurant or cafe. And for us, it's very important that we see businesses stay here and thrive here so that they don't find any alternative areas to go to. And so what we want to do is we really exist to move entrepreneurs from an idea and inception into a sustainable long-term model that can live within this community. Let me go to the next slide, please. So why Hank City? I actually grew up here. So I went out to Tallahassee, went up to Florida State, had a great run there, came back, and through my experiences all over the world I realized this is where I wanted to plan my roots. And so when I see youth and kids, I see my kids in the community, and there's different programs in other communities that I've been a part of in bigger metropolitan cities, I really do wish that there was something like this where entrepreneurship was being accessible to everyone. And so we're here to help businesses that struggle with business planning, marketing, sales, financial aspects of it, and at the same time build connections to capital that I bring with my personal resources and connections. And so the next part is our vision here. We've already started, we opened up and launched in February here at the end of February. And from that point in February, prior to that, we had a huge rollout through our other associations of different events that we had to make sure that this was a viable concept. What the business community told us is that, yeah, we want this, we want this to stick around. From September of last year to now, what we've done is we 've grown our base of followers online to over 1,000 members . Currently, since February to now, we have about 25 members inside of Ignite currently, where we're helping them actively supporting. And with our most recent collaboration with the SPDC, what we've been able to do is bring more resources and create more impact to those business owners. And so these are just an example of what our vision is to continue expanding these types of events, to continue putting entrepreneurs, local government, educational institutions together so that we can be that incubator, that hub where people can come together and express ideas and more than anything provide economic growth in the downtown area. So what do we do specifically? Very simply said, we provide education, coaching, community , and more importantly, space. I think in an online world that we have today, a lot of the connections and the networking is lost through being able to do things online. So what we would do is we provide a space where everybody can engage and kind of come in together. And what we want to do is make this more accessible, get the voice out there to more people so that they can come in and be part of that community. Our principles are low-cost, accessible, community resource -driven, and every education with a purpose so that we're providing business owners what they need in a timely fashion when they need it. And then who do we serve? Well, we serve entrepreneurs. Myself, like many of the entrepreneurs in this community and business owners that are starting up, we come from disadvantaged backgrounds. And so when I look at my history and think about how hard and difficult it's been to start up some of the businesses that we have, I would have wished that I would have had a helping hand. And not to say that I didn't, I think all along the way I 've had helping hands, but not in a structured format like we're trying to do here at Ignite. And so what we're doing is we're putting together programs and we're putting together connections so that the people that our entrepreneurs are seeing are people that look like them, talk like them, act like them, and come from a background like them. So through my connections and bringing in my friends and bringing in my colleagues and bringing in other business owners, that can kind of help them see where their business is and what it could potentially be. So we focus on first time business owners, minority, women owned businesses, and we provide them not only the technical aspect, but really the leadership training that's needed in order to run enterprises and not just micro businesses. Moving on to the next slide. So what does success look like for Ignite Foundation and for myself personally? For what I want to see is, again, I'm from here. I've gone out. I came back. I want to be rooted here. So what I want to see is I want to see that Ignite Foundation sustains businesses in the community, that we see more open storefronts in Haines City, that we see them long term, not just open and close, open and close . And really what we want to do is we want to get young people involved in constructing the community that they're going to be a part of at some point. And if we don't do that, then the other end of the spectrum is they end up leaving like a lot of my friends did. I have some friends here in the crowd that have been blessed to be able to also start businesses and stay here in the community. But a lot of my friends, they ventured out to other cities where we lose that talent. And so we have a lot of talented people here, a lot of great schools that have bright minds. And so what we want to do is keep that here and give them a resource so that they can expand on those ideas. Really encouragement. Some of the current and prospective supporters. So we're in conversations with many of the local banks, some of the hedge funds in other areas. Some of my personal connections that I have, SBA, South State, EHB, original accounting tax, and other, many other partnerships that we can collaborate and kind of create this hub here of economic prosperity for business owners. So what we're here to do is work in for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. I'm here for the long run. That's all I got for you guys. My name is Jimi. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that. From this board, are there any questions? Yes, I have a question. Absolutely. Where is the space that you're concentrating for this incub ator? Because most of the downtown is privately owned and probably was built in the 1940s and don't necessarily meet the code regulations. What business downtown and what business on 1792? What space on 1792? Because those are our two business areas that we have. Absolutely. So the building that I purchased and that I'm using for this passion project is probably two minutes down the road. It's 608 Ingram Avenue right next to Rudy's Bar. And that's the building that I've equipped to be able to house approximately 50 people probably. What we're doing now is we're waiting for leases to expire so that we can expand into second phase, which would be the upstairs that would give us more capacity to house people there. So will you provide, I forget what the name, what it's called, but it's in Lakeland. Caterpillar. It's called Caterpillar. Caterpillar. Yes, it's in Lakeland. I don't remember that name, but maybe that's what it is now . But it was different people can come in that normally work from home, would have someone answering, I guess, automated answering the phone for them. And they can come in there. They can meet clients in there versus a home business. Is that what you were trying to do? Absolutely, yeah. That's exactly what it is. At this point, we also provide the education piece, which we have several different events on our website that you can see where we bring together people. We host events. I think some of the board has been part of those events. And so they'll be able to share with you what that experience is like. Those events is, I think, the cornerstone of getting people to speak to people and collaborate on ideas. But the other service would definitely be that. It would be they can come into work. We actually have a partnership right now where we have coaches, business coaches, that they can resort to to kind of get that planning phase done and then incubate from there. I think that's good. What type of commitment or financial money would you need from the city? If I may. Just for clarification for the board, this is just for discussion. It isn't technically an ask right now. Okay. There's not an ask right now. No, I want to collaborate with you. I see where our visions align and see what we can do together. Okay. Well, I like exactly what you're saying. I know that Small Business was meeting in CRE. I think they meet at the chamber now. And I think that that's really good. Space has been the chapter. So that's good that you have covered downtown. I'd like to see something on the east side on 1792 as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And as part of our partnership is with the SBDC, we're helping them kind of bringing them into the building so that we can collaborate. If there's two of us doing basically the same thing, I don 't see a reason for not collaborating. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other questions? Very good. How are you advertising Ignite? I mean, were you, in order to get the community involved in this team you're being on, how are you advertising? We're doing online advertising right now. And more than anything, through word of mouth, through our members. Like, again, we built an online platform before we decided to invest real dollars into the community. And through that, we have about 1,000 members on there. Whenever we have an event, what's typical turnout is going to be anywhere from 35 to 50 people. And from there, we just kind of let the voice run. So we've had people come all the way from Kissimmee, from Orlando, from Lake Wales, Dundee, over this way to kind of be a part of those events. And again, I don't think it's anything crazy, challenging that we're presenting. I think it's very fundamental business topics, but it's the community aspect that really makes people come out and want to do it in person. You've learned all this from YouTube probably. But what we do is we kind of make sure that we get different people with diversity of thought into the same space. And that creates all the difference. I invite you guys to come on out for our next event. All right. Thank you. Absolutely. Will there be anyone else? I come from the not-for-profit sector. And so my question is, do you provide any services at the start of the not-for-profit and for existing not-for-profit ? Because, you know, it's really part of the not-for-profit that's the network. Do you guys provide any services for any, I mean, person who might want any? Yeah, absolutely. And it's all free of cost. Right now, as my time permits, I'm dedicating my time and other consultants' time at a firm that I own to kind of give back to the community in that way. So we do a lot of pro bono services when it comes to the startup community, when it comes to filing new companies, when it comes to business planning that we don't charge for . And even other nonprofits that we reached out to in Clarem ont that are doing a very similar concept. We also provide guidance as far as support. My professional background comes with consulting. And so what I've seen and what I've been able to do is help businesses transform and kind of get their house in order, per se. And so we bring a lot of that expertise into boards, different companies of all different types. Okay. You know what I'm saying? All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, guys. All right. We're going to continue on to new business. We're going to go to item 4A, Small Business Development Center, SBDC. Continue, partners. Yes. The intent of this item is for the Florida Small Business Development Center at USF, also known as the SBDC. To present its mission, its business consulting impact to any city over the last couple of years. We've been working with them for 2024. And so they want to show their intention to seek this board 's approval for a three-year continuing contract for their services. They also will present what their impact has been and additional services that they also may offer. This particular agreement provides any city businesses with continued on-site, no-cost consulting, training, and technical assistance. As you had just heard, they are now collaborating with the Ignite Foundation. We found that that was a more synergistic effort together versus – and they are meeting at the Ignite Foundation facility versus at the RCRA Hall, which provides a better environment for the business owners and entrepreneurs at the Ignite Incubator. So with that, I do have Stacey Dodds here who would like to come up and present. Either side. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Stacey Dead. I am the Associate Director for the Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of South Florida. And this is Randy Hayes. He's our Senior Business Consultant. He serves the 27 Corridor. So he goes all the way down to Lake Placid and covers the city as well. He's also a local city boy. So just to move. So the point of our presentation tonight is, one, to recap what we've been doing since fiscal year 2425 and what we hope to continue to do here in Haines City. For those that are not familiar, the Florida SBDC and USF entered into a fiscal year collaboration agreement with the Haines City CRA in late 2024. Jane was still the Director Manager at the time. There was also an accelerator cohort running that Jane was operating at the time, which was part of our agreement. That has stopped running once she left, so we've found some other ways to meet that part of our agreement. And we'll talk about that tonight. The Florida SBDC at USF offers no-cost consulting, training , market research, and information for for-profit entrepreneurs in the 10-county Tampa Bay region, which includes both counties. We're hosted by USF, among many other partners. We are very limited in the non-profits we can serve. We can only serve non-profits that directly support small businesses. Next slide. Our partnerships are how we exist. We are completely grant-funded, and we get that funding in one of three ways. The first is higher education. So we're partnered with USF. We also have a partnership with South Florida State College . And we work with University of Tampa and Florida Southern College as well for student teams engagements. And we get assistance for funding from those organizations to do that. We also have private partners. Those are typically financial institutions that need technical assistance in the counties that they cover. So they provide funding to us to provide training for small business owners in areas that are important to them, which typically is capital access and financial management. And then finally, the big chunk of our grant funding comes from government agencies. We're funded at the federal level by the US Small Business Administration. We're funded at the state level through the state legislature. And then we are funded by additional city and county entities like yourself, like DeSoto County, Highlands County, Hillsborough County, et cetera. We all have collaboration agreements with all of you. Our mission is to help small businesses launch, grow, and thrive. We serve businesses at all stages of their journey. We do that through consulting, education, and connecting the entrepreneurs to additional resources as needed. Thank you. We are powered by our third-party professionally certified business consultants. We deliver all of our consulting and training and market research and information. We have approximately 25 consulting specialists in all of the areas that you see on the screen now. And we work collaboratively with one another. So if Randy doesn't have the expertise in government contracting, I have three other government contracting specialists that he can connect them with. That is their bread and butter. Randy's specialty is startup and capital access. He's diving into. My specialty is marketing. We are all third-party certified. So I'm a certified marketing executive. I'm Google Analytics certified. I've got economic development, finance professionals on our staff. We're all full-time employees. We are not a volunteer. So they always get access to the information from the consultant who knows it best. We serve our business owners. Now, pre-COVID, as you can imagine, most of our services were face-to-face. We were 100% face-to-face consulting pre-COVID. Since COVID, that has obviously shifted because people found that they don't like the travel time. And they can save that travel time. So probably 95% of our consulting is done virtually now. But for particularly the Heartland communities, Heartland counties and Polk County, we find that they still prefer quite a bit to meet face-to-face because they don't want the challenge of technology and making sure they can get that connected appropriately for consulting. So you can find us physically in an office face-to-face in all 10 of our counties. We're very proud of the fact that we have got that presence in every single county. But in Polk County in particular, we're in Lake Wales at the City Administration Building. We are based in Catapult as well in Lakeland, the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, and Ignite. Now, that came by way of Alex and the CRA because that is part of the CRA agreement to provide private meeting space. And the CRA building was not hitting that metric for us. So Alex collaborated with UNI to get us office space over at Ignite as part of that agreement. In addition, we do have circuit ride locations at the Northeast Polk Chamber and at Winter Haven Chambers. So when business owners can't meet us at one of those other four offices, we'll meet them at those chambers if it's closer to them as well. All right. All right. So the contract deliverables, just to make sure everybody's on the same page, the SBDC is required to list the CRA on our website, to provide a consultant at Haines City's CRA, or in this case Ignite, two times a month, and to do quarterly reporting to the director or manager, which we have been filing those reports with Alex directly. We are also required to teach a startup or business planning class to the Haines City's CRA accelerator cohort three times per year. Well, the agreement got in place on October 24th, and shortly after that Jane was gone and the accelerator was no longer. So we are doing that a different way, which I will talk about a little bit later. The CRA is deliverable. Their requirements are to provide private meeting space for the consultant, post SBDC signage, promote SBDC events and services via community engagement and email marketing, list the SBDC on the website, and then provide a Wi-Fi connection and require the accelerator businesses to meet with a consultant at least one time before that pitch competition. That's the only bullet point we're still messing on as of right now. So these are a recap of numbers that we reported to the manager last year. So again, this is fiscal year 2425. We provided 135 training events to entrepreneurs, over 4, 100 hours of consulting to 434 business owners in Polk, and attended and participated in 54 networking events throughout Polk. Now, part of the agreement is that we report Polk County numbers, but as a Haines City drill down on the very bottom of that screen, you'll see 82 of those businesses were in-city businesses or entrepreneurs with 255 hours dedicated to them. Next. So far this year, we are, this reporting is as of six months into the fiscal year contract. So we've got another month left on the third quarter before that gets reported. I also want to note that our training events look low there because I was hiring a new training and events coordinator. So we had a three to four month late start on the webinars that we provide. And we're currently in the middle of getting those pushed out. But so far on this fiscal year contract, we've done 13 training events, 1800 hours of consulting to 232 businesses , seven networking events. But again, if you look at the Haines City drill down numbers, 54 businesses for 144 hours of consulting so far this year. We are trending ahead of where we did for fiscal year 24-25 . But we continue to build on client engagement with our services here in Haines City. Okay. And what you see on the screen now, we wanted you to have a look at the types of businesses we 're serving. So we segment our businesses into three markets. The aspiring businesses, which is the light blue hash mark. Those are ones that are not in business yet. They've got an idea. They're not real sure where to start. They'll need to do their licensing, et cetera. I honestly can't read that this far away, but you can see the slice of a pie. The emerging is the dark blue. So emerging businesses are going to be those that are in business but have been in business for less than three years and have less than five employees. And that's where we spend a lot of our time. The categories that we assist in, these are the top six in the red box. Market and growth assistance is our biggest category by far , and I will explain what market and growth assistance includes. We do a lot of startup assistance and business plan assistance. Financial management. A lot of business owners do not know how to manage their financials, do not understand their financial statements, but we do a lot of education in that respect. Capital assistance. We connect business owners directly with capital. We have what's called a business champion circle, and a lot of the lenders are part of our business champion circle. And every month our consultants are in meetings with them talking about the different products they have available to businesses and what kind of businesses they're looking to improve so that we have the most up-to-date information to provide to our clients. Export-import assistance on the bottom there was international trade. We do a lot of export assistance as well. Marketing and growth services is a big category for us because it's kind of a catch-all. Our marketing services fall under here, so we analyze websites. We do SEO analysis, digital media analysis. I've got a consultant who builds strategic marketing plans for clients specific to their budget and their goals. We also have two of the top producing government contracting specialists in the state. We are a statewide network serving all 67 counties, and we do compete against each other. We have two of the best in government contracting, and they help with local, state, and federal contracting. And then finally, organizational analysis and strategic planning. So we do a lot of going into established businesses and looking at everything, their processes, their job descriptions, their inventory, their cash flow systems, and we find hidden profits and opportunities for them to divers ify. These are the top five industries that we search for in the state businesses since we started this contract. Pre-venture is going to be those that are going to be those that are not in business yet. So those are the aspiring entrepreneurs that have not legally started their business. Then you've got professional services, retail trade, administrative and support, which is like boatkeepers, tax professionals, et cetera, and construction, actually. So as I mentioned, shortly after we entered into the collaboration agreement, the Haines City Accelerator cohort was discontinued. So we met with Alex earlier, as soon as he came on, to figure out how we were going to meet that portion of our contract and agreed to provide our business quick start series. So I'm going to let Randy talk about that. So the business quick start series was a full part in the meeting. And over at the business area, entrepreneurs, business owners, were allowed to basically open it to have you made them for a number of different points to start a business. And the first, um, how it was, um, how it was starting with the program. 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And some of those are on the screen there. The Laura Sue Gold Lifetime Achievement Award is for consultants who helped clients access 50 million or more in government contracts. And as you can see, we've got a couple of those. We also have Capital Access Lifetime Achievement Award. That also is helping clients access 50 million or more in capital before you qualify for that. Um, Payne City businesses have access to this entire professional network. Not just Randy. Not just Greg is based over Catapult. The guy that's in the photo with the girl in the green dress, that is Catapult. And he was, um, given an award last year for being Mentor of the Year at Catapult. So you don't just get Randy or Greg or myself. In the past two years, Payne City entrepreneurs have met with 11 of our certified consultants in one area or another , depending on what they needed. So with that said, Alex recently requested that we draft a three-year agreement to continue our services as is. That agreement totals just over 33,000 for the three-year period of service. So for approximately $11,000 a year, the ask was for us to continue services as is. We would ask that you approve that contract so we can continue to build on our services to entrepreneurs here in Haynes City. If the Haynes City CRA board is interested in a higher level of engagement, so more on-site presence from a consultant, additional on-site training opportunities, um, or even canvassing with the CRA around town, which we would love to do, even though I know Alex was missing. I'm just going to throw that out there. Okay. We're more than willing to put together a new proposal that meets those additional requirements with a new funding request. We can always amend our current collaboration agreement while we're already on it to provide additional services. We do have existing proposals and agreements at varying levels of service with various partners throughout the 10 county region. So we are able to provide whatever the Haynes City CRA de ems necessary for entrepreneurs here. And that concludes the presentation. Are there any questions? Thank you so much. Are there any questions from the board? Yeah, I have a question, but I can hear you more than Bruce . No, I always feel late as Bruce. My question is that you said you provided service for 434 businesses, and I'm quite sure you are not referring to Hay nes City when you said 434 businesses, right? No, the main numbers on the slide were Polk County. The Haynes City business numbers were on the bottom. So the 82 was from Haynes City? Yes. And then how often you all, you all, you said it was twice a month? Twice a month. Twice a month. Twice a month that you meet. And I may sound a little illiterate, I guess I would say. Some of this information is fairly new to me. And I think that when this came up, you know, I wasn't even aware until one of the council members, the commissioners said, hey, they've been here a while. Some of us on this commission didn't even know this. And I'm just speaking for me that, you know, you all was here providing service and stuff. And you all have been here, you said, since 2024? Late 2024. Late 2024. Late 2024. And you're meeting now at Ignite, right? Now we are, yes. As of this month. What time and then, how are you advertising to the community that you all are here? What days of the week you're here? This commission, from my seat, didn't even know what days of the week you were here. So we have multiple modes of communication. I've got a marketing team that sends out press releases, does social on our channels, and partners with our channel. Your channel. But what about our citizens here? Partners with our partners. They post on our channel and tag our partners. So the Northeast Polk Chamber has routinely shared our information. That is part of the agreement. The CRA is supposed to promote our services in their email marketing. I honestly don't know where that is at, because when Jane was still there, she didn't have a marketing list. I'm just saying for me, you know, a lot of this is new to me because you all have been here since 2024. And I don't know, I can't speak for my seat mates. A lot of this, I don't even know it exists. We were entertaining another organization because then we found out that we got someone that's already doing this. I'm aware. We wouldn't have never brought another organization in here to do the same thing that you all are currently doing. Yeah. And part of the problem, I think, in terms of you guys not knowing, is that there's no annual presentation that was made. So with most of our agreements, we do make an annual presentation at least once a year. And I'm more than willing to do that and just go ahead and add that on to the agreement. It's not in the current agreement that you guys have for consideration, but it should be done. We also do a lot of word of mouth. Randy is local here. You are listed on our website. So Ignite is now listed on the website as a location for service. And I'm also the person who does all the assignments for the entire region. So I just happen to know where to direct them. Randy does a lot of outreach as well. As you can see, the 54 networking events last year, quite a bit of that was done in Ains City and up and down this 27 corridor as well. So a lot of what we do is word of mouth and getting out in front of the community. You know, uni talked a lot about being face to face, and it 's true because not everybody is online and not everybody is looking at your social pages. So that is one of the reasons these partnerships that are in the buildings are so important. Well, what days are you all here twice? The first and third when it's going to be a beach party. The first and third when we have to be a beach party. And that was part of why I explained that the notice that you're seeing is a representation of the lack of active activity. I feel that there's a lot more than I have been happening here in Ains City. There's a lot of interest, a lot of interest in the start of this season. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. I feel that there's a lot of interest in the past. But keep in mind, they could meet virtually in the meantime . Yeah, they could meet virtually, but I do have some. And I'm just over. Why is that important to meet me this day? And when you're here, how many hours of the day did you meet? I'm here for 8 o'clock. I'm about one hour. I'm over at 8:30 and it's 5 o'clock. Oh, I'm just, I'm asking these questions. Yes, sir. I'm not aware of that. He's here the entire day and I can tell you he's typically not, he's booked the entire day. I understand. But I'm going to yield back to my other county seatmates and maybe they have some questions. I just wanted to make some clarification because I'm unaware of some of the things that you're doing in our city . Yes, sir. Board Member Johnson. Thank you. The 19 new businesses that started, are they in Hain City? Yes. Are they a part of the chamber? Do you encourage them to be part of our chamber? Yes, I encourage them to be part of our chamber. I encourage them to go with this amount of investment to be over in the chamber. I encourage them to kind of take part with me at all the evening at night to kind of fill that network so that they may have opportunity to kind of present themselves to other community. Yes, they should. Those different networks and things and stuff like that. So, that's our benefit to do. Let's encourage that even stronger. In order to get their names out there, they should be a part of the chamber. Then we have a chamber directory. We have a Hain City directory for businesses as well. Yes. Yes. That's it. Board Member Castro. Board Member Daniels. Board Member Daniels. Board Member. You know I always have questions. You know that. Go right ahead. Well, my first question is, do you know where Hain City city limits are? Because when I look at 434 businesses and then Hain City has 82 businesses. I'm out in the business area all the time. And I haven't seen 40 new businesses. But do you know where our city limits are? Because with the chamber is now, it used to be Hain City Chamber of Commerce. Now it is Northeast Polk County Chamber of Commerce. So maybe some of these businesses out of the 434 belong in the 82 businesses that are down there. Because we go past the hospital. The Davenport Diner is in our city limits. And we go all the way down to 544, which is a Lucerne Park that you would know as well. So I'm just concerned about the 82 businesses. And I know that you've been putting in the hours. I know the history of CRA when you started out being down there. But I just want to make sure that through the chamber, people that come, it might say Davenport, but it's really there in Hain City. So that we don't lose credit for Hain City business. Okay. So the way our sales force, our CRM is set up, we cannot pull by city limits currently. But I can pull by geographic, by US postal address. So we could pull Davenport, Louisiana, Hain City, etc. We could also pull by zip code if there are particular zip codes that apply to. Well, there are Davenport zip codes that are in Hain City. And I just want to make sure moving forward, if we do continue the contract, that it is Hain City businesses that are there. Because there is a new plaza that's opening up on 27. And they're going to have a Davenport address and zip code. And I want to make sure that of these 82 businesses that you're not giving credit to Davenport. My second question is, my second question is, are the other cities contributing to you as well? Because you're doing, for example, 4,000 consulting hours, but only 255 hours in Hain City. So are we the only one that is contributing? Is Davenport, for example, the town of Davenport, are they contributing? And is Polk County itself contributing? So we have Catapults as a funder in Polk County. Lake Wales, City of Lake Wales is a funder in Polk County. And Hain City C.R.A. is a funder. All of the other service areas for everything else that falls outside of that is covered by our federal and state funding. So that would be Lake Hamilton that's next to us. Dundee, that is a growing city as well. Well, what I would like to see, and this is just one of my wishes, I'm not saying is ever going to happen, but to be able to contact some of these home businesses that have out grown the product that they have and need to find space within Hain City. How do we make that happen? How do we make that happen? And you're saying word of mouth, but some of them aren't getting the word of mouth. Some of them don't. I haven't seen anything on Facebook other than you being at the Northeast Folk Chamber. And I wasn't really happy about that because I know as much as I love Lana, she represents all the way past, what is that? Four points, right? Four points all the way up there. So, again, I think we're missing some of the people that are doing business out of their house that would be able to take advantage of your Ignite because they don't necessarily want to be in their house with the dog barking in the back or whatever that they're trying to do. And are you helping people with their training how to get an LLC? And for people that already have the cash, but they want to open up a business, are you checking with our city department to see is it zoned for where they want to have business? That does happen sometime where they've already signed the lease with someone and then they find out that it's not z oned for that. So are you helping them in that way in your training? Yes, ma'am. That's exactly what it means that we're doing. Make sure that they go through the entire compliance process. So, not only starting out with, I'm following the business, creating the LLC and corporation, they can do that process in their EIN, or their Polk County business accuracy, or if they're doing a home-based business. And also make sure that they follow up in the KC and business taxes. And when they get to the point where we're looking for a space, that's a part of our engagement is to make sure that they are in the work that space is sold for. I make calls for a lot of the calls, but we have sometimes, we make calls together to get better and more on the time. And so I would not extend Jasmine over in the CRA, they give me up to me on their programs as far as the CRA program for businesses for the nations. So I would not send them to the lab. So I would send them to the lab and send them to the lab and send them to the lab and talk to them about that. And there's additional options that they are to require a space. So I'm going all of the above. I can understand that there are. I moved to O'Connor in 2019. I didn't find out that the hospital was about his thing until like a year ago. So I would never understand what you're saying. So is there more businesses that are at 434 that are more than at 82? I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. I think that you do a good job. But I would suggest that you start with our development services office first. And find out if we if that business is zoned for it. Because some people think that they can have whatever another bar or whatever. And it may be too close to where we have an existing bar. But find out is it zoned for it first. That's the first thing to find out whatever it is. If you're helping them pick up the phone and call development services or send them down and find out if that area is going to be zoned for it. But I appreciate what you have been doing, which is a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's a good job. I think that's going to be what was the return on our investment for the last three years. But I heard you state that there was 19 new businesses that was started here in Haines City. Is there a list because we're not allowed to provide all of our client confidence. We have a very strict confidentiality policy. Even if we were working with somebody and they were standing in front of you, we couldn't tell you without their permission. That they opened up a business here in the city. Correct. Okay. And then my second question would be, I'm not sure if any of the other board members knew that your location changed from our CRA office to Ignite. And I love Ignite, but when did that change take place? Just in the last month. Okay. Because the CRA does not have private meeting space and that is a requirement of the contract due to our client confidentiality rules. And that's why we looked at other office spaces that might fit with us. So at Ignite we're able to meet in a private closed door office space. Okay. So from 2024 up until now you were out of your reach of your own contract? Yes, because there was no other option. Okay. Because that's CRA's responsibility to provide that and they were doing the best they did at the time. Okay. And then I also heard you state that you had stopped the training or the collaboration part due to Jane leaving and you have yet to start that back up? No, ma'am. We are supposed to be teaching the Haynes City Accelerator cohort, but when Jane left the Accelerator cohort was not continued. So the workaround is that we are providing our business quick start series in place. Should the Haynes City Accelerator cohort get back up and running, we are more than willing to teach that. And the quick start is those four classes that was back in 2025. Yes, and we'll have it again in 2025. Okay. And then my final question, Mr. Chair, is so your contract right now is valid through September 30th, correct? Yes. Okay. And you're looking for a renewal starting the new fiscal year, October 1 for three years. Correct. Okay. Is there, and this is to Alex, is there a reason that, I know they're presenting, but is there a reason why you're asking for a vote tonight for the extension, although we still have a little time on that? Yes. For a number of reasons. One of them is, I'm consulting, but I don't know how much longer I'm going to be in this role and when that transition will be. And right now, who that transition will be is still very much up in the air. This is a synergistic situation where I'm trying to promote additional entrepreneur business growth in these challenging corridors. And this is a beautiful opportunity to do so. Okay. So with that, additional three-year contract puts us over the threshold of, I think, roughly $50,000 total expenditure of funds. Because we've had two-year contracts already for roughly $ 10,000, $11,000. An additional three years puts us at 33. 33 change. Right. To put us over the $50,000, which is why I'm bringing it to the board to see if they would like to continue supporting this effort. Okay. And I only ask that because I know, and it's been stated earlier, that we had other organizations that approached in reference to services that they can provide. And we were due to bring them back or to present before us. I know we do have a new, we have three new board members that did not get a chance to see their presentation, hear their presentation. So just for me, I wouldn't be at liberty of really wanting to vote tonight because we need to entertain the others that came before us and to give the board as a whole, and especially the new members that have yet to hear them to decide which way the board wants to go and what's best for the city. But that's just my take on it. So that's why I wanted to know, was there like a immediate rush that we needed to make a decision tonight on it versus bringing it back at a later date? Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you for that. So I know I had to step out for some of the presentation. But I do have some concerns, largely in part that this organization has been with us since 2024. And I believe at the other meeting, as Board Member West stated, that was my first time hearing about it. I do know that the visibility is a big question for me. You know, when the difficulties were faced, I just don't know if the effort was there to make sure that we're serv icing the Payne City community to the best of our abilities. The other issue, and please don't hesitate to correct me if I am wrong here, not being able to, I guess, see what our return on our investment is, the level of transparency. And I understand that may be guidelines that you're prohibited from sharing that information with us. That is also some concern for me. To no fault of anyone else's, you know, I find it that, you know, you all have been operating within the, you know, the city limits for some time. And we're, you know, still in an exploration stage to actually know where our city boundaries are. And, you know, who all the business owners are. That is also somewhat of a concern for me. If I could make a few comments to that. When we initially negotiated this contract with Jane, it was with the understanding that we could not restrict services to only those businesses that would be located in the city limits. That was very clear starting from the start because we cannot turn anybody away just because of the office that we 're sitting in. In terms of impact, we did report capital, jobs, sales. It's in the presentation, but I don't know. And it was in city specific numbers. Did you? Where you're talking about? I may have spent that. Okay. Let me get to that. And I know that. 2024 keeps getting mentioned, but 2024, the contract started October 1st, 2024. So keep that in mind. Haines City numbers the last two years. Capital access was 560,000 for those Haines City businesses that we're working with. Sales increases 23,000. Jobs created, which I think I didn't even mention, was 32. And new business starts for Haines City was 19. And that's for the last two year-to-date service periods. Again, 2026 numbers are not reported yet because we survey annually. The 2026 business owners that work with us will not be surveyed until January 2027. In addition, in regards to the lack of knowledge that we were here in the community, part of the CRA's responsibility in the agreement is that they help promote the SBDC through email communications, their website, and hopefully canvassing. None of that has been done because of the transition. We have done some of that. We have done some of that. So that should be on the city manager's report that comes out monthly. We have done social media posts on the SBDC as well, and it 's on the website. Thank you. And one additional thing. The numbers that she's actually providing you all are clients that can submit that information to us to be able to report. And it goes through an official review by an economic analyst. So you can imagine how many people in the community know that might not respond to an email or may not at the time you've been on a survey. So if they don't report that or provide the information back to me, I have the kind of chasing down until they provide me the information so that I can report it. Or it just doesn't report it. Because even if we know they started their business or we know they accessed capital, we cannot count it unless they sign the piece of paper that says we helped them get that money. So if we don't get that piece of paper signed, it's not reporting these numbers. We're always going to -- 100% of entrepreneurs are not always going to know about our services. The same thing can be said of SCORE. The same thing can be said of BBIS. Not everybody knows those organizations exist. We can lead a horse to water, but we can't make them drink. We do that through our training as well. Our training is open to everybody, and in that training, we communicate where we're at physically for offices as well. Okay. And thank you for that. I believe the additional questions I had were asked by the board members. With the statements that were made, are there any additional questions to be answered? No, for any questions. All right. So, Mr. Aikonaita. I had one question of them. I know that you explained to me with -- I keep looking at it at night. Sorry about that. I'm getting old, so I can't remember. And it was -- tonight was not a night of ask. But I believe that there's going to come to the point of ask. I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the three-year contract. And I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And I think that there's a lot of questions that we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the four-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. And we're going to ask for the five-year contract. Right. Yes. So if we take this action and five years from now ignite, put in an ask. That's going to be a separate item. Exactly. We're going to be paying twice for three years from now. I'm just wanting to understand that. Not necessarily. Because, again, at that point in time, when they do come forward and ask, we can make sure that that does not overlap with the services that SMBDC is offering and what you're paying for them. Okay. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other questions, at this time I'll open it up to members of the public. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak to this item? Please step to the podium. All right. Seeing none prior to asking, I believe, as the Vice Chair has stated, we do have three new board members that has not had the opportunity to hear our other options that may be before us . From my seat. Well, Mr. May, I'll make a motion that we don't take any action on this particular item tonight. Even though we have it now before, we understand it and they've heard it. I think we should give us some time to dissect this and then we can bring it back. Maybe it'll be in August before, for approval of a bunch back. That would be for my seat. I don't think that we are prepared at this time to approve this item as far as on that bunch back. You know what this is. So I say, my seat and I'll say we can move it to the August first meeting and then take action on this. Second. Second. all right we have a motion and we have a second all in favor all those opposed motion carries all right moving right along to item 4b this is a discussion only item open gov crm software for cra yes thank you the intent of this item is to present to the board the invitation of the open gov crm software their constituent relationship management software which will the agency will utilize due for its grant programs and applications which will also provide a forward-facing online portal for residents and business owners where they can have their own do their own documentation submissions and we'll have real-time tracking the procurement of this item was already approved in the past part of the fiscal year 2026 budget the board approved 60 000 at that time and this is a multi-year contract this is the impact of this particular fiscal year is 20 423.82 this we've gone through multiple multiple demonstrations with a variety of vendors and in an effort to utilize a very modern software that has the best potential for future inter inter department connectivity this open gov software seems to fit the bill so we'd like to move forward with this and this is essentially enough opportunity to have any further discussions with the implementation of the software all right thank you for that are there any questions you know i always have one i was coming to you i'll start i think um i like the fact that we have a software because we need to get away from paper yes and if it connects to the finance department i think that that's even um better so that way things are not slowed down and people don't call me to ask why this hasn't been done to their house when they've got the approval letters so will this software talk to accounting it has that potential so what we have done is that we wouldn't make sure that the software had enough apis to be able to connect to the software that finance designed to utilize should be able to connect to it thank you no no other questions okay all right board member johnson um i do understand that we're you know we're forward moving we like tech when we look at the demographics everybody's not online you know you look at someone there's a lot of hand-holding in cra when it's come down to residence and rehab so you're asking an 85 year old person to you don't let it do an application no so what are we what are we just explain to me what that looks like sure so in in those particular cases that we still will welcome the the hard copies but we will do internally is that we will scan them and then we will enter them into the system the system will also provide a workflow for these applications so that way we have it we can have dashboard and real-time metrics they're showcasing that that way applications don't get lost things don't get uh delayed we know what is transpiring and that we ensure that all the documentation is also submitted correctly so should the 85 year old resident come in we will help them we will take their documentation we will digitize it and place it into the workflow for ourselves so that we ensure that that the work and the application gets processed properly in a time efficient manner okay did we put this out for i'm going to say bid as far as pricing goes in terms of pricing so this particular one would be they do provide the city with other softwares it would be a uh i guess a piggyback situation off of that we did look at other different softwares and we have multiple quotes for them as well so it doesn't pricing and where that was where they're at you know if they didn't go out for a public bid we we have multiple quotes which follows our procurement policies because although we have the software they're still going to call downing i'm sorry vice mayor downing they're still going to make the calls so okay mr mayor i'll quickly recognize it it's beyond that it's a mute point because if i can recall and according to the backup and what i have in front of me this was approved in our budget in 2026 when we did the cra budget that's so this item has already been approved by this body that's correct we need the board approved sixty thousand dollars for the software for you sixty thousand yes right so you wanted more than the sixty thousand which you're saying it's a multi-year contract okay so all we're doing we can only so that'll have to be back on the budget as another line item for another approval for additional amount of money right and that's great this was just for just okay i just want to make sure i thought you wanted us to approve this and i'm saying that we approve up a certain dollar amount for this in the budget last year it was yeah i understand that it would go over the over the threshold we wanted to inform the board that we intend to move forward with this software um it will impact the budget this year for twenty thousand dollars and then it will be on a pledge right okay yeah yeah okay now we're on the same page now okay i just wanted to make sure yeah okay real quick it looks like our attorney has something i just wanted to ask alex is the software proprietary so would this be a sole source so i was hearing you say a piggyback is a term of art so i just wanted to make sure that the city when we're talking about procurement that we keep it in the proper basket i apologize i might be using the wrong terminology of that i know opengov has a contract with the city and they're amending that contract i would actually depend on how the board decides to move forward i would work with staff and making sure that all the procurement requirements are satisfied okay thank you okay thank you uh does any other board member have a question i have a comment not a not so much a question thank you mr chair um i'm all for going with the new software um because we do need to make things kind of like streamlined but i and my board member johnson stated when it comes to our seniors they're not savvy tech savvy um so i am really hoping that when you go into this software you don't use this as a replacement to actually still be out in the field reaching residents and just mainly thinking that oh well everything is online and then using the online to do the work per se so i'm hoping to still see cars riding around and reaching residents out of the community and then we can see that we can see that we can see that we can see that we can see that we can see that we can make it more efficient process so that we can still send out mail appropriately and still be out in the field okay thank you all right uh okay seeing all the questions uh looking at time i want to make sure we can get through this okay uh uh i noticed on the cra website open gov would you guys be providing for example this large population of hispanic absolutely actually we are we are in the last phase of redesigning our website and so it does have that capability of translation to actually multiple languages perfect thank you thank you very much and then on the website there will be a link to the open gov portal from our website all right board member daniels anything okay all right i will open this up to members of the public if you want to be heard on this item please step up to the podium all right seeing none i will oppose this this was discussion only all right we're going to move right along to item 4c request for change order amendment 3 for the 32 acre sports company like we have director griffin good evening honorable chairman and board members um the intent of this item is to seek approval as you mentioned of a kingdom 3 for the 32 acre sports complex in the amount of 14 000 dollars um this particular request has two parts the first two seven um is was requested by fwc for um an environmental phase in the amount of 6 500 dollars um on the site um there's a um small hulk um called a uh cholesterol if i'm pronouncing it correct but it's uh basically a miniature hulk um that has been identified um and ultimately fwc is trying to establish a map that shows um the specific areas that they're located uh within florida so that's one piece of the uh second piece um is 7 500 for additional um architectural work um as you may recall when we presented the conceptual drawing there are three different um standalone bathrooms um on that property one by the splash pad one at the um concession stand for the baseball fields and the second one on the south side of the property near the uh tennis courts in the back end of the property we have a um building that we're going to use for uh to store um parks goods uh lawnmowers weediers those type things at that point we realized there was another opportunity to add a fourth set of bathrooms as you may notice with many of our current facilities like a park being um one um there's simply not enough bathrooms um i think the seven thousand five hundred now that would be a lot more effective and savings than five years ten years down the road trying to add an additional bathroom um again dislocation was not identified initially um we were going through the conceptual drawings um and all of that uh because it's supposed to be a park making this building but again we um saw the opportunity to add a fourth set of restrooms which is why this is going to be better for us okay uh thank you for that uh does anyone from this board have any questions for director group all right uh well i do have one quick question so with the uh the survey uh will there be an additional cost uh to relocate so no sir in this particular case um we do not have to relocate them um i think fwc um is simply trying to identify where they are within florida um in this particular project that should conclude um all of the fwc requirements other than the gopher tortoise um relocations um fwc requires that the another survey be done 90 days prior to the project convincing um but there should not be an additional cost with that because it's already included uh within the cost of that but there is no relocation fees associated with the uh okay all right thank you for that uh since there are no questions i will just open this up to members of the public does anyone from the public wish to speak to this item seeing none i will close it and ask for a motion we have a motion in a second all in favor all those opposed motion carries all right we're going to move right along to item 4d residential rehab uh grant program june board level determination yes this month the uh special consideration for the board is for additional funding this is for 208 north 24th street um based on the work that has been completed in the upcoming work when the this currently only this house only has window ac units and to do a pool at hvac system is a 13 900. it was determined um by the contractor on site that the panel would not uphold the 2.5 ton new ac system and so there's additional cost of 9 500 for a brand new install a brand new panel that would be able to compensate or would be able to support the new hvac system with we added a cra contingency just to make sure that we would be at we would be able to cover over filing fees you know for the mortgage security lien at a later date um you know if you're using it as a utilize all that but we want to put it before the board after all said and done the additional fund that we're requesting that goes over the 50 000 mark is 1165.40 yes yes approval of some apologies uh that the board would approve the additional 1165 for you i understand i know man all right so so um does anyone from this board have any questions they would like to make all right all right so i think i'm going to open it up to members of the public anyone from the public that would like to speak to this please step up to the podium see you and we have a second i have a motion and a second all in favor all those opposed motion carries all right moving right along to item 4e uh residential rehab grant program june uh 2026 performance report yes thank you very much so this is uh performance dashboard as we've been showing up every single uh month uh another application qualifications have all stayed the same we're still um nothing has changed from that since january the award progress has stayed the same with the exception of the inspections we've been given to the additional 23 homes for beginning the inspection process uh in terms of residential residential rehabilitation we have that we have completed a couple homes so that number is now dropped to 59 the total project completed has increased to 206 homes completed fully completed as part is now at 41. we have 19 homes uh pending the uh the lean the lean submissions and processing and then completely closed out is now at 22. in terms of the fiscal expenditure for this year we have capital spent at just over $880,000 total spent, capital awarded just under $300,298,6 29, funding allocated is at $1,377,365, and the capital remaining for the budget year is $944,013.7 . All right, thank you for that. Does anyone from the board have any questions? How much do we get from the county each year from our CRA? You know off the top of your head. It's roughly $6 billion. And that's for both CRAs? That's right. You can try not to let me know later. Okay. Just add, if you would, just email that. I'll leave that. Yeah, leave that. All right, is there anyone else from the board? I know I have a question. That's going to be a board member. I have to go right ahead. Do any of these completed or pending, are they over on Oak Oak City Road? Have we gone out in that area? I would have to pull the map. I can get back to you on that and change that. Yes, yes. Because I think that we're concentrating more on Eastside and Oakwood. And Oak Oak City Road is in our CRA map as well. And there are some older houses that are out there. That's it, Mayor. Any other questions? No, that's it, Mayor. Okay, thank you. I do have just one quick question. So I noticed that we've increased to 41 homes completed. And this is something just as a projection. What do you project that we will complete by the end of this fiscal year? Because within the last two years, you know, honestly, this program has really been turning really slow. So to only be at 41, and we still have at least, what, 176 homes to still do. So what is the projection? And what are we looking at in overall possible completion? I know you just released 23 homes for inspection. I thought we would have been done with inspections by now. But we're still releasing them. So what do you project to see? Are we maybe going to hit 60 to 80 homes? Or what's your projection? By the end of this fiscal year, I hope to see that 59 houses be completed. We are working through some ones, a couple of situations where homes have been out there for quite a while. One at 800 Central Avenue, another one at 61 18th Avenue. Those are now underway. And one of the barriers has been just being approved contracts. And so it seems like we've gotten through some of those barriers and work is now commencing. Realistically, I think that is possible through the end of this fiscal year. So where we stand with, that would bring us just over 100 houses completed. And leaving that 84 houses still remaining. Okay. And I only ask that question because I know we closed out the application period. And so to try to get a realistic date when we would be able to open that up for the next fiscal year. So just trying to think ahead and what we'll be looking at. And also for the monetary purposes of how much we would even need to allocate for the next fiscal year for rehab. Because we still have quite a lot of homes still managed. Yes. Thank you. Right now we're still having staffing issues as well. So we are working on a scale of groups and speak. Hopefully we will have one new project coordinator starting this month. And that was what works in this month. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the floor? I'm looking at it. You said that you have projects completed and then it's homes completed. You know, you said 206 projects. What's the project? It's just like an HVAC unit. And what's the difference between a project and then a home ? Is it the whole thing? I don't understand your comparison there. Because you've got a lot of projects completed, but not a lot of homes completed. That's right. So each home on the bottom right of that slide shows that we split the projects up between roofing, windows, doors, H VAC, painting, and then other ones. Okay. So what's when you say home completed? What do you mean when you say home? It means all the work associated with that home, which could be up to all those five things, is completely done. Each one of those things could be handled by one vendor. It could be five vendors, contractors that are doing the work. So when a home is fully completed, that means the full scope of work for that particular home, as it was identified through the inspection process and in alignment with the program, is now finalized. Okay, but here's my question, and I know the rest of time. Here's my question, though. Let's say my project or my home, I only needed windows. You come in, you do the windows. That wouldn't be a home completed? That would be just a project? If you only wanted home windows? Right. That would be one project, one completion. One project or a home. And that home would be completed. That was the only scope of that home. That home would be completed. So in that particular case, yes, one project, one home. So out of these 206 projects, there's still work to be done on what you're saying. But you got projects completed. Correct. Projects completed. So in between those 41 homes plus the homes that are under construction right now, each one has a variety of projects. Most of them, I don't have just one project that's usually three to five. The project's not completed. The home is not completed. The home is not completed. The project's not completed. Individual, individual. So a home might get an HVAC system in, but their windows are not in yet. And there's a backboard room windows. The windows may not, you know, may take three to four weeks . So that project's still not completed. So the project for the windows is not completed. The project for the HVAC is. The homeowner now has HVAC and it's working. But the home is not completed yet. Yeah. I'll reach out to you because I've got more questions. Right. And I think what Chairman West is stating is the same thing I questioned even months back when you divided it up into every services offered as a project versus the home itself being one complete project. I, like him, I still have an issue with that. I think that the home itself, regardless if they get one item or all five items, should be an actual complete project. So when you're done with the home, then it's there. Because it looks just like, and I hate to use this word, but manipulation of the numbers where you have this 206 and then the home's completed. It's so low at 41, but that's only because each individual item that's offered in the rehab is considered a project versus just the home itself being one. I understand. And I wasn't, there's no intention to manipulate. It's more of if there's only one project on one home, the amount of labor and resources to coordinate for that one job is minimal versus having to coordinate with up to five different contractors on another home, which makes the workload for any given staff member is significantly more. So I was trying to communicate that in the best way possible so you understand how much work may be actually being done, even though the homes are not as, the home number isn't as high. Right. And the homes are, right. And I completely understand because one home may have all five services and four has been completed, but it's still not a complete home because there's still one outstanding project that's needed to be done. But that's fine. So any other questions from the board? Okay. Seeing none. So I'll open this up quickly to the audience if there is anyone that has questions reference to this item. Okay. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close that. And if there are no other questions, a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion. Move, move, move, move. CRA board member comments. I need to put my tube in there. Okay. I want to know with CRA, are there any dollars left to have a playground on the east side? Because the only access to the playground is to go through Larry Parish. So that's one thing. And I'd like to know on the city's website that it shows for CRA members. It definitely shows you, Alex, on there. But I think it should show the rest of the staff as well so people can put a face with a telephone voice. The new site does since we will be launching. The current, yeah. We're not talking about CRA website. That's going to be going away very shortly. Right. But the city website, when you click on CRA, it should have , Phillip, it should have Kitty on there, whoever, your staff. Because that's who the person has been talking to. It's always good to have a face with a voice. Thank you. All right. Okay. Any other board members with comments? Okay. So due to the sake of time, we're going to go ahead and close out the CRA meeting. Meeting is adjourned. And we will come back for the commission meeting in five minutes. How about this? How about this? Yeah. Because it's locked. But there should be some kind of playground on the east side of the town. No, because they can't get in there. But is there something on the side of the fence of the soccer field? No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. Just remember that the closest playground for them is going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there. No, because they're going to be playing in there.

