you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Never mind. I don't see it. to Yeah. Good afternoon. Welcome to the City Council special meeting this July 29, 2024. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor Member Barton. Here. Councillor Member Christmas. Here. Councillor Member Cramer. Here. Councillor Member Peniman. Here. Councillor Member Petronoff. Here. Vice Mayor Hutchison. Here. Mayor Heitman. Here. Thank you and if we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Mayor. First, Mayor and Council, thank you for juggling your schedules. I know how busy you all are. And we really appreciate you taking time and modifying your plans to be here today for this special meeting. We have a couple of very important items that really could not wait until you came back in session. So we appreciate the flexibility to appreciate you being here. Mayor, just a couple of things. We initially published today's special meeting agenda last Wednesday and we have subsequently published what's called supplement number one. I'll just review for the record what is consisted in this supplement. A couple of minor things first. Under older business, we have switched the order of the two items that were originally published to have the discussion regarding the maximum millis rate first, followed by an update on the Naples Peer project, as well as a discussion regarding its upland design. So I just wanted to point that out for the record in case someone is looking at an older agenda. A, the title of said resolution was modified to add some additional language regarding standardized contract terms. You have the updates of that and it's online. I just wanted to make note that that change occurred. Let's see. And then last but not least, over the summer we have been working the mayor and charter officers, Mr. McConnell, myself and Mrs. Rambozk on a variety of things, including council agendas, templates and things like that. One of the things that we realized is that the agenda template that we have been using for special meetings have contained items that really should not be on special meetings. So we have made a modification and going forward for special meetings because we advertise to the public specifically what we're going to talk about. It's more of a limited agenda. So you don't see at the end of this meeting more public comments and then the council comments that we usually do we come in. We take care of the items that are on the agenda for your special meeting and then we depart. So I wanted to advise you of that departure from how we have been doing this in the past. And there's some other things when we come back into session that we think are going to help refine how we handle business here in Chambers. So what that that is all I have a motion to approve the agenda set? Move to approve the agenda is set. I have a motion by Councilmember Chrisman and Councilwoman Petrano second. All in favor sign by aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you, Councilor Pastas-Rinanna Sleeve. Second. Petra no. Pet, Penman. I'm glad. She's six weeks and I forget everybody's names already. Okay. Thank you for the correction. Yeah. I just before we move forward on agenda item 4A, there are public comment slips in the back of the room if you wish to speak on any item. And they can be filled out and given to the clerk. Also, as many are aware that there was an unfortunate accident at a laboratory restaurant. And in speaking with Mr. Boudrechewar, the seven people that were injured have gone home from the hospital so they're in our prayers. And thank you all who have reached out to me and to staff with your concerns. So. Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Just real briefly, the comments that you had here at the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Brutuswar, I'm just matching that up with the first paragraph on the agenda. And on the agenda it says that, and I'm not going to read it all, but public comments about items on the agenda will be heard during item five or during specific agenda items public comments about issues not on the agenda will be heard at the end of the meeting But I don't see that in the agenda. Yeah, thank you for that catch So we'll have to make that modification when we have future special meetings But that will be the default language for our regular meetings. Thank you for catching that. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We've set the agenda item three, moving to announcements and presentations. Ms. Miss. Yeah, Mayor before Mr. McConnell introduces or makes this announcements, I do have one quick announcements I need to make. When you arrive today, you should have found a cupcake sitting in front of your chair. And the cupcake is there to honor two of our council members who recently celebrated birthdays. So, you know, if you remember back to elementary school, it really sucked being that kid who had their birthday during the summer, right? Never got celebrated, and we have two council members that were in that predicament. It's one of the reasons for this special meeting. It's able to acknowledge the fact that Mr. Kramer celebrated a birthday on July 6th and Mr. Hutchison celebrated a birthday on July 26th. So happy birthday to the two of you. Any blessings? I look a lot younger than the Alton Kramer. I appreciate your opinion. Thank you. Absolutely. So happy birthday to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. So this is announcement of litigation executive session, presumed to floor to statute 286.011 subparagraph eight. I am announcing this request for an executive session close to the public for the purpose of seeking advice concerning settlement negotiations or strategy related to litigation expenditures associated with litigation, Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Expendition Ex The session is expected to last approximately one hour. The entire session shall be recorded by a certified court reporter. The reporter shall record the times of commencement and termination of the session. All discussion and proceedings, the names of all persons present at any time and the names of all persons speaking. No portion of the session will be off the record. The court reporters know shall be fully transcribed and filed with the clerk within a reasonable time. City Council will not take action during the executive session, but may take action concerning settlement negotiations at a future public meeting. Following individuals will be present during the executive session. Mayor Theresa Heitman, council member Terry, Hutchison, Rick Christman, Beth Petronov, Bill Kramer, Linda Peneman, Bernard Barton, City Manager, Jay Budeswar, myself, City Attorney Matthew McConnell, an Assistant City Attorney Ralph Brooks, and a representative from Dines Court reporting. Thank you, sir, for that announcement that takes us to item five. Public comment, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment slips? I have none. Okay. Seeing none, that takes us to item number six, old business. Great. Thank you, Mayor. I'll introduce, actually let me introduce Gary Young, our Deputy City Manager and CFO, but before Gary jumps into his presentation again, big thank you for coming together today to have this discussion. This is a time sensitive discussion. Gary will explain the details here in a second. But I wanted to start off by expressing our apologies that you have to do this twice, but we're grateful to you to do this twice. And this is a very important discussion because as you know, the way we design our budgets, the way we identify the city's work plan every year is based on community needs, community desires, its admission-based, priorities-based process. And as you know, we have some gaps. We have some gaps that were identified this past year in terms of personnel and in terms of infrastructure and resiliency. And we're hopeful that today's conversation will allow us to continue talking about potential solutions, long-term solutions and addressing an appropriate and fair way what those gaps are. So with that said, I'll turn it over to Mr. Young and he's got a short presentation for you. Good afternoon, Mayor. Members of the Council, Gary Young, Deputy City Manager, CFO. Thank you, Jay, for those opening remarks. But I do feel it's incumbent upon me to give a little bit of additional background and additional apology. As you know, on June 17th, I provided some information as it pertained to the maximum millage and the number of votes that were required to get to a specific number. And that information was erroneous. And specifically, I want to apologize to my elected officials for you having to have endured that. The fact that you had a conversation based upon erroneous information led to conclusions or potential conclusions that you weren't shooting for. And for that I owe you an apology. And so I give that to you. Specifically, you know, what I apologize for the main reason of that I would never want to put my elected officials, my city manager, anybody I've ever worked for in a position where you can't do what you need to do, and the way you desire to do it, and as efficiently as you possibly can. And so for that, again, I do apologize. I offer, you know, I could go through and let me know things. Anything I would say would be an excuse. I don't believe in excuses, and I don't offer any. That responsibility rests with me and I take it very seriously as I did that day and I do today. For 46 days now, you've had to deal with the effects of the June 17th discussions. I'm sure you've had numerous calls from constituents, employees and the like. And not only that, you've had to cut your vacations short, and that's why we find ourselves here today. So for my role in that, I just want to go on the record and say I apologize for that. Now, as far as where we are, how did we get here? what's changed? Now I'd like to just kind of go through the litany before I start the presentation, but I did want to offer that to you because you deserve that publicly. As far as what changed, the final evaluations from June 17th to June 29th, the final evaluations were released. And in the package, you'll see you will have seen that it increased substantially and we'll go through those numbers later. But in addition to that, the state's new website became fully operational and on July 22nd, after July 2nd, excuse me, after having done the calculation, fed it into the state website. We came obvious by both results that they needed to say something immediately because the vote count required to get to a certain village, what was erroneous and that's what I wanted to bring to light. So it's taken us that amount of time to kind of get back together. We have a unique opportunity to do something. We don't certify that until August 4th. So I think we're certainly within the realm of getting this done and done efficiently. Now the one thing I want to say is, you know, what does it mean, what occurred? Well, quite frankly, what we did on the June 17th, and I'll use a baseball metaphor for lack of a better, is all we did was go through the ground rules. Right? There's been no pitch thrown. There's been no batter that stepped up to the batter's box. You have the ability to change the line up, make decisions predicated on the factual numbers, and move forward with getting the results you want by the time this is done. So I use that metaphor because we haven't moved off that step. And when you look at the slide presentation, I left it as June 2024 on the slide, because this is a continuation not by statute. This is a special meeting, but by the, you didn't continue to meet, but the circumstances resulted in, let's continue this discussion. Because the outcome was predicated on, for lack of a better expression, but the wrong ground rules. So I wanted to point that out to you. I hope I'll go, I will go through the presentation so you understand what changed or where the error occurred. So that's in the UN, the public can see it on front street, but then also walk us through what that means and get back to that real discussion. So with that, that's where we are today. These are a couple of repeat slides. I'm going to stop at the ones where they're different or where I needed to add additional information and therefore ones where they're different or where I needed to add additional information and therefore you can see the difference. But this slide is just letting us know why we're here today to continue to have the 1.17 millage or something else to the level that we can and can reach agreement. Or also reminding you that the last change we made was from 1.15 to 1.17 just after E and in fiscal year 2324. Again, this is the same slide presenting that so that we can come up with the maximum millage. This is the slide from the 17th with the preliminary taxable values. I'm just going to point to the top number which is 38 billion, 162 million. That was the preliminary value. 38 billion, 160, 162 million. That was the preliminary value. The current value or the final value that was certified is 38 billion, 518 million. So it went up substantially. And the percentage went from 10.16 to 11.18% in that one year. This table was the original showing you over time what the milled rate has done and the taxable value. And so it's imperative that I also show you with the preliminary values and how that changed with the final values. Again, we'll go back to our milled rate at 1.17. You can see that there were periods that it went as high as 1.24 or back in 2007 before the great recession. So I only point those out just for historical and to update that for you since the June meeting. The importance of the maximum milleges is it establishes the not to exceed, millegrate for the government's budget. And if we set the maximum milleges before we certify it and it goes out in the trim notice that sets it at that level. If you tried to go above it you would have to send out notices so we try to make sure before we will certify this on August 4th that we're minimizing the amount of stuff that we have to do after the fact on the trim. So that's why having this discussion during summer session to get that done before we certify it was essential. This is where it kind of started to go a rye in the other discussion. As far as that there are maximum millage requirements that require majority vote, two-thirds vote in those calculations, that's always been there. And respectfully, you know, the conversation as far as maximum mileage and 100%, we haven't had that discussion many times in, you know, before council. And quite frankly, I don't think we've been in this environment where there's been a willingness to do it. But then it's certainly got exacerbated by the fact that you weren't given the correct number. So the point is, is these things have always been there. I sent that to you after the last meeting, identifying even jurisdictions that had to have 100% vote, but I did want to reiterate that point that those standards still stand. And nothing through this part has changed. But where it goes the right, and I'm going to say this, anyone who's done computer programming, you read an if then go to statement, if the first if then go to statement is incorrect, doesn't really matter, right? And the same thing is said for if you're a parent and your child ever brings you a problem and it's written on paper and you should avoid them, where's the book? Because if you wrote the first thing down, right, and doesn't match the book, doesn't really matter how much math you do after that. And so that's where this thing goes awry. So let me just point out here, it's if you look at this slide and you go into the circulation, the calculation that's in red says calculation maximum, millage, levy, you can see that's the 1.17 that I identified to this council before when we had the meeting on June 17th. Now forget the pre-supposing that does the math work, the math does work and you can test that to your blue in the face but if you're question, again, I'll reiterate if you're