Good evening, everyone. We're going to call the commission meeting for May 21st, 2016 to order. We will start with our invocation. Do we have Pastor Wesley Luis? As the pastor approaches, he'll come to the podium. We'll stand for prayer. After that, we will turn and we will do our Pledge of Alleg iance. It is a great honor and privilege to be here to pray this invocation. I ask that you all bow your heads and go before God in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you with great gratitude. We thank you for being a God of love who is with us now in this very room. You never leave us or forsake us. Your grace has brought us, saved us far, and your grace will lead us home, Lord. We thank you for making each of us in this room, every person we meet, every citizen of the city, in your image, with dignity and infinite worth. We thank you for the calling you have given everyone of us to be good stewards of your creation, to love our neighbors as ourselves. I thank you for the way of service. I thank you tonight for these, your servants, our mayor, our city manager, our city staff, and our city council members. I give thanks for the way of service they have chosen to take off on behalf of all of us. We all come to this room as complex human beings, carrying burdens, joy, and hope, trusting that you alone can hold us together in your love and peace. Help us to trust you more, more than our fears and our wounds, and even our accomplishments. May we lean on you, on your everlasting arms. In Psalms 72, the prayer for the king, it says, Endure the king with justice. O God, the royal son with your righteousness. May you judge your people in righteousness. Your afflicted ones with justice. May you defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy. May you crush the oppressor. And also in 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14, It says, If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I heal from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. And so we pray that you would be glorified tonight to the decisions of the city council. We pray that we would have the eyes to see our lives are all connected and how our common good is upheld when we listen and respond to those most vulnerable among us. We pray that your kingdom would come in this city as it is in heaven to your power, walking in each of these servants. May your truth be revealed. May your light shine brighter. May the voices of those most silenced be heard loud and clear defend their cause, O God, to this governing body tonight. We pray for wisdom, for strength, for courage to do what is right and good for all citizens. May we put the interests of others above our own. May we act with love for the common good. May we be good neighbors, recognizing your image in every person. We thank you again for this council. Our mayor, our city staff, our first responders, our police, and our sheriff department, our hospital staff, and all those who work to make this place, we call home such a wonderful city. In the name of Jesus, whose perfect love, set us free from all our fears, we pray. Amen. And the spirit of the public's hands, on the nation, on the God, and the biblical, to the liberty and justice for all. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, so we're going to move on now to our presentations and block formation. Item 4A, National Public Works Week. Madam Clerk. Amen. Hard work of public works employees who often work behind the scenes and around the clock to ensure that residents and visitors receive dependable public services every day. And whereas public works employees are first responders during natural disasters, severe weather events, and emergencies, demonstrating courage, innovation, and dedication in protecting public health and safety. And whereas the American Public Works Association has designated the week of May 17th through May 23rd as National Public Works Week to recognize the substantial contributions public works professionals make to communities across the nation. And whereas this year's observance serves as an opportunity to celebrate and thank the men and women of the public works department for their outstanding service, leadership, and commitment to enhancing the quality of life for all residents of Haynes City. So now, therefore, I, Vernal Smith, Jr., Mayor of the City of Haynes City, Florida, on behalf of the City Commission, do hereby proclaim May 17th through the 23rd, 2026 as National Public Works Week in the City of Haynes City. And we encourage all residents to recognize and express appreciation for the invaluable contributions of our public works professionals and witness whereof I here to set my hand and cause the official seal of the City of Haynes City to be affixed this 21st day of May 2026. We have Woodley Pierre who is the superintendent over his crew. Where are you, Woodley? Come on down. Did you bring any of your crew with you? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. residents, future of our community. Thank you for this recognition, the hard work. We know it doesn't go unnoticed for the things that we do behind the scenes. We know it's for the greater good of this community. So thank you again for recognizing us all together for all that we do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next proclamation is, whereas Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was formally called, is a patriotic day to honor American soldiers who have given their lives to honor their country. The first Decoration Day was observed on May 30, 1868 for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country. And whereas, from the opening battles of the American Revolution through the turmoil of the Civil War, to World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, to the Persian Gulf, and today's operations in the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, the members of our military have built a tradition of honorable and faithful service. As we observe Memorial Day, we remember the more than one million Americans who have died to preserve our freedom, the more than 140,000 citizens who were prisoners of war, and all of those who were declared missing in action. We also honor our veterans for their dedication to America and their willingness to pay the ultimate sacrifice. Whereas this country surrendered its bravest to liberate the oppressed and ensure freedom for its citizens and future generations, these men and women place God and country before their own safety, pledge themselves to the continuation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, and should be recognized as defenders of our freedom on all fronts, domestic and foreign, we gratefully acknowledge that we live in freedom today because of the many sacrifices that have been made and are still being made by our valiant servicemen and women and pray that the day will come when freedom and liberty will prevail without the need for the ultimate sacrifice. So whereas the day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the skies, all is well, safely rest, God is nigh. in memory and honor of our veterans who gave their all that we might live freely. So now, therefore, I, Vernel Smith, Jr., as mayor of the city of Haines City, do hereby proclaim Monday, May 25, 2026, as Memorial Day in the city of Haines City and urge all residents and visitors alike to join with us on this day as we remember, recognize, and offer our gratitude for our servicemen and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice and show respect to our veterans in attending the Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony on Monday, May 25, at 9 a.m. at Railroad Park. In witness whereof, I hereto set my hand and cause the seal of Haines City to be affixed this 21st day of May 2026. Terrell Griffin, our Director of Parks and Recreation, who puts this great event together every year, will be accepting this proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. Our next is National Water Safety Month. May 2026 is National Water Safety Month and the goal is to educate the public, policy makers, and public health professionals about safer water practices. And whereas drowning incidents occur due to several reasons, including lack of swimming skills, lack of first aid skills, lack of barriers to prevent unsupervised water access, lack of close supervision, failure to maintain pool equipment leading to entrapment, failure to wear life jackets, failure to drink alcohol responsibly, failure to recognize potential hazards such as rain-filled buckets, toilets, bathtubs, water coolers, retention ponds, canals, and neighboring pools. And whereas drowning is the second leading cause of death in children under five in the water, fatal and non-fatal drownings are silent events occurring in as little as two inches of water. The loss of a child is heartbreaking and has rippling, long-lasting effects on the lives touched by it. So whereas water safety education plays a vital role in the prevention of drowning and recreational water-related injuries, whereas it is vital importance to communicate water safety rules and programs to families and individuals of all ages, including owners of private pools, users of public swimming facilities, or visitors to water parks. And whereas local and national agencies, such as the Coalition on Injury Prevention of Polk County, Safe Kids Suncoast Coalition, City of Haines City Park and Rec, and their partnering agencies, educate Haines City residents on pool and open water safety. And whereas the City of Haines City recognizes the important role that swimming and aquatic-related activities play in supporting good, physical, and mental health and enhancing the quality of life for all residents, and recognizes the ongoing efforts of the public and private sector to support water safety initiatives. So now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Commission and the Mayor of Haines City do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as National Water Safety Month and extend their continued support for the efforts of local agencies to promote water safety in the City of Haines City. And we have Heidi McAtee, who's our aquatics director, and Caitlin Mildrum, she's the Children's Wellness and Safety Specialist with BayCare Kids Wellness and Safety Center, coming to accept this proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for acknowledging the importance of water safety. It is such a crucial, you know, situation with grounding that we stop and try to prevent this, and we're doing that very heavily with our swim lessons that we've been starting, and I want to thank the commissioners for their support in getting our heater system on our pools, because with that, we've been able to extend our season and continue to get water safety out to our community. So thank you guys for that. Okay, so before I read our next proclamation, I have a short video to show. Hola, for me, we are always together, we're always super together. Haitian culture means our traditions, our, like, our religions and our beliefs, like, everything we do together as, like, one person, you know. What does Haitian culture mean to you? Dilisa spalemim! Haitian culture means a lot of women. So I like my culture always. The culture, the person, the music, all the things about my culture. What does Haitian culture mean to you? It means that we all count on each other and we're just a beautiful country. You need to la force, baby, yes! What does Haitian culture mean to you? Our independence, our beauty, our commonplace, skin colors, all that, our freedom. What does Haitian heritage month mean to you? Our people, our cultures, our everything, your food, the music. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Everything. Everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. Haitian heritage month, everything. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. Haitian heritage month, what it is a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. It's a great way to have it. Thank you. Haitian hymn of me celebrated the strength, history, and beauty of the Haitian culture. It is a time to recognize the resilience of the Haitian people, especially their fight for independence and freedom, which made Haiti its first black nation public in the world. It reminds me of being born in Haiti but being raised in Miami, Florida, of my culture, the food, and everything that served with the strength that my parents wanted to bring me here. Happy Haitian Heritage Month. What does Haitian culture mean to you? Haitian culture means for me, and for all of us, even the program happened, the people speak to us like. Haitian culture means for me, I love the music, for the bitches. And you? Oh yeah, Haitian culture means to me, by the freedom, and what I like, and what I like, and love about Haitian culture is that our history, our music, and food, and our community, and everything that we do together. And yeah, thank you. What about you? Haitian culture means to me, represents courage because our ancestors all the possible that we could be here today. What about you? Haitian culture represents resilience for the fact that we didn't give up, even though we were overrun and outmanned by the French. And you? To me, Haitian culture means independence because they were the first free black nation. Haitian culture means for my independence, and I love the music. And you? Haitian culture means to me, we don't have an app. Great. And you? Great. And you? And you? And you? And you? Great. And you? Happy Haitian Heritage Month. I am so proud to be part of a community that is not only strong, but resilient, creative, and hardworking. Also, happy Haitian birthday. So whereas the city of Haines City proudly recognizes the rich history, the vibrant culture, and the enduring contributions of the Haitian community to our city, state, and nation, and whereas Haitian Heritage Month is observed during the month of May to celebrate the achievements, resilience, traditions, and cultural influence of Haitian Americans and the people of Haiti, and whereas the Haitian community has made significant contributions in the fields of education, health care, business, public service, arts, music, faith, and civic leadership, strengthening the social and economic fabric of communities throughout Florida and across the United States, and whereas Haitian culture is deeply rooted in values of family, faith, perseverance, hard work, and community, and is expressed through its rich traditions of language, cuisine, art, literature, music, and storytelling, whereas the city of Haines City values diversity and inclus ivity and recognizes that cultural heritage, celebrations that foster greater understanding, unity, and appreciation among all residents. So whereas during Heritage Haitian Month, residents are encouraged to honor and celebrate the history, culture, and accomplishments of the Haitian people through educational programs, cultural events, and community engagement opportunities. So now, therefore, I, Vernell Smith, Jr., Mayor of the City of Haines City, and on behalf of the City Commission, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as Haitian Heritage Month. In the City of Haines City, Florida, we encourage all residents to join in recognizing and celebrating the many contributions of the Haitian community to our city and beyond. In witness, I here to set my hand and cause the official seal of the City of Haines City, Florida, to be affixed this 21st day of May 2026. And we have some businesses here, right here in this community that people probably didn't know. Jacques Dorsant, who owns J&A Bounce World. Please come forward. Wydland Cillian, who owns Queenlandy Beauty Store. Romyald Oscar, who owns Sunshine Services and Consulting Group. Geraldine and Ronald Williams, who runs Rose Family Care. And Jean Exantis and Patricia Levine, Island Delight Cuis ine, LLC. Let's give everybody a hand. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to be a hand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. So at this time, we had a lot of people there, but if there was anybody that was either with the businesses or that came up and you all want to say a couple words, please step to the podium. Come on out, Queen Landy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now some of us do know who you are, but please just state your name for the record. Yes, sir. My name is Bromiel Asker. I'm the owner of Sunshine Services and Consulting Group and the president of the Nonprofit Life of Hope. I want to thank Mayor of your name, Vice Mayor Kim, Commissioner Dikia Johnson, Commissioner Maurice West, and Commissioner Ann Hoffman for equalizing our community and our heritage in the city of NCD. Your acknowledgement validates our contribution to the city , our hard work, dedication, resilience in local businesses, entrepreneurship, linguistic diversity, and social integration. As we celebrate tonight, I would love to take one or two minutes to share who we are. As your Haitian neighbors, friends, classmates, co-workers, business partners, employees, bosses, parents, lovers, spouses, and souls. Who are we? We are the captured African, mostly from the freedom, from the kingdom of Benin and Togo, or to the French colony Haiti, who became slaves on French plantation in 1681. We are the slaves who stood against oppression, discrimination, and slavery. We are the slaves who rebels against the French plantation system, and who successfully revolved and defeated the powerful armies of France, Spain, and Britain, and abolished slavery to become the first black free nation . On January 1st, 1804, among our heroes, let's mention the name of Jean-Jacques Dessaline, Henri Christophe, Capo Alamo, and Alexandre Pétain. We are the proud nation that helped Simon Bolivar in his movement to free the enslaved people from the Spanish in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in 1816. We are the proud nation that helped General Francisco Dina to free Mexico from the Spanish in 1817. And we are the proud nation that helped the Greeks to free themselves from the Ottoman Empire in 1822. Worship, funds, weapons, and soldiers were provided. We are also the son and daughters of 550 Haitians from the colony. We arrived in Savannah, Georgia, to help the American colonial rebels against the British forces during the siege of Savannah on September 8, 1779. We are the proud nation that offered to buy the freedom of every single African American to have a free and human life in Haiti. We are the proud nation that opened doors to African Americans facing discrimination, segregation, and racism at home. To come and live with dignity in Haiti by providing them free transportation from the U.S. to Haiti and open arrival , receiving free housing, free land, and tolls in 1865. We are the proud nation that were the first black people in 1865. We are the proud nation of the U.S. to Haiti and open the U .S. to Haiti and open the U.S. to Haiti. We are the sons and daughters of Haitian immigrants, known as the Creole of Colors, who took part into the Union service after forming the first black regiment of the Louisiana native gods in 1861. We are the sons and daughters of the Louisiana native gods in 1861. And we are the sons and daughters of Jean-Baptiste Undisar, the founder of the great city of Chicago, Illinois in 1790. We have been in the U.S. to Haiti and the U.S. to Haiti in 1885. Before the town of Hensi city in 1914. And before the city of Hensi city in 1925. And today we are 7,600 Haitians and represent 15.5% of Hens i's population of 49,000 residents. In the U.S. we are over 1 million, 1.7 million. We are doctors, engineers, nurses, lawyers, pastors, kids' owners, school teachers, officers, social workers, writers, pilots, actors, singers, painters, carpenters. And contribute over 25 billion dollars annually. And this includes 6 billion by the Haitian TPS holders. Now facing detention and deportation. This is why I am requesting the U.S. government to renew T PS to my fellow Haitians. Together let's say we need TPS for Haitians. We need TPS for Haitians. We need TPS for Haitians. Long live Haiti. Long live the city of Hensi city. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So do I can speak. Okay. I didn't know this was on my phone. Good evening to you all. I just wanted to say thank you. I am one of the business owners from Hensi city. We actually own an adult family care home for seniors. So we house, we're licensed to house five seniors in our home, in our community with plans to probably grow at some point. So we are working with the city to do that. And I just wanted to say thank you for allowing this beautiful moment to happen. And I think, um, on behalf of my fellow Haitians and other business owners, our voices are heard often. And the fact that we have this moment to share our pride and our recognition means tremendous. Um, I'm a little nervous because I wasn't expecting to speak, but, um, I just wanted to say thank you. Um, because we oftentimes didn't, um, we didn't feel heard. We didn't feel seen. We didn't feel seen. So this means this is a great impact. And I pray that, um, this can continue going forward. Um, and I don't know if any of the other business owners wanted to say anything, but, um, on behalf of my heritage, um, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Good evening everybody. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Um, this is a little bit personal. Um, my name is Patricia representing Island Delacruzzi. My husband and I own it. I wanted to personally thank NCD for being there for us in the middle of the part of, uh, opening the restaurant. I was battling stage for cancer in the middle of getting 20 chemotherapy. You guys were there for us and we wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, is there anyone else? No. We got one more. Good evening everyone. I would like to say thank you personally as a first generation, um, Asian American. Um, our parents literally, you know, we used to get picked on for being the banana boat generation. Um, but now I take that honorably, um, to know the resilience it took, um, that our parents, um, you know, took the strive of faith as teenagers for most of them, um, to cross an ocean on a small boat, um, seeking a better life. Um, and I thank them for their sacrifice, um, in pushing us as first generation Haitians to be the best that we can be, um, as they flee political oppression. Um, they didn't lack vision, drive or, um, hard work ethics . Um, they just lacked an opportunity. So I want to thank you guys personally, um, for giving us this day. I'm a little emotional, um, because like they said, um, even as second generation, first generation Haitians, um, we often had to fight in school. Although, you know, our parents and our ancestors before fought for freedom. Um, but I just want to say that, um, we are glad to be here . Um, we seek to continue to be good citizens of Polk County. And we just pray that, I pray that God blesses you all for this first step and it be the many, the first step to many others. And God bless you all. Thank you. Good evening, authorities. How is everybody today? Good? My name is Lephist Camer. I'm one of the preachers in this town. I present the NCD Foundation Church of the Nazarene. I would like to say thank you so very much for recognizing the Haitian heritage where powerful citizens in this country and this city as well. But there is a lot of people here also have a humble request. If we can ask the Russian people to stand up, thank the National Anthem of Haiti. Absolutely. Great. I said that in French, but I'm with the Asian Korean. And this is the Asian National Anthem. We're going to stand. Thank you. Thank you for your good health. I really appreciate it. All the Haitians. Set up, please. I can pretend like I do it. I love you. I love you. For the salute. One. Turn on your feet. For the grapple for the country. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Un, deux, trois, quatre. Pour le pays. Pour les ancêtres. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Dans l'horreur. Prennent que tu es. Tu es. Tu es. Sois. Un, deux, trois, quatre. Un, deux, trois, quatre. Marchants unis. Marchants unis. Pour le pays. Pour les ancêtres. Marchants. Marchants. Marchants unis. Pour le pays. Pour les ancêtres. Deux. Applaudissements. Applaudissements. Applaudissements. May the Lord. Almighty. Open the sky. Power is the best. Blessing upon you. The leaders. The authorities. Stifley. Wishly. Immersely. Accidentally. And forevermore. May the Lord bless you. Thank you. Applaudissements. All right. Will that be another? Good evening. Good evening. My name is Pamela Simon. I'm a teacher at Hengsay High School. And I want to thank you personally for letting us create that video. Because that made the students so happy throughout the day to be able to represent their flag and talk about Haiti. Because a lot of them came a few years ago and they did not feel seen. They were struggling with the language. We actually created a Caribbean fusion club to showcase all Caribbean culture. And so they can show their talents, sing, rehearse poems, act, dance. We actually had our second showcase May 2nd. And it was a great turnout. Next year we're going to have another one in May again. Which fits the Caribbean month. Because a lot of carnivals are happening during this month and everything. And if we can work together with Hengsay High School, I would love that. And thank you. Thank you. Hello, hello, hello, hello, everybody. I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you. I really appreciate what y'all doing for the city of Heng City, number one. And for the community. I love my city. That's all I got to say. I love my city. Thank y'all. God bless. All right. Anyone else? Well, listen. We want to thank you all for coming out. I think everybody here, you know, has their own voice. But I think collectively, we all love Heng City. We're here to make sure that everybody in Heng City knows that this commission sees you. We care about you. And we want to do what's best for every single citizen of H eng City. I tell you, this occasion is so special that, you know, I'm not going to just simply speak for everybody. I want to give anyone up here an opportunity if they'd like to do the same. Commissioner Huffman? I would just like to say that I have four Haitian-American grandchildren. And I love them. Commissioner Johnson? I'm just super excited, y'all, to hear you guys say that you were overlooked and now that you feel seen. And that's what we want going forward. So I want to see us definitely do a Haitian flag festival, a Haitian flag day. I'm going to definitely try to convince our mayor to do that so we can definitely celebrate you on another level. Commissioner West? Hey! I don't speak French, but I'll tell you, my granddaughter, she's a Haitian in the, her dad's Haitian, and she's in the third grade. And when y'all said they are very, very, very smart, you all are very, very smart. She's just got old A's in her entire school year. And I am so proud. And I am proud of our Haitian community. And I was looking and listening to the numbers, you know. And you all play a very important part. Don't let no one tell you that you all don't play a very, very important part. Not just in Hayden City, but in Polk County, in the state of Florida, and the U.S. of America. Thank y'all so much for being here. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And as the mayor already stated, we are definitely glad to support the Haitian Americans here in our city. We want you to feel seen. We want you to feel heard. And this commission will definitely not overlook you. You play a vital role here in our city, as our residents, as our business owners. And everyone here, Haitian, whatever your nationality is, we want you to feel welcome. And we appreciate everything that you contribute to the city. And we do look forward to continuing this. This would not be the last. This is the first of many things to come. And thank you so much. Okay. All right. So at this time, we're going to move back into our business meeting. So you don't have to feel obligated to stay if you'd like to leave. All right. So at this time, we're going to move on into item number five, our consent agenda. Is there any questions on the diaries? No questions. Move for approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. All right. We're going to move right along to item number six, public comments regarding items that are not on the agenda. If you are a member of the public and your name is called by Madam Clerk, when you step up, you're going to step up to either the right or the left podium. When you do step up, please state your name and your address for the record. At that time, you'll have three minutes to voice your concern. Alan Metzger. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Alan Metzger. My address is 604 Silver Palm Drive in Haines City. I'm one of the first to move into the Cypress Park Estates. I've been there for four years. Cypress Estates is bordered by Baker Dairy Road to the north, East Johnson Avenue to the south, and Powerline Road to the west. Our community has 700 homes, and the developer just recently turned over control of the HOA to the homeowners. I am now a member of the new HOA board, and it is our responsibility to address the concerns of all our residents . The main entrance exit for our community is the intersection of Bice Grove Road and East Johnson Avenue. This intersection has become a nightmare, and we're requesting that Haines City take action on our behalf. There are several items that we would like to have addressed. Now, I know that it's not the commission necessarily, but we're bringing the point up, and then we can go to different areas or responsibilities within the community. But we need to move the school bus stop into the community and not have the bus stopping on East Johnson to let kids get on and off. It's a danger to the kids. It creates a major traffic tie-up, and the parents fill up Bice Grove Road and the intersection with their cars waiting for their children to leave the bus. Also, we would like to talk to the county, but the intersection should qualify for a traffic light. With the heavy flow of traffic in both directions on East Johnson, pulling out from Bice Grove has become dangerous. The entire area needs street lights, and I know, again, that's part of the county, but the darkness just adds to the danger of the intersection. The Bice Grove exit from Cybert Park needs a right-hand turn lane. Currently, there's only one exit lane, and for those turning left, they tie up the entire line of cars who are wanting to turn right. Redesigning this intersection will be a major expense, but collectively, our 700 homes pay over $1 million directly into the coffers of Haynes City. So, therefore, some of that money should be used by the city to correct this situation. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Excuse me. Excuse me. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I am Commissioner Huffman, seat 5, and I've been in contact with Kelly. Hi, Kelly. And that was one of the things that I planned to discuss during Commissioner comments, that I'm going to pin a letter from seat 5. Not the entire commission unless they agree, but to send a letter to the school board. Yes. Send one to the county as far as the traffic light goes. The city owns Bice Grove. We don't own Johnson. Right. But that doesn't stop the county from understanding that the safety of our kids is number one. So, I'm going to be doing that and sending a copy of my letter from seat 5 only to those people, and I'm going to be copying the HOA members of it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for taking the question. Nahir Casanova. Good evening, Commissioners, Mr. Mayor, and everybody present. My name is Nahir Casanova, and I'm from 3930 Whitney Way, H aines City. I'm speaking on behalf of Ray J Community Foundation and Ray J Soccer, who we are and what we do. We are Ray J Soccer. For over a year, we have been working tirelessly in Haines City Soccer Complex to offer more justice as a sport. We provide an organized, safe, and positive structure for our community. We probably represent more than 200 active families who trust us to help develop their children from the youngest to the teens. We currently serve boys and girls from ages 4 to 17 years old. What is our difference? Inclusion. What makes us different is our real commitment to inclusion . We offer a specially adaptive program for children with autism and special needs because we believe everyone deserves a safe space. What makes us different is a flexible model for families. Unlike many traditional programs, Ray J Soccer charges no monthly fees. Our payments are daily. Our system is simple and accessible. A system-based paper class. If your child does not attend the class, it's not charged. Through our foundation, Radio Community Foundation, we offer scholarships and community support to youth who need sports opportunities. We also participate in programs such as Step Up for Students, allowing more families to access sports and quality after school programs. We are more than athletes. We're building the social fabric of Haines City. Safety and professionalism. What the city wins. We understand their responsibility of using public spaces. Our coaches and staff are background checked and certified in U.S. soccer. We have active insurance with the city that includes and strictly follows the parks and recreation protocols. We promote supervision, order, and pervading maintenance to order the facilities and the families. We are requesting the Haines City Soccer Complex build youth schedule for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 530 to 8. We're the full field youths. We're the full field youths to work with all teams and prepare for weekend league games and trainings. From Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We're full field youths for official league games and for all the categories. For Tuesdays and Thursdays from 515 to 645, we're an adaptive program for using half of the field. For Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. We're adult league and master's league using half of the field. The requested schedules are low for proper, safe instructor organization of sports. Full field youths during designated times is necessary to ensure safe training, proper game preparation, and orderly development for all the teams and categories. When only half of the field is used for Tuesdays and Thursdays, the other half will remain available for the community youths. All general decisions regarding the administration and operations of the park will remain with the city. We are committed to offering commitment. All right. That is the three minutes that was allotted for this. Thank you for this. I do recognize what you are proposing. We have a parks and recreation director that I would like for you to speak with about this so we can see if this is something that would be feasible. Director Griffin, if he is in the back, if you could raise your hand. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mayor Smith. You may be right for that. Thank you. To this organization, I know you may not be aware of some of the rivalry that we've had to endure on Myers-Wiley Field, where one team wants to be the only team that plays on that field and takes it up. And then another field, another team comes, and they want to be able to do it as well. I think that the soccer complex should be just for soccer and not considered multipurpose. But, Terrell, I have a concern that we're going to end up with another Vipers and Rattlers situation. All right. Well, thank you for that. I think Director Griffin, I think he's more than capable to kind of bless, you know, if we have any issues out. The last name is Libre? Yes. Yes. Libre? I hope I said that right. Are Yelen living at – you don't want to speak? No? Going once? It's not here. Not here. Okay. Moving on. Shunyad Perez? Okay. Okay. Good morning. Good evening, everyone. My name is Shunyad. I'm a resident of 1361 Daria Avenue, Hay City. But tonight, I'm speaking to you simply as a mom of two neurodivergent kids. When you write children with unique sensory and motor skills challenges, things that come naturally to other kids can feel like mountain pigs. For a long time – I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. For a long time, team sports weren't even a consideration for us. Traditional leagues are fast, high pressure, and all too often leave vulnerable kids behind. My children spent years on the outside looking in. As a mom, it broke my heart to think they might never know what it truly feels to belong to a team. But then we found Ray J. Stalker. And what Coach Jason and his staff have built is nothing short of incredible. It is a highly professional, beautiful structure, and profoundly patient environment. They met my children exactly where they were, under their guidance. My kids haven't just participated. They have absolutely tried. To understand the impact of this program, you have to understand where we started. My child, Sebastian, he didn't know how to run on a field. He didn't know. He didn't have coordination. He didn't have team player skills. So we went from a completely overwhelmed space and coordination to Sandy proudly as an integral part of a team. I have watched sensory overload turn into focused, joyful energy. I have watched physical hesitation turn into robust confidence. To Ray J. Stalker, my kids have built physical coordination , learned vital social skills, and embraced value skills like discipline and deep control respect. To see my children running down that field with pure inhib ited smiles, passing the ball, and sharing high fives with teammates is a miracle. But the real magic happens in the quiet moments. When my son comes up to me before every single game and says, Mom, I can do this. Mom, my coach, Jason, believes in me. That right there, it's incredible. And after every whistle, my son comes back to me and says, Mom, I did it. That right there is the impact that our coach has in our community. They have created a family atmosphere where my kids and every kid get to welcome and celebrate it for exactly who they are. And where I finally get to sit on the silence as a proud soccer mom. And as a teacher, I ask you guys to support our team and our community because this is what our kids deserve. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Sharon Garrett. Now it's a party. Gee, thanks. My name is Sharon Garrett, and I live off Carl, who's the red. I've got three areas I'd like to comment on if I make it through. And the questions I'm going to ask if the people that will answer them wait until I get finished. 30th Street. I was told back before the week of rain, the week of rain, it was supposed to be paved. Well, I can understand it rained, so they can't pave. I've been told more than once it was going to be, paving was going to be started. Paving hasn't started. I would challenge each one of you commissioners to ride down the side that's tore up. It goes north. It is a washboard. Mr. Keene has told me several times that he tells his people to go out there and see something about it and to tell the contractor if he doesn't scrape it and get it smoother, that the city's going to do it and build. Nothing has improved it. Whatever anybody's done has made it worse. They spread some millions and that made it even worse. So, I mean, it is a washboard. It is horrible. It's as bad as Bird Road was. And you heard all the complaints about Bird Road. The next thing is the lights. The next thing is the lights. I've been asking about the lights along the city, and Ms. Downing brought it up last time. The last time I spoke to, I think, Woodley was when we had the special meeting on Jim Belinsky, and I said it would kind of be nice to have him, you know, an email every now and then about to say something. I haven't heard anything out of him, out of Mr. Keene's department, or whatever. I would like to know what's going on with the lights, not a little diagram that says this one's yellow, this one's blue, and this one's green, and each color means a different thing. What are you doing? You know? And when's the progress? Some of those lights have been out since the tornado came through by the insurance company right before the July 4th fireworks and all that, and we still haven't done anything. Next thing is the soccer field. We spent a lot of money, the city, doing the soccer field, you know, planting it and this, that, and the other. And just recently they piled a whole bunch of dirt out there, smoothed them the dirt around. I'm sure you spent a lot of money on sod. Why would you pile all that dirt around and move it around, and now you've got to buy more sod? If you had to have a place to pile dirt, why didn't you pile it out in that pasture you bought from Mr. Glass? I'd like some answers. Well, Ms. Garrett, some of those answers definitely will come from the staff, but one thing that I think I'm qualified to answer you for about is the soccer field. So that dirt was actually moved there because we are going to be turfing that field, if you recall. So that dirt was needed, so it met the specifications. I thought it was already turf. I mean, there was green stuff out there. It's coming. Okay. Okay, well, that one makes sense. Next two. All right. So not at this time, but what we will do, we will definitely have someone follow up with you. Oh, really? Nobody's followed up with me. And I did a public records request right there from my community. So, but some of the concerns that you raised, as you stated , they have been raised up here also. But we are working to get that done, and we will be able to provide some answers. Our last one, Mr. Mayor, Johnny Baker. I don't stay on call. What? I don't stay on call. I'm Johnny Baker, 1207 Avenue, Jay. The complaint I got on the code enforcement about me parking on my lot across the street. My truck, my 88 Silverado. It's got a tag insurance on it. Somebody can't park. I can't park. Now they tell you something. It's mine. And I wonder, you know, you got some people got calls. They ain't got no tags or nothing. They're sitting there. They wanted me to move it like, you know, like, one, two wheels on the road and two wheels off on the property. That don't make sense. Okay. So, we have our chief, please. Chief Jackson, if you can raise your hand in the back. You can definitely have a position. Okay. Mayor Smith, if I could speak. Before you leave, Mr. Baker. You can be recognized. Before you leave, I totally agree with you. There is an inconsistency, Chief Jackson, when it comes to code enforcement. It's cherry-picked. So, like Mr. Baker said, there are some people with cars that clearly haven't been operable in years. Unless it's, I don't know, nothing's been done with them. But as Mr. Baker says, he keeps his lot clean and he pays taxes on it. And the automobile he puts on his lot is the insurances up to date. His tag is current. And it is, the truck works. So, and I said this in 2017 when I got here. We need to be consistent when it comes to that. If you're going to do it in Oakland, do it on the east side . If you're going to do it on the east side, do it over there on Polk City Road. You cannot just come to one area and cherry-pick what you 're going to do. And in Oakland, we have a lot of automobiles that are, have been sitting there. Mayor, with the tires or flaps, all they have on it is a tarp that is on there. And what I've heard from Steve Shifley, Mayor Stewart, is they've been grandfathered in. Well, grandfather died years and years ago. Unless he can show that this was the case when the ordinance was created, they need to be cited too. So, I just want you all to know here on this panel, I feel that Mr. Baker and other people that have come to me, and I think it was, I don't remember, Fred Hall came here with the same situation. And we need to, we need some consistency going on here. And that's not happening. And so, talking to you, Chief Jackson, talking to Mr., to Steve Shifley from seat five, let's get back to some consistency. Because you charge some people for parking in front of their house on the east side, but you don't charge anybody that parks in front of their house, which belongs to the city, even though we have to mow the grass. You're not doing it in Oakland. Right. Well, thank you. Thank you for that, Commissioner. But like I said, I stated, if you see Chief Jackson in the back, he can assist. Okay, because I can go and start it up. If you're cold for me, you come to see it, Ron, I'll show him it, Ron. And I do understand that there is a process, you know, for these things, and Chief Jackson will be the best person for the system. Madam Clerk, is there? That's it, sir. That is it? Okay. All right. So at this time, we're going to move right along into old business. The item is going to be item 7A, ordinance number 26-2146, voluntary annexation. And who will be presenting? Deputy Director Atkins. All right. Go right ahead, sir. This is the second reading of this annexation, and nothing has changed since the first reading. Okay. Nothing has changed at this time. We'll close the presentation and open it up to this dais. Is there any questions, comments? Commissioner Johnson? No questions. Commissioner Hunt? No. All right. No questions at this time. We will close that and open it up for delegation. Is there anyone from the public that wished to be heard? Please step to the podium. Seeing none, I will close that and ask for an introduction. Mr. Mayor, introduce ordinance number 26-2146. Ordinance number 26-2146. An ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Payne City, Florida, extending the corporate limits of the City of Payne City, Florida, so as to include therein additional territory lying cont iguous and adjacent to the present boundaries of the City of Payne City, Florida, describing said additional territory, redefining the boundaries of the City of Payne City, Florida, to include said property, providing for incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for separability, providing for the administrative correction of scrivener's errors, providing for notice and recordation, providing business impact estimate, and providing for an effective date. Move for it. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carried. Just a second. Okay, we'll move right into new business. Item number 8A, change order number 2, the Lake Eva Rib. We'll be presenting. I'll be presenting this. So this is, on this particular item, on 30th Street, the waterline will be crossing under 30th Street over on the Robinses for the reclaimed to go to the ribs that City purchased several years ago. Originally, it was set up just for an open cut, which would be the size of the pipe, the diameter of the pipe. So we're using MDOT standard, which is a 50-foot either side of the cut. That road is very, very busy with semi-traffic and others. So we're having to go to the DFT standards, 50-foot either side. An additional $31,000. It's going to be funded out of the savings from the 6-inch waterline on 6th Street. The transfer is on the back of this as well. Okay. Thank you for that. We'll be closing our presentation. Are there any questions? Commissioner Huffman? None here. Commissioner Johnson? None. Commissioner Webb? Hey, Jay, you said it's $31,000 or $27,000. $31,000. $31,000. Yes, sir. All right. I'll have one. Okay. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ms. King, my only question was, so it's for 50 feet, so it's just an addition to meet the FDOT standards. And it's 50-foot both directions. Yes, ma'am. So it's 100-foot new pavement with new base. We have to rebuild the road there. Okay. For the $31,000. Yes, ma'am. It's 100-foot. Okay. All right. Thank you. And it'll be full width of the road because they're having to go across the whole road. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. All right. No questions. No questions. Thank you. Okay. Seeing that there are no more questions, I will open this up for delegation. Is there anyone from the public that wish to be heard? Okay. Seeing none, I will close that and entertain. Thank you. Motion. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve the change order for the Lake Eva Reb Reclaim Water Crossing Agreement. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a proper second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. All right. Moving right along to item 8B. And I see that is Deputy City Manager King. He's going to stay up. Extra work authorization number one. Yes, sir. So this is for our water use permit modification that we've been working on with CHA for several years, actually. So the task has changed. So the task has changed. We're looking at traditional facilities because you know the city's gate right now. We're permitted through SWIFTBUD at 5921. We're pumping well above that right now. The permit we're going after is for 16.42. So 16 million, 120,000 gallons. So the extra work initiative here from the water supply analysis. They've been working with SWIFTBUD quite a bit, showing SW IFTBUD some of the information for everything from our mitigate, from our waters going into the ribs, to offset some of our permit capacities. So they're coordinating that with SWIFTBUD, the water supply analysis. They're also working on this as per $7,800 on the different tasks on the back. That one is for the proposed new water plant and the well locations. So a lot going on in our water side as well as our wastewater. But this one is strictly water. So that fund there is coming out of professional services. It's coming out of professional services for this account. And the request is for approval for the $63,463. Thank you. Mr. King. So do we have any questions from the commission? Commissioner Huffman? Yes, I do. I'm going to vote, of course, for it. But we have a new commissioner. So explain what ribs are. I know. You know? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Because I didn't know. So just for everyone's benefit, the rib, and you're right. We live in a world of acronyms in our own worlds. And I'm sure it applies across the board. Rib is a rapid infiltration basin. And the modification is a water use permit. So that's what we are working on. And thank you for that. I know you're going to be the one to point it out. It's interesting. Water conservation is the forefront of my mind. So yes. Thank you. Thank you. My other question is, I thought we had direct communication with Swift Mud regarding our water permit. I didn't know that we were working through CHA Consulting. Oh, yes, ma'am. They've been on it since the very beginning. We do go to meetings with them over in Temple Terrace. But they are our consultant on there. We also use David McIntosh Tire, I believe is his name. We use his services as well. So they do the hydraulic models. They do everything that they're specialized in in those two fields. So they're like our lobbyists. Well, they're our consultants. Okay. Our consultants that speak on our behalf. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. Thank you. No other questions. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Johnson. No question. I'm sorry. Like I just said, the water conservation is definitely at the forefront. We hear it all the time. Even though we're surrounded by water, we're taking care of it. So thank you. Yes, ma'am. No question. No questions. No questions. Okay. I don't have any questions on this either. So at this time, we're going to open up the delegation. Is there anyone from the public? My name is Sharon Garrett. I live off Carl Pozzaro. I would like to urge you again. I think I said something last meeting that you guys should consider by all or part of it. At the time, I couldn't think of the name of the place, For reston Ranch, because that was used as an overflow for when we had lots of rain. From the hurricanes, it tends to be underwater at times. And if you have an area that could soak up the water. I mean, the county's bought a couple areas that they use as reservoirs. That helps your water conservation. Let's water slowly go down into the aquifer and the surrounding. Instead of just running it out to the Gulf or other places. One of the other boards that sits on the group that overse es and packs that area said they didn't know what they were going to do. One time when I accidentally sent one of those meetings. If they lost the Morrison Ranch, they didn't have any place for overflow water. And I've seen that place underwater. And cows wading in water. In just a few high areas. And it would really behoove you guys to look into seeing what you could purchase and how much. And it would also help you with Lake Eva. Thank you. As far as anyone else. Seeing none, we will close that. And at this time I will entertain a motion. I'll make a motion for approval. I second. I have a motion. A proper second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed. Motion carried. All right. Now we will move. All new. All right. We're going to move to item 8C. Lakeland Area Mass Transit District Contract Renewal. Director DeHazen. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner. So this is a request for the commission to consider renew ing the contract with Lakeland Area Mass Transit, also known as Citrus Connection. We usually enter into two-year agreements with them. This current agreement that we currently have in place is set to expire September 30, 2026. With this increase, we did meet with them as administration and discuss funding riddles or funding options. They are proposing a 4% increase per year within the contract. I do want to mention that the numbers in here, looking at the original contract and what they're proposing, there is a typo. So they did the increase based off $110,000, which takes it to $114,000. But we're really at $115,000 now. So the numbers should be, it'll go to $119,600, and then it 'll go to $124,384. So, again, a 4% increase is what they built in. I do want to say that I think this year they were more in line with working with us from a budget standpoint. Last year we had two $20,000 increases, one in 25 and then 126 to take us to 95 and then 115,000. So the 4% is only about a $4,000 increase per year. So a lot more reasonable for our appetite for this upcoming budget cycle. So we are recommending to approve this agreement and continue to work with Citrus Connection in that regard. All right. Thank you for that. Do we have any questions from this board? Commissioner West. The only thing I want to say is that I know it seems like a substantial amount of money for public transportation, but it is a necessity. If you look at the traffic situation here in the city of H aines City and beyond, the alternative traffic is something that we've been speaking on off at the Dias for many, many years, including the Sun Rail, because, you know, we know you get on 27, you're going nowhere, even though you're going to be on the bus, but there's a group of people on the bus that are, you know, you're taking away 10 cars at a time. So it will help. So I strongly encourage this Dias to actually support this Citrus Connection agreement here. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Johnson. No questions. Commissioner Johnson. Yes. I'm concerned still why they have not given us the green light on transportation to get our residents out to the industrial area, to Aldi, as a matter of fact, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., whatever the work shift is, because we're paying them quite a bit of money, and the need is not being addressed at all. And you have new subdivisions that need to have a stop as well. So looking forward to 2028, as the negotiations begin, please, please, please address the fact that we gave a lot of incentives to Aldi for them to extend their building as well. And part of that agreement was to recognize Haynes City residents. But if there's no transportation going out there, the people that are getting the jobs are the ones coming from Winter Haven, Lake Wales, Davenport, wherever. But we're the ones that are giving out the incentives. So I would like to see something going out there to the industrial park and to some of these new subdivisions to have it as a stop as well. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Commissioner Huffman, I agree with you, because that was one of my questions and concerns when this increase came back up. If you remember when they came to do the PowerPoint and where I can appreciate that it went down to only the 4%, but I really was looking forward to the additional routes being added to only find out that there would be no new routes added. And then also, Commissioner Huffman, I remember you inqu iring on the covering for the stops and also finding out that they will not provide the covering. However, if we can provide the covering that meets FDOT standards, then we can turn it over to them and they would maintain it after that point. So that's something that I would hope that we can look into , you know, doing it ourselves to see which stops can meet those requirements. And then we could possibly do the covering so they can have some type of shelter depending on the weather, whether it's hot or cold. So if staff could take a look and figure out where those stops are that would meet FDOT standards so we can get that at least done for the residents. But I have no issue with approving this two-year agreement. And again, like I stated, I do appreciate that the increase went down to only the 4% versus a large chunk. And I do understand that we were behind along with all the other cities. And so we're playing catch-up right now to get to that point where some of the other cities were already at. And we are just now catching up. So if we could just look into that, city manager, for the coverings of those stops. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. And the only thing I'll add, I think you have a sentiment especially of, you know, this daisy here. We do know that, you know, the Citrus Connection is instrumental, you know, for our residents here. The only ask that I would have is as we do go into those next set of negotiations, if we aren't able to add additional stops, at least if we can increase the frequency of those stops. You know, I view the public transportation as something that, you know, if I need to go to the grocery store, I can do that in a reasonable amount of time and, you know, return home. So I would really like for us to look into that and also, as the vice mayor stated, you know, having some coverage. We want to make this the most appealing, you know, mode of transportation, you know, that the city can offer at this time. I'll make sure we include that in budget conversations as well. I think that way from staff, I know there's other cities that are doing outside of a Citrus Connection, doing multimodal type offerings where they're, you know, renting Teslas and having people dedicate. So we'll come back with some options during the budget discussions as well. You guys may want to consider just housing from a city perspective where we're in control of where we're going and how often that's happening with vehicles or bus or some other alternatives. There are other options out there besides just depending on a Citrus Connection to take care of that for us. Right. And thank you for that. I definitely think we should explore those alternatives. All right. Are there any other questions? All right. At this time, we'll open up the members of the public. Is there anyone to speak to that? All right. Good evening. Tarsha Carey, 458 Panera Lane. I am a huge advocate for mass transit, especially coming from the D.C. area. And especially with the frequency of it, more stop. Because if we are trying to expand to a sunrail or to whatever, we have to have those connections. So I totally agree, especially coming here. And the first thing I was like was, where's the mass transit so that I could get to Orlando or whatever I needed to do? And when I found that out, I was kind of disappointed. But then as I was hearing about transportation, I do encourage you all to continue with that. Because as I was reading, the Sunrail, I mean the circuit connection, it doesn't run on holidays. So as you were saying about those hours, you've got to expand the timeline. So please keep that fight as we are trying to move Hangin City forward. All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor, quickly, I want to recognize. Oh, yes. Some of y'all that don't know that Citrus Connections, which also give you a ride to Punxiana with a sunrail, you can connect there and then go all the way up to Deltona , Florida and back. And then Citrus Connections come back. It's in Punxiana right off of 1792. And then you can get back on the Citrus Connection and connect right back to your hometown, which is in Hangin City. So I think that they're slowly making progress with the Cit rus Connection, and I think you'll see a difference in the next couple of years. So we just have to continue to advocate for what we need to fit our city. And frequency could be one, and that's exactly right. And the coverings is another one because it is hot here in the state of Florida, and it ain't sitting out in that open . That's why nobody's standing there, and nobody's going to go there and sit there. So I agree with the commission. I think we should really continue to advocate for those things. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. And I'll just add one additional thing. It's one of those little known facts, but with Citrus Connection, when you have a high school student that has an activity after school, they can actually, you sign up for it, but you can actually have a ride home from that school, and they actually take that student home. They send you text notifications to the parent that enrolls them in there. So, you know, Citrus Connection is a very good thing. Mr. Mayor, do you have to recognize? Oh, you may. I heard Vice Mayor mention in regards to the coverings weren't covered. Did they say why they weren't covered? As far as pricing? Well, they just don't provide them. They don't pay for the installation or the covering, but they can maintain them once they're installed. Okay. All right. Anything else? All right. We will propose public comment. By this time, I will entertain them. I'll make a motion that we approve this Citrus Connection. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Just for clarification, do we think we need to read into the record those amount changes, or can we make that correction after? It was presented to the commission and the materials that were provided, correct? No. The materials are incorrect. We need to modify. Yes, I would verbally state those. Yeah. We can read that into a motion, right? With the scrimineers errors and correction? You can do it via motion if you would like to. If you've already approved the item, I would just make sure , since you did advise the commission of the 4% increase, I would at least get the changes or whatever those modifications were on the record. So either way, like, do that or whichever way the commission would work. Well, I can restate the motion and say, well, if you want me to strike the last motion and then restate my motion. I think as long as we have a consensus, the easiest way to state it is it's going to be a 4% increase off the $115,000 . And then we'll do the calculation off that number. Put that on a motion. Well, there was already a motion and a second in the vote, correct? So we've done that, and I believe it was stated that it was a 4% increase. So let's just clarify, it was 4% on what cost? 515,000. Thank you. Okay. All right. Moving right along. City Manager's report. Good evening. Good evening. So I've got a few things here. I want to make sure that everybody is aware that Verizon told us over a year ago that we were going to have to get rid of our copper landlines. And that's been a huge changeover project for us. We had to put in some new fiber and connections to all of our buildings. We've been working on that upgrade for over a year now. And the date that Frontier, who has it now, that we'll be going over to a web-based service is the 28th of this month . We tried to get them to do it in the evening time, when, of course, it's less busy. But they said no, that the changeover would only take about five minutes. So we hope that they're corrected on that. But we've taken some precautions to anticipate. There might be some issues. So for, like, the front desk, we're going to have a cell phone there. We're going to have the numbers forwarded to that cell phone for police and fire. We're contacting the sheriff's office to take non-emergency calls so that they'll be routed through them. So we're taking some precautions to hopefully mitigate it if it goes more than the five minutes. Tonight, the lights on Henson came up. And so I've got an update on that. As you all know, this is going to be a substantial project because there are more issues than just the lights that are broken or have been knocked down. And the fact that they are a decorative light and getting those replaced is not too easy. So what we are going to be proposing is changing out all the lights on Henson and going to a more standard lighting system that has a better record for maintenance and everything else. We got a quote back for about $775,000 to do that. Our plan is to bring that back to CRA board for authorization for a permanent fix. And that would change the lights from 10th Street to McKay. I believe it's to McKay. We are also opening the 2627 city grant process on June 15 th. And it will close on August 15th. We'll start advertising on June 1st for that. We have a couple of training sessions that are coming up that will give people the opportunity to come and learn how to apply through our process. And we'll also be doing advertising on social media to let folks know that that's opening up. The last thing that I have is, of course, you know, we're coming into budget season. And last year we made some changes to the way we presented the budget by bringing capital requests and operating directly to you and letting the director present so that y' all could have more input into the decisions made on each of those items. So in order to facilitate that happening this year, I would ask for y'all to tonight maybe look at your calendars and let us set a few dates for that to make it easier for everybody. The commission capital discussion, we believe it may take a full day. So if y'all could look at your calendars from June 9th through the 12th and give a day that we could plan to do that on. While you're looking at the same time, we need a half day to do the, for the CRA consultant to do his capital presentation as well. During that same week? Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm available in any of those days. I didn't see we have Florida League cities on the 11th. We're going to have EMO then. Do you have EMO training? Yes, EMO. That's not all of us. What, 2011? Hmm? 2011? Sure. Are you talking about everyone 11th? You said June 1912? Yes. What day are you referring to? The 11th? Uh-huh. For training? No, no, no. Four hours before the legal city's regular. Yes, British. Oh, that's on that date. Let me go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, June 11th would be a real legal city's dinner in Dav in, which we should be referring to. Oh, not EMO, no. Yeah, sir. Mayor Smith. Mayor Smith. Mayor Smith. Mayor Smith. Yes. Mayor Smith. Mayor Smith. Yes, sir. Mayor Smith. While you all are deciding, I just want to ask a question of the city manager here to get clarification. Did you say that $775,000 is going to be coming from CRA? Yeah, that's what I heard, too. I was going to ask that question. Yeah. And I don't know that this particular board, without the other two CRA, can make that decision. Right. Because those lights, I feel personally, should not come out of CRA. It needs to come out of the general phone. They should speak. I'm sorry. I think the city manager just didn't say for us to vote on the lights. He was just stating that it would be brought back during CRA for CRA to see if CRA would cover it. Right. And the estimate that was already received. Right. Right. I understood that. I just want to make sure that I don't understand why that even came up as part of CRA. We need to cover that ourselves. Yeah. I kind of agree. I concur with Commissioner Huffman. I was trying to figure out in my brain why would we spend that amount of money out of CRA. I thought State Rule 600, which is 1792, coming through H aines City, that's a state rule. I thought they paid us to maintain those lights and how much do they pay us. But that should be an account for those lights that they pay us. That's not our rule. And I don't even think that it's our easement. I think that's a state easement. But the lights are there. But we're paying for lights that belong to the state. Yeah. My understanding is, and if I misspeak, correct me, James, but my understanding is that we, as a city, made a decision to put the decorative lights there. And so that was our choice to put those there instead of ones that probably have a lighter lights. Why couldn't we go back to DOT and say, let's go back to the standard lights that was there? Well, they were happy for us to put whatever, but I don't believe that they're going to contribute to the cost of putting light back in because we made the change. And if I may, I think, I don't want to necessarily move with the car before the horse and ask that this doesn't hear. But if it is going to be brought before us in CRA, I think at that time, if we're going to, you know, review it and see if we still be here, I think that would be the proper time to kind of have this. Mr. Mayor, I'll just say one thing. Thank you. Also, just as a reminder and the answer to, Commissioner H uffman, your question and concern, I believe the reason why the city manager stated CRA, because it was discussed before, a while back, when the lights was first kind of brought up, it was an issue that it would go possibly under CRA, because it does qualify under CRA, under their beaut ification piece of it. So that's the reason why we were entertaining the CRA portion of it. But nothing was approved. They were still waiting on all of that, and we'll discuss that at the next CRA meeting. Yes, yes, exactly. All I was saying was, I don't understand why it even came up to begin the... I was just giving you an update on where we are with those, so that you all know that we're working on it. So you're prepared for me. Okay. We get to CRA. And so why is this coming out of CRA? Because we could do a whole lot more in CRA with the 775, 000 long. Yeah, I don't want to do the bathing here. Okay. Or CRA. Well, June 9th, back to the date, June 9th is okay. I'm okay with that. I'm available to June 9th as well, Mr. Mayor and City Manager. And that works? It works for me. Night is fine. Okay. Fine. And then the half day for the CRA? Okay. We need to ask the CRA. I'm okay on the 10th. I'm okay on the 10th. I'm okay on the 10th. But I have to. I'm okay. I'm positive. I'm on the 10th. For the house day. And we do this because since we did have a couple board members that aren't here, is it possible that you have a plan for you to send those things out? Just to make sure you would have to. Yeah. And what I thought was that if we got a, at least a day that you all could agree on, then we could step in. Correct. On the 9th, we would start at 9 a.m. And the same for the next day once it approved our CRA board? We believe it will only take a half a day, so would you all rather do it in the morning or afternoon? In the morning. Get over. Okay. I mean, I can't speak for public. I think that the time for CRA should be sent out by the clerk because we shouldn't be making times for CRA. Okay. Well, we'll get a consensus of everyone. And just advisor, chamber agreement cutting? Yeah. I'm not sure if you've responded, but it is on the 10th. It's an 8th. We're on the home. Okay. The madam clerk anytime, I guess, after the chamber event because some staff would be ending. And then we need to do a workshop for operating budget, and we would like to do that for a half day for both one half day for the commission, one half day for CRA, and that would be the week of the 23 rd to the 26th. June? Yes. The commission will be out of town that week. Oh, will you? We'll be in DC Fast Fly-In. Okay. That entire week. The next week after that, then? What are we going to discuss on the 9th? The 9th is Capitol. Okay. The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? 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The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? The last week after that, then? We had to set a set up date, a whole four-day for both. That's a good approach. Yeah. And you finish early, then that's great. Right. Then we had, at least we had the whole date. And that's just my seat. I agree with you. Yeah. The June 29th? That's Monday. Yes. For operating. Both of the dates that we had should be four days. Okay. Okay. And they got to get the consensus of the other, you know, our mayor was there. And I believe we did the whole commission. Yes. You were in favor of the vice mayor? Yeah. I'm good. Yes, I'm good. Okay. And I concur. I would rather have, you know, more than a few times. Yeah, exactly. Four of those items. And then for you guys, and we'll check with the other two as well, the day for the CRA operating. I think she's going to send a date out to them to see if that date breaks down. Yeah. I'll talk to the, do you want to just do the next day? Do you want me to open that next day? 30? Can you spend that? The 30th? The 30th? Is that worth it? I'll just call them tomorrow. I think that, that works for me and I like what Commissioner West said. You know, prepare a date if we finish early with CRA, then that's fine and well. But we had a lot of questions that went unanswered from CRA . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to give you an update on where we are with our city manager applicants and attorney applicants. Do you have received four additional. Do you have any applicants for additional additional. Do you have any questions? Do you have any questions? I'll wait to see our meeting, so this is not a CRA. You have any questions about that. But we'll wait to see our meeting. I have no more questions. That's all I've got? Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. City clerk. Yes. I just wanted to give you an update on where we are with our city manager applicants and attorney applicants. We have received four additional applicants for attorneys. So I wanted to also get a date from you guys to both of those. I haven't emailed them to you for your reviews yet. City manager applicants to date we have received 32. And you know it's still open so it's going to be quite substantial. The applicants are coming. I will tell you a couple of things that you can think of that I've looked over. You know they're out of state. Some are very local. Some are out of county. So there's going to be a weeding out process but certainly I won't look at all of them until the closing date. But I just kind of wanted to give you that updated. I think it's working. The advertising is working on the a lot of them are from the ICS MA and the BMA and you know. And that's all that I have. Great. Great. Thank you. At what point are you going to do a we're going to do a process of elimination. You know we don't want to wait till we get 75 applicants and then someone got to go through a process of elimination . So do you want me to email based on the information? No they work for the commission so I think that you should email them to the commission and let them look at all of them. You know if Mr. Mayor is okay. And I agree with that. So do you want me to start emailing them? Yes. If you go ahead and get those emails. Okay. Okay. And the same for the attorney. They both work for the commission. Okay. If you can let me know what you want and then we can set up . Whatever. I think we go from there as far as we can. Okay. All right. City Attorney. I have nothing subsequent to that. My Mayor, thank you. All right. Thank you for that very long word for it. All right. Commissioner Johnson. Yes. Well, there's a few things. You know I'm already getting emails and people ask me questions. And the few things I do have is, I think you already talked about lighting. This may be a James King thing that I have. Third Street, which is considered officially known as the Hill. It is very dark. I've been down there myself. And then also, I was, you know, hanging out with the salsa class the other day. And they said, oh, you're the new commissioner. By the way, the lights and crosswinds, I'm not sure what we can do about the lighting and crosswinds. I know it's a new development. If that's county, let me know it's county. Just let me know what that is. As far as the lighting for Third Street, which is on the Hill. It's very dark. Is there any lighting on Third Street now? Some. Not a lot. Okay. We'll do an evaluation on that. And we can have, we can install the Cobra overhead lights on certain poles as long as we will do the spacing and check that area out. Okay. And make sure we take care of that. As far as the crosswinds. As far as the crosswinds. That is a CDD owned and operated. So the lights out there are owned and operated by the CDD. The roads are also CDD and so on. So the only thing out there that St. City's owned and responsibility is the sanitary sewer and the water lines and the lift station. Okay. Concerns out there, please let them be known so we can address it with the CDD. Okay. That's one of the lights. Yeah. They said it's insufficient or? It's too dark. It's too dark. That's all they'd mention to do. The other thing I think I spoke with you on regards to the Hain City High School, Robinson Drive. It's still a play road or dirt road. They said there was a grant out there. I'm not sure is that still open? Well, we're working on that. So right now we're actually working with another organization. It's called Rail Something. I can't remember if it's for a different type of grant because CSX will not allow another surface crossing or a grade crossing. So in order to have that cross over and end up coming from 17 all the way to 30th Street. So we already have the plans for it. We want it to be asphalt all the way with a sidewalk as well with the pedestrian foot traffic. Yes. But we just met with a team last week and the week before that, again, CSX will not allow another grade crossing. So we have to make a different kind of crossing and we're looking at 544. We have to get with the county on it as well to go either over or under the rail. So you have to have like Grace Ave, how it goes under the rail. It'll either look like that or you can go over the rail. Going under is going to be more cost effective. But we're looking into that now because we can't. They won't let us do another grade crossing unless we eliminate a grade crossing. So the rail will stay. We just have to go over or under. Okay. Then we can just have that clear communication with point of contact at the high school, whether it's also with the county, whatever we need to do to make sure everybody, because they're asking me the questions so I have to ask the expert. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. James, only one request, what she was referring to. When we change out those lights in the city, can we come back with LED lights? We are going after LEDs, yes, sir. Right. After the high, yeah, the high sodeans. Okay. I just wanted to make sure for their better lights. Yes, sir. All right. How do you think of it? That's it. Thank you. Commissioner West. Yeah, quickly, just want to let you know, and James and I was at a PRWC, which is a regional water carpet meeting on yesterday. And one of the things I'll tell you that in a couple of, about within the next two months, there's going to be a public meeting held at the Dune Aud itorium in the Oakland community. And the meeting is going to be a public meeting to inform that community and just Haines City in general, that there's going to be a lot of street closure there in that community as they run their water transmission lines all up through, or by Betone Academy up 10th Street there. There's a fence there. You can see that's going to be their staging area. And then once they run those transmission lines and finish running those lines, they have agreed. They're going to get an agreement with the city to let us utilize that area where that fence is at now. And James and I talked to the director yesterday, and we are probably bringing this for approval at a later date to see if Haines City we will pass for or pay that. That'll give us more additional parking for the Betone Aud itorium and the gym. And so it's just add parking to that area. And they said we can use it as long as we want. The only thing it requests here is they have to go in and dig it up because some lines go bad, and they have to have permission because they will still own it. We did ask them about buying it, and they may even sell it to us. So we'll see what happens there if James wants to elaborate some more on that. And I can also tell you next year our cost for PRC, Pope Regional Water Corporate, our cost as a member is going to cost us $756,000. But there's light at the end of the tunnel because by 2027, 2028, we'll have some additional water that we can use here in the city of Haines City. And that should eliminate a lot of that low pressure that you see when you turn your water on at 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening. And that should help because we're getting more water. Just so much water being used right now. And that's just a brief synopsis of yesterday's meeting that we had. And I just wanted to inform you guys that James, you want to add something? Yes, sir. Just real quick. The $756,000, that's actually a reduction this year. That's a reduction. It is a reduction. The same reduction in PRWC does not happen very often. But for us, everybody had a reduction appropriate percentage for our project. So ours this year, we had a reduction of $565,950. So again, whenever she presented it, she said, you know, this is not an anomaly, but don't expect it every year. But she was very pleased to be able to present that to us yesterday. And just super quick, I didn't even look back, but I could see a huge question mark over Director Griffith's head when he said we're going to use the auditorium. I have not even spoken with him about that yet because it's not -- Right, we don't have a date. Because it's not -- we don't have a date yet. We don't have a date yet. We don't have a date yet. She's going to send a couple of dates. I'll get with you, of course, of what I did. I could actually see out of the back of my head, him going, I don't know anything about this, James. Well, we know it's summer recreation time. So we just said something -- maybe it's like -- even in the gym we can have it. It doesn't really matter. They want to do a public notice and a public meeting about that. They don't want to just come through the public not aware of that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So it was a pretty good meeting yesterday. And just to let you know, the other day I got a call from Doran James' dad. I know y'all know Doran James who plays in the NFL. Well, his dad actually requested if we can do the same that we've done for, I think, Wayne and the rest of them, as far as placing his name at the entrance of our community just like the other ones that we have there. So I'm requesting to this board that we can have the city clerk put it on the -- because we had the last one, I think , put it on the agenda to make sure it was done the right way and that we can put it on the next agenda and actual approval from this commission to have his name as well in the entrance of our community. So that's going to be an ask once we put Derwin James on the agenda. Yeah. And I think that came up when we were talking about Wayne G at. We said there's going to be some more going to come up. So that's why I said put all of them in one, you know, because you're going to have a plate there that's going to look like all messy. That's why I was recommending that you had a big, you know, like a marquee and you call their names on it, you know. A bigger plaque. A bigger plaque, yeah. And just to add, you know, I think it was Vice Mayor that actually stated at the time that, you know, once we did reach that number to where we could come to a bigger, I guess, plan. You know, that that would be something that we should discuss to see if that is what we want to do. And, you know, I think it's right when you, you know, as we always say that we're going to recognize one, you know, for their, their feats and their accomplishment. You know, we should recognize all that, you know, that we 're right here in East Street's main city that, you know, went on to aspire to do greater things. So, I would have the support, you know, that being a place for the event and for us to have that. We need to look for the expenses here. Yeah, just hi, Mr. Justin. I agree. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Yes. Yes, ma'am. I have a few things. I want to know. And of course, I'm totally, I admit that I'm totally ignorant when it comes to fire except to run. So, to the fire chief, those weeds that Ms. Garrett had mentioned before that some of them are as high as a house. Are we able to, I don't know what the correct, um, ribbage is, but are we able to do our own fire to get them down? Or is there something we can spread on it to get it down so that it does not become a wildfire out of control that we can't do anything with? So with the vegetation, we just ask that people maintain their property and that way it never becomes a problem. But we don't, we don't apply anything to break that down. I have asked about city properties, but that's the upper property. Commissioner, with that, um. So that was, city is what Ms. Garrett was referring to and that's what I'm talking about. If we can do something proactive, uh, to that, if we can't mow it down or spray something on it or sprinkle something on it so that the fire is more contained. Commissioner, if I may, I think that would be a question, um, that we probably would direct to our city manager, um, to kind of answer what would be the proper protocol. So we have addressed at least four of those areas. Um, I remember one of them was the rib of Ralph Robinson, right? Yes, sir. And then there were two or three other areas and I'm sorry, I don't remember what they were because I don't have them written down with me. But we have mowed, um, four areas that had, that were brought up at that point. And we are going around checking the different areas in the city to make sure that we do maintenance on those areas. Okay, thank you. Um, my other thing is I noticed that there are the little small black, um, nettings that are on the, um, fertilizer plant, old fertilizer plant field. And it's in one particular area. Is this where someone is testing, uh, the brown field or have we gotten to the point where that's all that's left? Cause I noticed that it's there. Oh, we'll have to go out and look at it. Okay. Okay. I want to thank, um, um, Chief Jackson for the, um, more active things that the COPS unit are doing and that they're going to schools that we haven't been to before. Uh, one of them, I think is Esther school that is off of 10 th street and that's good to go to all of those schools. Um, I'm going to, um, send a letter, um, mayor, uh, Smith. Um, maybe we do it all together, but I plan to send a letter from my seat to the county for, um, that Cypress Park area. That's there. And they're not the only one right across the street. The school bus, the kids have to get on and off crossing Johnson to see if there can be a, a bus stop or. Um, like I guess, uh, semi turning lane or something where the bus can come in and get these kids off of Johnson Avenue. And, um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to put some type of lighting on it. Um, to these developers. To have a place for the kids. For the bus stops. Um, before they sign off on it. That is an agreement with the developer. To be able to do that. So that we're not being questioned. Or asked about doing something. Um, um, for them. So is this something. And, and the letters was to invite them to. The library community room. So that some of the parents. And the HOA can come to the room. And actually see whatever representative is sent. From the county. From the school board. Um, and they're not. They're CDD. But will they have an HOA. Some of the HOA members to be there. Is that something that you would like to. To pin and. Um, include all of us. Or are you. If not. I'm definitely going to be sending something from seat five . And I. And I'm not representing. The entire city. Of Hayden City. Um. At this time. I mean. I think. Doing something of that nature. Would probably. Uh, be up to each individual member. It looks like our attorney has something to say. Well, any communications. Amongst the board. Outside of a public meeting. Just make sure. If you do. Uh. Have the clerk. Send that email. Rather than. You. Communicating directly. With your commissioners. Um. But if you're going to be sending a letter. Um. And. You're missing. And I apologize. I stepped out for a second. But is it. Is this in regards to capital improvements? I'm in. Are you saying. CDDs and HOAs? Uh. No. This is for. Having. More lighting. On Johnson Avenue. Um. Uh. There's two subdivisions. That are out there. Uh huh. And the bus stop. For the kids. Is. Johnson. Okay. It would probably be most advantageous. To start having those discussions. With the CDD. Is going to be providing the tactics. And financing. And so. If you make that known. To. Uh. The developer. Who's going to be using. Or utilizing a CDD. You might be able to make more headway. That way. Than going to the. The HOAs. That are. Established therein. So. If. If you know. Which CDDs will be coming in. Um. We could probably get a list for you. If you don't. And then that way. You could. Have staff. Or. You could. Have some type of. Communal meetings. To discuss those matters. Well. The HOA is attending. I'm inviting them there. And inviting someone from the county. To be able to say. If they can put more lighting on Johnson Avenue. And the school board. To be invited. To see. To see. If there's. A possible way. To. Not have. These kids. Cross. Johnson Avenue. In the dark. To get on the school bus. And then. Have them. Get off. The school bus. And cross. Johnson Avenue. In the afternoon. When. The traffic. Is higher. Just be very careful when you're proposing things such as this to the health compliance that we have, because if it's not in our code or if a study doesn't provide from a concurrency standpoint that it would be required, it would be considered an action. But the reason that CDDs are established and the one quasi- legislative factor that you have, and I'm sure, Mayor, you've heard me say this before and I'm sure that you know it very well, is that the CDD has to establish to the commission that it's the best available alternative to provide some type of public service to the community. So in order to stand out, you could identify these items because the enhancements that they provide, whether it be buffering, whether it be signage, whether it be these smaller matters like you're talking about, bus stop, those are all very pertinent and relevant issues that you could address with CDDs. Well, I know who the CDD owners are and I've had conversations, have a relationship with them. So thank you. I will include them as well. So that's what I plan to do next week is to send the letter out, inviting them to come to the city, Haines City, and meet with these certain HOAs from both of those subdivisions to see what can be done because it is awfully dark sometimes at 6 o'clock or 6:30 in the morning. Make sure if you're including the commission, if there's more than one commission that's going to be in attendance, you have to notify the public it would be a sunshine meeting. Right, right, right. I know I don't need to tell you, Commissioner, but I have to say it. Yes. Thank you. Yes. So my question is, do you want to send this invitation out as a mayor or do you want me to just go ahead from seat fine? Well, I believe there are a couple of pieces that we probably need to connect on. As far as the communication, I'm not sure if you've already been in contact with this . I don't have a date yet. I just have the contact information. But when Attorney Seth mentioned about CDD, I know who the CDD owners are. So I will include them in the invite to come over there. And this will give enough time because school is going to be out soon. So we have a summer to try to figure something out. So if I understand you correctly, I think what we're saying is that we're going to be out soon. So we have a summer to try to figure something out. So if I understand you correctly, I think what you're asking is if we would like to do, I guess, a letter as a board or individual letter. Right. To go over. Mr. Mayor, may I be working on? You may. Thank you. Michelle, I think it would be a good idea because you have already been dealing with it. You've made some contacts and you pretty much have the ball rolling that if you just continue it. Because you have all the details and you have all the contacts. So it's like we will be just -- and this is just my opinion . I think we'll be coming in kind of not really knowing what 's going on because you've already kind of got it started. So this could be just something done on an independent level that you can continue to take the lead on. And then at any point, if it needs to come back to the board, then it comes back to us on the agenda. Okay. If it requires any type of vote or anything. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. You don't mind. I would like to get -- I don't have anything else. Nothing else. Okay. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Some of my questions and concerns has already been answered tonight, like the lighting on Pinson. Sharon Garrett and I was waiting to get that update. So the city manager has updated that part. And I've already spoken with our deputy city manager, James King, on a couple of items that I had for tonight. But the only other issue -- well, not really an issue, but I wanted to go back to revisit as far as the city manager's application. I know that there was a suggestion made by our attorney. But I wanted to revisit that because of that particular suggestion as far as anyone that was internal that wanted or was interested in applying not to actually fill out the application. And the reason why I wanted us to revisit that is because I feel that as the entire commission, we should be fully transparent to our residents. And basically, because it is going to be an even level playing field for anyone that's interested in that position . So again, I still feel that everyone that's interested, whether they're internal or outside, local, national search , everyone should fill out the application with their intent or their interest in that particular position. And with the attorney, I did speak with him. I think that there's no rules or regulations pertaining to that. I do understand that it was somewhat of a concern when Winter Haven did their actual search. But just for full transparency from us and from the city standpoint, for the city of Haines City, I feel that everyone that's interested in that position, whether they 're internal or not, should complete their application for their interest in that position. So I would like for us to revisit that. I know they just said, OK, yeah, just advise the clerk that you're interested. But, um, Attorney Claytor, I don't know if you have anything that you want to weigh in, but I'm just all for full transparency for the city, for the residents. And that's just my take on it, that everyone that's interested in that position should actually apply for the position. And thank you for having the conversation with me after speaking with Vice Mayor. I think that's a very clear, Mayor, if what you're saying makes absolute sense. And like you said, it's only a recommendation. I don't believe there was a consensus or a vote on that either. So at your direction to the clerk, um, the city is more than able to require that all parties submit applications. And thank you, by the way, for having a very straightforward conversation with me in regards to your concerns, because those are very valid concerns and I agree . Thank you. Yeah. I, uh, uh, here in the Jacksonville, you recognize? Uh, no, I want to make clarification because for city manager position, you don't complete with an application. I think they resumes that you receive, you don't, you don't receive an application. Well, it's the same thing application or if you want to, if you want to strike application, just say applying for the position. Uh, yeah, through a resume. Through the, right. Okay. Or any job posting, you submit your resume. Right. And then secondly, you gotta realize that this commission can appoint anyone at any time as a, as a city manager, because they, they on the, they work for the direction of the commission. So we, we see that at least the people out there and say, Hey, we'd like to give her the job. And with three of us, she gets three votes. She got, you know, point at any time. Okay. And we've done that on numerous occasions. So that's why I'm saying, you know, just because they're not in that pool and we see someone that's internal that didn't put, we may want to appoint that person. We have that right to do that as a commission. I just, just. And commissioner West, I completely understand that. However, that's not the case here because, um, we voted that we were going to cast our net and have people to apply . We never mentioned anything about appointments. So I do know that as the collective board, we can appoint someone. However, we decided not to do that and said to open it up for the 45 days for any interested candidate. So I feel that that should also include anyone that's in house that's interested in that position. Um, so that way there is clear, just clear and concise. Everyone that's interested, they simply submit their resume and we go through them just like anyone else. And that's just my suggestion that, um, we're fully transparent on those positions. Mr. Mayor. I just like to add that one internal candidate has made it verbally known to me that they are interested. So if I have a consensus of the commission, then I will reach out to that individual and ask them to submit their letter of intent with a resume. So which, um, um, seat? City manager. Okay. City manager. Okay. Okay. Well, I have a question, um, Vice Mayor Downing. I wasn't here when, um, Attorney Clay Torque came. I was in the hospital at that time. So was there, I know that he was, um, replacing Fred, but was there a reason why, um, he, we didn't want him to apply or, what happened there? Was it to just throw our net out there? At the time that Attorney Clay Torque came in, um, I don't think the board was seeking an attorney at that moment. And so we kind of went on a temporary basis, but not stating that he can't apply now that we are still actively looking. Um, so, uh, if I may, so when attorney Clay Torque came in and please correct me if, if I miss state, uh, the facts here, um, attorney Riley was still our attorney at the time . Um, so it wasn't, um, uh, did that answer your question? Yes, it did. Okay. And so did, um, okay, at that moment. So if, um, attorney Clay Torque is, is interested, he has to submit a resume or a resume, a letter of intent, a letter of intent or something like, like that. So attorney Clay Torque, are you giving that some consideration? I know we said 45 days. I know you go from month to month, but 45 days was gonna, uh, in that. And if I may, um, the vice mayor still has the floor. I do know you, you, you want to address that, uh, with attorney Claytor. That's not the proper, proper sentence. Well, I was asking that still under the, uh, comment that the vice mayor made about resume and if there is an interest. But it was in the context of a city manager, which is what we were discussing. Oh, okay. What's the question about? Okay. No, no ma'am. Um, just because you were out, um, in the hospital for a while, but right now for the city attorney, we don't have an actual date on that, right? Correct. So there, there is open until field. It's only the city manager's position that we put the 45 day, um, period in there. Okay. So, um, the city attorney is still open to receive anyone that's interested in applying for that. Okay. Okay. And I have no further questions. Mayor. All right. Uh, thank you for that. Um, I, I will be brief as I, uh, I think I lost my bed to James a while ago. We went to have all the data out of here tonight. But, uh, city manager, I, I know you spoke to, um, starting , I believe it, uh, how you phrased it? Uh, what's the grant process? Yes. Uh, here. And I do know, um, with the passing of, I think I believe it's, uh, as I don't have it in front of me, uh, 1:14. Um, I, I believe there is some language there, uh, that may affect some of the organizations that we have been given funding to. Um, and because a lot of those organizations do just annually, you know, request those funds, I, I would like to see some form of an educational period, whether, you know, through social media letters that go out to those, uh, who have requested in the past, um, that, that we can kind of, uh, explain, uh, the changes that have been made and why, you know, they may no longer, um, you know, be qualified. Okay. Other than that, I would like to, uh, acknowledge, you know , our, our police department, unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it, uh, but the, the community engagement piece, um , that took place. Um, I'm a strong proponent of it. Uh, I, I think the most important thing is to, uh, you know , be able to not only, uh, let the community, uh, you know, see the, the faces of who is serving and protecting them, but also, you know, vice versa. So, you know, the department can get to know, uh, our members of the community. And, and not to say that, you know, uh, past administr ations, uh, haven't, you know, been, uh, present in the community, but, you know, I'm glad to see that, you know, our top, um, uh, you know, our top, uh, level, uh, members in the agency , you know, are, are there, uh, that they're responsive and that they, they will take the time to have those, um, you know, conversations and interactions with the members of the community. I, I, I have a strong belief that when you see it from the top, you know, uh, if you're, you know, controlling those streets, you know, you take a little bit more time and, you know, serving with a little bit more care. So I do, uh, thank you for that. Uh, I also want to acknowledge, uh, our fire chief, you know, I, I've seen, uh, you know, a couple fires that, man, you know, it's like those little door trucks that say five alarm fires, you know, run around. But the response, uh, you know, that they've had to, um, I think it's commendable. Um, you know, what, what they're doing in the way that we're going, uh, you know, can't say enough about, you know, parks and records with some of the activities that they do. I know it's getting, it's getting, it's becoming very difficult the way we're growing, you know, to make sure that we have facilities available, that we have activities available, coaches available, you know, when it comes to the youth sports. I want to commend them on the job that they do, uh, and to rail and his staff, you know, on juggling, uh, you know, all of that. Uh, you know, I could go down the line with, you know, with our marketing and also I.T. Uh, but you know , I, I see the direction that the city is moving in. And I see that, you know, we are, uh, you know, as I say, Johnny on the spot when something happens, you know, whether it's BD, whether it's, you know, fire, um, you know , or just to say itself, you know, we're putting the information out there. Uh, I, I think we, we have great visibility. I think the information is getting there. Uh, could we always, you know , improve it? Like we can put it on steroids if you ask me, you know, to make sure that the community knows what's going on. But I just want to commend everyone for doing a great job, uh, you know, love it. And that is all I have tonight. I have a quick question. Uh, those group that you refer to with the grant, you said someone may not qualify. What would be a disqualification when you said it would not and couldn't apply for it this year? So thank you. Um, uh, because, uh, that DEI, that's, uh, that one, that doesn't take effect until July, I think, um, 2027 from, from. So it, it actually, um, that the information I got, and please correct me, uh, uh, if you have something different here, is that the, the, the rollout, well, right now I'm inducing, the localities, um, or getting things in alignment for that . I believe it takes effect January 1st of 2027. Um, and some of the things, uh, specifically what the law focuses on is the funding sponsorship and officially endorsing policies and programs tied to protected, uh, protected, uh, characteristics rather than sharing general, uh, you know, uh, factual information about, um, you know, the, uh, community events. So, you know, but I don't think it's taken effect until January, 2027. That, that is correct. So we, we should be in, it shouldn't be a problem prior to January, 2027. But, uh, uh, we just found is our charge right now with making sure that, um, uh, January, 2027, if we're giving that funding out, you know, we won't be able to do that. Right. So we just need to make sure that, you know. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I just want to make sure that we don't tell someone we can 't qualify this year when it, when it doesn't take effect until 2027. Yeah. And I don't want to disqualify any of the not profit if we can, if we can help them. Um, and, and, and that may be, may be an area that staff would have to speak or the city manager would have to speak with, with the attorney. Um, you know, simply because in, in, uh, you know, the 27, January 27 will be within our new budget cycle. Um, so that funding that is allocated for them, you know, they may not be able to receive it. And what we just don't want is that perception that, you know, we, we've given it before and all of a sudden now you 're not giving it. So I, I just. Right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Mr. Mayor, may I be recognized real quick on that? Thank you. And you're absolutely right because although the grant program is going to open up and it closes in August and then I think it's awarded like end of October, November. However, going into the new year, January 1st, 2027, we need to start now making sure that we will be in compliance once 2027 hits. Because if we give out funding, although we given that funding out at the end of 26, we can still get hit, if you will, because at that point we still have provided them fundings that for that particular budget. Because we're going to be in a budget year of 26, 27 year and then we would not be in compliance. So I totally agree that we need to do some housekeeping, educating some of those nonprofit partners that apply and qualify for the grant who may no longer qualify moving forward with the new bill. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. And you know, there is one final thing. I know that a short time ago we did evaluations. And we have not formally discussed our state clerk evaluation. I think we need to go ahead and get that kind of schedule. You know, in the past, we actually, you know, this, this previous, this evaluation we just did, we actually, you know, did a new year evaluation because we didn't do one the previous year. I think we need to get that back on the train tracks. You know, you know, you know, have it done when it needs to be done. I think we need to go ahead and have that placed on the engine. I agree. Okay. We'll have all the evaluation been turned in and completed. Oh, madam clerk, do you have all the evaluation? Yes. I agree. I just still have one more personal conversation. I just still have one more personal conversation. I think we have all the evaluation. I think we have all the evaluation been turned in and completed. Oh, madam clerk, do you have all the evaluation? Yes. All the evaluations were turned in. I just still have one more personal conversation. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. I think we have all the evaluations. Yes. All the evaluations were turned in. I just still have one more personal conversation to have with an official. But I have a senior. And HR did do a chemo with them. Or that has not been worked. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So do we, can we get you? Go ahead. Okay. Okay. to do what on the agenda to approve it? Do a workshop? I mean, are you going to put an agenda to approve an evaluation? I mean, what is on the agenda? Well, to have it under the discussion. You want to do a workshop first to do the discussion? In the past, we had that second meeting so we could have that workshop. Right, we do a workshop and we go over the evaluation and stuff, and then we bring it on to commission after we've had a workshop and approve whatever percentage that we're going to give. And then this is the only thing on the agenda is yay, then we're going to approve it on the agenda on that percentage. Put it on the second meeting for you. So what we'll do is we want to make sure we don't miss this opportunity. Madam, let's go ahead and place this on the second agenda, and we can workshop it prior to. Yeah. I think we can do that. Right. On the 18th of June, that was it? Because it works not? Yeah. And then after we workshop it, and then all of us, when we come up with the percentage based on the number. You're going to workshop it in June, and you want it on the June agenda for the meeting right after. That is correct. You can do that. Yeah. You can do that. Yeah, we're not going to get down the road anymore. Madam, do you believe you could have the conversation prior to? Yes. Okay. All right. So we will have that on the May 18th agenda. Yeah. I'm sorry, the June 18th. We'll workshop it in and have it on the other agenda. All right. Well, I don't have anything else. Is there anything good for the group? Mayor Smith, what about you? Well, I know this is what? Yes. Commissioner. So, yes. But I also want to know this is a 250-year anniversary of America. We have not. We have not. We will definitely discuss that to see if there is anything that we will be doing. But I do want to bring this up real quick. So, as we all know, former Commissioner Omar Royo, he generously donated to Parks and Rec to have flags made. And at this time, Director Griffin would like to get a consensus of this dais if we would like to move forward with the rendering that was placed at your seats a little earlier. Good. All right. Yes. Mr. Johnson, Commissioner Huffman. Yes, Mr. Johnson. All right. There you have it. And one final note. I tell you, I lost that bet, but I had a lot tonight. So, one final note. So, on Monday morning, this is for the residents and also everyone here in attendance and all those online, we will have our memorial ceremony right across the road in Rail road Park. That event will start promptly. 9 a.m. 9 a.m. 9 a.m. It will start promptly. It is a very nice celebration. You know, definitely worth coming out, too. So, you know, we invite everyone to come out for it. Our parks are always, you know, their class act. They put on a great event. So, please come out to that Monday morning, 9 a.m. Railroad Park. The proclamation today is 11.30. Yeah. How? 9 a.m. It is. I was going to say 11.30 is my time. Oh, man. That's right. No, that's right. All right. If there's nothing else, I entertain a motion. All right. We are done. We are done.