question, is wrong to get you there then you're not going to get to the right answer. So this is just a blown up version so that anyone in the public can see that that's the case and then this one goes to where we find ourselves today. So I'm going to go back a second and I'm going to show you this one more time. So two-thirds majority vote, maximum milligrate, as presented to you on June 17th, was 1.17. After the final taxable value was given to us and the calculation was done, it comes in at 1.2735. Immediately, it shouldn't have jumped that much. I mean, yes, it was a significant increase, but it shouldn't have jumped that. And so the change was, was, wait a minute, where did it go? Where does it go? Right. And so the fact is, so now that you're disposed, it was not 1.17. It's 1.2735 with two fifths of majority. It does not require a majority vote above 1.17, but it would, I mean, a unanimous vote, but it would require unanimous vote if you go above 1.2735. Okay. Now, that's just the blown-up version of the exact same thing, identifying that. But where does it go awry and I would be remiss if I didn't point that out? You would think they'd need to put a little bigger and bolder yellow, but if you read it, it says, if line four is equal or two or greater than line three, skip to line 11, the point being is the calculation that was in the first thing should never have been. Because once you answer the question on that line, it automatically brings a different number down below, which nets you at that calculation. So the point being is, as you've seen, if you look through these documents, a series of questions answers if then goes to, and it was answered incorrectly, and the rest of the math didn't really matter at that point. It's unfortunate, it occurred, and I just presented to you, but that's what occurred. So then subsequent to that, and we also said, well, before we go come back to you, and we want to write the state, which we will do, I'll put in my notes that even my successor can do that, it's to write to them prior to coming to you even with the preliminary numbers. But to say, look, we filled this out out please affirm so that you had the process had integrity and that the state affirmed an independent body affirmed that that's what I'm presenting to you today has affirmed that that 1.2735 requires two thirds of a majority vote. So that's what led us to this spot. That's what led us to needing this special meeting and so I wanted to walk through those steps with you. As far as the next few slides, it's just outlining what I did was, if you remember, you had the numbers at the preliminary rate. It was appropriate to now that we have final numbers to tell you what that meant with the final numbers. And so, if you did nothing to change the milligrate at 1.17, the amount of money above last year's projected amount would be 3,812,452 more than the prior year. At the rollback rate, it would still increase by 1,252,000, and that's because of new properties that come online. And because you get the same taxable value out of the properties that were already on the role, but then the number of which is indicative of the number of the housing and development that's coming online in this community. But that's what that number would be. So then for purposes of this discussion, I just went to 1.27. And I did that because, as you recall, on the June 17th meeting, there were discussions and votes as to 1.171.27. Now I have, if we decide to discuss any number in between, I'll have those numbers for you as well. But I wanted to present what that would mean. So that would present a revenue of 7.2 million above the prior year. So the difference between the 1.17 and the other, and I'll point that out, sorry, is roughly 343,000, $126. So if you multiply that by, you know, obviously, 10 basis points, that's how you get to a difference of the $3,551 that you would smack against the same millage rate and what that increase would be. So I only point that out so that you have an idea of what that change should you decide to come off of the 1.17, what that increase per millage rate would be. This is the same slide I gave you the last time I just updated it to the 1.27 since that was the discussion points. Letting you know what a homeowner would pay that had a million dollar taxable value, 3 million and 5 million. So I don't diminish one cent of that. I only wanted to present it so you had it for illustrative purposes. So the considerations today are do you want to stick with the millage rate at the 1.17 or something else? And the circumstances, this is the same slide as, you know, the same things we have pending are the pending and seed walls, resiliency after safety, presentation, council priorities, coupled with the need to, we continue to peel off communication tax for capital improvements, street paving, and the likes that we've done for a couple years. So those kinds of things is all things to consider when you make your final decision. Other considerations are those include inflationary impact, wages, pensions, you know, we're in current negotiations, infrastructure, e- and recovery, resiliency needs, and the like. So again, we're at the same point, we were then, the numbers of change, the vote counts are what they are or what they need to be. And that would be it to stay at 1.17, do something different. And with knowledge that the maximum you could go without unanimous vote is 1.2735, not 1.17. And with that, I'll yield and answer any questions that anybody may have. Mr. Young, first of all, I want to say, it's an honest oversight on your behalf and and we are a man of integrity and accuracy. So I believe we all think you're a perfectionist. We still believe you're a perfectionist and just shows you're human. So thank you. Thank you for that. Apologies not needed and I think all of us, you know, we're still working during the summer. We may not have meetings, but we're still here. So thank you all for being here for this, but we also had the peer that we had to discuss also. So please don't take all the burden upon yourself. But thank you. With that, I'll say that, you know, yes, maybe there might have been some harsh discussions, but I think as council members were accustomed to sometimes hearing things that are harsh to us. But I think we can take it. But as a team up here, we all just have passion about making sure that we did the right things for our employees, the police, the fire and for the community. So with that, I'll just say on behalf of Council, I believe that we do all support this, making sure that we do the right thing, protecting the health and safety of our community. But given that we are here now, I saw the slide that said CRA. The CRA is not, is that something we're discussing about changing? No, but so the final numbers came in and we have related to that. That's what it related to. The CRA because that appeals the money off the top. So what will happen is when you make a decision that you're going to increase millage rate, the millage rate that applies to the CRA goes up proportionally in equal amounts. And then that money gets peeled away. So what this presupposes is that the general fund tax revenue less the impact of the CRA. And so what happens there is the CRA went up and I think I don't have that one written down, but I think it's roughly 21% that it went up. And so it was originally up I think 20 points something in the preliminary. It went to 21. So the point is when if you increase millage from 1.17 to 1.27, the CRA will get 10 basis points more on that charge as well and gets peeled off into the CRA for you to make use of Because it is set at whatever rate the city adopts in its millage the city Peels off that same amount from the property values within the CRA and Deposits it in the CRA Likewise, and what happened last year at the county when the county made the decision to go with the rollback rate, we only get the portion they would have otherwise collected from their assessment. So it actually went down slightly. And so just like as if you go up, it would go up slightly by our contribution. Is that me? I hope so. Yes, thank you. That is answered my question. So given the conversation recap, Mr. Boudre-Soir, this is giving us an extra amount of money if we decide to go to the 1.275. Sure. Yes. Yeah. And I think just for math, you know, mathematical purposes, we're using 1.27, not a little bit of extra. But mayor, if I may, just expand upon Gary's presentation to advise you all and the public where we are at today relative to budget development for the upcoming fiscal year. So when we learned of this news a few weeks back, it didn't really change our trajectory and it didn't change our focus on budget development. There's a couple of things that are happening and we're still on that path forward one. We are taking a deep, deep dive at our fees and charges to compare them to our market competitors. What fees have we not looked at in quite some time and what fees are we not charging that are customary, and that all of our departments have been actively working on that, and that will be part of our presentation to you what we meet in our one-on-one sessions with you all as well as during the August budget meeting. So that continues and that could mitigate what you ultimately decide on the milled rate come this fall. Again, today is that maximum. You can lower it once you have all of the numbers in front of you. The other piece of information that you should know is the budget that we are developing or have developed and you will soon see we're working on getting things printed and context provided in terms of the the variances that you'll see in the various line items in each budget, but the budget is based on 1.17. We wanted to create a budget for you based on that number and then we will have what what I'm calling enhancement options and the costs associated with those enhancement options specifically for police and fire. We've talked very openly about that but we've also talked about some other departments. Planning, there's one minor IT position that supports public safety that we want to present to you. And a couple of minor things in parks and rec. And then all of the other departments that are enterprise operations or have different funding sources, they remain on track. So that budget is being developed. So what we wanted to do for you to make it, I guess, easy to understand is you'll have a 1.17 budget and then you'll have these enhancements. And you'll be able to reconcile how much additional millage would be required for the public safety enhancements. And then the other thing that I want to make sure that we don't lose sight of these capital projects related to resiliency. So Gary touched on it and his considerations slide. Perhaps the millage rate that you decide on, the added millage rate that you decide on, funds, the enhancements with half of the money available and then the other half is to reinvest into infrastructure. That's a conversation that you all will need to have but ideally I just I know I keep harping on this but setting aside these funds for these major storm water management, resilience, resiliency projects that we must do is something that we just can't kick the can. We've got to be smart and prudent about this. So when we get with you one on one, that's what you're going to see. You're going to see this base budget, the enhancement options, and then you'll see the fees. Some of the fee items just to give you a little preview. Some of the items related to fees will be baked into the budget and some won't because we're going to need to hear from you. What will you tolerate and what won't you? But that's added. I'd revenue that we would realize if you do move forward in the upcoming fiscal year. So with that, I'll stop and let you all have your conversation. But I just wanted to give you an idea of what to expect in terms of the budget workshop on the 19th. So as we have discussed, sometimes something like this gives you an opportunity. And as we were discussing trying to find out how to fund the resources that we need for resiliency and for the police and fire. And we are also still under negotiations, correct. So I really believe that what good came out of this was the fact that we had a discussion, Mr. Roochart, about having a referendum that could possibly go towards a separate millage that would go directly to those specific needs. So I think that's something we should consider. I think again, that is something positive. I think that's come out of this that we didn't think of at the time. And I think we should really, really discuss that. So with that being said, I have Council Member Petr enough. Thank you. Just a couple things that I would like to see in looking for these dollars. And one of them is impact fees. And there are some things in the paper, I guess the county dictates those. And I think they've had quite a break for over the years. And when they did the analysis, I think they were saying that the impact fees need to go up as much as 80%. And there is a difference between rural areas where you have to bring pipes down for miles versus more of the intercity. So I don't know what voice that we have, but I would like for us to make sure that we do have a voice. And these impact fees because somebody is paying for it and if it is not, development should pay for development and if it's not, then it's we tax payers that are subsidizing the development. So I would like to see more of a stronger, and I don't know what department negotiates that or works with the county on it Is it is it city councils at finance? Is it is it city manager? Yeah, so specifically there's only one that we have an interlocal agreement with Setting the $200,000 that hasn't been on roads. It hasn't been adjusted in many many years $200,000 that hasn't been on roads, that hasn't been adjusted in many, many years. So that would be one, that's the only one that you negotiate at least have had on record with the county. As it pertains to your police, fire, and parks and recreation, your impact fees are set by, in town development, are set by your own ordinances. So as part of the impact fee assessment, for in town development are set by your own ordinances. So as part of the impact fee assessment, it was ongoing with the utilities, we've actually engaged the same company to do those fee assessments and then to report back to you with what those should look like. So we are moving in that direction. I, right now I would guess that would probably be no earlier than December, but we are, we are aware of those. And I have, you know, read all through and will present to council everything as it relates to the street impact fees. But again, I can, I can assure you, I'm in my ninth year and it hasn't changed from 200,000 in that nine years. That's all we get from the county. So we'll have to look at that agreement, how it's derived, and then what negotiation we can take. That can take place from there. Okay, so if I'm hearing you, there is an ordinance out there on roads and what we pay and what is. Yeah, what it says, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry, so that is one thing, but then for all the rest of the thing like sewer, you know, the lines that we have to put in the water pipes, etc. for new development. That is something that we said, not the county. Yeah, so there's a difference between what's internal and what's external. And so I'll let Bob speak to his in, that's why we need to have a separate workshop for this to hand, because they're all compartmentalized. But as it pertains to the streets, the streets assessment is, or the impact on streets and roads, is assessed by the county. Our building department collects it on permits that we are doing within our jurisdiction. And we remit everything back to the county except for the agreed upon proportional share which is $200,000. So that is the one instance where it's not set by our code, it's set by the county and then there's an interlocal agreement of how much is coming back to us in regards