Good evening. You know, I looked out in the audience this evening and I said, wow, man, like I'm at part of the Christian school. But thank you all for being here this evening. You know, Pastor Babers is a good friend of mine. I thought I'd just do that out there. So thank you for being here, Pastor Babers. But good evening once again. Today's date is actually May 7th, 2026. Time out is approximately 7 to 8 p.m. We'll call the A-City City Commission meeting to order. And this is a very special night for a couple of us, you know, that we'll be changing our reorganization and we'll be swearing in a new commissioner tonight. And it's a very exciting night tonight. We look forward to these days coming here. At this time, though, we're going to have Ms. Pastor Burgos here to do the invocation. If not, oh, here you go. Come on up. Yes. Joseph Burgos can give the invitation for us. And then if you can remain standing for the Pledge of Alleg iance. How we doing, A-City? You guys looking good. All right. Let 's go ahead and pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you today with gratitude and humility as the city commission gathers to serve the people of A-City. We thank you for this community, for its families, its businesses, its schools, and its first responders, its leaders, and every person who calls this city home. Amen. We recognize that the truth, wisdom, and understanding, and unity comes from you, Lord. Help this commission to work together in unity. Even in moments of disagreements, let respect, understanding, and wisdom govern every conversation and every decision made within this chamber. We pray for peace over our city. Bless our schools . Bless our churches, our local businesses, and every organization working to uplift this city. Continue to help us become a better place. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. Amen. I pray that we lead to the pride of the United States of America, and to the republic on which it stands, one nation, under God, in the visible, in liberty, and justice for all. Thank you so much, Pastor. Before we do our open to Walsh, open to Walsh for our newly elected city council member. We have Commissioner Omar Ar royo here, and we've always allowed our outgoing officials to say, you know, it's goodbyes to the city. Not goodbyes until you're running for a county seat, but he's leaving Haines City City City Commission, so we give him an opportunity to actually speak to the board and his constituents. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, thank you. It has been a real, real honor serving in my city. I really hold a tremendous love for this city. Like, I cannot express with words. I have accomplished so many things here. I came here when I was just 18 years old, and everything I have, I really, myself, I feel like I own to this city. My family, my family, my business, my service, everything has been done in this city. So, this city is just something that, like I said, I can't describe the love. And, you know , thanks to God. God is my guide. He's the one that has put me where he has put me. He's the one that will continue guiding me. Without him, I will be nothing. This, you know, this line of service, it was something I didn't even dream. A few years ago, I never even thought that I could be doing what I'm doing. And I'm so thankful for the person that put that into me. And I know God was the one. And just I found a love for service that you have no idea. I have always said accomplishments in business, it feels good, but you move on. An accomplishment in service is something that you know that is going to stay there forever. And you know that people are going to be better when you help them the way you can help. And I want to thank my family for being there with me. This board knows that there are some sacrifices made when you are in the line of service. You know, some things you cannot make, some place you cannot go to with your kids. It's all with love. And it's all because of them that they are always there for me that I can do what I do. I want to thank my fellow commissioners, the ones in this board, and the ones that are not in this board anymore that I have the pleasure and the honor of serving. It was a great honor serving with you. You guys are doing amazing work. And I'm so, so proud of the work that we have done these past four years. Haines City is a better Haines City. And I know you can see it all over. Because this board has made amazing decisions with love for you, our city, our residents in this city. I know I did it with all the love. And I know that I will continue doing whatever I can for my city. This is my place. This is my love. And I want to thank all the residents of Haines City for giving me the opportunity of serving you for these past four years. The things I have been able to accomplish. The friendships that I have been able to accomplish. The friendships that I have been able to make thanks to being here. They're going to stay with me forever for the rest of my life. And I will continue forever praying and doing anything I can to continue getting Haines City. To continue making Haines City the best city there is in all of Florida and in all the United States. So thank you all. It has been a great, great honor. Thank you to the staff. Without you, none of us can shine. Because you are the ones that really do the hard work. You're the ones that are doing everything. We here make the decisions and you make it happen. From the city manager's office to the people mowing the grass. Everything that you do is for your city. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the hard work that you put into things for us. Thank you, Haines City. I love you. And I will see you around. Thank you. One more thing before I go. As a parting gift, this is what we're going to be seeing on the 4th of July. We're going to have these flags on the polls. I will be donating them to the city. So thanks for everything that you have done for me. Thank you. While he goes off the dice and go down below, you know, I would like, you know, these positions that we do on the city council, it looks easy if we meet every other Thursday . But I'll tell you this here. If you don't have that supporting cast and that supporting cast, I want his wife to come up. Come on up. Because behind every good man, you got to have a strong woman. Behind every good woman, you got to have a strong man. They have to understand this is a political position. And we take a lot of pressure, a lot of heat. So your wife and your husband has to understand that. Thank you. So once again, Commissioner Omar Arroyo, thank you so much for all the work that you've done in Hain City. You hit the ground running and you've been doing all the right things. So you showed us someone's got to stand on you. Mayor, I know I already said I was done, but I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm going to get out of here before we talk. I'm so sorry. It's just, you know, when you are here, the emotions get onto you and you forget things. And, you know, I'm so glad that I went that way. And we have our commissioner, Lakeith Johnson, here ready to start. And I just want to wish her the best. Congratulate her for the hard work. I know she put so much work into getting to this seat. Running an election is not easy. There is a lot of things to do, a lot of time to put. And being out from, you know, with your family and doing all the hard work. And when it gets down to this, I know she's got to be so proud. Not just her, but her whole family. I will be praying for you. I know you're going to do tremendous, tremendous good work. And just one little tip. If something feels really hard, just stay one minute to pray. And that will lead me. I have done it so many times when I have something that I don't know how to do it. And that praying, I get a phone call from somebody out of nowhere. And they tell me, hey, something about this. And it just resolved. Praying is so amazing. So congratulations. And I'm going to be rooting for you. Thank you. Is there any other seat mates who want to make a comment on something about Commissioner Moore? Anyone? Before you exit. You did a wonderful job. Your first two years, you and I didn't always agree. But you came around your last two years. You worked very hard. And you accomplished a lot. And I believe that you were instrumental in bringing unity to the community. And also your promise for the soccer field on the east side came to fruition. And you're going to be the next county commissioner. Yes. Count on my vote. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I met Commissioner Arroyo back in 2021. And we were actually opponents running for the same seat, seat five. And neither one of us advanced. And then he decided to try it again in 2022. And I supported him then in his independent race. And he was blessed with this seat, too. And then I was blessed to join him in 2024. And so I just want to let him know that I have been extremely grateful to serve with you. You have accomplished exactly what you promised to the residents. And that speaks volumes to come in and do exactly what you say that you're going to do. And you're not going far. You're only going to the county. And we do look forward for you to continue to serve the city of Haines City under your district. And so it's not farewell. It's just to see you soon. And I have been honored and a pleasure to serve with you these last two years. Thank you, Commissioner. You sound like you gave him a eulogy. And thank you for that. But he knows it. Thank you for the picture you sent me. Oh, yes. And I had to send him the picture we took together when we were opponents. Because we made a pact then that although we were opponents , but we were working together to achieve the same goal, which was to help the residents of Haines City. Well, I mean, I guess I don't have as much time. But Commissioner, I just want to say, you know, back a few years ago when I was a new kid on the block, you know, you and I, we talked a lot. I got to see your care. And, you know, I got to see that your passion and your desire for the best we can spend. I think as you continue on with your journey to the county, I think you're going to do great things. Keep the flame fire that you have within you. And also just, I think you said it best, you know, always stay in prayer. Thank you. Thank you. Let me clarify. He said they talked a lot, but I want to make sure they wasn't violating the science. I was just giving him some tips on which places to go. Okay, that's about where to eat. Do you want to put on record? Yes, ma'am. Omar, if I want to talk, then you know you must be special because I never want to talk. But it was an honor to work with you. And I remember your orientation, and I remember telling you this was just the beginning. And I knew it. And we're going to be rooting for you. Thank you. Deputy Manager. Well, I've got to say something. So I will tell you that Commissioner Horario and I go back to the beginning as well. And what he has blossomed into and come out of his cocoon is amazing. When he first came in here, the shy, honestly, he was shy. He wouldn't believe it now. But the work he's accomplished since he's been here with this team and where he's going for us in the county, we will be blessed from that side as well. So thank you for all you've done for all you've done for Haynes City. Thank you so much. City Clerk. I know. I'm still going to say Commissioner Horario because we're going to speak that into existence because it's going to be county commissioner. And I'm so happy. I can publicly say that you will have my vote. I live in Pope County, so I'm thrilled for that. But thank you so much for all the work that you've done for Haynes City. I've been here three plus years. The love that I see that you have not only for the community, the children, for the adults, for the elderly, for everyone. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I know that when you go on to serve at the county level , you're still going to keep Haynes City in your heart and be looking out for us. So thank you. Thank you all so much. And I know Steph hasn't worked that well with him or that long, but you can. We're more than welcome to say something. Like you said, I haven't known or I haven't worked with you that long, but I can tell just in the time that I have that you have a selfless balance. And I think you're going to do a great job at the county level, and you'll have my vote. Good luck. Thank you. All right. Once again, thank you so much, sir. We appreciate it. It's offering time. Someone should just shout glory. It is the time that we've been waiting for. You know, it's the oath of office and swearing in for our newly elected commission for seat two, the one for seat two . So we have our city clerk come, and I think that we normally have someone that she had dedicated to be a hold of the Bible and read the oath of office and to come forth. It's your grandmother. Okay. Praise God. 97 years young. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and then we will take a brief recess family at that point in time if they want to stay or not stay they can do that and the commissioners will then take their seat and then we will begin the meeting thank you yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes Thank you. We are actually doing something that we haven't done in the past. This is the first year we're doing it for a reason. We're going to do the reorganization, and then after the reorganization, we're going to take our annual picture that we take every year that you see in the municipal buildings. Normally we take this picture somewhat, maybe a month or so after the new commission is in, but sometimes things happen, and we know tonight that we will have all of our commissioners here, and we don't know what tomorrow may hold, but we know we are here today, and we decided to do it tonight that we are here. So just bear with us. This is out of the ordinary for our council meeting, and you normally don't do it this way. We want to do it. And first and foremost, I want to say congratulations to La Keal Johnson. Really, really, I'm telling you, when you're campaigning, then politics is dirty. But when you're campaigning, it's difficult. It takes a toll on you. It takes a toll on your family. You have to endure a lot of backlash, backtalk. It's a lot that goes on today. They don't understand. You know, you can't sleep at night sometimes because, you know, people want to say things about you that's not you, talk about you that's not you, and it just goes on and on and on. You know, politics is many, and a tick is something that's really small that's just sucking the blood out of you. That's why it's called politics. Really, you know, and that's what happened. That's what happened, and she can probably speak for herself, but she's just glad. I know she's glad that it's over, but we all have to go through that. We all have to go through it, you know, in order to sit up here to serve you guys and to serve you all with dignity and respect and make sure . And I always tell the individual, and I tell the kids tonight, that regardless if it was somebody that voted for you or not, you still are their commissioner. You still are their commissioner. Don't get mad when you say, that person didn't vote for me. I'm not going to help them, whatever. No, we've all been through this here. It's just part of getting there, you know. And the old scripture in the 23rd song, sometimes you've got to go down through the valley in order to get to the other side. And being an elected official, you go through the valley a lot. So thank you for your hard work and your due diligence, and you stand fast, and now you have a right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Anyone else? Anyone else? Anyone else come in? Yes, I want to. Absolutely. It's your hour. First and foremost, I want to give God all the glory, because it definitely belongs to him. One of my favorite lines of the song, it says, for every mountain he's brought me over. For every trial he's seen me through. For every blessing, I say hallelujah. And for this, I give him praise. And so I want to give God praise right here at the dais. And thank you all. See, I've already been bought. I've been bought with a price. And that price that Jesus already paid. Amen. Amen. So yes, I know that I sit in a seat as a Christian woman, but I will work hard for the city of Haines City. That's what I'm here to do. I want to thank my family. I want to thank my children, my husband, the pop-up team, which is people over politics, understanding people. And for them and all the work they have done, to our staff members. We've got 300-plus staff members here with the city of H aines City. And I want to let you know that whatever you need, there is a chain of command. But definitely my door is always open just to talk to, just to just bounce ideas off of as well. And I just want to thank my family. I see my grandmother who held it down for me. And there's so much I could say, but I don't want to start crying because we've got pictures to take. Sometimes you have to look at the script that says, some people meant it for your bad, but God meant it for your good. Amen. Amen. So I know that I have a road ahead of me. I'm human. And so you may see mistakes, but they're all out of love. I don't want to make any mistakes. I want to make sure I do the right thing by you guys. I have a fiscal responsibility and also a fiduciary responsibility to you. And I want to make sure you know that I'm working alongside of them. This is not a one-person show. It takes all of us. And so the old saying says there's no I in team. But where there is an I, there's an I in unity. And so come on and touch that I. Make sure that you are unifying the body, that we are un ifying together. We're on a different road. We have some more changes that are coming. And I want to make sure that we, I'm a chief collaborator. So I'm ready to collaborate with my fellow commissioners as well. That's all I got to say right now, y'all. Thank you. Thank you. Well, there's no other comments in front of us. Ms. Johnson, we'll move on with the agenda that's in front of us. May I ask you? May I ask you? Yes. I want to say that I am overjoyed that you won and you belong in that seat. And I know that you're going to do all of Haines City well. Thank you. I'll say this to him because he's a new, new, new, new, new , new, new guy. And what do you do? You take it from here on the agenda and you just make the, hold it. That way, he and the plus can make the nation for us. And then once the mayor is selected, you give the, you gather back to the mayor for the vice. I don't know if I can release it now. I know. Let's hold it. At this point in the meeting, we will entertain a motion for the mayor of the city of Haines City, Florida. City attorney, I make the motion to nominate Brunel Smith for mayor. I second. We have a motion and a second. Are there any further nominations? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Congratulations, Brunel. Thank you. Don't worry about that. Yeah. Your show. All right. Thank you for that. So at this time, we're going to keep moving right along on the agenda. We're going to go to item six, the real organization of the city commission for vice mayor. At this time, I will entertain a nomination for vice mayor. I'll make a motion that we appoint Mr. Donald. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? I'm going to cast a vote. We have to vote. Yes. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. So the I's having? There's any other nominations? Yeah, if you'd like to do it. Okay. Are there any other nominations? Seeing none. Okay. All right. So seeing none, the I's having, three to two. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. So at this time, Mr. Mayor, we are now going to take a brief recess. And like I said, for those that want to stay for the entire business meeting, you're welcome to stay. For those that want to leave, the photographer is now going to take some pictures of our new group. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. secretary of state so we just want to you know publicly say thank you you're saying commissioner you know morris west mayor morris west for all that you've done you have certainly led the charge and so if we could go and take that picture let's give him a round of applause y'all this is good to have both of y'all so okay the next one may the fourth be with you the first thing i want to read is this uh bio andy ogantola assistant vice president enrollment management for florida polytechnic university this is who will be receiving the may the fourth be with you proclamation on behalf of the university dr andy ogantola is the assistant vice president of enrollment at florida polytechnic university a position he has held since 2024 with over 16 years of experience in higher education ogantola has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to enhancing the student experience from recruitment and enrollment to retention and graduation his leadership spans various institutions including state college where he previously served as associate vice president of the united states and just a little fun fact that we'd like to know that over 25 haynes city residents have enrolled in polytechnic university so i think that's really great so here is the proclamation whereas the city of haynes city recognizes the importance of community engagement creativity and cultural celebrations that bring residents together in fun and meaningful ways whereas may the fourth be with you has become a globally celebrated day inspired by the beloved star wars franchise delighting fans of all ages with its message of courage hope and the enduring battle between good and evil and whereas the star wars saga has inspired generations through storytelling innovation in film and iconic characters that encourage imagination resilience and the belief that that anyone can make a difference and whereas the city of haynes city is proud to embrace opportunities that promote unity inclusivity and lighthearted celebration while recognizing the cultural impact of science fiction and the arts and whereas residents families businesses and visitors are encouraged to participate in themed events on their favorite costumes and share in the spirit of fun creativity and community pride whereas florida polytechnic university is our country's leading science technology engineering and mathematics institution of higher learning and whereas since welcoming its first students in 2014 25 haynes city residents have enrolled at florida poly whereas florida poly has rapidly grown into a nationally recognized force for innovation for innovation pioneering research and academic excellence preparing graduates equipped to redefine industries and shape what's next so now therefore i mayor of the city of haynes city do here by proclaim may 4th may 4th 2026 as may the 4th be with you day in haynes city we encourage all residents to celebrate and may the force be with you in witness whereof we here to set his hand and cause the official seal of the city of haynes city to be a fixed thanks thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you good evening commission thank you so much for this prestigious proclamation first of all i want to say on behalf of our president devin stevenson who wasn 't able to make it tonight is because uh governor de santa showed up in florida poly today and so he would have been here in person to accept this but again we want to say thank you on behalf of the over the last couple of years we know florida poly is the youngest state university in florida with that being said now as we continue to grow with roughly 3 000 students by 2030 there's been an onus and a responsibility to make sure we recruit the best and right of students right here in paul county our focus is to make sure not only that we have 25 students previously but we put a strong focus on making sure we visit haynes city consistently finding the best and right of stories no matter what we'll always be here so may the fourth be with you and also to commissioner johnson congratulations wish you nothing but the blessed best and blessings your way i also want to say that we have amazing workers here uh the city and city my buddy real griffin um is an amazing amazing director miss marissa green but also to cindy your dc director thank you again for everything and i got that's that's what we can do before i get started thank you all right so at this time uh we'll move on to number nine uh the consent agenda uh do we have any questions comments on the consent agenda i have one here on the uh uh uh um services uh through our inner uh city council uh it was placed on the consent agenda okay okay sorry if i may mr mayor commissioner huffman we stated that at the first meeting of every month we will automatically just place this on the consent agenda to keep it rolling until the final decision okay thank you i don't have any questions okay uh at this time uh i'll open it up to the public anyone from the public who has a question about the consent agenda please step up to the podium start by stating your name and your address being none i'll close that and ask for an introduction i have a motion and a second all in favor aye all those folks next we'll go to number 10 which is going to be public comments uh this is for members of the public to come up to the podium you're going to discuss items that are not on the agenda when you do step up to the podium even to the right or to the left please come up state your name and your address for the record samika atkins good evening everyone samika atkins 1207 dr martin luther king jr rate hanky florida congratulations to our newly elected mayor and vice mayor congratulations and to my dear friend congratulations to commissioner johnson um i come this evening to actually acknowledge And that audio is wild. I said tonight, too, and now you want me to continue? No, continue. Yes, your time is ticking, I'm sorry. Okay, no problem. It's kind of like, throw me off, but I'll try to keep going . As a result of Commissioner Johnson's win, it was a moment ous occasion for the City of Payne City, so our job is a piece of sound that I think goes without saying that we need to acknowledge. Congratulations to the Historic Majority Honorable Commission. I stand here today to witness and celebrate a moment that truly in decades making by sitting in an all-black majority female commission. This is prayers and a promise that our ancestors prayed over us years ago. This milestone belongs to the black women who have always been the backbone of our community, all that lead in the shadows. Today, you stand in the light. Your presence on this dais is a powerful testament to the strength, the vision, and brilliance that black women bring to the table. To see this war reflect the heartbeat of our families and generation of women who paved the way to a victory of every resident. We are proud to support you as you lead us in the future, where our voices are heard, our legacy is honored, your leadership and pride and success in our history in motion. Beyond that, we have to recognize our men, because we also have another milestone. Beyond this majority, we celebrate the fact that for the first time, the entire body reflects the full strength of a black diet. To have all five seats held by leaders of African Americans is another milestone that honors our shared heritage and the deep roots of this community. This unified representation is a historic step forward that ensures our collective story and at heart as we move faithfully forward. Congratulations. Congratulations. Omar Arroyo? You've got three minutes. I know. How about I need to say that? So, now that I'm off the commission, you'll probably just gain another sharing guarantee here in this volume. So, I'll be coming here to give you some... We're going to change it like an audience, don't you? Hey, I'm going to start by saying that you guys... Please send your name and address the record. Oh, man. That's what happened. Omar Arroyo, 513, Altavista, Droghage, City, Florida. So, like I said, you just gain another sharing here. So, with that, I need you guys to do something with traffic on 27. You know? That traffic is horrible. We've got to do something about it. Now, no jokes aside, I just want to congratulate the mayor and the vice mayor for their appointment for this year. I know you guys are going to do great, and I'm very proud of you, and I wish you the best, and I'm there for anything that you need. So, that's all I want to say. And with that, I'm going home because I'm going to stay another way. Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan Carey. Jonathan Carey, 458 Penero Lane, Haney City. I've got a question that may be in line with 11B as I read this, but... You guys are starting a project on either part of the shore line. I want to know what effect that's going to have in the area where people jog in the sidewalk area. I know you're going to have construction equipment. And what effect it will have on the public, in the playgrounds, and all that stuff around either part. And thank you for that question, but what you have to do is wait until we come to that item. Okay. And at that time, you can come back. Okay. Thanks. Sharon Garrett. My name is Sharon Garrett. I live on Pearl Boosahood. The last couple of meetings... Oh, and congratulations, the new mayor, the new vice mayor, and the new commissioner. I hope you guys have fun. The last couple of meetings we've been discussing golf carts operating throughout the city on streets that have speeds 30 miles and less. I would like to tell you two stories that I learned about this week. Omar and I were of the same opinion that it was not a very good safety thing. And insurance-wise, it was not good. He did jazzy's on Saturday. And I asked this guy, well, where's your better half? And he said, she'd been in the hospital for three weeks. I said, what happened? She fell. He said, then she had an accident with a golf cart. And they live in a little retirement community. And she ran into somebody's car sitting in the driveway of the other owner's property. And the insurance, their insurance wouldn't cover it. The owner of the car's insurance had covered the repair of the car. But they agreed to pay the deductible because they felt that was only fair. So that's what's going to happen when something happens in a car in a golf cart. And let's say it's the golf cart's ball. The other thing was a co-worker at work was having me look at some deeds and explain certain things. And he was talking about his neighbor's son was driving a golf cart several years back when the kid was 13 years old. And he ran out in, I think it was Wiggins Road over in Hillsborough County. And the kids appeared bleaching because the car couldn't stop fast enough. And the kid didn't obey traffic rules. And kids just don't know traffic rules and all that. So having golf carts maybe 20 years ago all over the city would have been fine. But nowadays traffic is just too fast and furious. And life is too unforgiving with the way people drive around here. If you've got restricted communities where it's one way in and one way out, I can see golf carts more so. Like all those little 55-year-old, about 55 mobile home parks on Blue Stone Park. Even down in Oakland, it's a little more restricted. You don't have cars in and out all over the place. Of course, I don't live down there. I don't know if the kids figured out how to make things go fast down there and zoom around. But just being able to go all over the place is not a good, safe thing for the community, the residents, plus the drivers. Thank you for that, Ms. Gary. Ms. Gary. Mr. Mayor, can I ask you? Oh, you may. I just want to clarify one thing. You said down in Oakland. Oakland is actually the north of here, so it wouldn't be down. Well, it depends on which part of town. I just want to make sure. If I'm up on Tisbridge, it's down in Oakland. Okay. Which way you want to look at it? Okay. Down or up? I'm at a park or say anyone else? That is it. Okay, so at this time, the gentleman that just came, can you call him back up to the park? Okay, that is Jonathan Carey. All right, so thank you for coming back up. So just taking a quick look into the item that you're talking about is actually not going to be the 11B item. But the concerns and the questions that you do have, I want to direct to Griffin, if you could raise your hand. You can see directly Griffin in the back. He'll maybe give us an additional. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. As you're saying, there is no additional. All right. So we'll close that at this time. And we will move on to the new business. Item 11A, coordinate 926-2146, voluntary annexation of 21- 15-Holly-0-Fruitbrook, first week. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. All right. So I speed it. Okay. All right. So what this is. The intent of this item is approved. Ordinance number 26-2146 regarding the voluntary annexation of the property located at 2115-Holly-Hill Road, along by the Great-Optin. Optin. Orthodox Church. Subject parcel contains approximately 3.8 plus or minus acres located east of Highway 27 North and north of Holly-H ill Road. Proced annexation applies with provisions of Chapter 171.0 44, along by the statutes. Staff recommends approval of Ordinance number 26-2146 regarding the voluntary annexation of the property located at 2115-Holly-Hill Road, along by the Great-Optin. I have some slides up on the screen. What it is right now, I believe there's a unit that's on there now that they're conducting church service out of. Is that correct? No. Currently right now. The existing. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can you come to the podium, please? Good afternoon. If you can't state your name for the break. Mark Malloy. I'm representing the Holy Hill Church. So currently right now it's an existing mobile home that we 're just conducting our worship. And we're trying to annex it and rezone it into a recent worship. It's a Coptic Orthodox Church, which is a church in Orthodox Church. And I'm here with my community. We're about 50 people who have been here since 2019. And we're currently growing. And the mobile home right now is just not enough to sustain . And right now we're trying to annex it and make it more liv able. And just build somewhere around the 2,500 square foot church. And that's about it. Right now we're off the grid. We don't have utility. We don't have sewer. We're using a well. We're using a something thing. So, again, we're just ideally would like to have a church. Okay. Thank you for that. Are there any questions? I have a question, Mr. Mayor. Is this within our service area, James? I would have to look at the service area, see if he's within it. That's that way because I'm not even out of various service . We provide them as out of the service area with a surcharge . So, did you know from the staff? I spoke with the staff. And so, I think that's west of our parcel. These are existing in Chipotle and in the office. And those are all annexed to the heat city. And also on the east side, all these neighborhoods. These are all sorts of things. So, it looks as though water and sewer would be available. There is. Yeah, it is available. And right now, our plan is not to actually tap into the utilities. But for our future expansion, we're trying to get ahead of it and just be within the city. And then we're going to tap into the utilities in the future. Does that answer your prayer? Yeah, but I think that we will require them, if they're in our service area, to get on our water and sewer line. We would. And that's part of his annexation. That's what he's wanting. He's wanting to be able to be provided utilities through annexation. Yeah, if we're required, we'll do it. Ideally, we do want that. We're just trying to see which is more feasible right now. But if we're required, we're definitely going to do it. We need it regardless. What's the zoning for that area? You know, Jamie? At least it's got a zone right now. Is it a zone for commercial or residential? Do you have a mobile home? Mobile home there now. Do you know if you're commercial? No, I'm not sure. To be honest with you. That's what we'll be. Richard Greenwood will probably have a lot of answers on this. Yes, sir. Yeah, we probably have a lot of answers on this. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Professional. Yeah. Yes, sir. Is there anyone else? Who are you currently paying taxes to? County? Oak County. Oak County. Okay. No question? No question? Mr. John. No question? All right, seeing no more questions at this time, I'll open it up to the public. If you do have a question, step up to the podium, state your name and your address. Please. Being done. How long is that? I mean, at this time, we're asking for a group. Is that correct? Okay. We can do no reaction when introduction of the ordinance. You don't have it? Well, I can do this here. Mr. Mayor, I'll introduce ordinance number 26-2146. That's the ordinance. Can you see it again? Okay. Ordinance number 26-2146. An ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Haynes City, Florida, extending the corporate limits of the City of Haynes City, Florida, so as to include therein additional territory lying cont iguous and adjacent to the present boundaries of the City of Haynes City, Florida. Describing said additional territory and redefining the boundaries of the City of Haynes City, Florida, to include said property, providing for incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for the administrative correction of scriveners and errors, providing for notice and recordation, providing business impact estimate, and providing for an effective date. Mr. Mayor, I move for adoption on this here. As long as it's in our service area, the deck can be answered. Yes, sir. Second. All right. I have a motion to add a second. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. All those opposed? Motion to carry. We will move on to item 11B. Extra worker authorization number 2, Lake Hema Ribs, for an agreement with a case of install. And this is going to be a deposit of manager came. Yes, sir. So this is a project that's ongoing. This is the Lake Hema Ribs for reclaimed water that we purchased the property on Robinson several years ago. So as you see here, we've done some sampling. One of the samples affected the dieldrin. So it's the decaminate. Full decontamination. That one was tough to roll off. Environmental side assessment will now need to be performed . So that's something CHO will be doing for us. There's also another item on here, the well. There was a collapse in it because you have to abandon that well in order to turn it into a rim site. And a rim is a rapid infiltration basin. I know you all have acronyms. But in order to do that, we're going to have to set up a tripod or a rig over it, go down and pull out the damaged equipment, then do the proper abandonment of that well. So the engineering services on this is a total of $24,600. All right. Thank you for that. Do you have any questions? That $25,000, where that's coming from, James? There was a budget transfer from lift station number one replacement. The transfer form is the last page for that item. So it's already set up for transfer with your approval. Okay. No other questions. Would it be anyone else? Okay. At this time, I will propose that. I will go to members of the public. Come to the podium and state your name and your address for the right. My name is Sharon Garrett. I live off Carl Busy Road. When you said Robinson Drive, I assume that's the property that you guys bought from at Dickinson? That's the property that you purchased your car, correct? As I said in the previous meeting, that place hasn't been m owed in two or three years. Because you've got Brazilian peppers out there that are as tall as a house. You're talking about the old grove? Yep. And you've got a high fuel load for a fire. And the pallet place just about burned down last Sunday. Okay. Because when we came from the post office, the pallets were on fire. And we're now back into a no-burn season. And it's very, very dry. And I would think you'd want to mow some of this stuff. All right. Thank you for that. There'll be anyone else. I have a motion. I have a motion. I have a motion. I have a motion. I have a proper second. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion to be clear. Moving right along. I'm going to item 11. It's the first amendment with the agreement for continuing services with Surf Tech Solutions. And that's going to be the round of the business. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Omar De Jesus, Finance Director. This agenda item is a request to approve the first amendment with Surf Tech Solutions. So this was an item that we put out to bid as the city. The commission approved the contract with Surf Tech November of 2023. So we have a three-year agreement, one year in renewals. This first amendment will just execute that last renewal, which will allow us to utilize Surf Tech through the end of November 2026. Staff is recommending to go ahead and approve so we can continue to use them for survey services. All right. Thank you for that. I think we have any questions. No, dear, that's a question. All right, seeing no questions, I hope it's done. I have a question. Okay. What, to what time? November 2026. That'll be the end of the three-year contract, and then we 'll go back out to bid. Okay, so are they going to be included, whatever we have to pay in the budget, since our new year starts October 1st? And we're going to be doing this again for 26 and 27. Okay. So if there is a PO issue into it, it would be eligible through the November date. After November, we would have to enter into a new contract with Surf Tech to use any of those new year budgeted funds. And that'll be the second amendment. That'll be a brand-new contract. No more amendments will be issued. A brand-new contract will have to be awarded. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, may I be right back. Thanks, Mayor. Go right ahead. Just so the Commission is aware, this is a CCNA contract. It's a continuing services contract. So this type of agreement will allow staff to issue task orders without having to go out for a competitive selection or competitive negotiation with any other applicable or competing firm. So this will be the only, if I'm not mistaken, the only CC NA contract for professional services related to surveying that the city will have. Correct. That'll be the only one that we currently have in place. We are going out to bid through this season. So once before that November expiration, we will either have a new proposal from Surf Tech or have a brand-new vendor who comes in with the lowest bid. Okay. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. So, Brent DeHaises, my question is, because I do notice here that it's through November 2nd, but how soon are you prepared to put out for a bid? No, because I just don't want us to run into the same issue that we've been running into. And for you to come back to say we didn't have enough time to get any new bids. And so then we're kind of like this stuff and have to go back with the current one. Yeah, so right now. I'm not saying that we won't, but, you know. So right now for CCNA, again, this will be the only one for a survey. We have the RFP pretty much issued. There's a last couple minutes review that Seth and I have to go over to finalize it, and then it's going right on the street. Okay, thank you. Would it be anyone? No. Okay. At this time, I'll open it up to members of the public. If you have any questions, please step up to the podium. Send your name and your address for the record. Being done, I'll post, and I'll give you a motion. Motion. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve the First Amendment to the Agreement for Continuing Services with Certex Solutions. I have a proper motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion to be cleared. We'll go to item 11B, Resolution Number 36-1929, Amendment Number 1 to Grand Agreement. The main cities to release basically 22 replacement and associated force may upgrade. It's also going to be very good. Correct. So this is an amendment to a grant award. The city has been very active through the commission's effort as well as administration going to Tallahassee and lobbying for grants. This is one of those grants. The proposed amendment before you is not a change to any financial purposes or scope. What it is is extending the timeline of the expiration. So currently, this grant is set to expire October 31st of 2026. Staff has gone out and requested that they extend that deadline to June 30th of 2028. And then for the task purposes of construction, the current deadline was April 30th, 2026. That is now being extended to December 31st, 2027. So staff is working through getting this lift station repaired, but they need additional time. And the grant has agreed to extend these deadlines for us. All right. Thank you for that. Do we have any questions? Why don't we do it within the timeline? Did we have to ask for an extension now? Why wasn't it completed during the timeline of the grant? I'm going to defer to DCM Keene and see if he can give us context on... Well, it was a project that was bid out. So through the overall procurement process, the bidders, the acceptance, and then, of course, the execution. That's just the timeline. And I couldn't tell you the exact... There's not, like, been any hold-ups within AIM City staff. It's just the process. Yeah, but what's the guarantee that they're going to give us an extension? Are we asking for an extension? Are we guaranteed to get the extension? So they have approved the extension. It's already included in the language to include these dates. Again, extending it through June 30th of 2028. So they have already accepted it. If you don't use, you lose. Right. But they have agreed to this extension. But they have already? Yes. What's the price? What was the difference in price now being that we waited until now? So there won't be any price and change. The grant will remain the same. Same award amount, same reimbursement limit. Give me one second. I'll research how much this grant was originally issued for . If you can't find it, you can email it to me. Yeah, no. So 0530 was a $1,406,466 grant. So again, that has not changed. We will still get reimbursed at $1.4 million. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Just one quick question, Ms. Mayor. So with the $16,854, do we have to do a transfer? Is that additional because of the extension? Or what was the additional $16,000? My understanding is staff working with the grant administrator. They are now requesting a GIS component. So in the grant, there was about $30,000 allocated for bidding services. We only use like $15,000. So staff has recommended that we use, remove that extra $15 ,000 from bidding services to construction to cover this required GIS component. So again, kind of just moving funds within the task orders, but overall still saying the same amount. Can you clarify that GIS for the audience? GIS, I might need IT for this, matter of fact, before I mess up and say something wrong. I just need a lot of time to use the acronym to focus on the only thing. Okay. Geographical information systems. Okay. I just want to make sure you answer that. I'm not sure that helps at all. I was lost. Hey, I was lost when you said GIS. I don't know. I need to know. I mean, educate me. Thank you so much for that. Okay. Will there be anyone else? All right. Seeing no further questions. I will welcome you up to the members of the public. If you have any questions, please step to the podium. You said your name and your address. Seeing none, I'm going to ask for an introduction. Well, Mr. Mayor, I introduce resolution number 2619-29. Resolution number 26-1929. A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Payne City, Florida, approving amendment number one to agreement number LPA0531 between Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the City of Payne City. Authorizing the Mayor of the City of Payne City, Florida to execute the same and any ancillary documents. Authorizing the City Manager to take all necessary further actions to effectuate the intent of this resolution. Providing for the incorporation of factual recitals. Providing for conflicts. Providing for severability. Providing for the administrative correction of scripter's errors. Providing for an effective date. I have a motion. Move for approval. Second. I have a motion. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carried. All right. We'll move on to 11-E. Resolution number 26-1930. Amendment number 20. Grand agreement. Corrected to exit. So this is a similar format. Another grant agreement that we're looking to do. Amendment number two. This grant LPA0299 was for a Lake Ema rib project grant that we received. That grant amount was for $2,718,475. Again, no modifications to the amount of the grant. Just a time extension. Time extensions are exactly the same. October 31st, 2026. Being extended to June 30th, 2028. And then task order compliance from being moved from April 30th, 2026. To now being December 31st, 2027. All right. Thank you for that. Do we have any questions? No, I have any questions. No. I'll ask you enough questions. I'll open this up to members of the public. Do I have one more from the public? Can we go this item? Being done, I will ask for that. And I will ask for the entry to go. Mr. Mayor, I introduce resolution number 26-1930. Zero. 1930. Resolution number 26-1930. The resolution of the City Commission of the City of Haynes City, Florida. Approving amendment number 2. To agreement number LPA-0299. Between Florida Department of Environmental Protection. And the City of Haynes City. Authorizing the Mayor of the City of Haynes City, Florida. To execute the same. And any ancillary documents. Authorizing the City Managers to take all necessary further actions. To effectuate the intent of this resolution. Providing for the incorporation of factual recitals. Providing for conflicts. Providing for severability. Providing for the administrative correction. Scrimineers errors. And providing for an effector. Move for a motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Motion to be carried out. Move on to item 11. Camp resolution number 26-1934. Amendment number 2. Grant agreement. So this is the last amendment request related to grants. This grant, LPA-0530, was for enlistation resiliency. This project we actually completed. The intent of it was to buy about 18 different pumps. Bypass pumps to put at different lift stations as part of this resiliency project. With the quotes and with the process, we actually obtained 16 pumps, not 18. So when we went to request reimbursement from these funds, the grant administrator requested that we modify the scope to reflect the actual number of pumps purchased. So again, we will be reimbursed the full amount. And that total amount of this grant was for $1,406,000 and $466. Okay, thank you. Ed, do we have any questions? No questions. Yes, I have one. With these grants from 11, I guess, D to this one, do we have to match the money? What's required of us financially? These LPAs do not have a match. Some of our grants do, but these three specifically do not have a match. One thing I did want to mention to the commission as well is we're working on getting you the audited financial statements. We did complete that for fiscal year 2025. There were no findings. I say that because part of the grant process is anytime we exceed a million dollars for state or federal grants, we're required to do a single audit, which means they go in deeper just to make sure we're in compliance with the grants themselves. So just wanted to mention that again. We are being monitored for compliance purposes with the audit on an annual basis. Any more questions? No, thank you. Okay. All right. I will open this up now to members of the public. If you do have a question, I will step in the corner so that you can't be here as is for the record. Being none, I will ask for an introduction. Mr. Mayor, I introduce Resolution No. 26-193. Resolution No. 26-1934. The Resolution of the City Commission of the City of Haines City, Florida, approving Amendment No. 2, agreement No. LPA 0530 between Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the City of Haines City, authorizing the Mayor, the City of Haines City, Florida, to execute the same and any ancillary documents, authorizing a city manager to take all necessary further actions to effectuate the intent of this resolution, providing for the incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for separability, providing for the administrative correction of scripted errors, and providing for an effective date. Move for a doctor. Second. I have a motion to have a second. How will those in favor? All right. All those opposed? Motion to carry. Thank you. All right. Item 11G, discussion regarding this collection of city manager. So I was asked to put this on the agenda just so I could get direction on what you wanted to do. So we had some candidates come that you did some informal interviews. And so just needing some direction at this time, you want us to continue advertising on the various platforms that we currently are using to see if we can get some more. If I can, should this be the manager or the city? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I was just asked to put it on. I guess you're supposed to talk about it. I don't know. Who asked me to put that on? It's the city manager. It's the city manager. And at the time, when I was a mayor, I asked you, what do y 'all want to do with the process? Yes. To the manager, you had three candidates come for you the other day. And I don't know if y'all would like any of the three. Do you want to continue with the process? Okay, so we're crossing those. So those were for the attorney. This topic is for, you just wanted to discuss, I guess, the direction that you're going. You have an interim city manager at this point. But the question is, what does the commission want to do? Are you just going to leave your interim where it is? Did you want advertising to begin? For a city manager, right? Right. You've got to continue to advertise. We never advertise. We haven't advertised. That's what I'm saying. What we need to do is advertise. We never advertise. That's what I'm saying to you. And we need to advertise on a professional site, not on an employee HR site like we've done now. Like a general employee going, it needs to be on a professional site. You can't. You're not going to attract a city manager. A city manager is not going to go to the city or city employee that you do parks, recs, or whatever, and look for a city manager job. It doesn't work like that. It goes on professional sites. And that's what we need to continue to advertise. So in order to go on professional sites for both the city manager position and the city attorney position, you would do a formal request for qualifications, request for emails, and we would put that out there. That would normally go through finance. I would create that. Or I can create that for HR. Whoever you want us to do. I just need direction on what you want. And I think we should because we tried it on the city actual employee site, and we didn't get any. We've got three, I think. You know what? I think we've got to put this on a professional site. So that, not confusing it, for the city manager, I guess what we would need maybe is a workshop to determine what qualifications are you seeking, because what you want to do with this. But the planes will tell you in the charter already tells you there what's your qualification to be the city manager. You should have that in writing. It does, but you need to direct me to do that at this point . Everyone. So that's what I'm saying. You're appointed in interim. Well, I understand, but we'll be a waste of our time in doing a workshop when we have something in place to tell you the qualification to be the city manager. Okay. We will be meeting to discuss something that's already in policies and procedures or in the charter. Okay. So I agree with you, Commissioner West, but in the charter, it doesn't say what the minimum number of years. It says it in there. I haven't seen it in there. It says 10 years in there. It's in the check-in. It's in there. Okay. Yes, it is in there. Well, I haven't seen it in there. Yeah. Yeah, double check. But we do need to, to me, the three candidates for city attorney was a waste of time. So we're talking about two different things. One on the other. Yeah, no, she just, for references. No, I'm just saying it was a waste of time. And for city manager, we need to make sure, and I agree with Commissioner. I know where it shouldn't be on our website. All right. So if I can, I just want to call me director to make sure that we stay on topic here. We're talking about the city manager. But I think what we should do is we should give some direction to the clerk of where we want this advertising. We should just say that we should just make sure that we want to have this job. Mr. Mayor, I might be recognized. Thank you. So I would like to see you send everyone a copy of what's in the charter in case they don't know what's in the charter. And then also, can we get a copy of maybe the last requirements that was set forth with our last city manager and what we went on? Because I think some of the confusion is because it was discussed whether or not if we were going to be making any changes to the requirements and so forth. But I don't see any of us entertaining, making any type of changes. So if we can just get copies of what's currently on the books now. And then I agree with Commissioner West that we definitely should advertise maybe like through Florida League of Cities or any of those available sites to get some qualified candidates. As Commissioner Huffman stated, let's definitely try to get qualified candidates that's been vetted before bringing them in front of us. So that would be my take. But I do think we need to go ahead and kind of compile whatever it is that we're going to put out there so we can go ahead and start the advertising. Okay, so I will get that no later than Monday to everyone. So I will lay out the charter and exactly what it states the city manager requirements are. The last city manager now was hired from within, right? You promoted, you appointed somebody from within. So I don't believe, and I can research. I don't know. I wasn't here. Were there criteria? Did you just use the charter as a criteria when you promoted? Well, even if it wasn't for him, there was still the previous city manager. So I'll go back that one. Right. There was something there as far as the requirements. Okay. And if so, then those requirements more than likely hasn't changed from then to now. So. I think, Vice Mayor, that the last four city managers, none of them had 10 years experience as a city manager. Right. And I agree. Because there was, but there was something in place as far as the requirements. So that's why I would like for all of us to get that and then we can compare. It doesn't necessarily mean that the individual needs 10 years of experience. But we, you know, we went outside of the charter before. And so whatever those requirements are. And again, it still is a decision of the commissioners. It does not. So I will seek out the Florida League of Cities, which is good. And I was the International Institute for City Managers of the ICCMA as well. Right. And I agree with, like I said, I agree with Commissioner West because if we only advertise on the city's website, we 're going to be very limited to any candidates that we bring in. So we want to use all available resources. And I think there is actually a, like a, like a city manager's home. It's a pool. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Well, it should be able to advertise there because that's where all the city managers are. And then, you know, we may even circle back and come right back home and maybe put cash in there. You know, we may cash our net, but we still did not get anything. We may have a city manager sitting in the malls up right now. You know, really. Just think about it. It doesn't mean that, but we still, I think you still cash in there. You may, just like I said, how we cash in there. You didn't turn. We didn't get really nothing. But at least we have options in-house that we can say, Jane , Joe, whoever, Lloyd. You know, we got people here that can do the job, but we still need to see what's happening. Correct. And that just, that just me, from my side. And I think we need to put a cutoff period and not until filled. Yeah. It doesn't need to be cutoff. It needs to be a cutoff, whether it's 30 days, because we 've already advertised there. Because if not, until filled, we'll be going toward this in every commission. Yeah. Okay. So what I will do is I will make sure that I give you all of the information by Monday. And then everybody can respond back as soon as possible so that I can compile that. And then now you can tell me how long you want this post- board to come and spend. Okay. So real quick. Question, John. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. So if I may know what I'm hearing. I'm hearing a lot of different ideas. What's the pleasure of the board? Do we believe that we need to have a work stop once we do have the criteria to make sure that we want to stick with what we currently have? I think previously we stated we believe these executive level positions open. If we're going to put a cutoff date on it. Maybe that's something we should have to have a conversation. Yeah. We. But Mr. Mayor, I'll be recognized quickly. Reason and I agree with Commissioner Huffman because we get ready to go into the budget season. If we, you know, we really, if we have a cutoff date and we get after 30 days or whatever and see how many the candidate has applied, it's a process. And we may not even have a city manager through this whole budget process. But thank God we got some good deputy city managers who can carry the torch until we get a city manager. But I think we have to have that cutoff date whether it's 30 days or 45 days. And we can't leave that open until field. Thank you. Attorney, I'm sorry. Thank you. If it's the desire of the commission, I can bring some information also on there are recruiters that are affiliated with those institutions that you were mentioning . And I know the previous city manager for the city of Lake land actually is a spokesperson or it champions one of them through. And they cast a pretty wide net. If that is something that you're interested in, I can bring you back some information. And at your request, you know, either I or the deputy manager can reach out and have them come in and present to you. Thank you for that. Question. Is that a consultant term? Yes. Is that you can have it okay? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor? Just so I can let you know, looking up in Section 8.02 of the charter, all it gives you is the powers and the duties of the city manager. It does not give you any kind of educational experience or years of experience in the charter. That is correct. It says he shall be chosen solely on the basis of his executive and administrative qualifications, which is those qualifications are legislatively adopted and approved by the commission. It also says in here, and I'm reading, it says qualification, the ideal candidate will possess and required knowledge and experience and normally obtain the completion of an advanced education accredited education institution or higher learning, resulting in a bachelor's degree in public administration, finance, business, or related field, and at least seven years of executive management level that is related to experience in municipal government. Also, it says an ICMA credential manager certified in a master's degree or higher. And that is what I'm reading myself from. City manager qualification for the city needs. That's in the charter, sir? Right here. What section is that? City manager qualification. Oh, you just read? That's just the qualification. That's just the qualification. I know I read it, and I didn't know whether it was the charter or whatever. I knew we had qualification. We have to have qualification. We just can't have a city manager that don't have no qualification. So I just wanted to pull it up, and that's what I was reading. That's what I got. I thought it was 10 years, but it's seven years. But Commissioner West, that's what we've been doing with the last four city managers. I don't want to call anyone's name out, but they all did not have a master's degree. And they all did not have seven years experience as a city manager. Yeah, and Commissioner Huffman, you're 110% correct. And we don't, you know, you can have a high school diploma and be a city manager. You know, it doesn't, it's, we, we, there wasn't just a qualification. Do we have to go by? No, it's not set in stone. It's not law. It's just what we say. But if we have someone that has 10, 12, or seven, eight years of experience, you can do a job better than somebody with two master's degrees. So, I mean, it's totally up to us. It's, you know, it's just qualification. We don't have to go by that. You know, our last city manager, we say, hey, you know, and we appointed that person. Because, as I stated, it's always at the pleasure of the commission. Yeah, because the city manager works for the commission. So, although you have the requirements set, if you decide, and if we decide to go against that, it's always at our pleasure. So, it's up to us when we find that perfect candidate that we want to pay for. Well, let's cast, and just my seat, I can't speak for any other seat here, but I would say let's cast our net for at least 30 days. If it's not, then we've got great candidates in-house, but we can certainly appoint. So, I just think that we need to cast the net, if anything, that we don't like, and we'll reject all of them instead of that we can stay in-house. Well, I'd like to say, Mayor Smith, that if we decide 30 days or if we decide 45 days, that's it. And let's look internal at that point. Because we would have wasted two to three months of looking and getting resumes that don't even come close to what we 're looking for. Because it's our prerogative if we want to hire somebody internally. Mr. Mayor, the ICC, I think it's ICCMA. So, they do have a pool. So, I know Commissioner West said in regards to casting our nets, that net could be kind of broad. So, we can definitely look into that in regards to ICCMA and that pool. They have it. And also, the consultant, I know that comes with a price. It comes with a price. But definitely, the easier route I see right now is the ICC MA. Because they have a pool. They're getting the money. And I guess, to our discretion, I know they don't have to have 15 years of experience. We want the right fit. Definitely want the right fit. All right. I have one final question. Yes. And as Commissioner Huffman stated, as far as the internal people that we currently have, are we suggesting that they go ahead once the job is posted to apply? Or do they just simply sit back and wait to see if one of them would be appointed? Because I would love to see everyone apply so that there's a fair shake across the board for everyone. There's an even playing field, you know, for internal and for anyone that's on the outside that would like to look like. It looks like the final one you recommend. Thank you, Mayor. If I could make a recommendation to the commission, if it is your desire to hear internally who deputy managers or anyone else present to the commission, then I would recommend that the commission simply ask them to do that rather than have them apply. It puts them in a very precarious situation in the event that they put in an application. And then you have someone else apply. It does create an employment-related situation for them if someone else is hired and they've applied for the same job. But just having them come in and present as a matter of course, that might be a safer option. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to give the correct on how to proceed. Like I said from IC, I think we should advertise in those professional websites. ICMA and all of them and use the qualifications that we have here now. Is it going to be a situation where we have everything brought to us? We have to select you to have come in. Yeah, that's what you do. And if you say for the first 30 days and then you get 10, 15, we can't wait until we get 45. You send them to us and then you do a process of elimination and you say out of the 15, we select the top five. And we've done this before. Commissioner Huffman, I've been here. So we've done this before. It's not like nothing new to us. And go from there. Then you just continue to narrow it down. I don't want to see you interview 45 people in the way. You know, you want to narrow it down. Understood. Okay. So I think we should advertise on a professional website. You know, and I agree with the attorney. I don't think our in-house, all they do is just let us know they have an interest in becoming the city manager. They're here. They're already here. All right. And what about the expiration date of the advertising? That's all you guys. I would say 30 days because we've already passed our net out there. And we haven't gotten anything. And Lloyd said that he would serve, but he did. He had zero interest in being the city manager. So we know we have Lloyd for another 30 days. So pass that net again to the professional agencies. And if we don't get anything that we all can agree on, then we need to talk to internal people. Yes. Great. Commissioner Huffman, just one clarification. We haven't passed the net at all for the city manager. That was only for the city attorney. So this would be brand new for the city manager. So that's why I wanted to say at least a minimum of like 45 days to give time for the posting. And then it's out there. People will actually see it, apply for the physician. Because this is all brand new for the city manager. Well, I don't have any problem with that. But I don't want someone to come before us with one year experience or three years experience. So if the city clerk gets with the city manager or send it to all of us, the ones that somewhat meet the requirements, if we want to say 10 years and that person has eight years, then I'm okay with that as long as they have been the city manager in a town with more than 800 people. That'll be a problem for us. I think it's going to be a problem for us. So 45 days is fine with me. 45. Okay, thank you. 45. All right. I am also okay with the 45-day period as a veteran. I think as everyone has stated, we do have Lloyd in place who is very capable of doing the job. He did express his desire to be temporary in that position. Madam Clerk, is there any additional direction that you think you need? No, I took all my notes. I got it. I understand the assignment. Okay. All right. So is there anything else? No? All right. So it's just time I open up to members of the public. If you do have a question, please step up to the podium. Name and your address for the record. Good evening. My name is Tarsha Carey. Did you say H-Best? What did you ask me? Thank you. Oh, 458 Panera Wayne, Haines City, Florida. My concern as I was listening about the solicitation or the job announcement, one comment I would like to say is for you all to take into consideration the increased population within Haines City, that means you have a bigger pool externally that could possibly apply for that position. So we need to still tap into the growth. So that we will not only hold it internally. So that's just one consideration that I would like for you all to think about. All right. Okay. And thank you for that. And to your point, we are going to advertise it outside. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Will there be anyone else? All right. We'll close that. Well, I have about 45 minutes worth of notes here. Who are you going to read them to? Who are you going to read them to? Who are you going to read them to? But I will honestly save these. It's just a follow-up from the last meeting. Thank you for the respect of time. I will say the one thing that was on here is the burn ban was reenacted yesterday. So I know it had been lifted, but it's back on again. So I would like everybody to just adhere to that. That's all I have. All right. Thank you for that. City Turk's report. I don't have a particular report. I do want to say welcome, Commissioner Johnson. As now one of five people that I report to, congratulations , Mayor Smith and Vice Mayor Downing. So we'll be talking a whole lot. You'll be signing a lot of papers and stuff like that. So I look forward to that. But I did want, just for clarity, we had a lot going on when we were doing the reorganization. I just want to be clear. When we appointed for the mayor, it was moved by Commissioner Downing at the time and seconded by Commissioner West. And that was unanimous. For the vice mayor, it was moved by Commissioner West, seconded by Downing. But it did not carry unanimously. And there was a little lull. And just for the sake of minutes, I need to know who voted no. The way it normally works, if you don't hear a nay, it automatically comes to you. You can yield to the attorney on that. You don't hear a nay. Yeah. I think that to be safe for the record, I would call roll call vote. So that way you can identify the votes. I don't know if, I know that we do have a new commission. I don't know if it was clear that it was supposed to vote or not. I don't know how that was interpreted either. But I didn't hear two votes. And you can't abstain from voting unless you have a recognizable conflict of interest. So at this time, Mr. Mayor, if you could. All right. Do the roll call vote. Yes, please. Okay. And this is for, just so that we're clear, this was for the vice mayor. Is it? Right. That's the one I did not hear. Commissioner Huffman? Yes. Yes. Commissioner West? Yes. And my vote is yes. And my vote is yes. And now it's unanimous. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for the end. Okay. In the attorney's report. Only, I'd like a big congratulations to everyone on the commission tonight. Mayor, vice mayor, newly seated commissioner-elect. Congratulations. I look forward to working with you. Thank you. And now we go down to the commissioner's comment. I will start with Commissioner Huffman. Welcome aboard. Congratulations to Commissioner Johnson. Congratulations to you, Mayor Smith. And congratulations to you, Commissioner Downing. It's now as the new vice mayor. My other comment is, now that we have a new commissioner, when are we going to start the budget process? Because we're always at the last minute to where we have no choice but to vote yes in September. So there's five of us, and we need to get the budget going because we had a lot of questions about the budget. And I felt rushed through the budget or a summary of the budget. But we need to get moving on this budget. I don't know if, Omar, if you're still here, when will we start hearing about the budget and for CRA? So both a proposed calendar was provided. Obviously, there's been some transition in the CM role. That is something that I need to get clarified with the CM or interim city manager steward now to isolate that calendar and make sure that the commission is prized. As soon as he returns on Monday, again, we need to go over that proposed calendar, have him have one-on-one meetings or have edited or sent it to you guys to make sure that you guys want to keep with that timeline. In that proposed calendar, we did set several meetings, about five to be exact, just to make sure you have plenty of time to see the budget, revisit it, go over questions, and give you plenty of time to go through that process. The intent from our stance is kind of keep the same approach as last year. We did provide a recommendation to do a survey. Last year, we did that. Based on the feedback, I think it provided an opportunity for each one of you to kind of give your strategies, goals, objectives, and then give us a collective feedback for you guys to discuss that, see if there's a consensus. I know there was a good outturn for the tour as well. So that was one of the questions is, you know, was there a key takeaway that you saw from the tour that you guys want prioritized? Because I think that also will impact directors as they establish the budget. The capital deadline for directors was given, and that was completed April 30th. So we have every director's capital request. So we've been working internally to make sure we're getting data prepared. For right now, the temporary operating budget deadline is May 15th. So, again, we're kind of moving the wheels internally to make sure we stay on course. But the transition has kind of put a little bit of a wrench in that pipeline. Well, I think that July 1st should be the latest to give us July and August, because whatever we say in August really is going to be final. Because September, we've lost that. But I enjoyed the directors being able to explain what it is that they wanted. And my question to them is going to be, did you spend all the money last year? That's a good question. And if you didn't spend it all last year, then you really don't need any extra this year. That's all my mind there. Commissioner Hoffman, I don't know, you may have spoke too soon. Now they're going to go spend all the money. All right. Thank you. Commissioner West. Yeah, one or two things here quickly. And thank you to the real staff. And I noticed the construction is under construction for both. I know the Myers and Wiley, because I've seen that under construction. But here's what someone asked me about the Myers and Wiley. There's a lot of history in Myers and Wiley once was cooked field. And once that field gets finally turfed, they wanted to know, can we put some type of marker on the field? And, you know, that was three or four state champions when that was the Oakland High School that was won on that field . Well, a lot of folks, like I said about the Ben Graham Park and Lake Heva Park, they don't know the history. Kids, they don't know the history of that field. And we have to educate our kids to let them know that when they go out there, there's something that they should be reading about that field. That's history, you know. And the same thing we said about Ben Graham, you know, people that, kids these days, they don't know who is Ben Graham. Why did they name that field after me? We have nothing there to say who is Ben Graham. Why was that called Cook Field? Why was this chained to Myers and Wiley? Because Myers and Wiley donated the land. But why was it Cook Field? Because Cook put the wall around the field. So we have to have something out there for them to read to educate our kids. And I think, can we get something when that is done and reveal the history of Myers and Wiley's last Cook Field? Yes, the plaques are easy. The problem is getting information for the plaques. With Ben and White, we should be able to give you some information on that. Okay, I'll be more than happy to. And I'm working on gathering some information for some folks that actually play football on that field when they won the state champ. And I was going to provide that information to you. Because our history is only back as far as we can remember. Wouldn't the commission want that to come back before you? Because I would hate to have XYZ citizens give me information. We make that plaque and then information is not accurate or we miss something. So I prefer to maybe, I don't know if the board want to, want to liaise off of somebody. Therefore, the audience is not on staff to assume that information we've been provided is accurate. Because I know everybody has some history and information. I prefer to, once we get all the information, maybe put together a packet or a book or something and present that to the commission for the final approval on wording. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We want to make sure what we put on white paper is correct. Yes, sir. Because once it goes into a plaque, then, you know, it just don't look right. I agree. So, I mean, we can all gather information and bring it back and put it all together. I think that should be a home assignment for each and every one of us sitting up here. If they know somebody that went to that school or played on that football field, go talk to them and get some information. And then if I know someone, that information all comes back and it's the same thing we pretty much know is correct. Yes, sir. But I just think there's something we should honor on that field. It's going to be a turf field. But the history of it has pretty much changed. And we need to educate our community. I have quite a bit of history. And I have a picture of Mr. Myers. Okay. And the Dolphus Howard was called the entertainment in 1940 . And I have that on the Sanborn map that shows possible born areas. And he donated the land for that. And he lived in the house that burned at the, I don't know what you call it, a two-story house. But sits on the corner now. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Well, I'll make a motion that Commissioner Huffman be our liaison here. She's a historian. Don't give me all the homework. You lead me to that motion. Don't give me all the homework. But I do have quite a bit on Army Lee Myers and Mr. Wiley as well. So I know how all of, a lot of that took place. Yes, sir. I thought that Mr. McDain, so I know we do have a process for you even to that point. But I do believe that it would be good if Paul was doing a little bit of work and brought that information together. Because we may, you know, have breaches that others don't have. Bring all that information together and give it to you. And I've started some of that because this has been talking about for years. So Ben W. Graham and other stuff that we've been able to find in newspapers and just online information. So we have started that with some of the things that have been discussed in the past, and some of those things that we have started on that process. We just kind of need to keep moving the train down the track and finalize those documents with that information. Yeah. And when is the completion date for the turf and on the field? So right now they're looking for Mars and Wilde Field to start putting the turf down the week of June 28th or towards that time. It'll take about two weeks. So we're looking to be done probably that second week in July. So I don't know if you've noticed, in total they're having to take about 250 dump truck loads and dirt from Mars and Wilde Field over to the soccer field. Therefore, that's why it appears that the soccer field is moving slower because we can't do all we need to do until all that dirt is moved there. So they're moving faster than we expected on the Mars and Wilde Field. They're trying to move as quickly as possible to avoid the rainy season, to avoid any delays. But right now we're on schedule for Mars and Wilde Field that second week in July. Yeah, we just want to have something revealed when we go out there and do the ribbing further, and we can also reveal the information about the field. So I think that's something that we all need to really work on fairly quickly here. So I'll make Mars and Wilde Field a priority if it'll take probably, depending on where we're going to apply from, three or four weeks, to get that bronze plaque in. So I'll make that a priority and reach out to get any information that everyone has. All right. Okay. And Mr. Mayor, can we all bring something back next meeting about what we found about the history if you want to? Because you guys just e-mail it to me, and then I just put all that information. Okay, that's better. That's better. I can do that. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, we'll do that. And the second thing I have, not you, Trey, is actually, I was actually having a conversation when I was the mayor with the former city manager, and I did a lot of research, and there's a lot of cities in down south and north and northern Florida that on this day, on the day is there, because we are really considered city employees, but we don't have a retirement built in. At what point, how many years do you serve before you'd be eligible to get a retirement office? It may not be a lot, but, you know, it's just something to say, hey, we appreciate your service. You get a retirement. Do you do two terms, three terms, or whatever? And then you can be set to qualify for a small retirement. I think that's probably a question for our finance. They do, it happens in a lot of municipalities, and I know we had it where you had to do sometime, I think it was 20 years before you could get a, that's, if you think about it , as an elected official, to get elected that many times, it 's kind of like tough on you, you know? But I think that if we had a, we can put something together and say after you did, you know, 12 years that you qualify for retirement. Even our city employees invested after seven years. So either it should be eight years or 12 years, you know, because we are considered now as city employees pretty much . We get the same benefit, but we don't get the retirement. All right, so thank you for that. I think that is something that we probably should bring back before us maybe in a work format. Okay, and we can do that. I think that's just something that we need to look at, though, really, really closely. Yeah, we'll definitely pull some comparisons, get you guys a lot of information for you guys to gather and then be able to discuss. I know for the pension plan, I think part of that was the plan was frozen in 2015. We reopened it in 2023, but that language was still 2015 language. So, again, right now it is that 20-year consecutive ruling for commissioners, and it's a 50% pension award that you get once you meet that eligibility. We'll pull some comps, again, to make sure you guys have plenty of data to support an educated decision. All right, thank you. And lastly, I just want to say congratulations again once to Commissioner Johnson. She did a great campaign, and I was impressed with her campaign. She did a great job. So, thank you for, you know, standing in there and taking those hits. But now you're here. If I reach the top, let's get to work. No, that's, what's his name? The senator. Is it? Yeah. Rick Scott. Rick Scott. That's right. So, welcome forward. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you for that, Commissioner. It looks like Commissioner West was trying to keep us there close to the end. All right. All right. But we're going to move right along to Commissioner Johnson . I don't have anything. I'm excited to be here. So, I'm learning and gleaning a lot. So, I'm blessed to have the attorney on one side of me and a tenured commissioner on the other side. So, I'm definitely already asking some questions already. So, again, it's grace for the race. And so, I'm here. I'm excited to be here to work with everyone on the dais. And also, our deputy city manager and our city clerk as well. And her team as well. All right. All right. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Nothing really tonight because we did swear in a new commissioner. And we wanted to take it light on you. So, we made the agenda really, really light tonight just to break you in. So, congratulations. Be prepared, though, for the next meeting. We might be here until 1130. No, I'm just kidding. But we do have some long meetings. But tonight was kind of short because we didn't want to overwhelm you on your first night. But welcome aboard. I look forward to serving with you. And that's good. All right. Thank you for that. So, I don't consider 930 sport meetings. We don't want to. But, no, I just want to tell everyone that's sitting here, thank you for the opportunity to sit in this seat. There have been a lot of great people have sat here. And I want to keep that tradition going. So, Commissioner Johnson, I just want to say congratulations. You ran a heck of a race. Yes. Heck of a race. You know, it's not often that I'm wow. But, you know, watching the race from when it started to when they sat here, you know, to the end, you know, I just had to honestly say wow. You know, the election season, it always, it excites me, it ignites me simply because, you know, this is a process that we have in this country where everybody can be heard. Yeah. And the people have the choice to make the decision who they believe is the right fit for them at that time. I love that process. I'm glad for everyone that chooses to run. Because when you do it, you're making a sacrifice. You're opening yourself up to everyone, every bit of criticism that you can. But you're built for it if you make it through to the end. So, thank you for that. I look forward to working with you here on this board. One thing I do love is that we all sit here and, you know, we are united as one, but we all have a different perspective. But through those perspectives, we come together to do what 's best for the city. So, thank you all. And that's all. If there's nothing else, do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Ready? Thank you.