to that. So each one is differently, it's different. Now as it pertains to capacity and outside the city and it's influence on our resources, again, that's a workshop discussion with Bob and those collections because I don't want to delve into what impacts are coming back to us in developments that are outside the jurisdiction but impacting our utilities. So I'll leave that for a separate discussion. I only wanted you to know that it varies that the transportation one is the only one where the county sets the fees and we have a resolution accepting that we'll collect them on their behalf and we get a certain portion to collect for those jurisdictions within our corporate city boundaries. But the other ones, you control meaning police, fire and parks and recreation. So I think it's best to have a complete workshop on those items, but yes, it is being looked into the county. Again, it's that's heavy sledding as they say. That's going to be its own discussion. But right now the only one that we rely solely on the county on is the transportation vis-a-vis the interlocal agreement that was passed. Okay. And you know another sort of a side is looking at census data. You know, in our population within the city has dropped 6.5% where 19,618 people has not 222. Where the county has grown greatly. And so when we talk about the need for incremental safety measures like more police, more fire, et cetera, it isn't because of our increased population. I think Councilmember Barton had brought that up at the last meeting that we have chosen to be small and quaint and not as dense, et cetera. But there is a price to be paid because literally less than a mile outside of it, there seems to be a different strategy on growing. So how do we capture the stress on the city without having the burden of tax payers within the city, subsidizing that growth in the county? And so who arranges for, you know, the subsidation of police and fire, et cetera, for example. And I'll jump in here and I guess what we're trying to say is we don't have all the answers to those questions, but there has to be something that's more equitable in place because we've acknowledged that we've talked about this. We've talked very openly since I've been here about service population versus residential population and the fact that our resources are relied upon by the county. So, you know, these aren't answers we can get, or questions we can get answered today. This will be part of our conversation when we have our workshop when we talk one-on-one, but it's going to take some time to look up tolocal and to understand what rights we have going forward. And who leads that effort? Is that who leads that? And it's really boils down to a negotiation. Yeah, all of us. It does. And if I may, council member, question off. This was brought to my attention last week in a meeting with Mr. Middleton and his team on the interlocal agreement. So the clerk has been so kind to send me all the documents and I'm already kind of working this issue. No assurances or commitments here, but I'll work with Jay and the team after I've reviewed the agreement to see if on amendment or something is potential in the future. I mean, I just want to make sure we realize the strength of our city. We are where everyone wants to come. We've got the beaches. We've got the great restaurants. We've got the great shopping. We should be negotiating from a position of strength and we should know what those pinch points are of getting the most for our taxpayers. So that is in the process, it's just not. It's going to be at a workshop at some time in the next six months or so. Maybe even sooner or sooner. Okay. All right, those are really my comments. Thank you. Thank you. I have council member Barton. Just I'm simply going to reiterate and agree 100% as you guys know I've been up here already railing before about the ADA sense and every dollar it goes the wrong direction and Before I actually asked to speak we were talking about the 200,000 that we get for roads and You know, we've got anywhere from 700,000 to 1.2 million cars coming in and out of the city on a weekly basis that they're not coming from Naples they come into Naples and out of Naples so that's low hanging fruit my opinion and we should be hammering that 200,000 if it hasn't been addressed in over nine years that that's insane probably longer than that so that's right there we should say are you kidding me? You're killing our roads, you're hammering our roads with your growth, we need you to start paying for our road repairs, right now we're resurfacing roads all over the place in the city, and it's not because of the 20,000 people who live here, most of which or half of which don't live here, you're around anyway, it's because of the people coming in from the county. And don't get me wrong. I love those people coming in from the county. Come on in, spend money and enjoy Naples, but let's make sure we're sharing that expense properly. Thank you. Well said. Thank you. Well said, colleague. When I look at what we're going to, it's going to ensue in the next few hours, frankly my focus is 100% on public safety. And that doesn't just include police and fire. That also includes, in my book, Resiliency. This summer, I happened to read a business case for resiliency studies that ULI put out. And it was kind of interesting what happened in Broward County. They spent billions of dollars. But in there talking about the expenses that they incurred, they looked at the benefits of the cost that was involved. So there was a cost benefit analysis. And I think that's what we need to be looking at here. So the, with the costs that were involved, the impacts that were avoided were came to $4.5 billion. The adaptation costs were only 1.5. So the cost benefit ratio was huge there. And I don't think we look at resiliency as the cost benefit, with a cost-benefit analysis. So I'd like to see us take a more reasoned approach in that direction to be perfectly honest with you. So far in, of course, police and fire, 100%. So that's all I have to say quite frankly. Part of this public safety, we have got to now talk about adaptation and resiliency. And if we look at it the right way, I think we can convince everybody that we're spending money in the right direction. So thank you. I support and agree with the comments around some of these related issues regarding impact fees and the need to really have at long last that full discussion understanding of what we can do and what we can't do and to what degree do we need to rely on the cooperation of others. Regarding the issue of county support financially for expenses that were We've had a few discussions with the county commissioners about it and we should continue to push on that. But we need to remember that this is not just a financial discussion, it's a political discussion. You've got five county commissioners who are independently elected. Four of the five don't receive any votes from city residents or depend on any votes from city residents. The one who does now a minority of the people who vote in that district are city residents. And this is a political question and a political discussion and a political negotiation as much as anything and we just need to keep that in mind. Having said all that, these are issues that are important, but for another day. Today as I understand it, we have one action, this agenda item, which is what do we want to set the maximum millichart and just express my view on that. In my professional career, one of the principles that I've always, that I learned about early on and that I've always followed is that you want to maintain maximum flexibility in making decisions. We're not making a decision on the budget today. All we're making a decision on is what is the highest millage that we might want to impose, to pay for whatever budget decisions we make. And as both Mr. Young and Mr. Boudre-Shor are stated, we're going to be hearing about that in the weeks and ahead in the next several months. And we'll have to make a decision as we do every year on the budget. We have the ability to go to 1.27 if we wish to. I don't know what the right number is until I get the budget proposals. I don't know what that right level should be, but I do think that I do want to maintain maximum flexibility. And therefore, what I would propose is that we set it at the maximum level of 1.27. And I'm using 1.27 just to make it simple and as opposed to 1.2735. And that's keep in mind. When we talk about Millage 2, it's interesting to me about how these, the definitions of Millage, sometimes are lost on the public. One mill is $1 per 1000 dollars of assessed value. If we went from 1.17 to 1.27 in the final budget, and again, I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying we should have the flexibility to go that far if we believe we need to. That would be not, we're not talking about raising it multiple mills. We're talking about raising it 0.10 mills, which is one tenth of one mill. And I don't know if any of you looked at the material that Mr. Young shared with us, I think Mr. Young, Mr. Boudre Schwart back in June looking at other communities and what their milling trade is, but we are very, very, very low by statewide standards. And if you look at, given the, if you look at our, shall we say, peer communities. Coral gables, five and a half mills. communities, you know, coral gables, five and a half mills. Let me just give you a couple examples. Cape Coral, 5.3 mills, Fort Myers, 6.7 merrill mills, Bradenton, 5.7 mills, Winter Park, four, Delray Beach, 6.3. I could go on and on to put our millige in perspective. Now, nobody ever wants to increase millage. I don't like to see millage increased. It's all a question of what you're going to use it to pay for. But the only and we'll get into those discussions and whether the proposed increases in public safety and fire and resilience and planning warrant and increase in millage will make that decision later all we're doing today is raising is is what I think we should do today is take advantage of the situation and set the maximum cap at 1.27 so we have the flexibility to make whatever decisions we need to make. So Councilman Christmas, as soon as everyone's had their chance, I'll let you make that motion. Council vice mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you to our finance director and Mr. Young for presentation and the straight forwardness about why we're here today. That's very important. I got to tell you you're a really valued member of this team that helps make everything work. And it's been a real pleasure working with you over the past few years. Concerning the property valuations as shown in your slides, what can you tell council on the community? Concerning these property valuations, is there anything significant about this most recent, Is there anything significant about this most recent final valuation as compared to the past ten or more years? No. I think it always has in the most recent three years it's going up substantially and when you look at the as a percentage of what it's going up, it's diminimous and I don't say that lightly, right? So I don't think the difference between the preliminary and the final is a significant amount. It's big in numbers but it's not significant from that standpoint. I look more of it to historical where are we, where would you vulnerable to what's in the pipeline on permits, things like that, what development and you see it every day is still going on. So what are those things we're hedging against to stay in that increased number, right? And so that's what I look at a more just not in and of itself that number doesn't mean a whole lot. I think it's more about all of those economic and it's a microcosm of where we find ourselves and are we poised to stay at that level or at least have a softer landing. Those are what I examine more closely than just that transition from that number to that. Mr. Young, could you pull up that slide that shows the the I don't know how many years in that one snapshot. There you go right there. So, 2023 final versus the 2024 estimate. So that's an estimate that's not a final correct. Correct because you still they can have appeals it's still technically not final until it's done and it's as you can you can go to the board to appeal whatever your assess value is so even though it's final it's final pending board appeals and certification and all of those kinds of things so so the point is is it's I know we use it as preliminary and final, but the true final is after the county appeals board for property value appeals are done and your final numbers are known. So that's why it'll always be considered an estimate until the year is closed and you get the new numbers. So it just lived in the chart. I see in 2006 that valuation, the final was an increase of 20.27% over the previous year, right? That's correct. And then you move on up the chart. The next highest is 2022, a 16% jump. And then 24 and 11% jump. So we're, I don't know, 2006 to 2024. We're looking at the third highest increase in valuations. Yes. Mate, yeah, it's an estimate. Yes, sir. Okay. And that's certainly significant. Yes, sir. Okay. And that's certainly significant. Yes, sir. But also notice that in previous years, you can't just assume it's going to keep going up. 2006 may have been a 20% jump, but you go forward a couple years and you get slapped with a decrease. That's right. And that's why I used the same thing. I was in discussion with S&P on a bond issue. And they said, what do you look back five years? I said, well, that's why that, because I gave them this same slide. I said, that's why that slides that long. I don't want anybody to forget what goes up can come down. And so I'll keep shrinking it until, because I don't want it to get, you know, it was always 10 years, but I don't want it. We need to realize you can go from 20% positive to a negative 1.2 in a hurry. And so that's why I presented and make sure so that we're all aware that what goes up can come down. And we need to be cautious against that. But I just want to compliment you on you and your staff for putting together. That's a 19 year snapshot. And we don't usually get that when we're looking at other things from finance. And this really is helpful for me. So thank you for that. On, there was some discussion about the fee structure, talking about licenses, fees, permits, and more. And the community should know, and I believe everybody here on Council knows, that my ask, prior to considering what to do with millage valuations, is to look top to bottom on the fees, permits, and license, every kind of thing that we charge, look for opportunities before we roll back to raising taxes on the community, we all know and I may or I swear to God I'm not saying it because I own a 7-11. But at 7-11 I see some of the people in our community that struggle the most. I was there this morning before 6am and here they came. And so when it comes to taxes, it means a lot to me. I would rather do anything than raise taxes on our residents. There's a lot of our residents that can afford it. They can easily afford it and they can afford it probably beyond the 1.27 that's been discussed. And they can afford it probably beyond the 1.27 that's been discussed. So when it comes to Mr. Bouderswar, my ask is this, when we start looking at fees, licenses, permits, and more, there's probably other terminology that help finance all the stuff that we do here. But I say, do we really want to restrict our comparison of the licenses, fees, and permits to our market competitors? Or is there merit in revising the way we look at these revenue sources to reflect the higher quality of services, Naples Residence Demand? In other words, should we be higher in all those fees? Not competitive, should we be higher if so? Why? If not, why? So, bottom line here, I support the referendum route as opposed to raising taxes in these military. I believe allowing our residents to vote on taxation is the right thing to do. When it comes to attracting and retaining