. . . . . . B, B, I, C, Bike Business Incorporation. Well, I think we have some representative here today. That's correct. That's correct. All right, and this is a carryover from our last meeting in April, right? That's correct, yes. So the team with Bay B, B, C was here last week and presented, or sorry, last month. Right. The small business assistance and entrepreneurial development program. And so the board requested that this item be brought back on the presentation and under discussion only for this department. How much presentation time will they need for their presentation? Because I think last time they had a slide. We have a full agenda, so I want to make sure that we can execute and get through this agenda before I step into the thought meeting because we have a full agenda for 7. Sure. I just want to be a beneficial to them. I don't want to have some rushing. That's why I want to make sure. Yes, I think we can do that. Okay. All right. No problem. There's no issue. All right. Please. You can have them. You got them. Do you want to present for them, or are they going to present? No. Let them present. Let them present. Algarvee is here. I'm going to do it. Associate James. If you were standing, I thought you were going to do it. Thanks, man. Greetings, commissioners. Thank you all again for having us come back. We appreciate that. Again, my name is Albert Lee. We'll be a template about this investment corporation. Of course, we have a new friend here, Jane Randolph. Jane is our primary consultant. Does a lot of work with small businesses and things like that here in Main City and Oak County. So I wanted to make sure that we give you a fuller sense of what the BBIC does. I know there was some concern about the fact that we're called Tampa, a Black Business Investment Corporation. And I wanted people to understand that, yes, at the genesis of the startup of the BBIC back in 1987, you're part of a state statute of program. And you had to be designated and approved as a BBIC of the state. And it was specifically designed to help make up for the disparities of Black businesses not receiving the capital and technical assistance that they needed. It was a state statute of program, which meant you could only help Black-owned businesses. For us, that has evolved. As a matter of fact, that program doesn't really even exist at the state level any longer. We evolved and started doing loans outside of that and working with businesses across the board. So I wanted to give you a better sense of who the BBIC is, some of the engagements that we've done. It's nowhere near exhaustive as far as all of the things that we've done over the 38 years that we've been around. But if we could just advance the slides, and I'll try and give you some insight on those. So this just gives you a short encapsulation of some of the things that BBIC has done, $40 million plus in capital. And when you think in terms of that being an average loan for us for a number of years, it was $25,000 or less. That comes down to a lot of loans. And much of that was done within the last five to ten years when we started having more capital available and were able to do larger loans. In 2017, we started our CATCH program. That is our 15-week program for entrepreneurs. We've had 370-plus folks come through that program. And what we're going through now is working with those folks, trying to get updates on how they've done. And then we're looking at doing a second follow-up program to help them move forward in their need and venture to get capital. 500-plus, I guess, grants that we help folks secure during COVID. And that's working through our partnerships with the city of Tampa, where we were one of their primary administrators for their micro-grant program, for those who have been impacted by COVID, the city of St. Petersburg and the city of Clearwater. And there's been thousands of folks that we've counseled, both in technical assistance and one-on-one. If you can go to the next slide. So I'm Albert Lee. Brent Everett isn't here. Brent is our primary portfolio manager and lead underwriter . And one of the things that I wanted, I know there was some questions about SBDC, and I think I mentioned to you guys then, I work with SBDC. So they're a complementary organization to many of the things that we do. And so we've worked with them over an extended period of time. I was the area manager for the SBDC when they got started in Pinellas County. And I worked with the university for a period of time to help get them established over in St. Petersburg and most of Pinellas County. And we continue to work with the SBDC as one of our partners. And, of course, I was a longtime banker, been an entrepreneur, and, you know, done those things, I think, fairly successfully. And Brent, a very similar story. Okay, next. These are just some, excuse me, some basic stats that you 'll find about small businesses. Okay. You know, 82% of them, people say that the capital is their primary reason for not being able to get money. And so one of the things that we do, each of those little sections over there in the little blue box, down in the right, the lower right corner, kind of tells you the way that BBIC helps solve those problems. Okay, credit sometimes is a problem. We can talk to folks about credit. Again, I have a long career in banking and helping businesses of all sizes, small and large, and so does Brent . Next slide. Oh, okay. Those are the boxes that talk about some of the products that we offer, the microloan program. Those are loans that are less than $5,000. We've been asked by various municipalities from time to time to allocate capital to some of our smaller loans, and we've been able to do that as our capital allows us to. So I would designate a certain amount of money that I set to the side for us to do those types of loans. And then, of course, we have our primary loan portfolio. We've been engaged by foundations and things like that to do special loan pools from time to time. We just closed out one with a large foundation in Pinellas County. It was quite successful in that. And then we've also provided loan guarantees. And we don't do as many loan guarantees any longer because they tie up a lot of capital. And to be perfectly frank with you, we didn't get a return on that capital. But what we would do in cases like that, we would guarantee the loan so that that individual could get the loan at a bank. So if they needed $150,000, we would put up $75,000 on their behalf in the CD, and then the bank would loan them the other $75,000. So we reduced the risk for the bank. And the last guarantee we did, I think we went up to about $150,000. And that company was able to get a $300,000 line of credit. That company now is in 25 states. They have about 23 franchises. And we were very instrumental in helping them get to that point, as well as giving them their first direct loan. Next. Our CATCH program, I think I mentioned that to you all before. That was a program we started back in 2017 where we felt that we needed to be able to kind of coach up people from a structured standpoint. There were some unique things about the CATCH program. I had a video. Unfortunately, I think it's a pretty large file, so it wasn 't able to be uploaded. That would have given you a sense of what we do in our CAT CH program. That picture right there is one of our graduation ceremonies. We have a formal graduation ceremony with our CATCH recipients. They spend 15 weeks going through a structured program. And, you know, some of the things that they learned during that time is they learned different classes and things like vision and decision-making, mission and vision statements. They learned how to do elevator pitch. They look at things like time management, risk management. And then we have about six classes that I do that help them understand about finance and everything from personal finance to understanding business, financial statements, understanding cash flow, pricing for profit, so on and so forth. 15 weeks has a big commitment. We spend a lot of costs facilitating that program. We make sure that they eat every class. So I usually have one of our caterers, one of our local caterers, and we rotate them and we have them bring food. And we do those things to try to remove any excuses for why people were late and so on and so forth because there is a time commitment in being in that class. And then at the end, they do get a certificate and we have a formal graduation. Next. These are just some of the pictures. I think it was last year in February. We were asked to participate in the Black Business Expo that you all had here in Haines City. And those are just some pictures. The top two pictures are from that expo. The two pictures at the bottom are from one of our typical catch class sessions. And, again, these are some of the tools that we've used with municipalities to help them be able to put a program in place. These things work best when there is a commitment of multiple years. Because one of the things that happens so often with programs that we've seen that I've worked with over the years, people will come through with a program, throw some money out there. And as soon as people start getting comfortable with it, the next year it's gone. And then people just left. And then they're wondering, well, what happened? So it makes it difficult when you come back many times to re-implement a program because people are saying, well, you know, I've heard this before. And before they get engaged and get invested, they want to sit and see what happens. So you have to sit there and do a lot of work in trying to get people to come out, get them to trust you to come out, that you're going to be around, and so on and so forth. So, you know, it takes some time. It takes time to kind of get those things rooted. But once we're able to get those things in place, then we always try to seek to find other funding sources where it complements the funding from that particular municipality. Thanks. So these are some of the benefits that communities get from BBIC being involved. We work with foundations and municipalities. We started out working with primarily banks, and that evolved. And so we still work with banks. We have one of our major bank partners gave us an EQ2 facility. EQ2 is a equity equivalent facility for us to be able to make loans. It's a loan to us, okay? So we have to try and make good loans, because if we don't, we're still responsible for paying back the money. But that institution trusted us with in excess of a million dollars that they put on our balance sheet for us to make loans. And so we have to be good stewards with those funds, because, again, we still have to make good for those dollars, whether the client pays back or not. And then, of course, we have dollars that we have to make loans. Most of it is money that we have to pay back. Next. Next. And this just kind of tells you, you know, again, some of the things that we bring to the table when you look at the equitable economic ecosystem, where you're trying to make sure that everybody can get access to the things that they need. Some of the good things that we're seeing in the capital space now are organizations, what they call fintechs, okay, financial technology companies that have platforms that make it relatively easy for you to gain access to capital. And that's been a great thing. When I started banking 35 plus years ago, most people to get loans had to come and visit the bank, okay? That was a good thing, but it was also a bad thing, because a lot of people in various communities, they felt they didn 't get a fair share, okay? One of the things that fintechs have been able to do is kind of level the playing field, but they don't even see if you have a decent credit score, your business is marginally profitable, and you have decent collateral and sometimes no collateral at all, they're able to make those loans. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be made at the lowest rates, okay? But my point is the access to capital and the points to access capital have expanded, okay? So it's no longer just strictly based on banks. So we have to have relationships with those kind of institutions as well, and we constantly seek to expand and do that so that we can provide what those clients need. Next. And this just talks about some of the things that we're involved in, the CEO experience and other community events that BBIC has been involved in. And some of those events we sponsor, some of them we put on directly ourselves. But we try to get involved and try to sponsor things that allow business owners to intertwine with each other and get to know each other. You know, I'm one of those people that believe that as business owners network and mix with each other, they begin to see how they can do business together. And so that's why that program was 15 weeks. And we used to require they had to be in class because the idea was to allow them to build themselves as a cohort and hopefully start doing business together and grow their businesses together and start doing business and bringing other people in. So we always try to do those types of things. We've been involved in a lot of different things over the years. And I guess that comes from being involved in banking. As a banker, you're involved in all kinds of things in the community and chambers and so on and so forth. So we try to provide those things. The other things that you'll see that we do is we will invite our clients to events that we sponsor. And James over at Lakeland, he had a cohort of folks that had never been to a chamber, one of the big chamber deniers . So we bought the table, we invited, and there were six of us. Six of us. Six of us. And they got a chance to meet the mayor and things that they had never done before. And many of those things we take for granted because we interact with those folks, but a lot of small business owners never get that opportunity. So we try to find ways to bring value in that respect as well. And so built for equity, open to all. Okay? We don't apologize for who we are. We don't apologize for why we came into existence. But I tell folks, just know that if you come to us for help , regardless, we're going to try and do what we can. We can't help everybody. And, you know, we can't tell people to engage with us, but I think those folks that have very few of them will say it 's been a negative experience. You're going to gain something out of what we're able to bring to the table. The things we share, the knowledge we bring to the table is applicable across the board. It's just that when it comes to businesses that face certain specific challenges, we have a little bit more experience in being able to handle them. But it doesn't mean that we can't do loans and work with people across the board. We seek opportunities to do them. We don't turn folks away. So, you know, one of the things that you will see in our ecosystem is there are a lot of organizations that were brought into existence to fix a need that people saw. Many of you all are familiar with Hispanic Business Initiative Fund. It used to be called Hispanic Business Initiative Fund. It is now called Prospera. Okay, Prospera came about because a lot of folks in the Hispanic community did not have folks who could communicate with them and ensure that they got the needs that they needed, right? And so they had an organization that started to do that. We've worked in partnership with them, especially over in Lakeland and in Tampa. We've been a part of the same programs. So we see each other quite a bit. And, of course, you know, a lot of their sessions are done in Spanish. But at the same time, a lot of the things that they're teaching is applicable, again, across the board. Over in Tampa, we have a – I don't know if you're all familiar with Helen Gordon-Davis. She was a very prominent lady over in Tampa. And in South Tampa, she has an organization that she started, and it's the Women's Business Center. And it's directed to women, but men can go to their events. But it's the Women's Business Center. Okay? So they don't say men can't come, but it was specifically started because they felt that women were not getting the help and assistance that they needed. So I'm sure women found themselves being more comfortable going there. So I say that to say that just because an organization has a targeted constituency doesn't mean that they can't be effective at working with other folks. Because the knowledge and the information is applicable across the board. I think it's the last one. And those are just kind of a recap of some of the things I 've already said. Those are some of the locations where we are and where we 've had offices and are present. So as you can see, kind of spread around Tampa Bay area. And this is just kind of a closer thing. Invest in Tampa Bay's entrepreneurial future. And we like to think that the dollars that are entrusted to us is a good investment in the future of our entrepreneurs here at Tampa Bay. You know, I tell you, I am amazed. And, you know, the amount of work they've done over the years and it's impressive. It's good. It's good. It's good. You know, and, you know, I don't know whether the city can work with it or not. I don't know if it's totally up to the CRA board. Alec, we've got a question for you. Yes. Do they meet all the qualifications to be able to assist and help in the city and the city? Have you reviewed any documents or anything? From their group? Yes. I mean, I've just reviewed what has been shown to you. Right. Okay. So you being the CRA consultant, that's why I asked that question. Would it be beneficial to have something of a BBI assist in the city with a small business? It's something that the board should consider. I mean, right now we have the SBDC written in a contract. They actually have requested for an additional three-year contract and are working with the Ignite Foundation, which is a business incubator that just recently opened in the downtown area. So what they're synergistically doing and how that works with them, I think they should all potentially get together and figure out how they can work in a productive manner so that they're not overstepping each other's balances. I understand. Yeah. I see this as a discussion only. So this is not an action item tonight? No, this is not an action item. The board asks for me to bring this back to the board discussion only at the last board. I think my question back to you, Albert, is thank you for being here, James. Are you all asking for funding from throughout CRA to help support your small business and plant your feet here in H aines City? Yes. Okay. And how much money would you think it would be to get your program started here in the city of Haines City? Well, one of the things that I put together, I think, last one, and we can probably have additional discussion about it. I tried to, I guess for lack of a better description, give me kind of an a la carte type thing because I do know that different cities have different budgets and things like that. We have to be compensated for our time and things that I need to do. We typically will start with the one-on-one consultant. You don't start off with a cash program because you've got to get, a cash program is designed for folks who are ready to learn , who want to learn. Yeah, I understand. I saw the action slide show. I was just saying, when you're asking for funding from the city, my question is, how much funding are you asking for our CRA ? So for the CRA, or I'm not sure, you know, we directed towards the CRA because the CRA was the ones that originally reached out to us a couple of years ago. Yes. And I think in the proposal, there's roughly about 88,000 a year. From our CRA? Yes. Okay. I just wanted some numbers this board can share because we probably won't have time to take action on it tonight. It's just a discussion. But I think the next meeting in June, you know, we should be able to put it on the agenda for, that's why I extend them out. Sure. Whether they're going to accept or reject it. You know, we don't really have the time to go back and forth with us numbers tonight because of the schedule that we have in front of them. Sure. But I would like for our CRA consultant to put it on the agenda and say, hey, you know, BBI, see, it's actually for X number of dollars, and we're either going to accept it, because we've heard your presentation now. So either we're going to accept it or we're going to reject it. And that would be my recommendation for him to put it on the agenda. And I know it looks like it's another month off. But, you know, unfortunately, it's just that we had a lot of items on it tonight. We've been really discussed a lot. So, and I don't know if the board, the scary board, agreed to just bring it back with the amount that they're asking for. And we just need to reject it or prove it at the next meeting. And then we'll go from there. Mr. Jim, I'll do this. Thank you. I think bringing it back to the very next meeting is a little soon, because we are just about to add, fill the two vacancies. So, right, three. So I would suggest that we wait at least one to two months before we bring it back, just so that they can get up to speed in reference to this before coming on and having to make an informed decision, not really knowing all the background. Yeah, and I agree with that. But they can reuse themselves if they don't have the knowledge about it. And then you still have four that's here that has the knowledge that can actually move on if you want to. But I'm okay whether you do it next month or the month after, whenever. I'm good with that. I just think that, you know, we don't have time to really discuss it, because I'm trying to get through this meeting in order to be finished by the 7 o'clock. Right, so my question is, although we don't have time today , and even if our new members recruit themselves, they will only leave four. So should we proceed with only four or allow them time? Like, is it an urgency that we make a decision at the very next meeting? Yeah, and I don't think it's an urgency in there. Let me yield to the council. I don't know. If there's no recognized conflict of interest, I wouldn't recommend that the newly seated board members recuse themselves from voting. However, I did want to bring to your attention as well that there will be some information brought to you that I know you're going to have plenty of discussion on at the next CRA meeting in regards to the extension of the term of the initial CRA district and some other items there. And I know you're going to have a lot of questions. I want a lot of answers to that. Would it be pertaining to their organization? No, no. There will be extension of the same. Right, right. I understand, but that extension has something. Does it have anything to do with their organization? No, just from a timing standpoint, I know that it's going to monopolize most of the questions of the next CRA meeting, and I want to make sure that you're aware of this so you can give them adequate time to have that. I just wanted to. Okay. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Orton. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a few questions. You mentioned, you know, 88,000. And I see some numbers here, like technical assistance, $18 5 an hour, business seminar, $1,850, and the catch program, $1,500 for participants. Is that included on the $88,000? Yes. Or that is not? No, no. That's included. So what I tried to do is if somebody says, hey, look, you know, here's our budget, what can we do? Because, again, like I told you, one of the other things that we try to do is go out and raise additional funds. So the point is, no, it would not be in addition to that. So you wouldn't access that. Okay. And, you know, just a concern, and that's the same thing I said on the previous time you was here, was you have a partnership with Lakeland. And when I asked, you know, one of the biggest sales points that I have heard is giving loans. Yeah. And when I asked how many loans you had done in three years in Lakeland, my concern is very serious that you only did one loan in the three years period. So that really concerns me with the program itself. And, you know, for the take-up time. Yeah, it was the one loan that was approved. It wasn't the only loans that we looked at. It was just that those are the end of it. That one loan, that person actually cut myself. I think we looked at about $1.5 million in loan during that time. So, you know, because we do have underwriting, and we do try to make sure. And sometimes we put offers out there, and people reject them, or we refer them to a bank, and they get funding that way as well. So, yeah. Mayor Wesson, my question is, what data have you produced to know that there are people of color that you can inform them and walk with them in order for us to make an $88,000 budget? Because, Mayor, you remember that we had another similar thing where they had to attend once a week. And at the end of it, we gave them money. We gave them suits. We had partnership with the hospital and other places, and they didn't go. So, I just want to know, what data do you have to show that you're going to reach 50 people, 100 people, and the people of color? Because if not, that's just $88,000 that we have wasted with you because we've tried this before, and it was not a success. Yes, ma'am. No, I understand what you're saying. You know, again, we can never predict and say who's going to interact with BBIC. One of the things I will tell you that the way that we were introduced to Haines City was through one of the previous CRAs. They saw a presentation, a similar presentation we made with a group of other CRAs from around Polk County. And based on their experience and their interactions with the community, they felt we needed to be here. And so, that took place over about a year and a half that we worked and talked to them to come again, going to the expo. And one of the things that we were asked by Alex, Alex Olin , Alex said, hey, guys, you know, come to the expo, and then you have a better sense of whether you think you guys can make an impact over here. And, of course, the expo was not fully attended, but I thought that was a decent start. I've seen less. And that's why I tell you it does take time to build these things. People see programs all the time. You mentioned that that program came and it went. And that's typically what happens. You do not get instant success in programs like this. It's just like trying to redevelop a CRA. There are CRAs that I've been involved in that have been around almost completed their 30-year cycle. And they're just beginning to move. And now they're talking about getting rid of CRAs. So, the disinvestment, just like it happened over time, this investment takes time. So, the only thing I can tell you is that you start working with the folks in the community. James can tell you there are some folks that have been driving down to Fort Meade from Haynes City because they want to interact and get some of the programming that he's been bringing down in Fort Meade because we're not here. So, I don't want that to be anecdotal and say because those 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 people are doing that, that everybody here is all of a sudden going to start coming. But I'm saying that gives you some indication that there's an interest. And in my opinion, you know, you try to do what you can. We don't like just wasting time. I have much better things to do than just waste time. If I see folks aren't interested, then, you know, I mean, you can't make people start a business. That's why the CATS program was designed and structured the way that it is. You don't just walk into class. There is a commitment. You miss two classes, you get kicked out. And that's because if you're going to be serious and you're going to be an entrepreneur, if you can't commit to learning for yourself, then what more can I do for you? Thank you. Kevin, no one else. Mr. Mayor, I'll be quick for instance of time. A couple of the questions I had did get answered, which was about, you know, have you had any engagement from people from Hayden City? I did. And I did get the answer to that. So my follow-up question would be, do your organization, in the implementation phase of it, do you do any community engagement? Yes. And again, that expo and some of the other events that you go to, once people see you around, James has been doing it on his own. You know, he likes that. I mean, he likes that. He's done the same thing down in Fort Meade. And it's helping a lot because it builds credibility. You know, it builds credibility. And he's genuine about it. Yes. Commissioner, if I may, James Randolph kept that blank business. One of the key things that I look for is what I would consider a big deal. Right? That if we move forward with this, we have a couple of meetings and let the people know who and outreach, that this is going to happen. We missed that opportunity when we were down in Fort Meade, which it worked. Right? But word and outreach that we did turned out that, I would say, we did a concentrated effort of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And we had from 12 to 24 people at every session. I did a session from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m., Thursday and Friday, Saturday mornings, 10 o'clock to 12. And each one of those days, we had 12 or more folk who had came to that. To me, that was the type of commitment that I was driving for and looking for. To close that and back to Commissioner Huffman's question is, at the conclusion, we were working on an opportunity there where as a grant dollar can be made available. At the conclusion, I got 29 packets, application packets with business plans and all, applying for the dollars that Fort Meade had available at that time. So I think that does speak to your question about some of the activities and data that we can share. We're going to wrap this up because of the time schedule for us when we have some other things on the agenda. But what we're going to do, and Commissioner Dowling had a great point. We want to make sure the other new board members can act to the meeting and send them to back up and the CRA consultant can send it to them. They can read it and discuss it later, play another meeting , and then give them an opportunity to be able to give a vote and vote with their candidates. You know, just vote because they want to vote. But nevertheless, give them an opportunity to read the back up and then vote. But we're going to, you know, and we hate to keep the hand on the road a little longer for you guys, but it may be in July. Like you said, it's got to only be fair to them. It wouldn't be fair enough because we only meet once a month. Right. So let's, Alex, let's bring this back, not you guys, for discussion once again, and we can talk about it. I think you'll be able to present something next month to the new board member, and then the month after that, then we can take it past the vote whether we want to accept the board member or not. Of course. All right. Thank you all, guys. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay, we're going to move on to the next item. We're going to move very quick here. We've got a selection of candidates filled for two vacant CRA board seats, and I think some names was actually given to the end. We had a couple of names, and I'll yield back over to our deputy city clerk, so you can give us the numbers and the names. I'll take one we had, Castro was one, correct? Okay. I can't hear you. Okay. Remember, Miranda's in our... It's on the first page. Yeah, I don't think I might just be able to... I guess that's... Okay. Okay. It appears that... It appears that... See here? See? See here? Okay, he's here. Okay. It appears that it was like out of the five months... Did you cast your vote? I'll go ahead and do this. Okay. You want to... Excuse me. Well... No. We see... We see... Okay. Okay. So it was Monday, and that was... That was after the period. No, the cutoff period was at the closing business. Okay, the cutoff period, and it's Whitney, and... And you sent us this here and gave us the name, Whitney, Stan. And... I see the address here, and it says 41 Tangelo Drive, and that's not within our city limit. That's actually... It has a hand-cita address, but I think it's in Lake Hamilton. And 3520, Baker Dary Road, you know, for me and my law enforcement days, that's not also in our city. And I think the big statute... It states on the statute, I think it's 163, that in order to serve a vice mayor on the CRA board, you either have to have... Live in or reside within the city limits of Haines City, or you have to have a business association within the city limits of Haines City. So, just for clarification... Yeah? That business address is a part of the Christian life. That's not in our city. Business where it is. Yeah, but that's not in the city. Understood. Yeah. Part of it is outside of the county. So, what... And I love the fact that we're now getting folks that we don't have to call and say, can you serve on board for us? That they're coming out to us, and that speaks for you. And I really appreciate the fact that, you know, she wants to serve on board. And it's just that I think we have to... We'll be violating the Florida State Statute 163 because the fact is, it states in there that you have to be within our... Is that correct, Alan? It's not Statute 163. It's part of it, but yeah. And then within our ordinances, yes. So, from a business standpoint, the business needs to be within our districts, within our districts, or live within the city limits. Right, yes. And that was... Department Christian Center is not in our city limits. Okay. So... Intangible Drive is in Lake Hamilton, I think, off the det our room. It has a handset address, but they're not in our city limits. So, Mr. Chair, just to clarify, so what Madam Deputy Clerk was stating is that the delay, because it states here that I did not submit, the delay was I was waiting to get the additional applications, which we did not receive, by the closing of business on Monday until I required about it. So at that time, I did go ahead. Once I was... Well, the rest of all, I did submit my nomination. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm not a nominee. I'm a nominee. I'm a nominee. And... So that should I be recognized? You may. Thank you. Just for clarification, because I was also under the impression that at the last meeting that the application period was supposed to close that following Monday, not Monday, because this is the last one in May, after they were due to reach out to one applicant who had forgotten to submit, I guess, the application, but had already submitted the resume and everything. And then the clerk, the clerk, I think you were out, and the clerk asked, when do we want to close it? And we said, go ahead and close it effective that Monday. So that would have actually been in April, not April 6th. The CRA meeting was April 2nd. That following Monday was April 6th. Yes, but she did meet the guidelines. She did meet the deadline date, which you're saying. Oh, okay. She met the deadline date. It's in the minutes that she met the deadline date. I don't have an issue. I don't have an issue with that. I just don't want to make sure that we're in guidance. I just want to make sure that we're in order with the statute. I don't want to violate. No one is violated for the state statute. Correct. And Mr. Chair, not to interrupt, but when you step out, I was simply, I wanted to have that based on the record being the reason that that's the case. I did not submit simply because I was waiting until then. No, I understand. Yeah. You had time. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. So, you know, you have an opportunity now because if she doesn't meet the guidelines, of course, the guidelines are before the statute. Now, it's not the state statute. So if she don't meet the guidelines, you have an opportunity to collect. I think you have two, right? Correct. So you have another one or you don't have another candidate that you want to replace, you know, just collect? No. It's not. Yeah. Okay. So it's Clarence Daniels. So we have two votes for Daniels and then we have two votes for Jeff Benny and then we have one for Simpson. That we have. So it appears that we have to, I don't like it if Commissioner Huffman will have to make it. Well, if you look at it, Daniels, because that's your vote for Daniels. Yeah, I think Commissioner Huffman, I think you have voted for Simpson. It's not your second choice. Yeah, but Simpson only got one vote. So you will have to cast a deciding vote between Benny, Jesse, and Clarence Daniels. They got two votes. Yeah, we got two votes. Yeah, it's pronounced. Nice man, you just went with Daniels. Right. But shouldn't the whole board just simply vote between Daniels and Benny? Because Commissioner Huffman has already selected him. But it's going to be two, two. And you can't. That's why I'm telling you, she has to cast a deciding vote . If we vote now, you got two, two. The only person to vote is down unless you want to change the decision. Right. Unless you want to change it, but I don't think it'll be fair to the person that you already had time to select. But we got to expedite this a little bit. You know, because if we vote now, it'll be two, two. She's still got to cast her vote. Her candidate is not from those. That's right. Yes. So you have to make the silence of whoever, out of Jesse and Daniel, Commissioner of the Chair. You follow what I'm saying? I follow it. I follow it. But what I was saying is, because based on how it reads, so Pastor Castro was up everyone. So he's not even a hot seat. He's saying. So right now we have two votes for Daniels and we have two votes for Jesse. You can't vote again. You've already voted. That's your selection. He has already voted also. Yeah, but her candidate doesn't mean to project. She's just only got one vote. You follow what I'm saying? I mean, we can do a whole board of all of the parties. It's going to end up being two, two. I think that I would be the tiebreaker in this situation. Yeah, you'll be the tiebreaker. And I vote Daniels. Okay. Either way, it's still going to be two, two. She's got to vote. But Daniels can have a great vote. Yeah. All right. So let's do this here. Since we've got this on the agenda, I'm trying to rush back . I want to make sure we get through this meeting. So to fill our position, the first one, we need to make a motion that we appoint Pastor Castro as a board member. Make a motion to appoint Pastor Castro as a CRA board member. Second. All right. We have a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carried. Pastor Castro, you can come on up here and take a seat. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Thank you, sir. So much. So our next one, we have another one. And Commissioner Oakland voted for Clarence Daniels. So we need someone to make a motion that we select Clarence Daniels as the second vote. I move that we accept Clarence Daniels. Do we have a second? All right. We have a motion. Now we have a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carried. All right. Clarence, you can come on up and take a seat. Congratulations to the both of you guys. Y'all don't know what y'all want to sign up. Thank y'all so much. You can't get out of the board for five years. So it's a five-year commitment. And we'll have our Commissioner-elect, Lakeel Johnson, will be serving in the outgoing of our Commissioner-Omar Arroyo. At this time, we're going to continue to expedite this. We have some candidates here for the CRA manager position. I think we have three. And we're going to give them an opportunity. And we don't have to make a decision tonight, but we want to give them at least a... That elevator speech, Rick, to tell us a little bit about himself. Maybe give them three minutes about what you're talking about. Yes, I'd like to bring up one thing. I was just informed that one of the candidates, Mr. Ed Zeno -Gonzalez, has respectfully reviewed the room. So we only have two? So we have two. Okay. So we can give them... We'll probably give them maybe three minutes like we do at ... Three minutes each, like we do at our comments. And that way they can give us a pass-through and elevate us a speech by itself. We don't have to take any action tonight, Rick. But you can work there. That's correct. Unless this board wants to take any action. That's correct. This is just an option of being recorded. You can use resumes. My email wasn't working. Yes. So did you all get the resume? Is it sure? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get the resumes. The resumes were sent to us, the backup and everything. You didn't get it? That's correct. You didn't get it? You didn't get it? Yeah. You didn't get it? My email wasn't working until later. Okay. What we're going to do tonight is just have them present themselves. And then we'll make sure we get the resumes from these two. And then if you want to select someone, the first meeting next month, we'll come back. If we agree that out of the two that's here, that we're okay with one of them, then we can make out of the two. We'll make our selection at the end stage. This is the one we like. We have two. With the first one, you want to have come up, Alan? Either one. We have Amy Wheeler and Emilio Garibaldi. I'm always firm believer that ladies is first. And I think Ms. Amy Wheeler should come up and present. We're going to put you on the spot. Amy. Hold on. You come up, state your name and address for the record. And then tell us a little bit about your test. You're about to give the history. Good evening. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having me. I'm Amy Wheeler. My address is in Lake Wales. Is it private information? Is that okay? I can provide that with you. Yeah, you don't have to. Just say you're in Lake Wales. Okay. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I had the pleasure of attending your 100th anniversary celebration here in Hades City, and I fell in love. You've got a beautiful city that is in a perfect position to capitalize on your growth here. One of the things I specialize in, I've lived here for two years in Hope County. As the assistant city manager for me, I was able to procure $2.2 million for the city. I am a grant writer. I am a PMI certified contract manager. I've got 29 years of experience on the master's degree in public administration, a bachelor's degree in journalism. And I'm here to make a difference. I believe in excellence. I think that redevelopment is what's going to bring the city to be the crowning jewel of the ridge. I know you're more pressed for time. Are there specific questions that you'd like to ask of me? I'd like to be as quick as possible. Yeah, my question quickly is that have you had any experience in working with CRAs and when you reset in Fort Me? What is your connection with the CRA in Fort Me? Absolutely. I have the pleasure of supervising the CRA position here. And so we've brought a new project there. We're rehabbing 25 homes. That just started in April. We have made great strides with our downtown landscape project. We just completed a sidewalk project there. And I've just had such a good opportunity to get to know the community and also to facilitate lots of new initiatives there. I've worked with Campbell Black Business Investment Board there. And redevelopment is happening. It's happening here in Polk County. And I'll be sure to continue the progress that the consultant is making, which is you're in great position. And so... Do anybody have any other questions? So I have one quick question. In doing a little bit of research prior to this meeting, knowing that you were in Fort Me? When you initially were there as the assistant city manager , town manager, at that time, I think you all kind of redef ined your CRA there, right? It almost started over to the grant, especially with the programs, right? Absolutely. So the programs were dormant. We had no active programs with CRA. At the time, there was a $1.7 million streetscape project through a grant that was dormant. And so we reactivated that streetscape project. We also negotiated the building of the first new municipal building in Fort Meade, which is a library and hurricane shelter. So we've done quite a lot over there in just two years. And so we're very proud of that. All right. Another question? Thank you. Thank you. So I heard you state that you have supervised the CRA manager, but have you had direct responsibility for CRA? Have you yourself did any type of CRA management for projects? Do you have a CRA portfolio? Do you have any of those things? Yes. I, we actually, in Fort Meade, we are working on the CRA plan, the conference that we have. And I prefer to make grant from our Board of Commerce to develop our conference that we have in the second phase of our progress. And we'll have that accomplished within the month, actually , to develop a CRA plan there. There was no CRA plan when I arrived. Okay. And are you familiar with the state statute 163? I am. I'm glad you're familiar. They're talking about sun setting CRAs in 2039, so what I would do is obviously apply for the additional 50 years so that that would extend to 2045. Just kind of ensure that other grant funding was brought in because that's other methods to procure funds here. Okay, and then, Ms. Mayor, just my last question. And besides the TIF funding, what experience do you have as far as or what would you propose as far as transparency for the CRA budget? And I understand that you are experiencing grant writing, so that was part of the question. So as far as infrastructure and sidewalks, what would be your proposal? I think we should engage the community. You have roads and districts that can be adopted by community organizations. You know, I've spent several years working on the side, the road sides in Tallahassee, where I live for many years. You can really get the community engaged and involved in understanding how to beautify the community, move their own hands. And there's so many creative ways to do that. I just love New York City. And I think that the community, the spirit of community here is something that we need to continue to motivate and encourage those of us who understand community redevelop ment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. It's more than questions. It's just a personal opinion. To me, CRA, somebody for our CRA, for the type of CRA that we have and the budget that we have, which is over $11 million now, I would like to see somebody that has experience in something similar to it. You know, nothing against your expertise, but at the end of the day, you haven't really dealt with the CRAs. We have a couple of deputy city managers here in our city. And, you know, I know there are not any near to being experts when it comes to the CRA and all the Florida stat utes. There are to it for the different programs that you can do. So, you know, to me, that's one of the key elements that has to be with anybody leading our CRA, having real experience with CRA, knowing the issues that can be and being proactive and not getting into falling into one of those issues that can get us in trouble. With the sunset, you know, that's another very important thing that we have to make sure that whoever is leading the CRA knows every step necessary so we can either get extended or possible searching some other option that we might have. We'll not necessarily need the blessing of the county commissioners. So that's just my general, not just with you, but with anybody applying for our CRA. I would love to have somebody that has some serious experience managing a CRA. Thank you, man. You're welcome. Will there be another? No, it's not real. We want to go. What contractors have you dealt with since you being the manager over the CRA personnel? We have engaged with East Habitat, East Habitat for Hum ility. We're working on the rehab. We are working with retail strategies, surveys for retail businesses. We're also engaged with Voto Construction. Voto's 25 minority construction firm. Central Florida Regional Development Council. Excuse me. Excuse me. These are organizations. What I want to know is what experience do you have with contractors to where, if necessary, you can go out to your residential and see that something isn't done properly or to code? I work very close to the code enforcement. I work very close to the code enforcement. I work very close to the code enforcement. And it would also do the same here. We certified project manager. So with that said, I'm going to stay on top of any contractor in which the city is engaged in a project with. I work very close to the city is engaged in a project with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. I work very closely with the city. My last question is this CRA board is very active and they do a lot of, we do a lot of research research. We get right to the point. I don't know what it's like in Lake Wales. I know that being interviewed by a panel can make you nervous, but we are one panel that if you are not doing what we feel should be doing, we will eat you for life. I believe you. I believe you. I believe you. I believe you. The truth. Anybody have any quick comments? Just real quick. I think it is worth stating that while we do have a different structure here, I think in the current city, if you do go and you look down, if you go and you look at that structure, I think the assistant city manager has a lot more, wears a lot more hats than what they would here in Hayden City. So it is worth noting and like I said, this is just doing a little dive into the candidates that we had. I think the involvement or the workability with the CRA, it for me was the experience that we were talking about. I think it is a lot more hands on as far as developing their plan and also putting things into action. I think it is worth stating that. Thank you. I just want to say one thing. I know we have one additional candidate that we need to interview, so we do need to be moving on. But I just wanted to make sure that with the job posting that we have put out for the experience, because I think the board was clear about asking for someone with direct experience with CRA. And I understand Fort Meade and I know Fort Meade is up and coming, but let's just be transparent. Like, Fort Meade hasn't even scratched the surface of what Hayden City is about to do. And no offense to Ms. Willard, but that's just where we are . So, again, I'm very impressed with her resume, but I was actually looking for something that showed direct CRA experience to come in and keep this ball rolling where we 're at. Because I don't see y'all stopping anytime soon. We have so much that's even in the pipelines right now and we're instead of adding on. So, I just wanted to make sure with Deputy Clerk and the Attorney that we do have those requirements, and I'm sure we do, as far as what is expected of the CRA manager. And I thought that those were the applications that was going to come before us, the ones that met the guidelines. All right. Thank you. I can tell you that we've had approximately around 81 applicants that has applied for our CRA manager position. You know, and out of the 81, I don't think maybe one out of the 81 met all the criteria. So, that's the issue that how long do you wait? You know, so everyone, you may have to get someone here that may not meet all the criteria, but then we can actually make them learn. They have to learn the city. We'll be waiting. We can be waiting a year, a year and a half. And we can't keep our consultant that long. I mean, it's very expensive for a consultant to get there. But at some point, we have to, we got to make a selection and move on. Yes, ma'am. The decision. Okay, not the clerk's hall. Yes. Okay. Just want to make sure it was viewed by the deputy city manager. Well, thank you, Ms. Wheeler, for being here tonight. And you will hear back from us at a later date. Thank you so much. Any final comments? Thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to showing you what I can do. I'm just talking about it. And we thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to showing you what I can do. And we thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Who's there a second? What's the name? Mr. Emilio Garibaldi Jr. Okay. Come on up, sir. Garibaldi. Apologies. Commissioner Hopper, no eat him alive yet. Good afternoon, Commission. Thank you for allowing me to be up here. I have this opportunity. 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I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. I'm going to be able to help me. Have you ever worked with, not just with, but have you ever done any CRA work, not with an organization, but yourself? Yes, I've worked with the CRA, not under the city. I've never been a CRA director. Like, I've never worked for the municipality, but I've worked with them for many, many, many years. As a consultant? Yes, 100%. Not just a consultant. Like I said, I've done, I've worked as a consultant for them, but also for building owners, business owners, for the town itself, for myself personally. I've done everything that the CRA is involved with, I've done in a certain capacity. Okay, and thank you for that clarification. Anyone wants to respond? Yes, thank you. So, as consulting, what type of consulting do you do with them? Well, with consulting, when the first thing you need to do is, and you guys can take this, whether you hire me or not, I think information is free for everyone. And when you, the first thing you need to do with the city is, the building owners are very important. The building owners need to be personally spoken to. They need to understand, because every business, every building owner, they have their own situation. Whether it's financial, whether it's personal, whether it's personal, and we don't know what's going on with them. A lot of times, building owners, they're not educated in the fact of how they bring businesses into their buildings, bring them into the city. They don't understand that, because they're just trying to, some of them are trying to get rents. They just want their rents to come in. And it's a lot more than that, because they want to grow their business, they want to grow their buildings, and they want it to be profitable. And without educating them, you're not going to move forward. Once you start getting them on board, you'll start knocking them down like dominoes, and then it's a constant. Yeah, but as a consultant for the CRA, I mean, you get paid for something, you know, specific, um, consulting, right? What specific consulting do you do? So you don't work with the CRA? No. No. So you haven't consulted directly with the CRA? I've never had anything for it. Okay. Thank you. No questions. Okay. Mr. Shep. I'm not going to aid them a lot. All right. We do have our two new members here. Any questions? Board member? Board of those names. I didn't call on them, because I want them to be just observation. Okay. Okay. And I have a question. Okay. You have any final thoughts on anything for us before you next day? Absolutely. Your city, your city is in a unique position. Um, you're, you're the heart of Florida. And you have Davenport, Orlando, Lakeland, Winter Haven, all these cities that are going around you, and you guys are moving so fast. The uniqueness of that needs a unique person to come in to, to not only view, but to make relationships with the business owners, building owners, the council itself, the county, the organizations. There's so much, so many different organizations and people that you can leverage and subsidize for the city itself. And I'm an expert at that. I'm an expert at that. That's what I do. And it's what I've always been. And I believe for this city, I can make a massive impact. Thank you. And thank you for being here tonight. Oh, absolutely. And you want to hear back from us. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let's continue with this agenda that's in front of us. We have 120 minutes to get it done. Item 5B is the residential rehab program. I like to. Yes. So, we're requiring the residential rehab rehabilitation grant program. We have a few items that we need for the long termination line. The first two homes are 2416 Embry Avenue and 6 Citrus Avenue. And I'll go into more detail with them. 2416 Embry Avenue is, both of them are in a unique situation. 