the right people at the city, providing the equipment and facilities they need, financing resiliency and properly addressing the myriad of other issues, requiring significant financial commitments. It demands that the elected representatives take action on the prioritized goals, which the city council, along with city staff, has determined is necessary. So read into that, be very clear, that when it comes to a vote on raising taxes, it goes against everything that wires me the way that I'm wired. Commitments to our residents matter. I, along with others, have made promises to not raise taxes. I will keep my commitment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because I respect that about you, you make a decision, but sometimes rollback is just capturing that increment of values. So sometimes it's in the way that you look at it and especially in a time where we have realized that we could have done better at maintenance of our infrastructure and that goes all around the city. Councilmember Chrisman? Are you ready for a motion? Oh wait, oh sorry, Councilmember Kramer. I was trying to get your attention. I didn't see you. Oh, I thought we had really good eye contact there for a minute. I would, you know, we beat this to death in the June meeting. I want to reiterate, my colleague, I feel his pain. I taught and coach the kids that we dealt with food scarcity and made sure they had food eat and their lives could stay on and I recognize that those people in those situations that live in our city, but I still want to get perspective over talking about. We're talking about if your home has an assessed value of a million dollars. So that would be after your home set exemption. Raising it to 1.27, it's a hundred bucks a year. That's not even one Chick-fil-A regular sandwich meal a month. Not even. And I like the deluxe. So, I mean, what are we talking about? Let's not make us something. It's not our users of political bludgeon. Which, the folks, some of our colleagues elsewhere perhaps on our, some of our commissioners, that would be the case. Well, again, I said last May, I have no political aspirations. And I also believe like we've heard many times from people sitting up here, including our city manager, we're an inflection point. We need to take care of our police and firefighters now and provide for rest of staff too, not just them. We've got IT, we have issues across the board if we're gonna maintain the services that this community expects, and really have been neglected for a very long time. We've talked about all this ad nauseam. And so, um, I'm going to make the motion that we, which I did last time, that we raised a milled rate maximum possible milled rate to 1.27. Now, we may have a referendum. I'm all for that. We may find other sources. I'm all for that. But what I'm mostly for is getting it done right now for the people that serve our community. That's what I'm mostly for. And that's what I, that was my top priority when I ran for office and one of the main reasons I ran for office. And so I would be remiss if I did not push hard on this and so I am. So I'd like to make that most note, we raised the possible maximum millage rate to 1.27. Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Kramer. And I'm pleased to second that. Mayor just to clarify. Council Member. And I have a second by Council Member Kramer. Thank you. I just want to be clear. When you say 1.27, I know we've been talking about 1.27, but do you mean 1.2735? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So I have a motion by Council Member Kramer to set the millage break to 1.27. I have a second by Council Member Christman. Madam Clerk, please pull the council. Council Member Christman. Yes. Council Member Barton. Yes. Council Member Kramer. Yes. Council Member Petronoff. Yes. Council Member Cramer. Yes. Councillor Member Petronoff. Yes. Councillor Member Peniman. I'm going to vote yes for this reason. I wouldn't be sitting here today if a propensity of the 23,000 plus people that we represent in the city of Naples didn't vote for me. So I feel like I have a real obligation to a majority of the people that live in Naples, Florida, to vote for this, for their own safety. So I vote yes. Vice Mayor Hutchison? No. Mayor Heintman? Yes, it passes six to one. Mr. Young, any further business on the millage? No, I just want to say that I'm humbled with the respect, professionalism, and confidence that you continue to show in me and I just want to thank you all. So thank you. We never doubt you, Mr. Young. Thank you. And we certainly don't doubt you. I have a process question though. We have just said what the maximum millage rate could be be and the budget needs to come out and go through it. How does the process work if we decide to do a referendum to for this? How does that Mr. Fluttersfarrer, because we've been looking- Let me jump into this. When the mayor, and mayor, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but when the mayor presented the concept of a referendum, it was a continuation of a concept that we had proposed back in June, but I didn't take that as her meaning in lieu of what you just did. This was, okay, thank you. I think it was foreshadowing other needs that we have specifically. We've talked about the need for police station, fire station. So there are other types of resiliency. Resiliency, yes. Even if we set aside a million and a half dollars a year for resiliency, that's a drop in the bucket. So there are lots of things that need to happen to reinvest in this community. And I like the way that you characterize it. There's a business case to be made to maintain our quality of life, the value of real estate, so on and so forth. You have to invest in communities like this, especially coastal communities. So, you know, one point, going from 1.17 to 1.27 is a big deal. I mean, that's a very big deal. But the knee-tour tremendous over the next 10 plus years. So alternative methods, including going directly to your residents to have them tell you, what are their priorities? Are they the same as yours? I think that's something that you would want to look at. As far as timing, when does that happen? So you all have an election every two years. We just had one. We don't have another one for a year and a half for a year and eight months or so. So that's the next time we would be able to piggyback on a county election and have it be a part of that process. I think we probably could have a special election, but that comes at a cost of $80,000 or so. But you know, you're a year away from realizing the revenue sources from a vote. So that would be for the future future but the future is here. So I would encourage you all to have these conversations in the upcoming year about your interest in accelerating some sort of ballot question to the voters if not this coming February the year after. So I guess are you saying then that we are going to go through the same process on approving the budget? We've just set a maximum milligrate. We're going to go through the same process to set the final milligrate. But this, concurrently, we're going to be having broader conversations about some of these expensive infrastructure projects, etc., safety projects that we will then do is to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we have to make sure that we issue of the proposed tax millage increase in the referendum because I think looking at the referendum is at a referendum is something it's important to do but we're really talking about in my view anyway and the interest in hearing what Mr. Young and Mr. Buttigieg were or others say about this. We're really talking about two very different things. The millage increase, if there ultimately is one, whatever millage level we set it at, ultimately, we're talking about the general fund budget. And we're talking about what are largely day-to-day operating costs of running the city. Paying the salaries, not just the police and fire, but everybody. And making sure they're being paid in a fair way. Paying for our parks and recreation activities that go on are planning work. There may be some limited capital projects, such as the sea wall project that are being funded out of the general fund budget, because there's no other place for them to be funded. But these are largely operating costs. In my experience anyway, if we get to the point of putting a referendum on the ballot that's going to be for capital projects. It's going to be for capital projects and we're not going to be paying salaries through a referendum I don't believe. I'm not sure it's possible to do that. And it certainly, if you go back to the county sales tax referendum of six or seven years ago, that was clearly earmarked for a series of capital projects relating to roads and other capital construction projects and that's typically what referendum are for. So we may very well need both, but I think in my opinion anyway, it's important to keep in mind that not just this year, but in the future we're going to have to pay for the cost of running the city from an operating standpoint largely through the property tax. And also whatever appropriate fees and related things that we were imposing or can impose in the future. So I just, that's my view and I, if Mr. Young, I'd be interested in whether you think I'm off base with what I've just said or you would agree. No. You're definitely not off base. And what I will come back with one other anecdotal statement to it. And what I mean with that is going the capital route is the best. You have facilities, you have roads, you have things that you need to pay forward to maintain. And this council has shown and the previous council has shown we want to have things such as street paving. So where it can come out in the wash though is remember we're taking every dollar communication tax and we're putting it to roads so we can do all this paving. If you have a capital infrastructure and includes facilities and infrastructure and that's what you're funding, then money you're peeling off to go to these places can come back and hopefully compress it. You don't need additional millage on top of millage, right? And so that's why you're exactly right. I would tie it to capital, capital structures, infrastructure, and facilities and equipment geared toward the specific things you want. And then you come back and say how much am I peeling off to other places to subsidize it from what it could otherwise go to the general fund and then hopefully hold down millage on the backside operationally. So that would be the workshop discussion that we would have at length. Well, and I think just one final comment politically speaking, if you're putting a referendum in front of voters and you're putting forward a set of tangible physical projects as opposed to paying for day-to-day operating costs, I think you always have a proposal that is more appealing. Absolutely. And not doing it in a special election has its own connotation as putting it on a special election. Sometimes that's looked at unfavorably as well. So I think that honest discussion and honest timing would be the best and appropriate way to handle it. That is just to clarify that if we can go on a regular election, not a presidential election, which we cannot add any type of referendum or language or to my understanding, a special election would cost us 80,000, which to me is contradictory to what we're trying to achieve. And so thank you for that advice. I absolutely support that. But being proactive in having these discussions and getting the communications out to the community, if this is what they want, then's what we the job we need to do so Thank you With that mr. Young. Thank you mr. Bouter Schward. Thank you and that I just want to confirm madam clerk We did not have public speakers for that item number six a we had then okay great That takes us to item six B mr. Bouter Schward great. Thank you mayor That takes us to item 6b, Mr. Bouterswar. Great, thank you Mayor. Mayor and council, I want to invite up Mr. Middleton and Mr. Daniel. I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce his last name. And I'm allowed to struggle with people's last names for obvious reasons. So what we wanted to do today for you, and I believe we have Chad Merritt who is stepping away from his vacation to be a part of this conversation if necessary. I think he's hooked in by Zoom, but we wanted to do a couple things for you today. And before we jump into the presentation, you all know this, but let me just make some comments for the benefit of the public relative to how we have reorganized ourselves in the public works department. So Daniel, you all have met him already. He's our new city engineer. And we have established within the public works department a division of engineering and construction. With the intent to centralize how we work with architects and engineers and contractors to ensure all of our projects in the community are designed and built consistently with folks who are subject matter experts, their PEs, they have expertise in a construction field, so on and so forth. We haven't really done it that way in the past. We have taken more of what I call it decentralized approach in building capital projects. And this is a best practice to be organized this way. And of course, we have a lot of big projects that are on our plate, but we've talked earlier about lots of projects that are coming down the pipeline. So having a specific division of this department to be the lead. Working obviously with all affected departments is critical. So we're happy to have Daniel on board. We have Allison as a part of his team and Brad and we're building this team together to carry us from concept the idea to ribbon cutting. And one of the things that we have done recently relative to the Peer project is we've pivoted. And this is a good example where the Parks and Rec Department has traditionally managed big projects from concept to public works. The remaining list of things to do prior to commencing construction to the Public Works Department and there's been a smooth transition, Chad and Travis and his team. They're still part of the project team, but Daniel, he's our lead, he's our point. He can speak to engineers and architects in a way that we can't. They speak the same language. And having that singular point of contact to avoid confusion and so on and so forth is very important. So I asked Bob and Dan, Dan, Daniel specifically to provide us an update today relative to where we act with this project. As you know, permitting is always the issue that creates a bit of a delay. And our partners with THA and MHK and I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Senator Scott's office and representative Donald's office. They have assisted us in making sure the folks in DC and the other district offices of these federal agencies know how important this peer project is to the economy and the quality of life here in to push things along, but their fast is still very slow for us. And it's killing us because we want to break ground. We're ready to break ground. But there are a lot of eyes that need to be dotted, teased that need to be crossed with FEMA to make sure we don't jeopardize millions of dollars in potential reimbursement. So there's a lot of moving parts here. So let me pause and let Daniel give the update. We'll talk about the financing, plan, the financing stack that Gary has presented previously in the past, just kind of pull that all together with where we're at. And then we'd like to have a conversation about the Upland design. When we left for break, we had a conversation about the concessions area. The coverage shade structure in the Upland environment. And we need some feedback from you. We can talk about that. So that's how I was hoping today's presentation would go. And I'm a less than any comments. I was gonna kick it over to the- I will. Mr. Bittershaw, I think this was a wise decision. I think that the Mr. Merritt and his team had a big focus on getting the beach ends open, not to mention our master