2416, the homeowner is actually also in the county program. The county program will be in the next two, two and a half years, will be destroying her house and rebuilding her a new one. And so, at this point in time, we have done some work to the house in terms of the roofing because it is two years long. But I would like to have the board's understanding of how to handle these types of situations when the homeowners are also within the county program so that we can utilize the funding of most of the appropriate manner. So, we're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. We're going to be talking about the district. I'll tell you from my seat, if they're in another program, like the county program, and why would we put in waste money and they're going to be raising that home in the next year? So that's money that we've just blown away. So if they're in another program and their house is going to be raised, we shouldn't spend any CRA money, even though they meet the qualification. I don't think that's just from my seat, but I can be more than welcome and happy to hear from the seatmates that their thoughts on a house is going to be raised and we're going to spend a CRA money. I think it's going to be important if we waste some money. Thank you. So I did speak with the county in reference to this because both of these property homeowners contacted me and I went out and I met with them and I did my due diligence as far as contacting the county. Now, they were already approved for our program. And then with the joint policies that we have, we have been helping people that we come up with that may qualify for the new program. Well, for that program with the county and this particular address here on entry, they have already done the rule. Now, speaking with the county, the county advised me that they would probably get to their name on the list within the next three years. That doesn't guarantee that they're going to actually be serviced. That's just where they are on the list three years out from now. So, this particular property, we've already done the roof to the home and then all work stopped to come back before the board. Now, as we know, the county serves the entire county. So, just because their name comes up on the list within three years, it could still be longer than that before they actually receive any services. So, our main goal that we need to take into consideration is that we are here to eliminate life. So, are we going to allow this particular home to stay in this condition that's basically falling apart with the homeowners living inside for the next possibly three to five years for this particular one? And then the second one, again, this particular homeowner, I think that is Mr. Bowie, he has yet to even apply to be qualified for anything for that or his particular home. So, again, he meets all the requirements for our rehab program. He's technically not in it, although our project coordinator did help him apply for it to see if he would qualify. And that's what we want our coordinators to do. If they meet the requirements for the county that they can get a brand new home built. But, again, you have to look at the timeframe that we are talking about. So, one, again, the Citrus Avenue hasn't even been qualified for their program. He's not on a waiting list or anything. So, I really don't even understand why that is being brought before us because if they are three to five years out on their actual waiting list now for people who have been qualified, he's probably looking at five to ten years before he's serv iced. So, for me, I would say go ahead. They've met all the requirements already. We have already started with this particular home. By replacing the roof, we should continue to replace all the other projects that he applied for, whether it's from the windows. And if you look at the back of this home is in very, very bad condition. And so, we are meeting the guidelines to illuminate light in our district. So, that's my take. All right. No problem. Quickly, though, I just, my rebuttal to that, the fact that , you know, we put a roof on our house and the roof is a 15- and 20-year roof. If they get their house raised and built new within the next five years, then we wasted a 15-year roof on a home that we spent money on. It's just, you know, I just think that, now that first, the second one, citrus issues, you mentioned, we shouldn't have to leave them. That should be a no-brainer. We would have definitely assisted them. But I just, you know, I just have a problem when we put a roof on a house that's going to be torn down by the county in three years. And then the roof is a 15-year investment. And we've just blown 15 years. I'm sorry, our money for a 15-year investment. You have a comment? Thank you for that. So, in looking at this, I know when we redesigned the residential rehab program, we were taking into consideration homes that are in this condition. As far as referring them out to the county and other agencies that may be able to assist. I do, I understand both points that were made. I do have some of those same concerns. Even though we don't want any residents, you know, spending something that's not happening. But at the same time, being at the, we're only, for lack of a better term, conducting, you know, truly what the issue is in the ultimate fix is going to be, you know, a complete rebuild. We don't have those same concerns. I mean, the funds are there, but are we spending those funds wisely when we know that the house is going to be raised? Yeah. It's an old terminology that said, when you do that, all you're doing is putting lipstick on a pig. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You're dressing it up, but it's still a pig. I mean, you're going to dress the house up, and they're going to tear it down. So it's important. It doesn't make sense. But, yes, you're going to. So, and on the second property, which I do see the condition of that home, is there, with our communication with the county, do we have a new commissioner down in the due diligence? But do we have any information on the county's process when they will actually be able to make over the project? It sounds like it's quite a lengthy process that they're going to give us an overview on it and make just the process itself in the six to one year just to get on to the list. And then another year and a half to two and a half years after that before the work is actually completed. So would it be fair to say that we can put these residents maybe in a better condition for a period of three, five years? That's correct. So really the crux of the matter is we do the full scope within the program, and they are absolutely eligible for it . It's whether or not you want to do the full scope. They have a roof. From my perspective, the roof, HVAC, those are two things without a good roof that you're having leaking in a situation. That makes it a quality likelihood of the homeowner is diminished. Likewise with HVAC. But when it comes to windows and exterior doors, that's where I wanted to have the board's direction because is it basically responsible to move forward with those type of renovations knowing that in two to three years it's all going to be torn down? My question is, this is an action item for both of these, correct? You need to sign up? That's correct. All right. So for time to say, are we going to okay to continue with the rehab on them or we're not? We're not going to make a motion. Do we want to continue with rehabbing on these homes? Well, quick comment before that. Are we giving the option to everybody that has more than, that goes over the 50,000 barrier? Are we telling everybody that they can come to this board and ask for if they have some other stuff that they need to get fixed? We need to know. We need to know. You know, because to me that's an issue. You know, I have got calls from people that are going to rehab and they've been told that they cannot get all the stuff that their house is needed. But we have some people here that have come before and asked for this board to approve, you know, a little excess. Not a huge excess, $10,000, $20,000. But I think the only fair thing is to tell those people that their houses don't fully get fixed with the 50,000, that they can also come here and request this board to finish the project completely and not just leave them halfway because they don't know. You know, some people do know that they can come here, but the vast majority don't know. So they think the 50,000 is the debt. So, you know, just something that I think it should be put out there. Mayor West, my concern is whatever we do for these houses is going to be a five-year length. Whatever the county does when they tear it down and build it from new, I don't know if it's a three-year or a five- year. Ten or 15 years. Ten or 15 years. Ten or 15 years. Okay. So, if for some reason the deed changes as far as the name, who's going to get paid first? Will it be us at five years or will it be the county? I think that's a lien possession question the attorney might be. Florida is a recording state, so first in time, first in right. However, most likely the county would request a release of lien prior to performing any type of demolition work on the property. And... Yes. So the county? Yes. Yeah. If there was going to be any money that was received, it would most likely be the county because they would require us to release before they demo. Yes. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Let's take some action on this here. You know, we're going to continue to read out these. We need to make a motion. Is it more for a motion of anything that has to do with the county or are we doing the full scope as it is described in the program or are we limiting the scope? We don't eliminate the scope. Okay. And that's what I want, like, the direction on this. Good. Can someone make a motion? Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to continue with the scope as is written for 906 Citrus Avenue and also 2416 Embry Avenue . You want us to separate these or you want them to pull them together? It... It... Or... You can put them together. Ultimately, if it's the same situation, I'm going to be consistent in that any other matters like these will be handled the same way. That's been no problem. So we have a motion by Commissioner Downing on the team that we have on these two residential rehab programs. Homes that he presented to us. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Now we have a second. All in favor. So, uh, I... Aye. All opposed, like, sign. Motion is carried. Next item we have is what address? That one. Uh, 1001 Avenue C. Okay. This one has to do with a special consideration for, uh, exceeding the grant of maximum allowance. So they, they went over to 50,000? That's correct. Okay. And I think it's a no brainer for this board. Let me tell you why. Because we've done this before. And we, we've extended, and they've been before us, they got approval for that. That's what original Royer was saying. Once you do it for one, you're almost to the point that you can't deny anyone else for doing it because we've approved it for. But, you know, on the, on the, on the, on top of that, like I say, if there is any others that have applied, and they, the, the funds don't, are enough to complete the repairs, you guys should tell them that they can come here. Or you, you know, just bring it here. Because I know at least two properties that they've been told that they're not going to be able to complete everything because they're going to exceed the 50,000. And I think it's an extra seven or $8,000 that is needed. Well, Commissioner Royer, if you recall, the board stated that for any residents who exceed for the CRA consultant to bring that back before us automatically for either approval or denial of that. So it's not necessarily up to the residents to say, to tell you that they want to come back before the board, you should automatically bring that back to us for a vote to be able to complete all the necessary work to the homes. So I'm going to also suggest, as Commissioner Royer stated, that there was two people that he spoke with that you find out who those people are. And then at our next board meeting to bring them back so we can do the completion of the home because there's no need to, like you said, we've already been approving any over ages, especially a small overages, $5,000, $7,000 to leave that home incomplete. So I would just recommend that we reach out to those two, bring those two back before us so we can hear such calls and then make a determination on that. All right, quickly then, let's just want to make a motion to extend over the 50,000 for 1,001 Avenue Steve. Make a motion to approve. All right, we have a motion and we have a second all in favor. All right. All opposed, like sign motion carries. We're going to eliminate one of these items. It's going to be 5D, if you can bring that back at our next meeting. What we're going to do is cover the board meeting. That's been one that's been on the agenda for quite some time. And then we're just a second for the mural. So we want to approve that tonight and we can get that started. Yes, that's a perfect meeting. So in regards to the mural, it's come to our attention that the wall, as you've seen, is pictured here, is not exactly, not flat. Right? So in terms of to resurface it, it would be an additional cost. If we just resync through this call, it would be $3,400 if approved, and it could be completed on May 13th. Okay. Any questions? We wanted to make sure we're going to do a mural that is done right. Exactly. We don't want to put money in something that's not done correctly. So my recommendation was to approve this additional amount of money to get that done correctly. So are they going to stucker the wall? Is that what they're doing? They're going to stucker the wall if that's correct. So it's both sides? It's 3,400. It's both sides. Okay. Yeah. So I want a good job. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. We can't give you an open question. Okay. So it started in the bottom of that. I mean, in about five minutes. Yeah. What is it? Is it a special? Yeah. I'm a special question. Mr. Chair, this time I make a motion to approve the additional funds for the Boys and Girls Club Resurving Project. Second. Well, we have a motion. Now we have a second. All in favor and reference to this item. Aye. All of those like signs. Thank you so much. We're going to skip over that item that I just mentioned to you go 5D, Alec, and bring it back on the 1st of June. And we want to have time just for our new CRA board members to maybe introduce themselves and give us a brief comment. We'll start with my right plan. My name is Connor Daniels. I ran for a mission seat with the city of Haines City in 2024. I've always looked forward to working with the city and helping the city move forward and do what I can with the city. And I'm pleased to be on the board and I hope I can do it right then and help them move everything along. Thank you. Thank you and welcome aboard, Mr. Castro. Yes, sir. My name is Rafael Castro and it's an honor for me to be a part of the board. I've been living in Haines City now since 2017 and I've seen the growth in that short period of time. So I'm very interested and excited to be able to be a part of the continuing growth in Haines City and be a blessing to everyone involved. Thank you for your service. Yeah, thank you so much. We didn't tell you that every meeting you got to bring a dollar or two dollars to the meeting. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much. You all are volunteers so you all get paid for this. We just thank you for your service in Haines City. Is there any comments from our C.R.A. Board members? No comments. Just let me give their email address to the deputy city manager. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, we'll make sure. And I know that this is going to be Commissioner Omar Arroy o's last commission leader and his last C.R.A. Board meeting . So thank you so much for all the years of service that you have provided to the city of Haines City. And you have set this standard and you set the bar for anyone. And you know, they got to go off your shoulders. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. It has been an honor of mine serving in the C.R.A. Board together with the commissions and previous board members that were here. And I know you guys are going to do great work for our city . So thank you for your service. Thank you. We have one more item. The board, we would like to consider a special meeting for the architectural designs for the Stuart Commons building. We've met with the architect. They're looking for their inspiration and direction of which should be a single story, multi-story so that they can work on the designs. Once they have that, those inputs, we're looking at roughly five to six months before we have 90% completion of those drawings. Can you email us a couple of dates that you'd like to have a meeting and then we can see you those dates back? Of course, yep. I'll work at the clerk's office and see what the dates are and we'll email new dates to the board. Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you for moving us so quick. This is going to start quick. At this time, we're going to close the C.R.A. Board meeting . We're going to reconvene in 7:05. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you. We're going to go ahead and see you.

. . . . . . . . . . Thank you for letting this meeting be a blessed meeting, Lord. There will be no disagreement. There will be all in one accord. We ask all the investors in your son, Jesus, in the holy name. Amen. Now, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice as well. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I am not past the cash flow. I didn't see it in the audience. But we'll continue with the agenda that's in front of me. The first item on the agenda, we have a presentation and a proclamation. This is for Record Information Management Month. And I think the city clerk has a proclamation. She's going to be reading it and to record the city clerk. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Whereas records and information are vital assets that support the effective operation of government, ensure transparency, and preserve the history of our community. And whereas records and information management, known as R IM, professionals play a critical role in maintaining accurate, accessible, and secure records in accordance with the applicable laws, including Florida's public records and retention requirements. And whereas the proper management of records enhances accountability, supports informed decision-making, protects the rights of citizens, and promotes trust in government. And whereas the city of Payne City is committed to uphold ing the highest standard of records management, including the implementation of efficient systems, digital transformation, and compliance with state statutes and best practices. And whereas the month of April is recognized nationwide as Records and Information Management Month, providing an opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of effective records management, and to recognize the professionals who support this essential function. So now, therefore, I, Morris West, Mayor of the City of Pay ne City, Florida, on behalf of the City Commission, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2026, as Records and Information Management Month, in the City of Payne City, and we encourage all employees and citizens to recognize the importance of proper records management and to support efforts that ensure the preservation, protection, and accessibility of public records. A witness whereof we set my hand and caused the official seal of the City of Payne City to be affixed this 22nd day of April 2026. And I'm particularly... I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I'm going to do something in a different life. I just wanted to give just a little update on the public records that the city does, not just Sharon. I was really giving a lot of attention to the police department. They have a whole complete records division where they assist me. But I wanted to let you know that as of today, April 22nd, Payne City has processed 544 public records and almost 100 police and fire records. And we have a turnaround time of 2.94 days on public records and 4 days on police. And that's really, really good, which means we're staying in compliance. We have times where sometimes these records are very, very large. But we have a great team because it goes across all the departments to try to pull this information on that city clerk's office really manages the records. It takes the entire team. So thank you for recognizing the month. But I just say it to all who help in making the records a good thing for the city. We want to be transparent, able to give the records that are asked for in a timely fashion. Thank you. Any comment from the day? It's been mentioned to our records divisions and the work they do in the department of police and the city of police. Any comments or questions? I think they've done an awesome job. I came in with Linda B ouchard was scrambling trying to figure some things out. I didn't know they'd lost the process on the police records. So the police department really processes a lot of the records. The body cam and that kind of stuff, they handle all of that. We team together on redacting certain documents to make sure that we're in compliance. But like I said, it's a complete team effort. HR, finance, water utility billing. There's a plethora. We get, like I said, 5 44 and it's only April. And we've processed a lot. And we only have maybe under 50 of them standing there. Wonderful. Well, thank you to everyone that is involved. Thank you. Once again, thank you so much. If there are no other questions, we'll continue with our agenda that's in front of us. Next item on the agenda we have is the consent agenda. On the consent agenda, there's one item that's going to be moved off. The consent agenda is item, if I mistake that, I'll let you know. Item 5D. 5D, right. It's going to be moved to new business. A new business is an item. We're going to move 5D to, we'll call it 8, 8. It's an agent. It'll be 8I. 8I will become 5D. Motion to amend. Motion to amend. Yes. Do we have a motion to amend? Mr. Mayor, make a motion to amend the consent agenda 5D and move to new business. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second. It's time to open up some comments. Anyone want to make sure it's done? Yes. Got a question? I guess I'm going to. No. What's that? I'm going to have. No, we, I mean, what we did, we just moved the item to new business. You did it first? I'm not going to motion. Then the more second. But no move. No, not yet. I forgot the public comment. That's why I'm backing up. That's why. Anyone from the public wish to come to be referenced to this item you're referring to, come forth to the board to make your name and address. Seeing that this time we're closing. Can I talk? We have a motion and a second. All in favor, signify us. Aye. Aye. Aye. So now we go back to the rest of the aisle. We're still on the consent agenda. Item 5A, B, C, D. These remove. We have 5A, B, and C. Any questions, comments, or concerns about the consent? No. No questions. Good. So now we're going to open it up to comments. Anyone who wishes to speak in reference to this consent agenda, I'm fortunate to name it at 10. We're actually open for consent agenda. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion. Now we have a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed, like, sign a motion. Mr. Perry. We're going to go right on to the next item. It's coming to an item that is not on the agenda. Items that is not on the agenda. There's a line item that's on the agenda that we want to speak about these ways until we get to that particular item . These are items that are not on the agenda. But at this time, we should have had a sign-up speech in the four-year area that our chief had brought to our city clerk by this time. Do we have any names? Yes, Sharon Garrett. We have a sign-up speech in the name of the city clerk by this time. We have a sign-up speech in the name of the city clerk by this time. We have a sign-up speech in the name of the city clerk by this time. We have a sign-up speech in the name of the city clerk by this time. I'm Sharon Garrett. I'm Sharon Garrett. My family has had Andy Riley since I was probably a teenager. And then Fred. And when I worked on the name of the city clerk by this time. And when I worked on the project with Andy one time, I would go to his house. And he would tell me some of the history of Haines City, different things that happened. And one of the things he told me was there was an engineer that came to town in the early 1900s. And I don't know who he told, but he showed the city a plan on how you could drain the area. Because at one time you could go from Haines City to the west coast by boat and never have to get out. Because my husband's family lived at Garrett Place off of Oak City Road. And his father would always talk about that. Well, when they drained Haines City, how they did it was they cut all these various canals through there. And you could see all the canals scattered out and around. I would suggest, it seems like Tenhold has a good portion of that pasture that sometimes is underwater. And it says seven acres or more, they'll sell pieces and parcels. And having said, it wasn't the lakes committee, it's the stormwater or something or another. And they assess certain taxes to their land in a certain district. They were complaining, not complaining, they were agonizing that they no longer had the option of being able to use that property as an overloved property when you have excess water. So if you were to take CRA money and use that, it benefits the whole city in more than one way. Helping control flooding. And you could store other water there when it was prior. And the water would soak into the ground. Some of the water would also possibly be connected into Lake Eva to help keep Lake Eva up. So while it's up for sale, I would think you guys should consider looking at that as a project to purchase a portion of that, a good portion of it. Especially the part with the floods. So you can use it as a reservoir. Because I think you'll regret it if you don't at some point in time. And then you'll have a lot of flooding issues that you'll have to deal with. What's the location you stay in? Like Valmoral. Valmoral? By the way. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, you start from Valmoral and go on. I've seen that whole thing underwater. I was part of that board. Yeah. What's that board called? Same thing as you. It's almost here, but I don't remember. It's almost here. I can't think of it. I know we get tax, you know. You got a... We get tax out of it. Yeah, you get a special tax to help maintain certain things . And so it would benefit the whole city. Yeah, thanks. That was very informative. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming here. Would there be anyone else? All right. At this time, we'll continue with the agenda. That's printed. Next item is going to be on the old business. Old business. Order number 262144. Water and wage order. Connection. Be second. I don't know. Reading this. First reading this. No changes, Mayor. I just want to do mention that we did include an exhibit with this agenda item to update some of the textual changes to update the city code of ordin ances, as well as the land development regulations to now align with the connection fee study that was done this year by Reptelis. Again, I know in that presentation, our first reading, they mentioned all the extraordinary circumstances that was included in this. And I just want to mention that these rates will not take effect until October 1st of 2026, and therefore we'll include them in next year's budget process. Okay, go ahead. All right. Good question. Yeah, this time. Okay. By the time, we're going to open it up for comments. Anyone would just speak as reference to this item. Therefore, we're going to close the next way. Introduction. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, I introduce ordinance number 26-2144. Ordinance number 26-2144. An ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Haines City, Florida, related to water and wastewater utility connection fees. Amending the code of ordinances, City of Haines City, Florida, and Haines City land development regulations. Amending residential and non-residential fee schedules for water and wastewater utility connection fees. Updating references and terminology related to water and wastewater utility connection fees in the code of ordinances, City of Haines City, Florida, and Haines City land development regulations consistent with statutory references and terminology used in the Florida Impact Pee Act. Providing authority for administrative increases. Providing for the incorporation of factual recitals. Providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and resolutions. Providing for severability. Providing for the administrative correction of scripters' errors. Providing for codification. Providing business impact estimate. Providing for an effective. And just briefly, Mayor, this ordinance will require a unanimous vote of the commission. And in light of the fact that we are missing one commissioner, we might want to consider moving this to the end of the agenda to see if that commissioner does happen to come in. So I don't wait 30 seconds. Okay. Is that by statute? Is this unanimous vote? It does. It is by statute. Because of the increase. Okay. Okay. You remember when we voted? Yeah. When it came before us the first time, they said it had to be. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that. Okay. Yeah. Vice Mayor is here now. Vice Mayor, we're on an item. It's an item that came before us a while back. It was an extraordinary on that increase in that water rate . But this particular item is unanimous vote of the commission. So we're glad you walked in. You know, that attorney can probably reiterate. It's a bit about the item. That way it might still get a better understanding. We're on the 7-8. 7-8. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to give them a brief synopsis again? Absolutely. The commission has heard, or was present at two workshop meetings to discuss extraordinary circumstances. Those extraordinary circumstances were articulated in the rate study that was performed by Raff Tales Financial. Because of those extraordinary circumstances and this commission's tacit acceptance of, or tentative acceptance of, that particular rate study, this ordinance has been revised in order to provide textual references and amendments, consistent with the rate study and the extraordinary circumstances that were previously presented to you at the two previous workshop meetings. This is second and final reading for this particular ordinance. It discusses and provides for the rate schedules as well as the phase-in limitations. And it does require a unanimous vote of the commission. With that being said, thank you again, counsel. Are there any questions coming in reference to this item? Mr. Mayor, I have just one question. Yes, sure. Okay. Under the extraordinary circumstances, when would we know if we meet the guidelines? Because I thought there had to be some findings to make sure. I know we have to vote unanimous to move forward. But do we know that we already meet those requirements? Or are we going to still just wait for the findings? And then once we find out whether we meet them or we don't? And if we do, then it would go into effect on October 1. So right now, the way it's proposed is we believe we meet those findings based off the growth and the conditions that we're in. One of the proposals that was included in the rate study as well was that we review this again in two years. Again, we don't know what the economic time it might be at that point if things kind of slow down or take a turn. So being able to review it in two years again will give us that option to say, hey, maybe we need to drop it or lower it. So that is included in the rate study as a consideration. The Florida statute, as it stands, does not allow you to increase it once every five years or four years. So again, by doing it halfway through, we can kind of assess it again and say, did we go too hard or do we need to cut it back by doing it that way? Okay, because when it was presented to us, it was stated that we would need to first meet the extraordinary requirements. So we're just going to assume that we made it and move forward. So there's actually nothing that we're sending out to make sure that we made it prior to. And I understand that we can always decrease and not increase. I think we already did the study, right? Yeah. Yes, the study's been done. The study came back saying that we are. Okay, at the last meeting, at the first screening, they said that if we go unanimous, that we would still have to meet the requirements. And we would find out whether or not we meet the requirements to actually go to that extreme, you know, at the highest rate that we're looking to go. And my recollection, I can pull it up on my laptop, but my recollection is what RAPTELUS provided in the rate study. It was several items. So population growth was one. The condition of our current facilities and capacity was another. So there's like four or five items, which, again, they compiled and said, because of these items, we do believe that the extraordinary circumstances are prevalent right now. And it's why we're going that direction. I think the concern for us is two years from now, if, you know, right now we're doing 1,500 homes on the residential size per year. For whatever reason, that goes down to 100 homes and everything's kind of just flat. And we're still trying to charge these higher rates at water. That may prevent people from even trying to build at that time. So two years from now, we can kind of reassess and say that we need to look at these rates again and bring them down in that situation. But I think right now we do meet the qualifications. We need to follow this. Okay. No further questions. Thank you. All right. Yes. And I just want to make sure. I believe what he presented to us, he did state that it would be a review, I think, in Tallahassee to make sure that we met those. Even though we think if we chose to move forward with the presumption that we do meet those, I guess, the criteria, it would be reviewed there to ultimately. It's a legislative decision locally. So to the best of my knowledge, there would be no overview of our findings here within the city. However, that's why we rely on those studies to have competent, substantial evidence in order to support our decision. So if we did not have a study and we just went based on our instinct or what we feel would be the case, that wouldn't be supported by the necessary evidence or support in order to increase those rates. So just to make sure that there is no additional step is what you're saying. Okay. Correct. Our study and our findings will not be reviewed in Tallah assee as related to the extraordinary circumstances unless challenged. I'll send an email. But here's my concern a little bit. The more I see it, the more I think. I think when we discussed this here that we didn't have to go to the extraordinary thing. It was a percentage, if y'all can remember correctly. And we said, hey, do we have to do the whole extraordinary amount or do we do a percentage of it? I don't know if y'all remember that. Yes, Ms. Mary, that's correct. Because he gave us the different percentages. And that's why the extraordinary piece, he clearly stated that it has to be met and that we would get that information back whether we meet the extraordinary piece in order to even vote or raise it to that extreme amount. Because I know I questioned it at the 105% increase. And that was under the extraordinary piece. I was trying to go back on remembrance and stuff. So I think if I can remember, was it applied to all new development coming in? As soon as October 1st, 2026, all new development. All new development. All new development. All new development. All new development. All new development. Anyone on the books right now are already paid in the process. Okay. So the extraordinary will go toward the new development. And one of the provisions of the statute as well is the full increase won't go in, in fact, on October 1st. So we've got to do a two-year phase in. So 50% of that and then 100%. Okay. And that gives developers time to say, hey, let's get in here early. Let's get on the books now. Yeah. Let's not take the full increase. Okay. It just takes us time to process it back and forth. It gets a little confusing that they change impact or connection. It makes it feel like anybody connecting water, but this is for new construction. This is new construction. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm in the thought process. But it's a new construction. It's a new construction. It's affecting our current. Okay. They're causing the impact on the road and stuff. So I sort of agree with that. They need stuff made up extraordinary. So I'm okay with that extraordinary. You know, we just need to get an animus and other questions . I mean, let's start from the dance here. No questions. Okay. This time we're going to open it up for comments. Anyone wish to speak in reference to this item, please step forth, place the name, and add it. Correct. Okay. Okay. Then I will. I will. I'm sorry. Introduction. No. I'm ready. All y'all didn't do. So they're ready. He got some ready. Yeah, he's ready. Oh, he's ready? Yeah, we just. Yeah, we're just in discussion. So we have. We ready. So we just need a motion for it. We will. Move for approval. Second. Now, we have a motion and we have a second reference. It is ordinance 26-2144. All in favor, sticking to that. And I. I. I. Opposed, like, sign, motion. It's period. The next item is going to be 7B ordinance number 26-2147, operational golf court upon destination streets in the city of Haines City. I think we had the chief to do, go back and do some follow- up work and then bring it back to us. And if you look in the back up here, there's a location of different speeds. There's a location. I'll let you. Right. I'll. I can assist there if this pleases the commission. Following the last meeting, I believe the vice mayor had some very pointed comments. And I went back into the ordinance and I believe I addressed those. If not, I certainly can. We can table this and I can come back. However, the concerns were with the insurance requirement. And then I believe also it was the language with reference to the licensure, which is the way it was previously drafted. We were providing all individuals operating a golf cart a license to use our roads, the streets, and thoroughfares. So I've gone back in and I have revamped the attachment and the textual changes to the code. And I believe that I have addressed those concerns. And I think it is a little bit more user-friendly now. Essentially, the way it is now reading is there will have to be some form of feasibility study to determine whether or not the roads can be safely traveled. Once that is performed and there's a finding that they can be safely traveled, we can, by resolution, identify the roads that golf carts may be operated on legally. What is the purpose of the ordinance then? We've got to come back and do it by resolution. 90% of the time we do a resolution. And then we come back and we don't do a ordinance. We can do a resolution. And it's for the purpose of ease and amending the roads in our streets. Say there's infrastructure changes or there's other developments, and then later on it becomes a situation where that road, street, or thoroughfare cannot be safely traveled. If it were only by ordinance, you'd have to adopt another ordinance to amend. So I understand. So the resolution would just be amended or is the tweaking? It's a tweaking. Yes. Okay. All right. That's it. I mean, you cleared it up for me. I'll just go. We can't go back through this process. Yes. Any questions? One more question. Yes. Who is going to determine the streets? I'm not so concerned with the roads, but in my neighborhood , I see is that are maybe 12, probably be 12, and up. There's joy riding on them. So who's determining the streets? And that's one of the things that we presented, or less, whatever you guys give us to determine. We actually presented a map and the other one for you guys to look at as well. So right now, the way that the ordinance is drafted, the posted speed limit for the motor vehicle traffic does not exceed 30 miles per hour. It will be evaluated once this ordinance or if this ordinance is approved. The requirement is that a documented finding and or conclusions, which are the subject of a traffic study and or transportation analysis performed on and or for the city streets of a licensed traffic transportation engineer or other qualified traffic transportation professional. That information will be brought back to you with a resolution with findings stating that these roads, based on confidential evidence, and the study would be considered most likely safely traveled, and you can designate those roads, streets, or thoroughfare speed. I'm just concerned with safety because some of them ride them, you know, when they should have the lights on them. Not all of them have lights on them, and I don't want to see anybody. There are safety concerns with both cars. I know we presented that a while back until they remember exactly what it entails, but definitely that was one of our concerns as well. There has been some dialogue on that. The ordinance, sorry. I'll come back to your council, but I want you to do a question or a question. Yeah, and on the last, on the last, the first reading, I had the same, you know, I had a lot of concerns. So it hasn't changed to me. I still believe this is not a good idea, and thus, for all the concerns that I've stated on the last meeting, so it's still the same on it. And I'm just trying to refresh my mind, and this is not this item, but this on the minutes. Now, I just found something there on this item on the previous meeting. It does state correctly, the way I vote, but at the end, it says it was carry unanimous. And it was not. On the wrong part? Yeah. I mean, it does state that I vote nay, but then on the bottom, it says it's carry unanimous. Okay, so if you can bring it down. What meeting is this meeting? Well, it was not unanimous. I know, I'm asking what which meeting was this meeting? The second. Yeah, the second. Thank you for that, Claire. Would there be another comment? Vyker, you got a comment on this? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, my comments are, I want to make sure, so, with the study that's going to, the places that you're going off with the workshop that we had, and also the meetings that we had on this, is that we're going to evaluate all of the residential streets that met that 30 miles or lower area. Under the jurisdiction of the municipality. Yes, Mr. Mayor. All right, and then from there, I'm assuming once we approve it, that's when the study will take place. Do you have a time table? And the reason I ask that is because initially, we were looking to, I believe, have this possibly adopted before the Christmas. I believe it was our Christmas break. I believe that's what the mayor was looking for at that time. And I just want to kind of get some kind of idea of the length of this process that you wanted to hear. It depends on if we want to bifurcate the study. If we break that into segments, it would probably be quicker to get roads and streets approved for designated use. But if we're doing globally, throughout the entire municipality, that type of study could take a little bit longer. But if our goal is Christmas, I don't think that's unreasonable that we should be able to bring back one or even two resolutions. Just a disclaimer. That was Christmas. Oh, I'm sorry. Still catching up. Okay. That's all. Yeah. And this map that's been prepared either by the police department or our attorney, you know, attorney, I'm looking at the map and I'm looking at some areas on this map where it has color-coded. And it concerns me on some of these miles per hour. You know, for example, you know, you got a golf cart and it 's color-coded going 25 miles per hour in a street in an area that is only 15. You know, they can go faster in a golf cart than they could in a field. So I think it has to coincide. If the speed limit is in that area, if the speed limit is in that area, we can do this and they come back with a resolution. So the speed limit in a particular area is 25. A golf cart shouldn't be able to go 25. They got to go. It should be 15. You know, so we have to look at that and evaluate all of that. Because golf cart can't have the same speed limit as a part . Right. That's just my opinion. I think if it's 25 in there, golf cart should be 15. 14. It should be a little slower pace. But that's something that we need to evaluate once if we approve the artist and then come back with a resolution. Which we can have it. And I think that's going to be very important. But I think for the meantime, we need to go ahead on. If they want to approve this part, then we can come back and then we can do resolutions. So finding that would be a lot of reasons. Yes, sir. Thank you. And just to clarify, I'm not sure if anybody else got this question. After that, with the map, what you're identifying is just simply the streets that we have that the speed limit doesn 't exceed the 30 miles. Correct. Those are the city streets as defined in the ordinance. Okay. This is what this map is for? Yes. To show you the speed limit does not exceed 30. These would be the road streets and thoroughfares that would be subject to a study in order to bring them back to UV risk. Okay. That makes sense. All right. Thanks for that. All right. Any other questions? Comments? Sorry, this time I'm going to open up comments. Anyone wishes to speak? At least on the fourth stage they can. I'm still cheering here at Levon Carl Buzerow. I'm still in agreement with Omar. I think this is an unsafe thing to have it citywide. I can see it in certain enclaves. You know, Southern Dunes or some other golf course thing. Or some other, you know, like over in Leonard Haven and Carefree Cove or whatever. You know, you know, you're in a community. You know, you have people going through town here on motorcycles with licenses and insurance that split lanes. And that's illegal. What do you think? You know, golf courses are going to do that or have no requirements for insurance, no requirements for licenses, and have been to no school on how to drive safely. And you can't require them to do that. And if they're 12 years old and operate in a golf course, kids do risky things because their brains aren't totally formed, supposedly, until they're 25 years old. At least that's what they say. I'm sure you did risky things as a kid. I did something I shouldn't have been doing when I was a kid, and I spent six weeks on crutches hobbling around at high school. So I fell under my horse, and my horse stepped on my ankle. But you're going to have, they're going to pull out in front of people, and you cannot stop a two-ton vehicle that quick. I have a hard enough time with the derelict people in Leonard Haven that all of a sudden peddle their little bicycle out in front of you when you're going down 1792. And this is going to be kids, even teenagers, and the vehicles are not highly marked. I mean, if they go slow, maybe they should have a slow-mo ving triangle sign on it because my husband got stopped one time when he was going to check out irrigation. Out in the country on the road, the guy said he had to have a slow-moving triangle sign, so he got one. Maybe that's something you can require on these things. But it's just not safe. It's not fair to regular drivers that have to have insurance. And it's going to be on their insurance dollar when somebody gets hurt. And it's going to go against their license, and they will lose their insurance. Because we've been involved in something like that before where somebody ran out in front of us. And we lost our insurance and had to get a new insurance company. Not that my husband was charged for anything because a guy ran out in front of me. But he wasn't insured, and that's who you can go after. And they'll be going after you, too. And, like, look at 30 Baker Street. Part of its city, part of its county. The part of this county is 30 miles an hour. I'm not sure about the part that connects up to 1792. And I already have trouble with people riding bicycles in the morning. And they hardly have a light that you can see. And they wear black clothes when it's dark. Thank you for your comment, Ms. Gary. I really appreciate it. Every time you have your comment. I can tell you this, Ms. Gary. You know, you know, should a city limit, people want to tell them where they have to live in order to ride a golf cart. Is it fair to everyone in this municipality? If I live in a certain part of town, I need to move to a certain location in order to ride a golf cart. And that, you know, but I can't ride it in my community, but I can go to someone else's community. And ride a golf cart. I don't think a city should divide. I think we're not dividing a city. We should be one city and the city's ain't city. So whatever we deem necessary for a golf cart to be on somebody's city streets and roadways, I think we should allow. We're not reinventing the wheel here. If you ride these cities and these municipalities, and I give you the city just north of us called Davenport, you ride into that city limit and say this is a golf cart friendly community. They don't say this is go to Southern Dunes and ride your golf cart. They don't. They don't pick areas of their town. And we're not going to pick areas of our town to tell folks where to ride their golf cart. There are unlicensed people drive roads every day on motorcycles. Commissioner Huffman just did. They race up and down their street right now, and they don 't have license. So, and the statute said you have to be 18 years of age to operate a golf cart. So we have to be fair when we sit up here to all citizens of Haines City, not one side. Ms. Janet Johnson said it's not two Haines City, it's one H aines City. And we're going to be fair to every citizen. Okay, but thank you for your comments. So at this time, is there anyone else? So we're going to close the public comments. If you want to, we're going to introduce that order. Ms. Marion, to do ordinance number 26-2147. Thank you. Thank you. Ordinance number 26-2147. An ordinance of the City of Haines City, Florida, regarding the operation of golf carts upon designated streets within the corporate limits of the City of Haines City, Florida, amending section 25-16, article 1, chapter 25 of the code of ordinances, City of Haines City, Florida, providing for the incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for the administrative correctional scriveners errors, and cod ification, providing business impact estimate, and providing for providing for the court. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Move for approval. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion. We have a motion. Now we have a second. I want to be in favor. I'm sorry. Do you want to comment? Yeah. Yes, go ahead. We'll have the ability to come back to this ordinance. Yeah, we're going to come back with a resolution and tweak it, though. We're just moving the ordinance. So what I'm saying is, if we approve this, and we end up with 18, 13 fatalities, and we come back and rescind this ordinance. Yes, we can. At any time, we can come back and we can rescind this and we can change it out. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. It was approved. Go back and we said, hey, it's not working for us. We need to do something different. Yeah. So we have a motion and a second. Go for it. All in favor and reference to this ordinance, dignified, and aye. Aye. Aye. We have a motion and care. Thank you so much for your work. We're going to continue on with the main agenda items. Resolution 26-19-32, Florida Department of Transportation, DOT, agreement. And this is just something we do every year that we maintain certain right of ways, something on agreement. Yes, sir. This actually came before you on April 2nd. Yes. And was voted, was approved, but it has to, this is coming back as a resolution for approval. It just needed to be in a resolution form. Okay. Yes, no problem. This was presented, just that wasn't presented in a resolution. I think DOT is questioning that it be on a resolution. Yes, sir. About resolution. Any questions for a deputy manager in reference to this line? No questions. I have one. Do we get paid from FDLB or is it all this free? We get paid from FDOT and on the second, the meeting on the second, it had all the cost for each piece of equipment. So if you have to use a big mower, weed eaters, everything has a cost associated with it that we get reimbursed for. Okay. Because I've been hearing that is free. It is not free, no matter. That is not. No, they reimburse us. They're going to pay someone to do it. We're going to do it better and more frequently than a contractor would. Okay. All right. Are they current with their payment? No. Omar? Okay. Just one of them. Do we have an increase in every year as far as the cost of fuel and everything? There's a bill that had an increase to them or the flat rate every year that they pay? I'm sure there's fluctuates. Omar, I don't have that number in front of me. But every year when they put it out to bid, they offer it to the municipalities first. So a contractor could come and if we said we didn't want to do it, the contractor could say, I'll do it for that amount and I'm required to do it once a month and I'll be happy to take your money at DOT. But to answer your question, I don't have the comparison in front of me. Okay. No, I just wanted to, because like for example, the fuel cost is really high now. If the cost of repair our machinery and everything goes up, but they pay that flat rate, at some point in time, we got the stamp, we may be upside down doing it. That's why I asked the question, but they'll build an increase like a percentage that they increase every year. I don't know. I don't have that answer. Okay. No problem. Y'all just, oh, question. Another comment, question? No. Okay. So this time we're opening up for comments and then one from the public which to speak from the fourth state's name and address. Dan, we're done. We're done. We'll hold it and actually interrupt. Mr. Reisman. Resolution. Mr. Merrius, this resolution number 26-1935. Resolution number 26-1932. A resolution of the city of Kansas City, Florida, making findings ratifying the execution and approval of the State of Florida Department of Transportation memorandum of agreement between the State of Florida Department of Transportation, FDOT, and the City of Kansas City regarding the performance of certain maintenance services and/or work within certain rights of way under the jurisdiction of FDOT and located within the corporate limits of the City of Haines City, Florida, authorizing the City Manager to take all necessary further actions, which includes, but is not limited to, executing the State of Florida Department of Transportation memorandum of agreement, entering into and executing any required supplemental agreements and/or any other actions necessary to effectuate the intent of this resolution, providing for the incorporation of factual recitals, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for the the administrative corrections, and providing for an effective date. Move to approval. Second. We have a motion and a second for approval. All in favor. Aye. All in favor. All in favor. Motion is carried. Thank you so much. We continue on. Under new business now, resolution number 2619-31, self-m atch water management district modification of phase three. At the last meeting, I mentioned that I'll be bringing this back forward. So, it's what I put in phase three water restriction as far as an extreme water shortage. So, the dates on here, it began on the third and it's got the waters, powers for watering that are in this. And we couldn't advertise until it was approved in your body, of course. So, once it is, we'll start tomorrow, get it out to everyone that'll know we're under the phase three water shortage as well. Okay. My question, once they lift that extreme water shortage and it goes back, do we have to come back and do a new resolution to modify it once again? There is no longer a water shortage or extreme water shortage if they want to lift that band. I would have to refer to the attorney on this one. I know it has a date on here. It sunsets on July 1st. So, does the ordinance sunset on July 1st and that's extended? If it's extended, we will probably bring back a resolution identifying that it's been extended. But no, you would not have to adopt a subsequent resolution . Okay. So, we do. Just only if it's extended beyond sunset date. Correct. We would do that for informational purposes as well as enforcement. And we did adopt previously an ordinance that did provide the ability of the municipality to, in certain circumstances such as emergency water shortages, enforce certain provisions or findings or requirements of SWIFT MUD . However, by bringing it back to be a resolution, I believe that opens all options up to the municipality for purposes of enforcement. Okay. Consistent with you. All right. I have no question. Does this include using your water hose to order your grass ? There's some language in there. I would have to look at their shortage. are findings or requirements of swift mud however by bringing it back to be a resolution i believe that opens all options up to the municipality for purposes of enforcement consistent with you all right i have no i only have a question um does this include using your water hose um there's some language in there i would have to look at their um shortage the phase three shortage has language in there for hoas to not be able to enforce their aesthetic rules and regulations on their residents in this phase three extreme water shortage there is language in there um about the hoas okay so you can you let let let us know when you put it out say something about the water hose whether or not you can yeah whether or not you can use your water hose i just want to make sure that we're not using the sprink lers to water whatever it is that we need uh and we're not finding ourselves in violation of the old james you have to make sure the time is of course and now and terrell and i will work on that to the other right terrell our flowers will dial up with everyone else's um the answer to your question that it also applies to the water hose is any type of watering um even car wash you don't wash the cars or anything it's restricted to that one day a week and um it goes by um the day of the week that you are allowed to um utilize the water um whether it's to water your lawn wash your car um everything dealing with water because it will be in that extreme category so um there's also the days of the week per resident like if you your day is tuesday or wednesday and then there's also the time days um i think it's like 8 p.m to midnight and then the other one would be some other time because i looked it up mine says oh here it is um um midnight to 4 a.m and 8 p.m to um um you left 59 p.m so so is that going away because that's what it is right now yeah that's not going away our ordinance that we have in place right now is superseded by this one until july 1st okay and that includes even if you have a well so if you have your own well and say i'm not using city water it doesn't matter it applies to a well also because the one currently right now there's no time restriction but now we're going into the extreme with the actual time restriction but one concern about this uh and this probably related to the law enforcement and public states that it states in here that they can wash their fields and don't give them a certain date over equipment washing car washing fire trucks and other emergency vehicles there's a lot someone see them washing their car washing the fire truck they're going to say how did they get to do it but i can't you understand it's in here i don't know it's kind of weird that that's in there i wonder if you can get a sticker to put in your window and then take it off after you wash your car it's my car it's brand yeah so but nevertheless now we have a lot of reclaim water in the golf course like example i would say southern dunes use reclaim water right so they use reclaim yes right so with that that with them using the reclaim water do they fall under the same category as that uh extreme or watering or it does not i'll have to get you an answer on that as well um because i know the reclaim water it's not something we want to stack up that's right that's something that we need to get out of the facility we have to get rid of the reclaim water you know but that's the swift mud saying get rid of your reclaim you remember the ribs and all we have to do somewhere reclaim so do we do we do we how we educate our community and say hey they can get water because they use in the reclaim water because people see the water they don't know if that reclaim and we have developments that have reclaimed so that's a very good question before we post anything we'll have all that back so if reclaimed water is only subject to voluntary watering okay this in here this restriction applies to residents on private wells however reclaim water is only subject to voluntarily water and water now unless we're restricted by local government but we can restrict that or not if we don't then we can allow them to use this oh that's restricted yeah so the reclaim we we need to get rid of the reclaim that's right so we don't want to restrict them with rec laimed water uh uh i know that we're going to be agreeing to this um but um uh chief jackson with you being over code enforcement do you have that many people that can go all over the city to see if they're violating this water especially from you just say midnight to four in the morning do you have enough staff to do that because i don't want to get a call that uh your people skipped three houses but i was watering mine and i got the citation right um that's one of those days where it's like you shouldn't be out doing it but definitely um cold compliance they're not out that time of the morning but we do have both flying officers that come in early for that just for that situation so and also when they're in they actually split up in sections for something like this but that's that's actually the time approved to use the water so yeah that's gonna be that's that's the that's the approved time yes so if someone did their water during the game from 10 o 'clock pm who do you have that's going to be trolling this is a huge city right and it is a lot of subdivisions even with them dividing them up that's a lot for them um and not to add any more on uh law enforcement or police but there's definitely something if they're riding around that's something that they can also document as well yes um there is some exceptions to this it's not the whole it's not everything so over here it says water uh the flower beds can be um water every single day if you want to so there's no restrictions on on flower beds and and plant material it's just on basically on the grass that the restriction applied to now there is time restrictions for that which is you got to do it before by 8 a.m or before a a a m or after 6 p.m so basically from 6 p.m all the way to 8 a.m you can water that and new subdivisions uh new houses they still have the 60-day establishment period where they can irrigate every day so well can can we do this here because we're discussing it can we put this on some social media outlet or something to put it out to all our residents i think you know let them read it for themselves you know we can discuss it all day then how we're going to educate our community this needs to be someplace on our city website and say hey uh alert or something you know break it to their attention and have them post this here and they they need to read it because they can first they 're going to say i wasn't even aware of it you know it's like this dignity of the lord no excuse no but we're going to put it out there sometimes i can't put this in their their water utility bill we just can't it's too much but it definitely can be put on the social media post someplace and i think we should james i think if we can put it out there you know have our marketing team uh put it out there and all right thank you mr mayor um and i just uh you actually everybody kind of brought up some of the points that i i wanted to make sure um but break me if i'm wrong uh we just need to have this before you could actually publish right yes sir so that is the plan to go ahead and put this yes sir oh most definitely we just couldn't put it out before it was approved by this mission okay so as soon as you approve it um after the last meeting i've sent individually not as a group um what the county had put out and ours will be very similar and it does have a link people can click on as well um so if they're already on their device and they see that they click on the link and we'll work closely with marketing of course and get this out there to everyone all right yeah i like what you said uh mayor west about social media outlet but don't forget our website and it took you on the first page when they do things city. com um and if if our marketing team has no ability to put it all out of these next door and all of them i think that's going to be very important ain't it that for community news whatever we need to get this out to everyone we can in all types of ways you know so if they can do it i think it's going to be very useful to everyone but it's you know people are going to say i'm not aware of it so we're going to put it there but we can place it together agreed any other questions okay this time we're going to open it up for comments anyone from the public wish to speak come forward to state your name and address i know ms gary you get tired of saying your name and address but you know we have to have i'm going to say it's sharon garrick by bob carl boozer road um if you look at a high drought map for the united states from the west coast to the east coast the majority of the states under drought conditions and extreme drought conditions uh in the state of florida with our drought conditions you're in a high fire risk zone also i would think um that the city would want to mow certain properties that it owns that are over 12 inches high such as going down carl boozer road the new property you bought the weeds and all are higher than 12 inches and the place that you guys bought for the new um sewer and wastewater plant that's extremely tall if you look at the spot that you bought on robinson drive from i think ed dickinson and the dix's that's extremely tall and hasn't been mowed in a few years because you've got extremely large brazilian pepper bushes but yet you're right people code violations were the same thing and you just said that you were going to be in compliance on watering and um write yourself a violation if y'all were doing it or make sure you guys are in compliance so i think on the tall grass and stuff with this situation you guys should be in caught in compliance i don't disagree with you you know we we should set the exam and don't be there now so are you guys going to do this yeah thank you for that information i said are you going to do this hey you told us to you know it's going to get done now i know that we got that now um uh uh y'all got that okay we got it yeah yeah but now i'm tough so we're going to take care of that sorry about it thank you for your eyes and ears here anyone else on the public on the public i want to close it and ask for uh introduction this resolution resolution number 26-1931 resolution number 26-1931 the resolution of the city commission of the city of haynes city florida acknowledging the southwest florida water management district modified phase three extreme water shortage order and declaring a water shortage emergency within and throughout the corporate limits of the city of haynes city florida authorizing the city manager or authorized as a knee to take any necessary further actions to effectuate the intent of this resolution providing for the incorporation of factual recitals providing for conflicts providing for sufferability providing for the administrative correction of strippers errors and fighting for an effective date that's great that's that's great yes all parties have reviewed and signed off on the agreement that's being presented to you this evening i believe on the dais when you came in there was an updated agreement that was stapled and put on the dais there were some minor changes this morning after feedback from deputy city manager lloyd stewart and then i also believe uh there was some further revisions or revisions first from the vice mayor that were incorporated as well it was an active back and forth everybody was very productive i feel we have a very good agreement moving forward on an interim basis and all parties um as stated have signed off okay uh we have the uh the manager here um if there are any questions for us this item we can entertain them now nothing uh anything else going to answer that advice okay uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh thank you thank you Mr. Mayor I did want to make just a quick comment um in reference to that I did take a ride around the city to look at all the different ones and um I know that we are adding um Wayne Gandy but I want to make a recommendation that each location has the same exact information because some of them they only have one um so right now we should have three with the addition of um Wayne Gandy I think it would be Wayne Gandy 7th Street and um in Mountain Stewart so if we can make sure that each location have all three platforms yeah what I what I what I don't like you know I don't want to see three different ones you think that that would be one thing and then you'll say because then we can add more names than one it will jump about five or six different ones you know somebody trying to drive and read each one of them and run in the back of someone I think that we had one sign and put the names all it says the home of and then we list Wayne Gandy 7th Street or Matthew Stewart all of them you know I agree yeah I just don't I don't know I mean it's up to this commission y'all want three or four of them signs up there that's fine I think that you know we should do that at the same thing even with our the mayor sign it's just the mayor and then whoever else we can talk about that you have an interesting point there Mr. Donny because I write the same speech and I see that you have some interests and you have some you don't have no name you know you're coming out of Lake Hamilton I don't think there's anything coming out of Lake Hamilton so we need to be consistent whatever we do do it and go out and I just want us to move in another comment question maybe you can answer no okay 26 19 19 19 19 okay so at this time I'm going to open up open comments anyone from the public we should speak in reference this resolution I'll call my name and address round out 1215 Avenue again King City first I'd like to thank you all for considering this and in your comments Mayor about placing all three of the names I think that's a good idea however I also like the fact that the names actually the clackers actually tell what the people actually did so as long as hopefully you can also keep that as part of the clackers right thank you for that it will say Wayne and the NFL and the NFL and again I also like to say that these three people are really known across the world so I think that's one of the reasons why it's appropriate to have them there as we know the world knows the NFL that treat her they know steward across the world not just the country or locally so I appreciate the consideration thank you for bringing that to our attention we need to start utilizing the markets and I walk the rail to do that because there will be more that come and I bring it it will be more successful thank you Mr. Mayor as it stands right now I think if we were to just leave it as is where they're individual there is room to add the third one because it's big enough for three and then if we add as more come along and there is any addition that we may need to go to just that one big time but right now there is room to add the third name okay that's good okay another question comment so I already had to come in so at this time I'm going to may I introduce resolution number 26-1935 resolution number 26-1935 a resolution of the city commission of Haynes City Florida recognizing Wayne Dandy for his outstanding contributions to the city of Haynes City and his exemplary career in National Football League providing for the honorary placement of his name at a designated city facility and providing for an effective name to approve second second motion and we have a second all in favor aye move right along next item on agenda we're going to have a change order number three James will present that change order yes sir so in October of 2025 the commission approved a three mile force main with C&B civil construction that is a force main that goes from 544 over in front of Aircon from station 22 all the way to the wastewater treatment facility putting the line in over on Pryor Road some residents came out and said you can't come on this side of the road it's on by it's a private property it's on the south corner if you're turning on the Pryor up in 30th or that south corner there there's about 700 feet that in fact does go all the way to the edge of asphalt it's June Farmer's property so what we had to do we had to get back with the contractor so for that distance there we're going to have to bore in the middle of Pryor so it'll be under the road it won't be an open cut and it won't be on the private property in doing that it requires a larger piece of equipment to do that bore it's $101,617 for them to get the larger piece of equipment to do the larger bore that is a transfer out of a different fund and it's under account on the back here it's a 401-10-5366- 6310 so we've already done the transfer and requesting approval from the commission to use the larger equipment to make this happen big question for the commission to reference is it transfer like excess money that it's not going to affect something else? it will not affect anything else on that on the back page of that particular item under the detail explanation so it was funded for $250,000 it was no longer needed for that particular item so we're using that money and it won't be taken away from it and this is for tourist rate right? it's prior if you go down 30th where prior turns and runs back okay well I got questions about tourist rate on my comments I'll bring that up oh where it still needs to be repaired? yeah because I it's terrible it's putting a lot of stuff on the cost of it yes as are we and they had to go back in we had that conversation a little bit earlier with the team so they had to go back in and fix the valve before they paved it so I didn't have an exact date I was just told very soon I 'll see if I can't get an exact date tomorrow to share with everyone yeah please yes sir prior role is the county role it is so we had to work with the county as well okay all right any other questions? yes seeing now we're going to open up the comments anyone who wishes to speak on the floor station seeing now we're going to close it and ask for approval this change order what's approved? a second a motion and a second all in favor aye all in favor motion is carried thank you so much we're going to discuss this item here I hate this was an item that was was moved with was being held internally by staff that's something that staff normally do and they stand as the manager that this has been taken care of staff we just need a motion to move this item off motion motion to thank item item 8b off the agenda second we have a motion and a second and this won't be returning it for later today yeah and they won't be returning it okay I have a question yes question this is asking for two things I'm not familiar with the young sports foundation okay yeah yeah because the reason they're handling it internally because there's policies and procedures on who get what building and how to get the building that shouldn't be brought to the commission that they're going to determine who gets the middle level policy so they meet the qualifications and policies and procedures then that's how to go by yeah I just wonder because the description says that this is the way of being for the Hispanic people from business to this moment and then as you read it then you learn something else to that you know that you know that you have to satisfy the policy and all of those but you want to elaborate on that? yeah well just to clarify this entity has nothing to do with the Hispanic business expo that has been happening for years in the city so this is a completely different entity has nothing to do with the Hispanic Empowerment Foundation so somebody else is completely different so if they don't meet everything that is required by our policy then it may be a different story but they don't they don't and we follow the policy alright at this time we're going to open it up for comments anyone who wants to speak on the board station name and address 10th and I call you Mr. Bureau motion to approve I second motion and a second all in favor aye here next item will be vehicle purchase so these vehicles were approved as a capital item during the normal budget process once we got all the costs associated with it we were about $16,000 short so we had to come back to commission of course so the total cost is 189-060-50 we had $174,000 we had $174,000 so we're requesting the transfer of $16,000 from a fund that saved fund from earlier but we had some available from a capital project and that's the form that's attached at the back okay Question. No, I'm coming. Sir. Okay, time. Anyone wants to come forward and state your name, and we're going to close it. A vehicle purchase. What are you doing to make? Motion to approve. Motion to handle. Second, all in favor. Aye. Motion to carry. All right, next item is approval of 88 compliance module for the city website. Good evening. Good evening. No. TND is bringing forward an item related to the federal ADA compliance requirements for our city website. In April of 2024, the Department of Justice updated the Title II of the American with Disabilities Act. These updates now require all state and local government websites, including ours, to meet specific digital accessibility standards. Based on our population, we are required to be fully compliant by April 26, 2027. What this means in practical terms is that everything on our website, documents, forms, images, and content must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. This includes compatibility with screen readers, proper formatting, and overall usability. To proactively meet this requirement, TND staff is recommending the implementation of two accessibility modules within our existing Civic Plus platform. The first is called DOC Access, which automatically scans and remediates documents to meet accessibility standards. The second is AudioEye, which enhances the user experience by providing real-time accessibility tools for residents visiting our website. Together, these tools provide an automated and scalable solution that reduces staff workload, improves accessibility for all users, and helps to ensure we meet federal requirements ahead of deadline. Thank you. My question, though, so we're not out of compliance at all? We're in compliance still? We're in compliance until April 26, 2027, and it's done by population. So anything over, I think, from me speaking to some of the members, so anything over 50,000 is just by population? Yeah, we're like right there. So we're not there yet, so we get a little more extension because we're not over the 50,000? Correct. Okay. Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah, I thought I read that. I thought you said it quick for one of them. Yep. Any other questions or comments? No, I'm here. I have a comment, a request, a request that we can somehow in the schedule find time for a... meeting that y'all had, a workshop to go over how the city needs ADA and we're in person or we're not. It's not a workshop because there are... Sorry. There are many places in the city, city buildings, that are not wheelchair accessible unless the police department has put a buzzer for someone to buzz the door outside. There's nothing that opens up the door to the police department. If we had someone here in a wheelchair that wanted to make a comment, we could not see anything but their head. So we just, I just want us to look around the city and just look at city buildings because the building inspectors take care of non-city business. I don't know if it's a fire department. I don't know if it has a buzzer to let someone come in or how a person in a wheelchair would be able to get access to these buildings. We live here for live people. We live here for live people. We're not just being combined online. online and I've heard of that from my process and I asked you, I don't know, maybe at the last meeting, if we can get the handle thing on the other side here because I'm right-handed so I'm being trained to come up on the right side and there still is not one. You are ramped? No, no, we're doing that. Oh, you're going to have one. I have one. Yeah. So I had to come up on the left side and my brain is drained because it's draining me to the right side. So I came up this way today instead of walking. Wow, those cars come around a lot. Where's your problem? I promise when James got back from the cruise, second cruise in six weeks. Anyway, he's going to get with you before you exit and before he exits so he knows exactly where you want. He's got you on the phone. Well, here's my question, though. Is it a fire? Are you sure are the fire inspectors responsible? Is that under his banner control to go out to different locations and see everything in ADA? Who would that be under his banner control to include a response to reach all of our buildings or ADA compliant? So we will have to do an evaluation on the buildings through the fire side and through the building officials for the ADA for the physical aspect of it. Of course, this is strictly on the computer for what you see. Yeah. So I just didn't want to get... You brought it there. Of course. Yes, sir. Should we look at that? Because we're a purple city. Because we're a purple city. But the Antioch app, the place for them to park, places the library. They don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. You don't have access to get on the street. I just want to talk about it to see what we're able to fix. Just to say we're handicapped friendly, we need to be handicapped. Yeah, okay, let's do that. And what we're going to do, we're going to prove this here, and then we're going to talk about that as a reporter. Look, in our comment, we need to make a question. He's talking about instead of date for a workshop. What we're going to prove it now is the community system and what it's in the area. So when we go to our comments and hand-crumbs, let's talk about a date for a workshop. We're going to talk about that particular item. Of course. But what we're doing now is the IT department and make sure that they are in the line. Right. So any other questions, the rest of the students? No, no, no. At this time, we're going to open it up for the comments to anyone who speaks, of course, makes the name and ask the person. Elisa Gonzalez, 206-Sitras Boulevard. Again, I understand that we're specifically on the website part. But as Ms. Huffman said, I think it's important not only just for the city building, but to actually take a look at the actual city itself. And I'm talking by experience. My father is a double amputee. He's in a wheelchair. When he came to visit me, he couldn't get on the sidewalk because there's no sidewalk on Citrus Boulevard. Only partial. Then across the street from where I live, there's also a young lady who lives there who also has to exercise in a special, I don't even know what it's called, but it's like a special type of wheelchair, but like actually walking and it holds her up. And she needs to do this daily exercise on the street because there's also no sidewalk on that part. So I just think that it's something aside from the workshop that maybe someone should reevaluate, you know, with the rapid growth that we have at this point to see what could be done to have it more accessible. Okay. That's a great point. We're also at a date when we are talking about the work of 88 to make sure that my entire city should be 88 to come out. There's no other question. We're closing the topic tonight for a month. No, first of all. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Take me. I'll call her favor. Come on. I'll call her. All folks. Okay. Which one? Okay. She made the motion. I said. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All approve. Thank you. Next item is going to be a hollywood cut off road, force main. Did we do the one that we do? No. What's that? I'm not paying. Oh, so that's going to be the last one? Yes. Yeah, 8i. Okay. No, over to 8i. Yes. All right. Okay. Yes, sir. So this item. Polk County is putting in some storm system on Holly Hill road. And we have some infrastructure that is in their way. Um, so they, uh, identified what's in their way and we have to move it. So we have, uh, continuing services with Odom construction and they do the underground material and they've given us two different options. We did, even though we chose the lesser of the two, that still, that works out better for us. $80,400. So instead of telling the county you move it and send us an invoice for it. Um, we use our old contractors that we have on our, our continuing services. And that's what this is for. Any questions, uh, James references, I don't know. Yeah. At this time we're going to open it up for comments. And if we can open it up for the next day. And I'm going to close it. And I can go, uh, approval of this force made. Motion to approve. Second. And we have a second all in favor. All right. All the full motion. Thank you. Now what we're going to do, James, uh, we had an item that was under the consent agenda that we needed. It was five, um, it was five. We removed five B and created, uh, a, uh, a, a, a, it's the fiber, uh, installation and wastewater. That item there. For Jeremiah. There it is. If I know that was your item there, fiber. Oh no sir, it's just fiber. So it's going to be I, DJ. That is correct. All right. To start, this was budgeted for this fiscal year. But given the amount is just shy of $500,000, we wanted to bring it forth to you just so y'all know the progress that we're doing. Um, we have our quote in, this is to expand the fiber strands between wastewater and Larry Parish. Right now there's no city network at Larry Parish. So this would allow us to essentially put security cameras to access the point and it'll provide for 30 seconds. Did that one out there, they had to go off a bid? Okay. This one's actually under a, we piggybacked off. Oh, piggybacked off. I'm going to kick it off. All right. Any, uh, any questions? I just, one question. I probably won't be sitting here at that point. I'll be in the audience. I'm going to ask, um, the 32-acre park that we're going to have. Of course, there's going to be a lot of, uh, infrastructure for connectivity and all of that. Is this going to be made for a second time? The 32-acre park, this is essentially just the, uh, backbone to get over there. So when the 32-acre park comes along, we would have to look at additional fiber infrastructure. Or, uh, Larry Parish. Larry Parish is included in this one. It is included in this one. It is included in this one. In this one. Okay. Okay. Ms. Mayor, thank you. So my question is because I see that this is an additional 499. Um, I was of the impression that the amount that was budget ed, we were told that that covered everything, right? The entire city. Because we asked for a complete, comprehensive number to do everything. So is this in addition to? It doesn't. No. I think it's just, they're just bringing it up because it's a big number. Correct. But it's part of, it's part of that. It's already, yeah, it's there. It's already been approved budget. They're now ready to get it done. So they just. So you're ready to get it done. Correct. Okay. So then going into my second question, um, because I know that part of this was going to be for like the enrichment center and places of that nature because I took some kids over there and I'm going to go ahead and just say it now. I took some kids over there Friday, um, to do some testing. They had some school testing to do and there, there was no, um, internet service at all in that building. So, um, that was a concern for me because, um, they ended up, thankfully, um, I was able to bring them to Ignite right here and, um, they allowed us to go in there and utilize their space. Um, otherwise they would not be able to take their school testing because I went in. I was so proud to show them the new computer room with all the new computers. I want to find out. Yeah. We, we have like six or seven new computers with no internet service. There should be city internet service to that building. I haven't heard of it. Not the only thing that comes to mind is when Spectrum had its outage the other week. Uh, well, no, because when I, when we were in the building, we had absolutely no internet service. As soon as I walked out in the parking lot, I was able to connect to the internet, but inside the building, there was nothing. I'm sorry. So you're talking about like cellulose. You're talking about like cellulose. You're talking about like cellulose. You're talking about like cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. You're talking about cellulose. I don't know if that's something that you could share with the rest of the commission. Just to give them an update on the project. So I think it'd be helpful. Sure. The ones that we sent for you. We were talking about the Miles Wiley field, I believe. We have the fiber bid with finance still. I'm waiting for that to come back to me. So we can go ahead and get that installed. We've had the recent one. We also had, I can't remember if this is the one we discussed or not, the Lake Eva restrooms. We're getting internet service over there so we can lock the doors and cameras can run off of the building and such. And then the last one I believe we talked about was the Boys and Girls Club. Right. And that one I'm still waiting for the bid to come back with me. And you're already. That's correct. That's correct. You know the question? How many? How many? If you build enough, how many? Anyone from the public? Of course, name and address. And number is closed. And I can vote. What's approved? Second. We have a motion. And we have a second. We have a second. I approve. Item 8. Aye. All in favor. Aye. Motion is carried out. So what's the motion on? We'll start reports now. I'll take a minute to report. Yes, Mayor. Thank you. So if I talk a little funny, that's because I had a great dental appointment yesterday. I'll just go ahead and say it. I know I'm being watched and it could be HIPAA if I wanted it to be, but I'm pretty much an open book. I don't care. So I want to say thanks again. The letter that I put in April 2nd talks about the great experience here and all that good stuff. But I wanted to say more tonight, but I just can't. I have a cut on my tongue. Yeah, Sharon, I thought you would like that. So they had to shave down not one, but two teeth. I thought Commissioner Downing had given me some ulcers on my tongue from stress. No, just kidding. It was the comments that Commissioner Downing made. She knows what we're talking about. And she's probably right. But I'll talk to her privately about that on her phone because she's probably right. Anyway, so I'm going to leave it at that. And I'm sure Lloyd and James are happy that I'm going to be quiet now. Thank you for your comments. City Clerk. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a few things. The next commission meeting is going to be a busy one. May 7th. And there's quite a bit on the agenda. So I wanted to just kind of bring it to your attention that we need to certify the elective law. Statutorily, they can't be done until after 5:00 p.m. We already have a meeting set. And it's my suggestion so that we don't have to keep going back to these candidates. That we're going to have this meeting with the candidates. From 5:00 p.m. We will stop. We will certify the elective results. That takes about 15 minutes. You know, it doesn't take very long. And then we'll go right into CRA and then right into commissioning. Also, pictures will be taken. I have already confirmed with the photographer. We will recess after I swear in the new commissioner. The photographer will be ready to go. We'll take a group picture and get that done. Also, at the regular election, you had authorized as the canvassing board. Hold on one second. Let's do this here. After the new commissioner and everything and the rearrange ment is done, let's take a reset and take the picture. We don't want to not recess and do this during commission meeting. They just stop and start taking the picture. We can tell the audience that we're going to take a 15- minute reset. That's what I said. It's going to be at a certain time in our commission meeting. Okay. I'll make sure I put that in the agenda so they'll know that we're recessing. Okay. I'll make sure that. At the first municipal election, we, the canvassing board, which is three of you that are sitting, two of you that are sitting, two of you that are sitting, two of you that are sitting up here, authorize the SOE to process the ballot early. We're the only city, so we want to get in and out. And so Monday the 4th, we will have to meet. So I need for everybody to look at their calendar. I'd like to do it first thing. As soon as it's done, then I have to go to the SOE, watch them do that, lock that away. What time do I do? You guys tell me. I haven't even met that evening. I mean, let's, 9:00 AM, if that works for you guys? Yeah, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, morning. No. 9:00 AM? Either time. Okay. I'll send out to the others and confirm that up. That's just the canvassing board. That's just the canvassing board. That doesn't look fine. That doesn't look fine. Right. All right. Also, I just want to remind everybody that, for those of you that did RSVP, tomorrow is the State of the County address. Tomorrow morning at the Pope State Center, the doors open at 8:30. It actually starts at 9:00. My recommendation, I've been to it before. You want to get there early. Parking fills up. And it really fills up so bad. I think I may have a conflict, but I don't know if I didn't realize that. I'll be there. Okay. And we can leave this for another meeting. I just, I need some more direction with regards to the boards. When we talk, you know, we said we wanted to have a workshop and have the chair of each board have an actively voice. Yeah. We said that maybe in the office sometime. Okay. Because that'll give us some time. Yeah. Because we have boards that meet regularly every month. We have some that meet as needed, you know, depending on what the director is bringing to them, that kind of thing. So I wanted to just have a little bit more time so that I can work with the directors and get that together. Yeah, I think we should put that out a little bit. Okay. So we're looking at maybe about five minutes. And my last reminder is April 29th. That's next Wednesday. On your calendar, we do have a prospective attorney coming here for interviews. How many we have? I have two. I'm still waiting for one more since I was starting at four . Giving them an hour slot. 29th? The 29th. It's Wednesday. Four. Did you send a calendar invite already? I did already. Have everyone confirmed? No. Calendar invite? No, they have not. Can you resend it? Yes, I will send an update. And I'm waiting to hear from this one last attorney to see if they're available to an attorney out of late. My side of that one. No, you don't have to. Yeah. You won't be working with them. Okay. If they're going to show up this time. If they're going to have a candidate that's interested in it, you can have a student. I'll send an email. That's right. Yeah. We're going to make it. We're banging. I understood. If they don't apply, we ain't going to keep going. And I'll have the resumes available for you. And just from an HR's perspective, I know that Jandra's not here, but I will get with her because I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. I'm going to have a student. You can keep me full. Put more stuff in it. Put more stuff in it. Yeah. Can you look at your calendars? I think, Mr. Huffman, and I don't know what we want to do in July or August. Kid asked about a workshop with the ADA compliant. We try to do a workshop one time. Okay. Probably a little time may not be on the late school. Maybe the first of July. I will find out. Yeah. Right. They're going to find out. Yeah. They'll come back and tell us when we do a workshop. But put that out in the calendar. Oh, well. I'll coordinate them. All right, thanks. And that's all I have. All right. I think the city. No, no, no. We pay for the elections for the people to be there. Correct. Correct. Of course, we use our buildings now. It's a . Correct. I would just. I wasn't here. I'm sure I wasn't here when this board agreed to ask that short window. I got my ballot on Monday and Thursday is the deadline to mail it in. You got it this Monday? Mm-hmm. I think. I think. Thursday is not the deadline to mail it in. Thursday is the deadline to request a ballot. The 23rd. Correct. Yeah, but I think that. I think they can't mail out your new ballot. They can't mail out an audit and everything. Correct. It has to be completed. Did you say that commission tonight? Yes. Yeah. I think the audit has to be completed before they can send it out. I think they just completed the last year. I think you're concerned with what? Two days before the call tonight. I must have just misread what Melody Bell had over there. Yes, we had. She did have some incorrect dates on her website and we did correct that. Okay, on the website? It was on the SOE's website. Okay. Yes, it was on some things. The last date to request the ballot is the 23rd, but you can turn your ballot in all the way up until the 7th. No, the 5th. I'm sorry, because the election is on the 5th and by 7 p.m. on the 5th. She needs to correct. I think that's already been changed. Okay. Okay. That's it? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, thanks. You're going to turn ahead to the comments tonight. I mean, you know. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, it's come to my attention and I had discussed this with both the Deputy Clerk as well as the City Clerk. Um, in dealing with an ongoing litigation matter, there is a specific manner in which a municipality is supposed to receive service of a summons or certain other documents for civil actions. And in researching past legislative acts of the Commission, we realized that there's been no delegation of authority to the City Clerk to accept service of process pursuant to Section 48.111 of the Florida Statutes. And what I would be requesting and after speaking with both Erica and Sharon, the way things have been going, it works and they are happy with the manner in which service has been provided to the City thus far. Um, my request to the Commission would be that you allow me to draft a resolution memorializing and delegating the authority for the City Clerk and/or her designee to accept service pursuant to Section 48.111 of summonses that may be served on the municipality. What if they are qualified at a conference and someone comes in and has a subpoena to be served and they are not here? I don't know. I thought we had policies and procedures already in place and that's for how to accept the payment. I want to make sure that we align with the statute. I don't want to be violated for the statute or not. So to jump in on the statute, the statute does say if person A and B is not available, it goes to person C. If person C is not here, it goes to person D. The purpose of the resolution is just to specifically say that the City Clerk is the registered agent. Okay. So if I'm not here, yes, there's going to be a next person and then the person in line. So then be in line with the floor. Please stay there. Absolutely. We will pair it. The statute to the team. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I want to make sure that we're involved. Yeah. Okay. That's great. We can do that. If you can draft the resolution. Do we need an informable motion? Then? Consensus of the Commission is sufficient if it's everyone 's consensus that I move forward with that resolution. I would draft and prepare for the next meeting. If there's any negative, I'm going to say no, we're about to be. That's it. Okay. We're good. Anything else, sir? That's it, Mayor. Thank you. Commissioner, we got the one. I would just ask if I'm attorney first, then if this board can change me to discuss a new ongoing engagement. Yes, if we are involved in pending litigation and we need to have a legal, strategic, or settlement discussion, we can have a shade meeting. Minutes will still need to be kept in the following dependency of the litigation, then those meeting minutes will need to be made public. But if there's a request that we move forward with scheduling and having a shade meeting, perhaps I can discuss that with your commissioner individually and then I can work with the city clerk in order to make sure that proper notice is given and that we follow applicable law in doing the same. And not only that, we can actually do it, but we can actually do it at a council meeting and take a break and say we're going to have a shade meeting and then come back and we can't. All we can do is make it vote on it, but we can't discuss what we talked about in this meeting. We would actually have to have a separate notice for the shade meeting, so it's something that we need to plan in advance. And that's why litigation is so difficult for municipal corporations because a question that can be answered with a phone call with your attorney takes a municipality notice and we have to schedule the shade meeting just to discuss legal matters. So that's why litigation becomes so much more difficult and tedious. But yes, we can do that. And if you'll let me know exactly which matter you're referring to, I can help arrange for that to happen. Well, I know people, this is being streamed by Mayor West, you know from the time you got here, you've been dealing with this one thing. Yeah, I know, yeah. And it's cost us probably more to settle than to keep going on it. You know what I'm saying. I know what you're talking about. You know what you're talking about. All right. It's been an interesting ride, let's just say that. I have not been here that long, so I can only imagine. Yeah, that is something else. Well, but I think if I'm incorrect, correct me, I'll be interim city attorney. I think he already is working on something in reference. Yes, I am, Mayor. Yeah. But he's already working on it. But nothing is nothing I can do. Grant said the same thing several times. We've done it. And I just want us to decide, you know, how much more, you know, if we're spending more, I think that it's going to be worth. I absolutely agree with you. But I think it's already the last, Larry, the last of the last of how many courses you can take. Perhaps if we have a conversation separately, I can help alleviate some of those concerns. And if we get to a certain point, then absolutely I agree with you 100%. We would need to maybe look for alternatives. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else? I have gone through, this is now my fifth chief of police asking for the cops unit to remain active. So, Chief Jackson, what say you now? I can tell you what the other four said, if you want me to. They said, yes, we're going to put it in place. It's going to stay in place and all of that. Am I right? You are until I had to basically take everything away and put them on patrol. I'm on patrol because patrol is where the rubber meets the road. So, yes, you are correct. So, Chief Jackson, are you a yes? I can't see that far. I'm checking your head. He's saying yes. Yes. So did I. I know. Like I said, it's been five of them. The last thing that Mayor West, I want to, I'm interested in it. I don't know if the rest of you all are interested in it. But as we look for a city attorney, I would like to see a list of what we've already asked for. It's been a lot of the work that we've been doing. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. Because there were several procedures that we were doing things, but there was no pretty procedure. And Fred said that he and the clerk would get together, get a procedure, and get it before us. You had a couple of procedure things that there was no procedure that he said that he would have to do. But if we're up, so it's going to be unfair to whoever is the city manager, and we keep giving them new assignments, and then we remember one of the older assignments that hasn't been done, and it looks like they're being in effect. Right. And I agree. That's why, you know, a lot of times that happens sometimes , but it doesn't until we bring it back up. You know? And we tend to forget. And they say, "Oh man, three weeks up, I made a month going by, and I say, "Oh, I forgot to bring it back up." That's why we've got to have staff to take the notes and write it down when we bring it up here, and then bring it back up. Right. You know, we shouldn't have to bring it back to them if we bring it back to us. Right. And I think that's what you're referring to. Now, if you ask me right now, I'll tell you, I don't remember what we said, but it's not, there's a problem with some procedures that we're not doing. But if they would have written it down, they wish they should have it. Right. Or should be in the record some way, so I don't know. But I think that they have to start, staff has to start following back up. And I think that's definitely the problem. We've got to get that definitely on the board. I agree. I've been pretty steady about holding office hours each week, at least one or two days a week. And what I will make sure I do is follow up. Perhaps following the election cycle, because I know that you are running very low on bandwidth, I will help compile a list of those procedural issues. And I'm also in the process of putting other lists together as far as pending projects and working with staff and doing that. So I will focus on that with our clerk and I will get something back to you as soon as possible. Okay, that would be great. Yes. Thanks for that. Mr. Roy. Yes, thank you, Mayor. It's your last meeting, man. I know. My last meeting. My last, last. Well, actually I still have a CRA. But Commissioner Mayden, this is my last one. I'm not going to go on the whole speech. I hope you guys give me time on the 7th to put my one hour speech. And, you know, because I'm going to go on the whole speech. I hope you guys give me time on the 7th to put my one hour speech. And, you know, before we go tonight, I would like to take a picture with everybody, including staff, if you guys can come after. And I would like to take one last picture. Hey, nowhere. It's just for me. I just don't, actually, it might go somewhere. Yeah, you're right. I know on the 7th it's going to be very busy with the new commissioner coming in and most likely all family that's going to be with them. So, you know, you guys know it's been an honor, a pleasure serving as a commissioner in Haines City. I'm, you know, very nostalgic that I'm not going to be here no more. But I guarantee you that the reason I'm not here is because I'm still thinking on my city. And I'm still, you know, trying to do something that is going to benefit, hopefully benefit all of us in the near future. I had something that... Let me ask you this question. You run up a district, right? In Haines City, in your district? Oh, yes. So you do have Haines City. I know. That's what I'm saying. We're looking into, keep helping Haines City. And, you know, every place in our area. So if God permits it, we're going to be doing that pretty soon. And I had something that I was thinking the other day and I spoke with... I don't remember who I spoke. Maybe Lloyd and Terrell, I think. Anyways, we have those flags that we have for Hispanic Heritage Month and the ones that we have for Black History Month. The ones that are in the polls. We don't have nothing for 4th of July or Independence. So I want to see if the board will agree on getting flags. Now, not for the 250-year celebration, but just to have flags that we can put every year. And I would like to donate up to $5,000 for that cost. I think it might be less than $5,000 to get it done for what we took with the parking wrecks on the cost of the other stuff. I think CRA did it. But if you guys will agree with it, I would like that to be a gift of myself to the city. So we can have those flags whenever we celebrate our independence. You guys can say we're going to go against you. You want to go against you? I don't want to leave it open. It might be way, way more. But yeah, if you guys, you know, I would like to do that. I think it's something that would look nice in our city. Yeah, thank you for that. I think, you know, that's something we definitely do with diversified. So I agree with you. So thank you for being a very, you know, honorary man who wanted to do that. Well, I'm glad that it kind of clicked in my head. I was on the 250-year celebration. And when I was there in another place, I was, I don't know, it just came to my head. And I'm glad that it did. And with that, I guess I'll, like I said, I'll leave my big speech for the day. So thank you. Yeah. And we will give you an opportunity on the, on the, the step, you know, say, some more hours that's going to sustain it and this commission. Thank you. We should have. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, one of my concerns, I've already addressed the internet service, but I wanted to, this is for the calendar invites. Um, I don't know if I'm the only one. So that's why I wanted to just bring it up to see, because I'm having issues with some of my calendar invites. Um, like today, for example, with the, um, habitat for humanity, I didn't have that on my calendar. It was on my calendar and then it showed canceled on my calendar. Just like, um, for example, on Saturday for the, um, Hispanic empowerment gala that also showed canceled. Um, so I don't know what's going on. Um, I was able to attend because I knew that it wasn't canceled, but a lot of stuff is showing that it's canceled or they'll show double. And, um, so that's been a big issue. Um, so yeah, I can, um, because that's, like I said, that's a, that's an issue because a lot of stuff is showing like double and then it comes back and it's canceled. Um, commissioner Downing, let me just say that sometimes. Um, maybe like say habitat for human. I don't know that this is the case, but they will directly send a calendar invite and then they'll send it over to the city to us. And so then we'll send it, but we didn't know that they send it to you. Just like the, the EDC sent mayor West and then I sent him. So he was like, who's doing this? So you get a double invite, right? Sometimes it's a double invite as far as the cancellation though, that part, I don't. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, but I'll show, I can show it to you. I received it. I received it. I received it. Oh, you got it. It was canceled. Yeah. Everything's it's a, yeah. I'm like, I'm looking around no one ever, but James and Lord was there and that Joe home and came. And, but I was wondering what I asked. But I asked Omar. He said that you got it. Did you ask him? I, I, I, I, well, since I couldn't attend, I need, I already have something else for that time. And, um, uh, then Sharon called me or text me about it. And I told her I was, and the, somebody from the organization actually text me a few days ago just to ask me if I was going. I told him, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm, you know, I got a previous compromise that I, that already put on my calendar and I couldn't cancel it. But, uh. I'll definitely look into the, just make sure. Um, I do know. Sometimes it has happened, you know, there's multiple calendars that are open. So the calendar invite has come from the wrong calendar, if that makes sense. And maybe try to cancel the foot back and then put it somewhere else. But I'll definitely check. Okay. Thank you. And. I'm sorry. So it was not the, not, not the, uh, groundbreaker. Uh, that was canceled. It said it. Yeah. On both of them I said canceled. Well, you didn't get the habitat? Not that it was canceled. I said canceled. Oh, you did? Oh, okay. Actually, you're right. It's, uh, it's, it's canceled. On the gala, it says canceled. Yeah. Yeah. Because that was put out there a long time ago. You talking for tomorrow night? No, no, no, no. But that was put out there a long time. Well, my calendar also for today is that canceled. Yeah. It's canceled. Yeah. Yeah. So if you can just check into that for me, please. And then, um, my other concern is the lights. Um, our lights, and I know we talked about this before. And again, this comes back to just getting some information back to us versus, um, we having to bring it up again. But, um, the lights on Hanson Avenue and the lights on MLK, the majority of them are all out again. I don't know what's going on. I do know that, um, the MLK lights were changed to like a higher quality lights, but now there's like, all of them are out except maybe about three or four of them. And then also on Hanson, um, if you ride down there, even probably like tonight, they're, the majority of them are out. Um, and I think Ms. Garrett even mentioned it before months ago, that it's very, very dark. And it is. So I don't know if we could look into, I think there was supposed to be like a study or something done for some repairs or even to have them completely replaced. Um, late at night, it is very dark on Hanson and it is also very, very dark, um, on MLK. Um, so if we could just have someone to check those two locations out for, um, the lights. And then my last thing is. Well, we're talking about that because keeping, you know, to me, that's a public safety issue. Exactly. Because in the middle of the night, you know, midnight shift, you know, you would think that the patrol officers that's out on patrol and they'd notice that it's a safety issue. If all those lights out on MLK and it's dark, they chasing someone, you would think that they would stop and know or do an incident report and pass it on. And Ms. Garrett has been talking to some of our department here for a while. Just to speak to that real quick, our officers at night do compile a list of the lights that are working and we do turn it in. Okay. Um, after we turn it in, it's up to you. Yeah, but they still do that, right? Yes, sir. Okay. So that was part of their job. They seem to realize that I still do that. Yes, we do. No, we do. No. So I don't know how long the lights have been out of. They've been out a long time. They've been out a while. Yeah, but I don't know what's going on with the, like, I can't speak on the Henson one, but I do know that after Ms. Garrett stated that someone was supposed to go out and look at it and then just me running around checking stuff, I see that the majority of them on Henson is still out. But I do know on MLK, they did come out, they fixed the lights, they even upgraded to like new quality, supposed to be quality like LED lights. Right, yes. But for some reason, it's like, okay, they'll work tonight and then they'll be out for four or five nights and then they'll work again. So I don't know what the issue is down there. It's not like a grid problem. But something is definitely shortening, like a shortage somewhere and causing it to go out. Yeah, we don't fix them, but we definitely keep a problem. No, we also need to make sure because that's the issue. You also get out there and go after someone and run into the door and put them in harm's way. So, you know, we do nightly we compile it. Yeah, okay, good. Okay. And my final thing is that I attended the Hispanic Empower ment Gala on Saturday. It was a very nice event. They did also honor the city with a plaque, and so it will be in our commission chambers. And that gala, I believe, was for to raise money for their scholarships to give out. Yeah. Right. And they give out scholarships. Yeah, if I can add wine on that. So the foundation, what they do is they do the Hispanic Heritage Month Festival. Yeah. And that's how they raise their money. And then on the gala, the gala is to give the scholarships, which they gave six scholarships, right? I think six plus the, yeah. Oh, yeah. Six plus the special needs one that they did. So, you know, thanks for mentioning it. Thank you to the city for supporting this for five years now. And, I mean, I think the whole city should feel very proud of the work that they're doing and the good things that they are doing. And the scholarships are open for everybody. So they send it to the trade schools and they have to submit something. Everybody, everyone is open for anyone. And after they submit it, if it's more than what they have, then they have to, you know, kind of see which ones are the ones they're going to get. But, you know, good work for them. It was a beautiful, beautiful gala. Yes, sir. And that's all I have, Mr. Mayor. All right. Thank you for representing the, uh-oh. Will you have the gala? No. Okay. Yeah, thank you for representing the city and being there. You know, and that's why it's five of us standing up here because we can't all attend every thing that happened. But if we can at least get one of us there to represent, that's great. We have different agendas and things to, I knew I could make it. Yeah, and you told me that. Vice Mayor, I just want to reiterate that I would have attended, but I did get the notification that they have canceled. So that was the reason I wasn't there. I did have some information I wanted to share with you all from the DPO. Okay. But I won't be here to do that tonight because my device, unfortunately, has died. Yeah, right. So I have nothing else. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. And I'll be sure. One thing, and I had this conversation with our city clerk, and I'll share this with my seatmate here and the city staff. When we do the Ridge Legal Center, they always, what are you good about someone, maybe the city clerk will send it out. You know, RSVP is going to be there. It's a reason why they do an RSVP, because we have to turn in the head count. And not one of that. We pay for those tickets. Yeah. You know, so if you know for sure you're not going to go on RSVP, but if you're definitely going to go RSVP, because that's how they sent a check to them. And then if we got five people that are not there, that's about $35, and it costs them the city. And then the second part is, by doing that, they'll know how many that the city clerk would know to reserve three tables or two tables. We've been finding out lately, because we've had a lot of attendees from the city, but we're sitting at some, sitting at one table, some sitting at another one. You know, I don't like to see that. I like to come right around. We all should be sitting together. We are sitting. We shouldn't have to sit with Bartow or Winter Haven. You had to sit with some of them one meeting. I had to sit with Winter Haven. And that's when you've got to sit by yourself. Yeah, what I'm saying is, see, we, but if we know it's going to be 30 and they're going to be there, we can say we need this many tables all right here, and we can all sit together. I just don't like the fact that we've got to sit all around the room. But nevertheless, make sure if you're going to RSVP, if you 're going to be the RSVP, and if you're not going to be there, don't RSVP, because then they pay for it in that bank. So just keep that in mind. And if I don't get a chance to say this to you, Omar, I mean, for the last four years, man, you've been sitting up here and you've made a difference, man. You've represented yourself. You've represented the city. I ain't seen it very well. I mean, you're a man of character, man. I really appreciate all the work that I've seen you've done . I mean, you really, really have set that camp for him tomorrow. So it's going to be hard for somebody to come behind you on the standards that's just there from sitting up here. So we really appreciate the stuff you've done. And don't go unnoticed. And I just hope you carry that over to the county and continue to, you know, live your legacy there and make a legacy for yourself there as you have done here in the city . And I'm quite sure that the community appreciates the work you've done. I know I have. We might not always agree on that either, but, you know. And that's the whole point of having this going, right? Yeah. Different lines, different ways of thinking. Yeah. And I wanted to say that because, you know, on the field, there's going to be a lot of moving parts. And I want to make sure I get that out. And lastly, you know, city manager, I know, you know, May 1 st coming quickly. Next week, I believe. Yes, sir. I tell you. And I want to say, you know, because you won't be here at the next meeting for a sustaining thing. All right. But, you know, thank you, man. I tell you. One thing I can tell you about, about the city manager, though, really, you can call him at 1 o'clock in the morning because he ain't sleep. I can tell you that now. You know, he's going to take you back more than that. You know. Well, one thing I, you know, so, and I love that. You know, and then once you get him on the phone, he can talk now. Yeah. Yeah. So much. A five-minute conversation may end up in 35 minutes, you know. 35 minutes. That's all I have. But, you know, I'm going to miss that, man. You know, the conversation that you have and talk about everything from your dog, and, you know, and, you know, so, we really appreciate the service that you've given to the city of Haines City. 100%. Thank you. You know, and you came in, you hit the ground running, you know, being the city manager, you're on the island by yourself, man. And ain't nothing else, you know, nobody there. You know, you're responsible for everything. You're going to be paying like I do with the police team. You're going to be home in your bed asleep. Anything that happens is you're responsible for it, right? You know. But, thank you for, you know, being, you know, being in that season, serving in that season, representing Haines City as well. Thank you. Yeah. And, Mayor, thank you for your kind words. It really mean a lot to me. No, no problem. I mean, it's good. And, Jim, last meeting, I already saved my big part of you, so. I know. Did you just skip my text, though? I'm going home. I'm going home. Yeah, so, you know, it was always a pleasure working together with you. Yes, sir. I know we're going to keep seeing you all over, so. All right. With that, anybody else? Anybody else know that they put a good order? All right. I just typed it up. You got to start? No, he's got to take a picture. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, we'll get that picture. Okay, so we're closing. We'll get that picture. Okay, so we're closing. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture. I'm going to get that picture.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Most gracious God, we come before you now to give you glory , honor, and praise. Most of all, God, we want to thank you for allowing us to wake up this morning, starting us on our way. Now, God, we are here for a business. God, let it be a peaceful session. Lord, let our minds be stayed on you even though we are here for business. Now, God, we ask that you cover us in the blood of Jesus. Now, God, as we conduct our business, Lord, help us, O God, to be obedient. Lead us and guide us in every way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic of the United States, my nations, my God, and to the peace of the Lord. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Nelson, thank you so much. We'll continue with our agenda that's in front of us. Item 4A says the appointment of an interim city manager. And as we all know that the last city council meeting that our current city manager, James Olinsky, had given us a resignation letter, effective as of May 1st, 26th. And we all accepted that resignation letter from him. So, therefore, you know, when he exits there, we need to have someone take the interim role until we decide which direction that the city of Haines City is going to go with our next city manager. Thank you for your service and time. And so that's what we're here this morning to discuss. I'm going to allow, you know, each commissioner, my opportunity to discuss this role that they think should serve in this capacity after the city manager leaves the city. And we would like for this, whoever is named, we will, I would, I can't speak for the rest of you guys, but I would like that whoever it is, get to work closely with the city manager because there are some things that, you know, he does that Lord and Lord James do, they do separate job, and there's some things that he does that they're not aware of. So he's going to have to train them and let them know some things, so, whomever it may be. So, therefore, that's why we're doing the expeditions of the time very quickly here. We hope we can do it right now. May 1st is about bringing the way to do it. Thank you for your time again, city manager. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner, Don, if you want me to. I'm sorry. Real quick before, something I would like to look forward to consider, a couple things I understand, Madam Perkins, how? At the time when the meeting was called, I was a shoe hall, a shoe hall, we were considering, I had asked for a request , and it was supposed to be communicated with everyone else if we could get someone like a bio or a resume, I don't know what that happened. Whoever we were doing. No, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't get that. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then second point, just for transparency purposes, and I do understand we have some great candidates here from within. I just thought, had this commission considered for transparency reasons, if we were somewhat, I know it's time sensitive, possibly putting the card before the force, but not advertising this out to get other candidates in. For the entry? Yeah. I don't think we have to, for an interim city manager, have to advertise this because they're not going to be your city manager. It's the interim role just to take over until we name a city manager. And I just, I don't think there's nowhere, you said, and we have to advertise. Usually when you mention the word interim, it's within. And I think that's what we're doing here, promoting someone within to take over. Now, if that was the city manager itself, yes, we would have to advertise out, and I think we should. In my opinion, for the city manager position, I think we should probably cast our net out there and see what's out there, but we don't know. You understand? Yes? If the commission would like, I can certainly reach out. There's been recruiting services that have been used, entities that have been used in other jurisdictions, and I can see what information I can bring back to you in the next meeting. As for the interim? As for the actual manager itself, if you were interested in using the services of a recruiter, I can bring you some information. Okay, yeah, once we decide it's going to probably be the interim, and then we can entertain that next, and I agree that we're going to cast our net that's cast into all the outlets out there, that we can get some candidates. We don't know what's out there until we cast our net. I'm not saying that the internal candidates, you know, it may not be great, which I'm saying that we've got some great talent here, but we don't know what's out there. Correct. I don't know, you know, so I don't want to limit our ability to say, hey, y'all, it's just an evil, just, you know, so we should probably. But that's totally up to this commission. And that is correct. And just for the purposes of what I'm discussing now, that was just, I had the board consider that I'm completely fine with moving forward with the candidates that we do have. Well, the internal, I guess, candidates that we have at this time. That was just something I wanted to make sure that we were thinking about. But we know we have two. We have two deputy city managers right now. And to my opinion, I think they've done an outstanding job, to be honest with you. You know, and I really appreciate their service to the city . And they're very active. But then we also have our public safety personnel who's, we know that his current or prior job was the deputy county manager. But we all know that county government and municipal government runs totally different. You know, so somewhere close, but it's different. But we have that person. And then we have James King. And then we have Lloyd Stewart. You know, I think out of the three, you know, should we select out of the three? If we all don't feel comfortable with any one of those, then we'll have to do something different. But I think that we have enough talent, the people here that knows this job. And they can do it until we let it be. And they can do it. Mayor, may I have the floor for a second? I realize I cannot vote. And the reason you see Lloyd here is James is on a cool cruise. And the public safety person you mentioned is at a conference. If you stay internal, it would be my recommendation. Director Hall, did you bring the requirements? The city manager would do as I requested. That's okay. That's okay. James and I have talked about this, and Lloyd and I have talked about this. But there are minimum requirements that you have to meet to be appointed to the position. And everything that's been set up here is absolutely accurate. The downfall for James is, sir, he doesn't, in this commission, he does not have a college degree at all. Well, I know the requirements say you must have a bachelor 's degree. You must have a bachelor's. He will finish certified public manager with Grel Griffin, though, in a few months. Although that's not a requirement. Yet, I do believe that should be a requirement. But it's not a requirement. But regardless, the requirement is a minimum of a bachelor 's degree that James does not have. Lloyd does. The public safety director does. Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course. Of course, of course, of course, of course. Of course, of course, of course. Of course, I do. Of course, of course. Of course, I do. But Lloyd is here. By the way you're talking about it, Mayor, if it's interim for 30, and then this board, this commission decides on a permanent city manager. I just suggest that you go with Lloyd for 30 days. I plan on, as you all know, I'm going to fulfill my obligations from 5 p.m. May 1st. And what's weird is there is an email in your inbox. I'd like you to read. I didn't send it to you until midnight. I'm not sure if Lloyd's had a chance to read it yet. Vice Mayor, I think, has read it. Maybe not. I sent it at midnight. No, what? 12-1-1-1, you're right. 12-1-1. I missed it by one minute because I said tomorrow. Tomorrow would be tomorrow. But anyway, that's on a different subject. I won't discuss that, but it's in your inbox. Please look at it. And it's something that you wanted, and I'm willing to come back for that meeting. I don't want any money. So I would recommend Lloyd Stewart after May 1st, 5 p.m. for 30 days while you all decide what you want. Yeah, and thank you for that. Yeah, and thank you for that. Yeah. And thank you for that. You know, we can't guarantee, you know, city managers that we may have this position filled within 30 days. It could be even longer. So it kind of concerned me, you know, if we went with Lloyd , and Lloyd said, I only want to do it for 30 days, that put this commission in a pipe iron there to try to, you know, rush to name someone, which we may not want to do that. We may want to take our time, you know, and if you're candidates, though, I'm saying that if Lloyd only wanted to do 30 days, that's an issue with me. I just think that, you know, if he can cover it until we name someone, then that would be, Lloyd wouldn't be all right with me. I just don't think 30 days, that's my thing. And that went into us. Yeah, Lloyd, can you come up, Lloyd? And Lloyd, you know, I appreciate it, Lloyd. Let me tell you a story about Lloyd. Lloyd, you. Lloyd went to Tallahassee with us to advocate for funding with a band. Anybody remember that? Oh, yeah. You really? Yeah, we really. Let me show you how dedicated he was to the city of Haines ville. We had to send Lloyd home. Yeah. Lloyd went home that same night. I think the next day he had to have surgery, correct? Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, something. I know he had to have, but he put that initiative in to go to Tallahassee because he wants to fight for Hainesville. That was touching my heart when you did that, Lloyd. Because you didn't have to, you could have said, hey, I'm injured, I can't make it. But you said, I'm going anyway. And I really appreciate that. And I never was going to get that. So our question is to you that we can't guarantee you we're going to have someone named in 30 days. So, you know, and I hear, I'm quite sure the rest of us in here, in the manager said, hey, Lloyd, only want to do it for 30 days. So if you were appointed as our interim, could you go longer than 30 days? Yes. I am not interested in being the city manager. Right. And that's another thing I like about it because now, because we know that you're not doing it trying to be the city manager. You know, that gives us time because you have no interest in being the city manager. And that gives us time to decide which direction we're going. Yes. I wish to need to know, do you want, or you'll be able, or will you go longer than 30 days? I can go longer than 30 days. I just want everybody to know that I'm not going to be a city manager on a permanent basis. And I appreciate that. Why not? So, at this time, you know, I'd like to hear from our other commissioners and the vice mayor in reference to, you know, their calls and whatever you want to do. I was throwing them with it. And thank you. You can have a seat right there, Lord. We're all going to call you. Thank you. Commissioner Dott, you want to say something? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Basically, my question was already answered as far as only wanting to do the 30 days because it definitely would take longer than 30 days to do a successful search for the most qualified candidate for city manager. So, that has been answered as far as my selection. Are we at that point? Do you want to come back? No, I just want to hear it here. We'll come back and make a cast. Yes. So, you know, that basically was just my, was going to be my question of concern when I heard the 30 days because it 's going to require longer than the 30 days. Okay. I'm going to go over to Commissioner Huffman. Well, the county is going to do interim or easily. Right. November of this year. Right. So, there is a rule that says that you cannot promote someone in town. This is just something people want to do. I want to make sure that whoever it is that the, not resume , but the requirement that is someone that is, has experience with fire as well as police. That is someone that is, that meets all of the requirements that we have. I don't want to get into a, you know, not to have only training the person or national training the person or lower training the person. I don't want to get into a, you know, but I don't want to get into a, you know, I don't want to get into a city manager. I don't want to get into a city manager. I don't want to get into a city manager. I don't want to get into a city manager. I don't want to get into a city manager. And my choice would have been Joe Hogan. Since he's had experience with the county itself. And he's been over fire. And over police. And he's been an administrator. because that's what I'm looking for in experience in handling all these things so you don't have to give us to money. But let me tell you the director by hiring a man to do that . Would you be opposed to if this board name, if they, I don 't know, name Lloyd, let's say the interim city manager, interim now, I'm not saying city manager, interim city manager, and then in the meantime bring Joe Harmon over to get him home, work closely with James and Lloyd for a period of time. Because Joe came from the county, but municipality is a little different. We need to get him in and let him learn what's going on in city hall here. You know, he's all the way up there in Devin. Really, I think he's in Devin with the advance of the EOC. So I think, you know, if we go with Lloyd, we move Joe back here at city hall, let him work closely with James and Lloyd. If he have a desire to maybe want to put in for the city manager, he'll be a strong consideration. But right now, I think Joe only been here, if I'm incorrect , in the manager, correct, like he's right at two months. You're closer now, two and a half months. Right. Yeah, okay. So, you know, I just think that, and we brought Joe in when I said we see the manager because we wanted a public safety director because there were some issues that we're working on, and we got some good staff over at the police and fire department now, and with Joe being there, we got issues that we wanted to correct. That's why Joe came to help them with that, and I think he 's going to do a great job. We still have issues there. You know, we still have issues that we need corrected, and we need a public safety director. That's the one with the experience of Joe, but I think we move from the city hall, let him learn city management, municipal government, and he has county experience, you know that, and learned from this municipal, and he has the desire and wants to be the city manager, and we give him, you know, he can apply and have strong considerations with Joe, well qualified, been knowing him a long time. But I just think that two and a half months, you know, maybe, because if he come over here, like we just said, Lloyd and James got to train him. Let him come over here and let him train. Let him get trained, and then he'll speak with some rest of the people. He may not even want to be, he's not here to speak, but he may not even want to be the city manager. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not opposed to that at all. I think the departments that Lloyd has been over that, he's done a very good job with it. I'm more concerned with the requirements that we send out so that we don't waste our time with someone that was HR director that's now applying for city manager or was fire chief and now applying for city manager. I want to see the requirements to be in the department that I want to see the requirements to be sent with someone that can come in and tell him about the departments that he has. I don't think that anyone that I think would buy is going to have the experience over public works. So that is going to be a consideration. So that is going to be a consideration. But they're just learning the different departments, not learning how to be a city manager. Because I'm very disappointed in the resumes for the city attorney. And I think that's going to be a part of the department that's going to be a part of the department. And great point. So you're referring to when we advertise for the city manager that we should include those qualifications in there. They should have a little knowledge about police and fire and public infrastructure. They're saying this person only has experience in infrastructure. And never known anything about police and fire. So I understand you want to be a well first, well-rounded manager. So I understand you want to be a part of the city manager that has a lot of experience. So I understand you want to be a part of the city manager. So I understand you want to be a part of the city manager. So we can definitely put that in our qualification. And I agree with you. It's good. It's good. Thank you. I agree with you as well as Commissioner Huffman that Mr. Hallman should come to City Hall as the Public Safety Director in the Executive Office so that he can shadow the devotees to learn the day-to-day operation. Now, but what I don't want is to make it seem like there's a president's already said that he would automatically become the city manager. Because that is not the case. We are going to do, if it's at the liberty of the entire board, to do a search for the city manager, of course. We know his qualification when he was brought over here as the Public Safety Director. So he would definitely may want to apply. But, you know, again, that would just be up to him. But I just don't want, you know, for anyone here or even the news media to go out and print something like, oh, there's already a president, that he would automatically become the city manager. Because that's not the case. I would definitely want to, as Commissioner Huffman stated, see all the qualified candidates, look at all the experience, and then we make a informed decision at that point. I never really understood why he was not here at City Hall. Our previous Public Safety Manager, director, I'm sorry, was here. But that's neither here nor there. So I definitely agree with him coming in shadowing, going to shadow Lloyd and James just to get caught up with, you know, our day to day procedures, everything that we have going on in the city. And one additional thing I heard you mentioned that the interim would take over as of May 1st. I want to back that up a little bit because I think once we name that person, that said person today, they should actually start today in that role, being that it's only two weeks away. Because, you know, if we're going to decide today, why not, the city manager is still going to be here. But then we would also have that person as the interim city manager, working closely with him, with the actual city manager, getting involved with everything that's going on, everything that they need to know going forward so they can be fully prepared to take over full responsibility as of May 1st. And that's what I'm not saying. I'm saying that that person would take over after May 1st. Oh, yeah. But they will be in that role until then training with the city manager. Yes, we're good. And then after May 1st at 5, then they'll take over as the interim, permanent. But they will be named. They can start the day in the main. So we'll go back. Commissioner Roy, you're going to come answer your question. Thank you. Well, I think we are blessed to have candidates within the organization to take over. Because otherwise it will be, you know, a serious, a serious problem. And we have three great candidates. I think all three have their own merits. I mean, Lloyd has been with us for quite a while and been next to James for forever since he started the position. I know he's ready to just keep going. No need to train there. I think James is another great option that we have. I mean, he's been with us for many years. And the same thing has been in leadership roles. That part about the degree, I myself don't think that we should revise that part of it. Not everybody gets to that degree. But the experience is still there. It's still as good as anybody with the degree. You can have somebody with the best degree from the best, you know, the best in the world. And it can be the worst of the worst. So that part, I think, is something that should be revised on it. And Mr. Joe, I mean, I don't know much about him, but I'm just looking at his history of the positions that he has had. He's been in leadership forever. I mean, he was in leadership with the sheriff department for quite a few years. And then the county, I think over eight years in the county , which might be a little different than the city, but still it's counting. And then the great relations that comes with that, too. I'm pretty sure he knows a lot of people and knows a lot of ways of doing things that we might don't know. So we are blessed to have three options. And it seems like the lawyer is willing to take the interim . Maybe the whole job, right? And I get it. And I get it. You know, it's being on the top chair. It's something else. You know, it can be something else. So I don't blame you. But I thank you for putting yourself in there for us for this, you know, whatever amount of months we need to or this board needs to because, you know, I'm not going to be part of it. I'll be praying tremendously for the best. God to guide the five members of this board to get the best of the best for this city. I just hope that we don't make, you know, a bad mistake. Let's, like Commissioner Huffman said, let's make sure that we put good, good requirements to get somebody that is actually good in a, you know, another one of those requirements should be in something similar to us. Let's not bring somebody that is from a hundred-person city . Let's bring somebody that has experience in something similar to us. We don't, we don't want, like, you know, has been saying before, we don't want somebody trying to train the person that we're going to get on that position. So, yeah, I think Lloyd will be great in the position. So thank you, Lloyd, for putting yourself there for us. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Oh, Mr. Mayor. Mike Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, as everybody's standing out there, I think we do have some very good questions. We do have some very good internal candidates to consider. I would have loved to have all three of them here that way we can hear just even to know their willingness to serve in that role. Mr. Vice Mayor. Yes. I told both of them. You may not want to do it, but I did tell James and the whole man would be prepared for a fun call for me. But this may not be right to me. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I do understand that James may be lacking some of the current qualifications as far as the consideration goes for him at this time. I do definitely think he's a tremendous candidate. I take somewhat of a different opinion to Director Allman's experience, even though, like you said, county and city levels are totally different. I think they're more parallel. And then when you talk about the scope of the duties and functions in the people up under him, I think that would be somewhat similar, if not probably a little bit more expansive than what we have here at the city levels. I don't think it would be much of a learning curve when you talk about the number of years in a leadership role and also at that county level for that. I do think we do have what we are looking for here in house , at least on a temporary basis. I hope Lloyd would be willing to stay in that role as long as needed. That way we can take the time and make sure that we do interview. And if it doesn't go where we want it on the first round, then we do have the ability to continue to search, to find the right person. But with that being said, other than having them here to simply say, if they'd be willing to do it, I think that I'd be in a position to move forward. Vice Mayor, sorry, I don't want you to run. Go ahead. Do you recognize? I will tell you, Vice Mayor, both are willing to do it. Yes. If you would. What was that, both? James? James. Okay. James realizes, not only do everything, but I did intentionally send him to CPM. But, you know, I think that, you know, after we change seats here, there'd be a recommendation that, you know, because Lord, whomever may be, I would say, in that role, that we need to tweak our qualifications. You know, we have some good traits. Commissioner Husband says things that are very vital. And then Commissioner Royer says things, you know, he's right. There are some people that don't have a degree, but has 20 years of experience to be equivalent to a degree. Hey, I don't have a degree. I'm just saying that we can, we can, we can put, we can change that in that way. Therefore, we don't be violating our own ordinance or our own policy that we tweak it and change it and put in there. Hey, James Keene, for example, you know, he doesn't have a degree, but he has, you know, 20 years, 15 years of experience. It's a, you know, the same thing. Mr. Royer, at the same time, I do understand and appreciate what you're saying. I just want to make sure that we have the opportunity to kind of evaluate if that's something that we want to do. Right. You know, just simply saying we'll move forward. Because we definitely don't want to look like we're doing a full one or two. Exactly. I understand. Yeah, right. But any candidate that comes by with, they have 20 years. That's why I said once we opened it up, then anybody that has, if we decide to, you know, change that and move it and say a bachelor degree and more, 10 years of experience, you know, and leadership, you know. That's all. Not just for him, but anyone, once we opened it up. But, like I said, I appreciate you guys and ladies and gentlemen coming in this morning. And, and, and, and, because this is important that we need to do. Mayor, Mayor, I'll say one more thing and then I promise. Oh, sure. It's your last thing, man. Okay. It's my last thing. You heard it, Lloyd. Um, I do agree with everything that's been said, especially the lead vice mayor actually. And, Commissioner Huffman. I would suggest that you look at somebody, and I'm not naming a name, uh, that has police and fire. Um, one thing, James knows, because we've talked at all. I'm not talking behind his back. Uh, he may be listening right now. He knows I was going to say this. He has no police or fire. That could be a problem if you stick internally. Uh, but of course, the guy that does have police and fire and everything you mentioned, vice mayor, um, has no infrastructure that I'm aware of. He may tell you something different. I don't know. My final comment. Right. And that, you two words I don't mind from your final comment, because I would say, you know, it can go both ways . Somebody can have police and fire, but we know infrastructure just as important as police and fire. You gotta, you gotta weigh it out. You have to. And James, on the other hand, may not have police and fire, but he has the infrastructure. How many of us have police and fire, but no infrastructure. So that's why a well-rounded city manager that has all of that, will be very, very successful. It's gonna be tough to find, but you know, they probably out there. You can cast out that. I think we just need to make sure that we're clear. Even though we are talking about the long term, as far as the city manager, just put the purposes up to date. This is just for him. Yeah. Right. That's why I was saying to you that after we select our interim and then after we, you know, our main meeting, then we can probably have a workshop. Then we can set our priorities on what we're looking for for a city manager. But right now for the sake of this meeting, we're only here to name an interim city manager. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Two things I want to say. Yes. Yes. Yes. And we have a fire chief. Yes. And we have a new fire chief. Even though the police chief has been here forever and a day, he hasn't been in that role. so he's going to need some guidance and with the fire chief he worked for us before but now that's fire chief and he's working with joe hallman so he still is going to need some guidance we've got issues in the oakland community with policing and so i know that chief jackson needs some leadership and so does the fire department so that's why i said that we need somebody with fire and police to be able to help them out because if not we're going to work whoever is a city attorney to death with different things that come up in the middle of the year and all of that when we don't have a i can't say experience um at least experience but not as the chief to move in order for him to succeed and i want him to succeed he's going to need some good leadership so as you write down whatever the requirements are is to order some good that in there because if not um we're going to go back to having the black guy that we have had before trying to move forward um so that's why i said what uh i said and i agree with that um if if i said to work with james and lord to see how much is done administratively and he might say i do this every day and it may not take as long if we decide to advertise i think we need to put a deadline instead of until high lord is going to be here with us he's not going anywhere so lord is going to be able to answer whatever questions but when you leave something until higher it's going to work us to death okay we got 15 applications what we want right we don't want any other 15 now you got to advertise now you have to give 15 more that's that year we need a deadline for whenever we advertise and i think that should be moved off any of our application and our boards so we find our stuff and all the time in our policy that our positions are open open until field you know i think in any position you know with hr we probably should put you know once the position comes available you know you got a you know 30 or 45 days to apply and then after that then it's closed we can reopen if any of those happens but we can look at that but that's that's why we said after we you know after we name the interim then we can start working on our qualifications um commissioner hoffman i agree with you on on the putting some good qualifications requirements for a position but you know a good leader in in a high position doesn't necessarily needs to know about everything it needs to have a good understanding of of all the areas but a real good leader is to me is the one that finds the person that is going to lead that department you know and make sure that whatever the whatever is in that department is a really good one for and in this case i i know and and i agree a hundred percent with you when it comes to fire and police you know we have a new people on the positions that um haven't had the time to to gain all the experience necessary but we also have the public safety director position that you know even if if mr joe will go to the main position um he doesn't necessarily to me i wouldn't want him to be the one kind of trying to look at those departments um having somebody else replace his position on it and with a good experience uh... good leadership to make sure that those other ones are guided in uh... in a good way so um... the record requirements I think we do have to put good requirements because we don 't want just anybody to apply for it. But finding somebody that has the actual experience on all the departments that we have, it's going to be really, really tough to find it. One of them, because there might not be that many candidates out there with that. And the ones that are out there are most likely already taken by other cities. And having somebody with all that in them, it's going to be hard for those cities to let them go. But anyways, you're right on the requirements. We do have to put some decent requirements there to make sure that we have, that we without the ones that are not even close to be on this position. Let's just say what the vice mayor is. Let's try to wrap this up because we want to focus on what we hear. I just wanted to also state that we need to keep in mind state statutes where a city manager basically cannot wear two hats. So let's always keep that in mind. He cannot be the city manager and then also be over police. So in our search, we actually just need to search for someone to be a city manager, not to say, oh, they must be over police and fire. That's going to be part of our public safety director. And I think we should keep that position open and keep someone in that position because then they would man those two areas. And it would clear the city manager of having to somewhat wear two hats and be in violations. And as Commissioner Arroyo stated, it's going to really limit us to our candidates. We're saying that they're going to need experience across the board in every department within the city. So that's just my take. I would not want to eliminate the public safety director. I know that would save us some money, but I think it is a crucial area right now. We definitely need someone in there like Commissioner Huff man stated to just help out with some of the policing issues that we are experiencing throughout the city right now. But again, that's for our permanent position. I know today we're here to go ahead and select the interim, Mr. Mayor. Okay, thank you. Well, so it's not on the agenda, but what I want to do is transparency reason what we normally do. I'm going to open this up for comments and then we'll vote. That way you can't say we didn't get any comments from the community. At this time, I'm going to open it up for comments to anyone from the community who wish to speak in reference to this item. Please, Southport, state your name and address for the record. Good morning. Good morning. I am Carolyn Nelson and I am from Haines City, 2226 Winger Avenue, located here in the city of Haines City. First of all, I would like to say I profoundly am so sad to hear that our city leader has been here about 10 years and now he is retiring. I want to say that your expertise and your leadership and your commitment to our community have made a lasting impact . I'm sincerely going to say thank you for your service. It takes a strong and vibrant leader to guide a city forward. And you have demonstrated the skills, knowledge, and professionalism required for such an important role. Your contributions will never be forgotten. As we move forward, look into the future. It is my heartfelt hope that the city of Haines City will select a successor who poses the highest level of education , experience, and dedication that disposition requires. I also pray that we can continue and work together in H aines City. As I reflect, as a vision, God said make it plain. I've seen some things in a vision. And so I won't share it all because everybody has their own agenda or a feeling. But I would say this. If we are going to say that we must be educated or we must carry a bachelor's degree, a science degree, whatever that position holds, I believe it should be lifted. We need to stick with that. Not saying that if you are a doctor and you hold a degree and they go to the school board and apply, are you going to give them the same amount of money that you would give a teacher? No. So let's look to who has the education. We don't want to lose anyone from any department. We want to make sure that we give that person who's moving to the next department. I don't know who it's going to be. But give them time to get the skills of learning what they need to learn. And make sure we put them in the right position. Don't just run and do it. Let's make sure that we pray about it. And let's do the right thing. Thank you for your comment. Thank you for your comments. Will there be anyone else? Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Claude Holmes. I'm a resident here in Haines City. First, I would like to take my hands off the gym for a job well done. Thank you, sir. My hands off to all of y'all. Because since y'all have been on the board, I've watched a lot of things change. And I'm thankful for that. I'm in the funeral business here. And y'all bringing in more people than we have to period. So I'm thankful for that. Just being joking. And what is your email address, sir? Last ride. Last ride. Last ride. But what I wanted to say, with the job that we have going on now, everything is moving forward. I think we took the motto of Haines City forward. Is that it? Yeah. Let's not get someone that was stagnated with progress. You have to kind of like start all over again. Get somebody that's available. Somebody that's capable. And let's get it done. They may not say it. They're going to come up with complaints. But everybody's proud of the way the city is growing. Everybody is proud of the way the city is growing. I want to commend all of y'all for your job well done. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I can say to the audience that's in front of us, though, you know, we, we, we, I said we, because we all are here as one. We make tough decisions. And some decisions that we make is not favorable for everyone, but we make the best decisions we can at times. We sit in here. You know, the next decision we make may be favorable for the next person. So we have to make those decisions. But that's why you all, and I see you all, the constituents putters here. Everybody, every 44,000 people in Haines City can't be up here. But they select what they want here to be their representatives, speak for them. And we make the best decision as possible. Not that we're perfect, but we try to make the best decision. We're perfect. We're perfect. Yes. Yes. Continue with their property. And the property. Yes. Yes. All right. I said, thank you so much. Would that be anyone else? I'm going to be here. I'm going to close the comments. We're going to get an individual vote here. In reference to you. If you want to, we don't have to do it. If all in favor of Lord Stewart becoming our interim city manager, we can catch that vote, and we can vote individually. What's your desire? I'm sorry. I don't know if we can make a motion. We can go on from there. Yes, sir. Mayor, I believe, uh, the Michigan County, um, just for, uh , um, and I'll, uh, I'm going to have an opportunity to propose like this. I think that was part of the discussion I wanted to make. And that was the point. As for the interim manager? Yeah. That's what we're going to cast the vote for the interim manager. We're going to cast the vote. Okay. Yeah. So, um. No, I was asking if we were ready to vote with the interim or he wanted to wait. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I want the, I'm in front of the commission for it before we start out. Cast our votes. So do we have a motion to name Lord Stewart as our interim city manager? Do we have a motion made on? Mr. Mayor, I made the motion to appoint Lord Stewart as our interim city manager. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Now let's, uh, let's do a little something here. Let's amend that motion to state until the city manager is named. No problem. Yes. We can say that he'll stay in that role until he moves in the manager's name. Can you make it in that? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to appoint Lord Stewart as the interim city manager. Okay. Yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to appoint Lord Stewart as the interim city manager. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Now let's do a little something here. Let's amend that motion to stay until the city manager is named. No problem. Yes, sir. I do have a motion to appoint Lord Stewart as the interim city manager until the commission selects a permanent city manager. Second. Second. We have a motion. Now we have a second to name Lord Stewart as our interim city manager until the permanent city manager is named by this commission. All in favor. I do have a question. I got a question. Sure. Prior to passing my vote for this, I do just want to say that the city manager was able to kind of, some of the concerns I had about not being able to hear from the other potential on this board. He did, you know, we have a motion to appoint a permanent city manager. While I do understand that we do have a motion and a second and we're about to cast a vote, I do just want to say that, you know, during this process, once it was stated about the educational piece at that time, you know, my list from what was currently required, my list of the, even though, like I said, I think we have everybody in place and they're great at what they do. I know it was brought up at the end of our discussion about the, having someone with qualifications for the, everything. I think right now when we're talking about infrastructure, I mean, I think James is a rock star in that position. I do think whatever that we did were to choose, I think we wouldn't be skipping a piece simply because we do have someone, what I consider superior knowledge in that position that can keep things going. Also with Deputy, Deputy City Manager, Stuart. I think also from, and if I'm not wrong after Public Safety Director slash Deputy City Manager Sloan retired, I believe that, you know, you know, Loa did take over and someone become a liaison to Public Safety at the time. I mean, I think he did a tremendous job, if I'm not sure, he did a tremendous job with that. So I think where it wasn't just clearly said that, you know , we don't have, if we were to choose one of those two, basically Director Hallman, that, you know, we would be lacking in those positions. But I just want to say for the record, I think that with the team that we do have there, if that was a choice, I don't think we would have given it to be whatsoever, simply because of the people that we don't have in place, and they're very professional, and I think they would work well for them. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Thank you for that comment, Vice Mayor. Okay, so we do have a motion, and it's happened properly seconded. All we need are in a question. So with that being said, we have a motion and seconded. All in favor of Lord Stewart, do you want to stand by? Aye. All opposed? Motion carried. Lord, I'm going to give you an opportunity, and thank you for stepping up the road here, an opportunity to come up to the podium and say a couple words like you're not used to this. Yeah. Until, remember, until it gets filled. Yes. Three years from now. We have a closing date. That's what Mr. Hoffman said. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your confidence in me to put me into that position. I will work hard to fulfill the requirements , and I will also work hard to make the person that you choose to be the next city manager successful also. So I'm looking forward to that person being appointed, and as all of you have stated up there, I'd just like to say that both James Keene and Joe Hallman both have qualifications that give them merit to do this position, and they're both awesome folks. We work well together, and so I'm working with them. I appreciate it. And I think the only other request, and I don't know, you know, because we don't have the authority over anyone that 's going to work under your standard control as the deputy city manager, but I think that there was a request from this commission to evaluate, I'm sorry, bring Joe Hallman over to City Hall. We want him and we want him to be trained as a public safety player, and learn in municipality. True. It shouldn't take him long, like the Viper and Sager. The parallel, he may be something. He said, "I'm very familiar with all of this here." Right. And that's just, I think that we want to put him there, but we want to get him trained in that city hall. But we want him. So I don't know if you all are okay with that. Yes, sir. Yeah, I think it'll be, you know, for the best to have an extra well-rounded candidate. I think he's already well- rounded candidate. Yeah, but he's still going to be our public safety director . Yeah. I'm just saying, but we need him over here to be trained with you guys in your mind. And Jim and Neil. And relocate from the EOC to actual City Hall. Absolutely. Okay. Would that be any other comments or questions? City Clerk, can you report for me? Is it a man? No, sir. I do have one question. I know that one of our sister cities were something similar up in the distant past that there was a contract with. Right. And I was going to bring that up. Thank you for that . So what we have to do from this commission is to report one of the commissioners along with the attorney to negotiate a contract with you until that position is filled. So what we can do, I'll make a motion to report the vice mayor. If you don't mind. Accent. Accent. Okay. We have a motion for the vice mayor. We have a second. Second. All in favor. Aye. We're going to appoint him along with our city, our interim city attorney to work on a contract with you and bring it back for approval at the next commission meeting. Thank you. All right. You mean the 22nd or the meeting? No, maybe. Okay. Yeah. Not the 22nd meeting. That's a fair point. But the maybe. I think we need it. No, I think we need it on the 22nd. Because he. I think it needs to be on the 22nd. That way we have him ready for the first. Otherwise, he's not going to be having a contract because he's living on the first. So in the first. So in the meeting is on the 7th. So. It got. Yeah. We need to contract. No, before he leaves. So. I swear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the 22nd. Yeah. I think it needs to be on the 22nd. That way we have him ready for the first. Otherwise, he's not going to be having a contract because he's living on the first. So in the meeting is on the 7th. So. It got a good point. Yeah. We need the contract done before we leave. That's what. Yeah. I can have the contract prepared. I'm sure the vice mayor has time. I just want to make it very clear. It will not meet the agenda deadline. It will. It will. It will probably be coming up to the meeting. I don't think it will take us long, Lloyd, to get the contract put together at all. I just know that the deadline for the agenda was yesterday. So I just want to make sure that the commission. Okay. And I want to give this opportunity to the commission that if there's any issues on your end or Lloyd's end, I don't have anything going on for two weeks after. Well, actually through 8. So I will stay as long as you need. No, but legally, we only need 72 hours. Right? So he's saying, he's talking about staff. They give staff a deadline date to get all the items in it. But now our notification has to be done. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. We got, I mean, from my state, I don't need that. In other words, it's okay. That's referring to staff. They have a certain deadline date. By statute, I think. I don't know. It may not even be statute. That's just a policy that we put in place that we want them into our agreement. The question is, how soon do you think you can have the contract ready so you and Vice Mayor and City Manager could go over it so it can be presented to us on the 27th April? I think we should have a Monday or Tuesday next week. We should have something that is ready for execution between the parties. Unless there's something unforeseen that I'm unaware of right now, I think that it should be a pretty smooth process. Okay. And that's okay. So the City Clerk and City Manager, go ahead and add that to the agenda. They'll work in between. Long as we've got it on the agenda for the next day. And then that time, they give them time to meet. Yes, sir. And like I said, if there's something that comes up, we have no idea of this bug that's going around. So if somebody gets sick, I'm available to stay. And I don't need pay, I'll stay. Okay. Thank you for your dedication. All right. Any other comments from this commission? Real quick, I don't know if this is proper setting to do it right now, but should we go ahead and instruct to prepare the advertisement for City Manager? We can't do it after he's actually gone. No, just to prepare. Oh yeah, we can prepare, but we got to set. We want to, I think what I heard today is that they want to change some of the qualifications. So in order to do that, we probably need to do a workshop to go over the qualification. We want to tweak it. And we decide to leave the qualification as is, because we 'll need our HR person in. And we decide to leave it as is, we can go ahead on the show and advertise it yesterday. But if you want to change the qualification, then it wouldn 't be feasible right now to advertise it, because we're going to change the qualification. So it's up to you all. Leave it as is, or change the qualification. I don't know what the qualifications are. I think it would be better if we have a discussion or on the next meeting maybe have a discussion and see how everybody feels. You can email themselves, but you can also look at it. It's in, it's in, it's under. It's on Char. Char, you can look at it, but you can also email it. But I know some of the qualifications is to get up a bachelor degree. I will have it emailed to you all. Can you do that, Chandra, by 5:00 PM today? Thank you. Okay, yeah, let's do that if you don't mind. And then let's, let's look at maybe if we want to tweak it, then by the next meeting we can discuss. Can we put it on as an agenda item discussion of qualifications for C-PAC? I don't know, it's a business meeting, so you may not, because it can take some time. That's why I said maybe, maybe a workshop to discuss it, because we don't want to do that at our city commission meeting, just a business meeting. All we want to do is go in the river and vote, you know, are we going to vote and keep up? So that, that will be a discussion for a workshop with our HR to break. So just send it to us and then they will send a negative call with the vice mayor and see what we want to change. We may say no, we leave it like it is. But I think we're going to want to tweak it. We're going to want to last time that we're going to be. I'm trying to help you out. Thank you. Okay. So that being said, nothing else? And then it's time to be. Yes. I do. To Jackson. I noticed that there is partial information about incident that is on Facebook. But someone needs to look at that. If you are your deputy, I think to make sure that the information is right. I don't mean to interrupt, but I'll take it from here so you don't get in any trouble. I'm well aware what you're talking about. The chief is aware. The public safety director is aware. The deputy chief is aware. And that particular person, Lloyd Stewart is aware as well. That particular person that I'm not going to name by name is assigned to administrative duties within the police department at this time. And from my directive, I leave. Yes. And to make sure that something says when people see all the police cars somewhere, the first place they go is to Facebook. And they want to know what's going on and why the police is telling you this or whatever is to say that. There's an ongoing investigation on MLK and 12th Street and more information will follow. And that might come back to the three people saying they don't tell us anything about the way to be in danger. Okay. I see. I know. I know. Before we leave, one other thing that just for transit, we 're, when I said we saw the mission is going to be on travel a couple of days. And I believe, some of y'all need to reach for any reason, we'll always have our phone on. There else can come. But there's an event this Saturday that I want you to enlighten the commission about. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it. I'll be out of town. But we'll almost be back Friday evening. I don't think just that Hispanic empowerment, something that's going on there. Well, thank you for the opportunity and thinking of us. Once again, Elisi Gonzalez for Hispanic Empowerment Foundation. As you all are aware, we do our festival every October. And the purpose of that festival is to raise funds to give back to the community in scholarships. So what we do after that festival is a gala, which is taking place this Saturday at Lake Eva Event Center, where we actually award those scholarships and we thank our sponsors. So everyone is invited. I have sent an email to the city clerks, basically with the invitation and the information. And if anyone is available that night, that would be fantastic. The city is also a great partner. And like last year, this year, you guys will also be receiving a recognition award. So having someone there would be fantastic. Thank you. I wanted to make sure that you bring that to our attention. We can make it please try to support this organization. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, you're not going to slap me for this one. I asked this commission prayers for Fred Riley. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Yes. Y'all please, in your prayers, think about Fred Riley. Let's pray for him. Let's see the men. Yeah. It's taking a turn for the South. Yeah. All right. With that being said at this time, we'll close it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wait. Hold on. Hold on.