park plan. So I really appreciate your leadership on getting the beach ends open, not to mention our master park plan. So I really appreciate your leadership in making this decision and having one person that's in charge. The permitting is so frustrating to me and just the demolition and moving forward, I think this is a very wise decision. So thank you. Yeah, and let me be crystal clear. This change in how we're operating isn't a reflection on, in any negative way to our team. Our team with Travis, Travis has rebuilt the peer at least once. But to your point, Mayor, we have a lot on our plates. And having this consistency, Travis and Chad and the rest of their team, they're fully on this project team because guess what, they've got to operate it and maintain it when it's all done. So they have to know where all the bolts are and all the connections and so on. So they're definitely part of the team. But I appreciate you acknowledging that and as we move forward, we actually saw a little sneak peak with the CRA garage where we transitioned over to public works to manage construction, having a guy like Brad Heffner who speaks the language and is in the field and is our onsite rep is very important and that's just going to be how we do it going forward. Well it's logical and the last reconstruction we also had a project manager so thank you. Okay, good afternoon. Good afternoon everyone. For the record, Dan Ornstein City Engineer, who we all had a nice break. We're here to give you an update for the latest on the peer reconstruction project. So we'll review the timeline, bids, funding, and the upland design. This all started when Hurricane Ian struck in September 2022 and caused major damage to the peer. Following in November, there was a limited reopening to the public. In December, a damage assessment was provided and the council determined that a rebuilding to be the best option. In January 2023, the RFP for design was posted in April, Trial Hall and Associates, who's here today, was selected as a design firm. In October, the council approved the 90% design. In March, 2024, the construction RFP was advertised. On June 27th, construction beds were opened, and on July 8th, the evaluation committee met to pre-qualify one of the firms. The city received three bids. This is Shoreline Foundation Inc., GLF Construction Corporation, and Manhattan Road and Bridge Company. The low bidder was Shoreline Foundation Inc., and the city has declared our intent to award to Shoreline. The total construction cost is $450,000,696.0.50, which is within 10% of the pensioners, depending on the probable cost. THA has analyzed the bid and recommends Shoreline Foundation Inc. for the Peer Reconstruction Project. THA recommends a 5% contingency for a total budgeting of 24.6 million. On funding, in June, the state appropriated 5 million for the project, so some good news. In June, the state appropriated 5 million for the project. So some good news. Regarding FEMA, the meeting was held with FEMA on at City Hall in July 10th. FEMA requested additional cost breakdown for their purposes. And THA is preparing this. Our next meeting with FEMA on this project will be August 9th. FEMA approval depends on clearing environmental review. With an expected time frame is 6 to 8 months. And of course, if the city breaks ground prior to approval, FEMA is told us they would not be able to reimburse us. Now for a more detailed review of the project funding and expenses, I will turn the presentation over to Deputy City Manager Young. Good afternoon again. Good afternoon again Mayor Gary Young, Deputy City Manager CFO. As far as the overall expenses he briefly went over those, the construction cost 23459 contingency, and then the CEEI is an additional 1.7 estimate at this point. That brings us to a total of 26,351,000 for this project. Now the funding stack that we have in place, if you recall, we authorize along with the city garage an additional $11 million for the peer. And so that's baked into here. Now I would remind you that the beach fund had a fund balance when in hit of just over $8 million. So from a liquidity standpoint, we didn't need to fund all of it as reimbursements came in because we had substantial cash to start with. So we believed our cash deficiency in terms of liquidity as we apply for reimbursements was around $11 million. And so that's what we are authorizing for issuance. And I would remind you that that sale will occur on November 6th. So with that said, we authorize that issu the state grant is referred to as a 5 million. We applied for and received TDC grant in front-ending our draws against the TDC for maintenance to the tune of 2.2 million. Right now we have a placeholder in the financing stack for 7 million for FEMA. Again, the total beach fund reimbursement could be anywhere from $7, $12 million depending on what we can validate and prove. But that includes the beach end part of it as well, because we're also getting reimbursements and we've already had substantial costs incurred there. So we have a placeholder of $7 million, but again, it could be higher. Now our hope would be as we get closer to 12, and I've outlined that before to you when I indicated on the debt issue as part of it. Our hope would be when this thing lands, we get our final reimbursement from FEMA. We may have started before Ian with $8 million, and the good Lord Willing will have maybe a little over five and a half to six, but when it's all said and done, with only probably about seven years left on the outstanding. So I just want to point that out. And then also keeping in mind from a liquidity standpoint, we issued the bonds because we're also going to lose about a million and a half while it's shut down for reconstruction from parking revenue. That's an estimate based on 18 to 24 month construction. So and then in addition to that, right now we believe we have roughly a million foreign donations. It could be higher by the time is, but all of that kind of washes out and comes back into the fund balance, whatever that final number ends up being. So at the end of the day, again, going backwards, we need 26,351 and this financing stack reveals 266. I mean, from a funding perspective, I believe we're ready to go. And as I indicated, the sale will occur for the bonds on August 6th. The signing will occur on August 29th and on August 22nd, the funds will be deposited for both the garage and for the pier. And that's all I have. Thank you. Okay, clear in question. On a happier note, I would let you know in case the city manager, maybe he hadn't, we did receive S&P rating on the bonds and it's trip away and so that occurred. And actually there was an advertisement that went out of the bond rating agency and everything. Advertising the sale was published on Thursday. So. Excellent news. Thank you. Yes. Vice Mayor. Agency and everything advertising the sale was published on Thursday, so. Excellent news. Thank you. Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Young. So with many government projects, we find that the final number is much higher than what was discussed. Where are we at risk on this, if you could go back a slide. 26 million 350, but 26 million 600, as we approach another hurricane season right now, whether or not storms hit the Atlantic coast or anywhere in the Gulf coast, it's going to impact supplies, right? If we have the kind of hurricane season people are forecasting. Is there any wiggle room in the funding that we see on these slides if costs go up? What? What happens? Keep in mind, I haven't used the fund balance that we refer to. I'm still tracking it around 5 million hopeful fund balance when this is all said and done. So as long as you were within those margins of the extra 5 million, keep in mind this is already escal say well, it's only issue five millions and we're down to zero fund balance. We don't know what's going to happen. And so we've hedged against that fund balance and hopes that it's going to stay around five and a half million so that in the event something comes in higher, we've got more fund balance to utilize that. I would argue that if something came in significantly higher than that and we approach the $31, 32 million mark, then that's going to be a whole nother discussion. But I think that we've got enough built into this. Remember, we've already got a 5% contingency. The key to it is getting everything done so we can get started. The longer it takes to get started and when we can get the FEMA approvals, that's our vulnerabilities because we have a contract price. And so that's my biggest concern and hopefully we can get over those hurdles here in the next several months and get us on track. In the comments that the city manager made his words were jeopardized millions in financing if we don't, if we act not according to FEMA direction. So I certainly don't want to jeopardize, I don't think anybody would want to jeopardize millions because it's a lot already. But when it, and I think FEMA said penalties or money could be taken away if we break ground before we get the blessing, right? Yeah, there was a very distinct email that says if you break ground and start the project before it is approved, you will not be reimbursed. That was the sentence. So words mean a lot. So my ask is somewhere in here, do we know if breaking ground includes demolition? Yes. Anything we can do to get us close to that line or somewhere where we're maximizing time because as soon as we act, you made the point. As soon as we act the better we are and it's gonna hold down this cost. But the demolition is part of the contract price and the demolition over water is one of the biggest hurdles that we have to deal with with FEMA as it pertains to all of the permitting. And so, yes, it's unfortunately, and I would argue, it's going to be a substantial part of our reimbursement. Because we're not getting 90% or 100% of reimbursement on the redesign components that are not just replacement. So at the end of the day, that demolition is one that we don't get the majority of the demolition reimbursement. So I want to, for the record, so that people understand Mr. Butterswar pointed this out, even though we went out to bid, FEMA requires that we take the lowest bid. Go ahead. It's not quite that simple. It has to be the lowest, I forget the technical language. And qualified. And qualified. So a couple of things, just to reassure the public. Yes, thank you for that. As well as that. G-Tales matter. Yes. So there is a qualification process that we go through. sure the public as well. details matter. Yes. So there is a qualification process that we go through. We want to make sure who we're hiring can build this thing and has a track record. So Shoreline who is the apparent low biter and we've declared them they have built pier. So they have they have satisfied us that this project is well within their ability to build. But, but I lost my track about. But getting back to this point that we are at the mercy of others. We're ready to go. We have city attorneys approved the contract already. We have ready to go. We have, City Attorney's approved the contract already. We have our staff lined up. We have a willing contractor, but we have permits that we need to receive from the environmental agencies. We need FEMA to say yes, they are satisfied. They understand what the cost would have been to just repair versus rebuild as is. And they're trying to distinguish what these enhancements and these mitigating or mitigation type designs or enhancements that we've done to satisfy their needs. Because let's be honest, FEMA's trying to minimize how big of a check they're going to write to the city of Naples as they are trying to minimize the size of the checks that they're writing to other communities because they have a finite amount of money available. So we have to be able to demonstrate to them that we deserve what it is we're asking them for. So there's hoops and hurdles and I know our partners are it's frustrating for them because we keep going back Hey, we need this we need you to break down these numbers You know this is what FEMA needs and time is money and I think to to Mr. Hutchison's point You know how can we get started with that jeopardizing these funds and we will push back as much as we can because at the end of the day If costs keep going up because they can't hold these prices, that's just a higher percentage that FEMA has to reimburse us at the end of the day. So it's in their best interest too and they've said that to us. It's in their best interest too to get this project finalized and started. So we will do that. But I'd be remiss if we didn't express the same frustration as the general public. I mean, this is, we want this peer reboot. I want to give you that. But the reality is we don't want to have false expectations in terms of what it takes to get us to the ground breaking. It's going to take some time. Thank you, and I'm not trying to cut you short. I would like to get through this presentation, but I have Barton and then Chrisman with two quick questions. Yes, very quick. I just want to make sure I'm clear here because we're going to have as we all get questions from our voting constituency out there when the heck is a period going to start and it's always been we're working on we're trying to get permitting we're hoping to give a word of bid here at the end of the summer or this that and the other and what I'm hearing is this is a hurry up and wait situation and we're actually not going to be starting construction until sometime around February and March next year. Because FEMA needs going to take six to eight months to approve the permits that have been in for a year and a half. Yeah, I was getting ready to say possibly worst case but I'm tired of saying that. Yeah. Because these things, they go through a process and again I mentioned the help from the senator in congress Congressman's office to make sure our files aren't sitting on a stack to do list, but they are. And there are lots of marine related projects up and down the West Coast of Florida that need to be permitted. And these things, they just take time. So the answer is, sometime middle next year, we'll get a shovel on the ground. Hopefully sooner. I, gosh. Want to talk about best case, worst case based on, and this is all based on what we've been told so far. But again, it's, you know. Yeah, I just wanna be emotionally armored enough. So we're going to start telling people we're not going to start construction until March or February or March or April that I'm mentally and emotionally prepared for the responses that I'm going to receive. You know, I think to be safe, it's going to be after the first of the year. It's going to be after the first of the year. And, you know, I hate to escape, go to anybody. But that's what it is, but that's what I wanted to hear. I wanted to make sure I had the answer right. Thank you. Chris van. Yeah, and I apologize if I thought the presentation was had moved to a certain point where this question would be relevant. I just wanted to get some clarity. Let's put the upland facility discussion off to the side, because as a separate discussion for the moment. What do you want from us today in terms of direction or of vote regarding the moving forward to enter into the contract with shoreline. Yeah, nothing today. This was purely an update to let you all know that we did receive bids, we opened bids here the numbers. We will be back to you with the contract. With the contract. And we're shooting for again. We need some answers from FEMA in terms of awarding a contract. We may not break ground but can we award a contract and begin working out some of the details. Right now we're shooting for September to bring the contract to you. So there's no action on that matter. Not today. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Penamene. I would be lying if I told you that I am not a little bit concerned about FEMA at this particular point and time it seems to me two, three, four years ago, we heard FEMA was broke for the obvious reason. So my question is, let's talk in terms of bonding. Is there this number of 11 million? Is there a reason why we can't expand the bonding portion of this if necessary? And if so, what would the timeline be on so let's let's just yeah? Yeah. You can always bond whatever you need. I mean, you're putting the full, you know, full faith and credit or specific revenues. But we're not talking about funding at the moment because the female portion of it, if this council said only in that capacity, which if you said we don't care about any female reimbursement, award the contract and we're moving on. If that's what you said, then I would argue that yes, we need to go back to a bonding because you don't have the liquidity to do it. So, if that's the decision that this council made, that's a different story. Now, that still doesn't mean you get a permit. So, so let's kind of revisit what there's FEMA. There's multiple facets to FEMA. First one is there's the financial component to OPC. You have to define what it is you're doing. And then it's going to go to other federal areas. And I'm not the expert on this, but you know, I think it's the environmental and facial. I don't know all of them. But at the end of the day, up until what two weeks ago, they were one of the divisions was sitting there waiting to say, when we get the full approved project plan, which is all financial and getting all the numbers and eyes out. Well, then you had the Army Corps of Engineers there working on something, those two never talked. So that would have been six months, according to the email we received, it says, if we wait till that process happens, it's going to be six months after that date. So that meeting we had two weeks ago set everything in motion to say, okay, now we need to get the Army Corps in this group so that there's what they think there's, they can be an overlap in those permits. Now, to be fair to our theme of partners, right, we have questions, or they have questions about how are we building it and some of that is required in the permitting and until you got to the point of bidding the contract and have a contractor on board that can express that, you can't answer all the questions, right? So in fairness, there's, we have eyes to cross, to get them to the point where it can be completed from a financial approval process. Then it's going to go to this environmental, I don't know the exact title of it, but they've said even at that point it could be three to four months for their review, even though we've started them down a parallel path. So that's what Mr. Boudichoir is alluding to. So no matter what you did, I don't believe you can circumvent any of the permits that we're talking about as it pertains to getting through the Army Corps of Engineers, DEP, the Water and Environmental Area or the Fish and Game, whatever they call it. I don't know all the groups. So my only point to you, Memammies, to circumvent that process, justice A will borrow, we don't want any of your money. I think you're not going to get as far as you believe, and it's going to cost you a lot of money because all of those permits are still required. So that's my only hesitancy. It's not about whether or not you can get enough money. It's about whether or not it'd be a pound wise or penny wise and pound foolish to do it. That's the only point. Well done, Mr. Yang. I understand that fully. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. If you'll continue. Overga, thank you. Thank you. Yep. Already. Now to give you an update on the permits as we were discussing. So we have the US Army Corps permit. Currently this is under Fish and Wildlife Service Review, and National Marine Fisheries Review. Our timeframe for the Army Corps depends on when these and historic preservation review are complete, which may be between October and December 2024. In terms of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, our latest response is currently under review at the state and we expect to be able to wrap this up by September. So overall, we anticipate the earliest possible start of construction to be December 2024, that's early as possible. It may be spring 2025, as we were discussing, depending on funding and permitting approvals. Following, there will be 18 months of construction. With that update, we'd like to review the Upland design and respond to some concerns we receive from some residents. As you can see in this area, the Upland part of the peer, the existing peer, has bathrooms and changing areas while the concession building was out over water. During the redesign, both upper and lower areas were being explored for the location of the concession building. However, FEMA informed the city that it would not approve a location over water. Therefore, the concession window was relocated to the upland area as an addition to existing facilities. The council approved the design in October 2023. For your consideration, in response to some of these comments, the size of the concession area is the same as before to clarify it is not a restaurant but more of a snack shop as it was previously. Without a concession window here, it's possible that the city's only alternative would be to serve snacks, would be to, in order to serve snacks would be food trucks on the turnaround or something of the like if it's not in the building. Furthermore, the approved design is in response to public feedback. For shade and enhanced facilities, accordingly the total new shaded area will be doubled. And the facilities include renovated bathrooms and picnic area, so that the architectural and aesthetic legacy of the pier will only improve. Lastly, on the design, I did want to mention that at this point of redesign, would set the city's timeline for funding, permitting, and construction back. And I'm sure everyone here is eager to throw out a line, kick up their feet, or have a lobster roll once again. Thank you very much. Thank you. Did I hear you say food trucks? Well, if we can't have a concession building, we want to serve food. I think we have a code that says no food trucks within the city. That would thank you for your presentation. I want to say that I know that staff has been diligent, many areas from finance to the manager's office and myself and even contacting Senator Scott, and he's been very responsive to us in trying to assist in whatever way he can. But I still believe these are hurdles that we shouldn't have to be going through when our staff has been very efficient and we are having to provide information over and over. But that being said, since Mr. Boudrechef is not looking for us on any other decisions. We do have something we need to discuss, and that is the Upland area. The last time that we left, we had members of the community express their concern. Unfortunately, sometimes, no matter how thorough we try and be with the process, things happen. And the flourishing and the design, maybe we didn't quite look at it the way that we could have and thoroughly. I think the residents have brought up some very, very important issues that we need to really consider. Mr. Riddishwar wasn't looking for that direction, but I believe that it's better that council have those discussions so that they're prepared, we're prepared, and the contracts prepared. I know he has said numerous times you can take away from the contract. It's just adding to the contract's prepared. I know he has said numerous times you can take away from the contract. It's just adding to the contract. Councilmember Chrisman brought up that he thought that this being so close to inland, that this design would be much larger and was concerned about it. And thank you again for bringing that up because I think it was a worthy note. And I'm glad you did, Mr. Boutuchoar pursued it, tried looking at the size of it. But I think what's come about really that's important is we thought we were doing the right thing by just moving that concession because we couldn't have the concession over the water. that concession because we couldn't have the concession over the water. But we're changing. Naples is changing. Our community is changing. Our visitors are changing. And the one thing we want to make sure we protect is that area that's within the pier. It's a historic pier. We were trying to do shade because we thought it would be nice to get out of the heat. I will tell you I was at the police chief's office watching the peer in the afternoon. And there were people seeking the little bit of shade in front of the restrooms that they could sit and read their book. I also had a tour with Mr. Boudre-Schwar last week and the same situation. So logically, make sense. People want to get out of the sun. But the biggest concern that I'm hearing right now from our community is the change in congregating and we are having more and more people, there are larger groups coming. So I think we need to have this discussion on what we have in front of us and whether this is really going to be a change in our, I think the character and the environment while we were trying to still provide the same services and also enhance it by shade. So I think this is worthy of a discussion right now. So count to member Kenan, out of prison after you. Thank you. Thank you for the mayor for those words. Team this issue up and very well stated. I guess the first thing I want to say is to try to also when I think you were saying the same thing mayor. This isn't, there's nobody, we've got to this point with respect to the discussion around the landside facility. Nobody did anything wrong. You know, staff and our consultants have diligently moved forward to design this new peer. We need to remember that for a long part of the process, the design process, we were under the assumption that we were going to be able to put it, on the put concessions on the peer, just like we have historically since 1946. And then suddenly, no, we can't. We learned that. And so I think our staff and our consultants did what anybody would have expected them to do, which has moved to Plan B and say, well, we assume we won't concession. So that's moved to a landside design. the first iteration of that, I thought, as the mayor indicated, and I think others thought that boy, this was really oversized and problematic. And to, again, to everyone's credit, including especially starting with Mr. Buddhist War, he said that's taken another look at this, go back and do a redesign, and they came back with a redesign. But I have to say that speaking for myself, I still think we've got some serious problems with this landside concession facility. And I articulated my concerns back in June and over the summer, weeks and months thus far. I've spent a lot of time further thinking about it, talking to people, not just hearing from people, but reaching out to people and asking them their opinion, people who may reside generally in the vicinity of the pier or just our long term Naples residents. And I think if we go down this road, that's with the design that's for us, we're going to make a tragic and huge mistake. And I think that the scale and mass of this facility is not right for that street and as the entrance to the peer, I think that just the basic proposition or assumption that we need to have a dining facility associated with the pier is not something I agree with. I think there are issues potentially, not just potentially, but in real time as well as potentially with this becoming a gathering space in the wrong sense of that word, and congestion, noise, smoke, smells, not smoke, smells, becoming an irritant to a lot of people. And, you know, one of the people I reached out to just to get some historical facts, and you all received the email back as Lila Zuck, cuz I was just trying to get my facts straight as to what is the history of this peer in terms of concessions. And as always, Ms. Zuck did a wonderful job in laying that out in her response to me. But she went on to offer her opinion, which she is entitled to do. But rare. Yeah, and she said, the peer was there for fishing and recreation, and passive recreation, sightseeing, watching sunsets and so on. And I just don't think if the only way we can provide concessions now is not through a small concession stand on the pier, which blends in with the pier, but instead we have to build something like this. At this scale and visibility, I think it's a mistake and I don't support it personally. And I think what we need at the land side are good restroom facilities, outdoor showers, water fountains with good pressure and reliability. And that's about it. And I think what we will have then is something that does honor and preserve the history and character of Naples and does not turn our peer into something that is overly a commercial establishment as opposed to something that is a true historic iconic asset for the people of Naples and our visitors who use it for the kinds of purposes that it was originally meant for. So those are my thoughts, similar to what I expressed in June, but they've only been reinforced by my, by the research and conversations I've had over the last six or eight weeks. Thank you, Council Councillor Pinneman. Thank you for the remarks, colleague. And always a shout out to Lyle's look for setting a straight historically. Thank God for her. You know, I come late to the party in this particular case. What I don't know is whether or not we've asked the city attorney as to what are the risks to the city if there are any if we decided to do a concession thing like this. Are there risks involved to the city legally relative to an operation like that? So I'd like to know about that. Yes, thank you for the question. It depends on the agreement, which I would be preparing. You would shift liability like we do with a lot of contractors and service agreements. I believe there's a concession agreement already that was entered into in a solicitation for Cosmos, if I'm not mistaken, which is currently in play. I believe until June of 2025. So if the concession was not going to go forward, then I think we would need to, and I reviewed the agreement, there's a termination by convenience, and you'd have to notify them within 30 days that you're not going to continue it. But to get back to your question, this can be done. It would just have to be done the right way, and you would have to ensure insurance, being added as an additional insurer, just very standard things that we would do in a city contract to ensure that the liability was shifted. But there is a way to do this. Okay. Okay. And so my other, my real objection here is quite frankly, that I don't think the city should be in competition in any kind of business necessarily where other people are trying to earn a living. So I would be against it probably for that reason as well. So thank you very much. Thank you. I have Councilmember Barton. Thank you. Thanks everybody for their thoughts and comments. I agree with them, frankly. My biggest issue and concern with this design at this point in time is moving the concessions to the land side. It's going to create a massive bottleneck there at the entrance to the pier and it's going to cause a lot of situation where a lot of people are simply congregating, milling around, not even necessarily using the bathrooms or the concessions, they're just going to be standing around in that area while people are trying to get on and off the pier. And I think that that for just as a general use of the facility, the pier as a whole, it's going to create all sorts of issues. And then you take into consideration all the neighbors that are right there. The concessions have now been moved essentially into their backyard. And again, it's going to create a lot of people congregating right there, you know, off of their property lines, which I completely understand where they might have some issues with that. What I would suggest we do, and what I think would help that, is scale down what we're looking at here, completely remove any seating, and you want to eat in that area. People can buy something there and move. Go down to your seat on the beach, go up the pier, go, there are other seats down the pier. If I correct them wrong, guys, is there still going to be an area in the middle of the pier that has shade and seating? If you'd like to come forward, we have a... Okay, so I just got a yes from the lead architect. There's still going to be seating down there in the middle of the pier so they can get their food and move from that area. So that's, I would significantly reduce any type of bottleneck and congestion is taking place there by not even having any area that for them to sit and eat what they might get there. In addition to that, from a standpoint of the concessions, significantly scale it down to the point that it's a very limited small selection and have it all pre-made offsite, not there, pre-made in the morning or anything. I'm talking about pre-made whoever might have that contract with us if it's Cosmos, that's great, I love Cosmos. Have it pre-made at Cosmos and brought over and pre-wrapped and you're selling individual items. That's going to, number one, is going to speed up the process. We're not going to be end-to-darkening preparation there of any food going on. It's already done offsite. And it also will reduce the necessary size of the facility. We don't need a prep area for food preparation and cooking. Everything's already pre-made. It's just going to be turned around, handed somebody, and collect money, and they move on to lives. So I completely agree that we need to scale it back. We need to remove seating and attempt to get the congregation that's going to be there based on the current design. Remove that, those desires to stand around and mill around in the front area and the infantry area by making those subtle, but I think necessary changes. Thank you. Thank you, most stated. Councillor Pettrino. Thank you, most stated. Councillor Pettrano. Yes, I agree with generally with my colleagues, but I would remove the food component completely. I don't think that in looking at what people wanted and there was an overwhelming survey that was done in almost 11,000 people. It ranked very low as an option. I would much rather than go to one of our private establishments and pick something up. But I like the idea of being able to get drinking water and all of the very basics that they would need. When you look at lumping some of these reasons on why people want to come to the pier, there were a number of them, but by far and a way, the largest was for viewing. You know, the viewing sunsets was by far the largest. I mean, there were 7,603 respondents that wanted that. They went to view wildlife. That was the third most, then sightseeing was the other. So it's all around view escapes. And then the last one was photography. That represents the bulk of why people are coming to the pier. And the history piece of it was really important too. And when you look back historically, way back, we did not have a restaurant operating there. So my preference would be to keep it simple, eliminate the land side, food concessions, and be on our way. Seeding, pardon? And seating? Because there's covered area of seating. I'm trying to get a consensus here because I do think that good looking. And I'm old evidently. And Cranston the number of people who are in the area of the city. I'm trying to get a consensus here because I do think that we need to give clear direction on what we're going. Okay, I would say no, no seating. Thank you. I have council member Barton. I mean, I'm a primer. I'm not that good looking. And I'm old evidently. In crunching the numbers, the survey, there were 10% of, and made a ton of respondents. 10% is said that was, and they got to pick three. So that, if you've done, in education, we do a lot of survey. You get a lot of collected data. So when you get to pick three that increases the number you're going to get in general for any selection. Okay? Only 10% said that they go to the peer to eat. And then just over 4% said that most important, now this is just one, you get to pick one item. Just over 4% said food was their most important reason for visiting the pier. And this is from our citizens of people we represent. Interestingly, when you look farther down the survey, again, it's a pick three. And the choices, you get a choice to expand and or relocate the concession and those numbers jump up. But I think there's some selection by it in the survey in that the assumption, there's an assumption given when that's an option that there's going to be a concession. And so if I think we need to remove the assumption that there's going to be a concession, let's just start there. I will say this, for a marketing tool, our friends in the TDC would love for us to have a concession because in people from elsewhere, that's an amenity provided to them. They don't have to worry about picking up food and you can come in at the pier. So if you want people from elsewhere to come have another reason to come to our pier, which is one of our top reason to come to our peer, which is one of our top attractions in all of Southwest Florida, maybe the top, then that's an incentive. My problem is I don't represent them. I represent the people in the city of Naples. And I've been talking for months to everybody I know saying, hey, because we would never use the concession at the peer ever. And so I don't know anyone who does. And all the data shows me it's not important. And so that tells me we don't need a conception of the peer. And for our citizens, so since that's who I represent, we don't need a conception of the peer. If we want to increase some shade and some covered seating, especially for us elderly folks, Mr. Vice Mayor, that was for you. Then I think that'd be fine to look into, but I can't support having seating that's on the out on the peer itself, but removing the seating that we have at the entrance. I would say I haven't studied enough to make a decision, and I'm probably deferred. That's the air, I'll just- I'll just- I hope you look into it more. That's the area I'm concerned about the most yeah I think anything that congests the entrance of the pier is not good okay I don't think we I think More bad than goods going to come from that Thank you Okay, I smear Well, thank you some good good discussion. Great ideas, good input from everyone. And I appreciate that. So when you look at something like this, this is a huge asset. I think it's been said that the peer is one of our top tourist destinations, right? Maybe the top. Is that right, Mr. Booter-Schwar? I think, you know, the answers to that question. I think that's good. I will see in our TDC data that is consistent with everything we see that in southwest and in Collier County it's generally number one. So it's used and people have an interest in it and apparently they come to our community to experience it. Now we have to ask what do we really want to accomplish in providing an experience for residents, tourists, and fishermen visiting the pier? So it really comes down to that. What do you want it to be? What are you trying to provide? With the concession being discussed and evidently being required to be on the landward side, and just so we're level set, we can't put it backward, it was middle of the peer. We can't put it at the very end of the peer. Entities, government entities are saying you've got to put it on the landward side if you want to rebuild. So now that's going to change how foot traffic is manifested. Previously, with the concession in the middle, people, a lot of people are at the very end of the pier. They didn't have to walk all the way back to the beginning. All they had to do is walk to the middle. People at the entering the pier, walk to the middle as well, on their way to the end. But now, since we're being required to put the concession on the landlord side, everything's gonna come right to the front of the pier, where people are entering. And I think others have mentioned the obstacles that come with that. Concession operators must turn a profit. They're not going in there just for the good of their heart to run a concession. They have to make a profit. And the profit comes with foot traffic. The more people you can get past that concession stand and turn them into, if you look at the drawings, I don't know, where's that picture? David, could you go back to the... David's not here. Okay, whoever had the drawings up, there was a rendering of the two structures and how they were going to look at that pier. There you go, right there. So imagine people coming from the right, what we see on the picture on the right hand side is where they're coming from. the picture on the right hand side is where they're coming from. They're going through that through that opening and you see almost like a corral at the concession. Go back to the overhead please. See that corral up a few steps I believe. We're not talking about the concession on the right. We're saying on the left, right? Towards the north side. Yes. So here they come up steps through a corral. People are coming out with drinks. Food. It's it's I've compared it. You've heard me use the term it's like a pig going through a python. It's a lot of people through a short space, right? And that, those are friction points, there's friction points. So there has been some discussion about Laila Zook and God bless her. She is, I think goodness, she's around to remind us. Boat arrivals began in 1927, so people came to Naples using that pier. Trains replaced the boat arrivals. Then the pier became used instead of facilitating people arriving on the boats. It went to fishing and viewing. I know the Sunets and fishing. The concession was added in 1946, and for 76 years, it stayed relevant. We don't know if the operators made a profit or not. They bid on it, right? I mean, we have a contract, so people responded. I'd be really interested in what the Cosmos operators would say about it. And then of course, E in September 2022 really had an impact on that. My thoughts are that the concession part on it really does provide some obstacles. It's really not good for, in my opinion, the residents that, and that's what I've heard from them, the residents that have made significant investments in their private property right there, contiguous to this peer. The noise, things that are gonna happen, I just, I think it's problematic. So what do we do? What do we do? Obviously our feelings as a council has changed compared to that of the council in 1946, right? It has even changed just before I got on council in 2016 and 17. That council added alcohol. Okay? But it was out at the middle. We still have alcohol in place. We still have a contract in place. Now we're talking about this up closer to these residents. So it's a problem for me to, like, the much younger Councilman Kramer had stated. It's, we got to think about who were really serving in my opinion and Councilman Chrisman-Mason, good comments. I would think in a forward looking perspective that we utilize that space, those drawings, not go back to the architects. And why would we do that? A, future councils may make a different decision. But I see that space being used for pelican rescue. I see it used for art shows that are relevant to that part of the community and I don't think you need to have a concession there. I think we can have useful space that we can utilize. Our residents can utilize long term. So tables, I'll go with the will of council on that, you know, in terms of the micro stuff. But I, because we've changed everything with the, with Hurricane Ian, I don't think just because it was there in the past needs to be there in the future. Thank you. So thank you, well said. But on art show, the display will be just as much congestion as what we're concerned about right now. And I think that's really what we're talking about is the public safety aspect, the congestion of this area. We are definitely seeing more and more folks here. I think everyone has stated that it's a congested area. The concession is not necessary. I will tell you, I think Cosmos did a great job. It's not anything to do with Cosmos and their service to us. This truly is about looking at the possibility of creating something at this pier that we don't have today. And it's a passive viewing. We provide showers. We provide, it was water, you know, it was a service. And I agree with the rest of this council that we don't need to provide that service. For the things that were stated, I have a consensus about the seating. And now we'll just say, just watching those cameras, people are going to go under that shade. They're going to take their boom boxes. They're going to, you know, it's going to be a gathering area. And we already have, they can gather on the beach. They can enjoy their tents and I am just thankful that we are having this discussion and realizing this. The impact that could happen for our residents, I don't know if you know, but I think now there's definitely one house up for sale in that area. And as Mr. Young said earlier, what has gone up can come down. I think this is in protecting our property values and those who might have moved there knowing they were living next to appear. Like it because it was passive viewing and they've never had issues with it. In fact, the only issue I've ever had was the fact that we've the fishing and the pelicans and we have done our best to resolve that and work with the conservancy. So I think you have a consensus. I think we should take a formal vote just so there's clear direction. Yes. If we're going to completely remove the consensus maybe we should consider some kind of ending. So people can get water or even mild chips or whatever. Something that somebody, especially you got children down there and you didn't pack your bag right and all of a sudden you realize, oh my God, I need to bottle the water. There's not a 7-11 anywhere near there right now. So you need to go up to the pier and grab it, bottle the water, at least you can have a vending machine to get that from. Just food for thought. Thank you. Mayor, may I summarize and maybe help with your motion what we think we heard. And then also provide you a little bit some additional information just to make sure eyes are wide open And I think we've got the feedback that we need this is very helpful for us What we've heard today is a is a pivot and in hindsight Hines Heights 2020 right? You know, there's a lot of excitement When we saw that beautiful MHK design immediately after his storm and we move forward and here we are today. But I'm hearing a pivot. I'm hearing a consensus if not the majority of you desiring that we not reintroduce a concession operation. Perhaps we could have some vending machines. We'll need to have electricity and that sort of thing to have some vending machines for a Coke machine and maybe some snacks. That's not a decision you need to make today. That's something we can make later. In terms of the concession operation, we were netting just so you know about a hundred thousand hours a year in revenue at the peer pre-EN pre-COVID. So you understand that number. So no concession. The other thing that we think we heard is we want to maintain a status quo footprint. Those are my words in that upland area and not introduce more deck space, more seating area, more places for people to congregate in that up in environment which creates, you know, more people more noise. So, so that would require a redesign. Both, both the concession and the deck area in cover area would, would basically be eliminated. So, a couple things will need to happen. We'll need to debrief with our design team. They're here today. So, they're hearing this first hand. There will need to be a design change. They're here today, so they're hearing this first hand. There will need to be a design change. There's costs associated with that. Of course, we have sunk costs already in the actual design for what you see before you today. But net net, this is going to save the project money because this is a lot of, there's pilings involved in deck areas. There's a lot of work involved here, but I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page here that we have some costs and we're going to have some additional costs for the design change. And it's important to point out, and I think Dan mentioned this, Daniel mentioned this and is open in comments. There is a permit modification and a resubmission or a revision or whatever the process is that's going to be required after we do this redesign. And that may have some timing impacts. Hopefully it's not huge. Like I've said to the mayor and other side, it's easier to scale back than it is to add. So hopefully it's not that big of a deal. And then of course we have a contractor, a presumed contractor, we have a price based on what has been designed and what has been bid. And we'll need to hear from them, well what's the new cost? But there are steps that need to be taken now over the next several weeks to get us to a point where we can get an updated price from them. And then of course FEMA who has approved this project and give us that green light so we don't jeopardize their reimbursement as an important part of this. So to recap, no concession, status quo or similar footprint with eliminating the seating areas and the additional deck space in the upland environment is what we've heard. And I want council, we need to be very clear and not flip-flop. If we make a decision, we need to stick to that decision. We have the community behind us. We have the residents behind us that we don't come back and go, oh, no. We need to make sure that this is the direction we're going and that we are going to stick with this decision. Vice Mayor, and then let's- Yep, for a city attorney. In looking at this agenda item, are we acting appropriately if we want to take a vote. Or should we just take the direction now and make sure the community understands that if a vote's gonna be taken, it'll be taken at a certain date and time. I think it's my opinion that it's on the agenda. Public is here, once you entertain a motion before you act, you can see if there's public comment. But I don't think anything's wrong with taking a motion in this capacity. I will say, though, to echo what the city manager said, I think once we do get direction, we're gonna have to come back at you with the game plan because there's a lot of legal ease, if you will, in changing what we've done prior to awarding contracts and the list goes on. Thank you. That's a very good question and I think that should come back as soon as we possibly can. Make sure though that we have in that memorandum that it is a, because it's not listed as a discussion about eliminating that we advertise it as it is making a decision of eliminating the seating and the concessions. Now, Mayor, if I can interject, I think that's wise because we did list this as an update today. And I think the feedback is helpful because we can go and huddle. I was going to call on our consulting team to advise of anything that you all should maybe know at this point to manage expectations. But I think what I'd rather do is debrief with the team, come back, have an action item. That way it gives the public a chance to let this sink in because, you know, Mayor, once we make this decision, we want to be able to go full speed ahead. So if we can take that approach, I think that would be helpful. So there is a consensus, though, to remove the seating area at the upland area as it's stated in our PowerPoint concessions and picnic area. Okay. Okay. Yes, Council Member Kramer. I just wanna add very quickly, I think this applies to all of us. When FEMA said we had to move it all the way back, that changed everything. Like that was the deal breaker for me. And as soon as I heard it, I was like, oh, that's bad, but it wasn't a question until then. And the only reason I'm talking as much as I am is because I was asked what I thought now. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any further comments from staff? Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And that. See y'all soon. Thank you for being here. That concludes six B. Do we need to take a 10 minute break or can we, Madam Clerk, are you okay with moving forward with our last agenda item? Okay, good. We'll move on to 7a. Yeah, I'll introduce this item as the chief comes up. I'm going to read a resolution. Yeah, let's go ahead and read the resolution first and then. Mr. Butershwar. I'm just kidding. I'll read. Resolution for the purpose of waving competitive bidding and approving of five year master services and purchasing agreement between the city of Naples and axon enterprises Inc as a sole source provider and the total amount of 1,748,838 dollars for body worn cameras. In car police camera systems, taser 10 electronic control devices, cloud based storage, associated evidence, auto transcribe, and reduction software, as well as insulation, licensing fees, and product warranties. Authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement and issue purchase orders, therefore approving an addendum to contractor agreement, including additional standardized contract terms required by the city. Authorizing the city manager to execute the addendum to contract agreement and providing an effective date. Thank you. Before the chief jumps in presentation, you all know this because I sent you an email. Why is this on the agenda today and not after October 1? And the reason is really simple. It's a timing issue. So as you all will recall during the capital budget review process back in May and actually even the previous year, we have talked about bringing purchasing and equipping our officers with body-worn cameras. And you know, Chief can talk to you about all of the reasons why that's an important thing for us to do. So within the budget, the capital budget, we have a five-year program. So this $1.7 million is spread out over a five-year period. And the reason why it's before you today is there's a lead time and it takes many, many months to get in line and get prepared. So the question before you today is really to get your approval to move forward and get in line. It's still subject to you approving the 2425 budget. So if for whatever reason you decide not to approve this or eliminate it, it gets canceled. But it gets us in line so we can get our officers outfitted sooner rather than later instead of waiting until October 1. And then a subsequent meeting to bring this to you for approval. That's why it's here today. I don't want to get into all of the details about concerns we have in this very strange world that we live in today. But the sooner we can give eyes, more eyes to our officers while they're out in the field, and eyes right back to police station, command staff, the better. So with that said, we know this is a big number. And I'll let the chief talk a little bit more about the capabilities, the best in class equipment that this is and answer any questions that you might have. But I just really wanted to reinforce the reason why this is before you today and not a couple of months from now. With that, chief. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you. And we covered this a little bit. I'm getting to you here. All right. We covered a little. I'm sorry, chief. Can you just state your name? Oh, sir, the biggest chief of police. I'm sorry. I skipped quite fast that. The during the CIP as the city manager mentioned, we spoke about body more cameras and we spoke about the technology that we're looking to invest upon and Some of our current technology which first generation stuff and other companies that are starting to fail and what our goal is and this is from the CIP Is basically take all our systems that we have and package them with the axiom product. That would be the body one cameras to include the car cameras and all of that works together. And I'm going to kind of fast forward this because I know you've all seen this so you can see this picture. So this is how the bundle program works. We're looking at getting 80 cameras, body one cameras, 80 tasers, and 31 vehicle cameras. In that bundle, this taser, the yellow one you see down there, that is state of the art, that is the best taser that's out there in the market for less lethal. It has 10 cartridges, the current ones have two, and the other capacity that is enhancement is that as a further distance, the current ones that are out in the market and other products, they're 25 feet, which is fine, except 45 feet is always better. The further you are away from the threat, the better it is, and also gives a person more opportunity to deal with that distance and for us to render that safe. And all these things tie together. So when the tager comes out, the camera comes on and the camera is able to be fed to the car or to someone's phone. So the technology is cutting edge. We don't have this right now. We have tasers, we have earlier generation tasers, and our car cameras, as I said, is police witness. It's a system that's failing. And we've done, we can't re-retrofit them in some batteries and everything else, and uploading them. But this all is going right into the cloud, sorry. And so the whole idea and this combative environment that we're in, one little thing can go wrong, right? But now with cameras on and the taser system, triggering the camera or the cameras in the car and all that, we're able to upload all that event right into the cloud. State Attorney's Office has accessibility to it. We're able to pull up real time. Any of the supervisors can pull up those cameras. It's there isn't a situation where you could lose the information somehow. It's all real time. So the whole idea that is making us more efficient, more effective, but it comes with a price because technology is painfully expensive. So that's where we are. What this does for us is be able to, I had a timeline on here, is be able to move this to where if the implementation goes forward and you all prove this today, what we end up doing is, instead of signing off and putting everything in play in October, that means we wouldn't get cameras, body-worn cameras, tasers, or anything deployed till at best May. Yeah, it takes that long. If we move forward today, we can get to start it and maybe, God willing, by December. So again, it's the same period of time. It's just starting faster earlier. And that's what we're looking to do. And it's interesting because I was listening to all of the presentations today and it's always about timing and cutting through the red tape and the bureaucracy of things. And what we want to do is get ahead of the company's bureaucracy so we can get them on site and fixing and putting our equipment in play. So by at least new years, but December hopefully it would be nice Christmas have those cameras on people. So that's it, I'm ready for questions. Real question. If I can just add something. So, BWCs are, this is a change. It is a cultural change for us. I was actually surprised when I arrived here in Naples to find out that our officers didn't have body worn cameras and there's obviously lots of benefits to that, including bad actors seeing that camera and knowing that they're being recorded and they will modify their behaviors accordingly. So I appreciate Chief Dominguez and actually Chief Wachler prior to embracing the fact that this is a best practice and this does provide a lot of liability protection for us. And our officers have embraced it. Some agencies, and there's a little bit of pushback. And so our folks are ready for this. His community needs this and happy to see that we're moving forward. Thank you. I have Petron often, then, Hutchison. I'm very supportive of these technologies that other communities have and we don't. I think we need them. Doing a little digging, I sent you those articles. There's a class section lawsuit against this company from a couple cities, Augusta Main, and is one of the leaders of it on using unfair selling practices and creating a monopolistic environment. So I'm wondering how do they seem to be the leader? They're used by most of the cities in the US. But is there, how are we weighing the dangers of that, this lawsuit will tear this company apart? Well, tasers have been around, the company's been around a long time. I really can't speak to where they are in that lawsuit. I looked it up to, I only found about three cities that were in it, but they supply thousands of agencies. That's the system we had in Hillsboro, that's the system they're using in Collier. There's only two companies really out there that provide these motorolas one and axioms the other. Some other sub-camera systems, but they're not as good. The reason we went with axion after our study is because they bundled in the taser and they have the better less lethal weapon and that puts us in a better position as a bundle. But with that said, I would compare them very much to, I doubt anybody doesn't have anything about an apple or an Android here. Right? There's other companies out there. But it's either Apple or Android. And on your home computers, you most likely have Apple or some Macintosh product or some Microsoft product. That's it. So in reality, in the market of less lethal, there's either a taser and there's a handful of other companies, but taser is leading. And because they're leading, they invariably have a monopoly, if you will, because they're the best. And so I did hear something in regard to the quality of their equipment. And the issue is because it makes such good stuff, they set their price, and that's the painful part of that. You know? This reminds me of exactly of Apple. Where, you know, we're there, and from what I've heard from some friends of mine in Cook County and New Jersey, is that it's about a 30% premium, is what we will be paying for this equipment to be the premiere to have the premiere equipment. So I just want to go on right eyes wide open that there is a active. They are there is and just about anybody in this market, every company, every firearms company, every one of those folks that have some kind of thing going on like that, that aside, it's a matter of picking between one vendor or the other, there's only two real vendors that have this level of our specs. And then when you look at less lethal, if you look at Motorola and we looked at both and Exion their cameras are close to each other but when you add the less lethal capacity of the taser 10 it trumps this because now we have a better weapon to not have to use your firearm so it kind of it took it to the front of the pack when we made our choices so it's about being able to both capture the event on camera that have some other resource between OC and firearm. Now you have a taser, and that gives you something, especially for people that are dealing with some kind of emotional distress or mental ill moment, that be able to be 45 feet away from them and have something of an answer, because the other answer then is your firearm. So it kind of gives us that. So that's what really propelled this camera system in play, along with the fact that they are in the cloud, and we can use all those other services that they provide with this, and we can send our evidence in everything that way, it costs less in a way, so we don't have to store it in house. that way it costs less in a way so we don't have to store it in house. And there's no conflict with our motor role system. No matter. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. So I am all supportive of it. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor? Yeah, I'm also supportive of it. I appreciate the question, the research done by Councilwoman Petronoff. Three lawsuits across- It's a one-class action lawsuit. In one-class action? Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, they can determine a class. But if it was 300 or 3,000 or something like that, I'd really be concerned. And I'm not just scoffing at the class action or the three, but when it comes to these tasers, I appreciate that you're sourcing something that we can feel confident will work. Right? I mean, these things fail. It's not a good thing. And understanding, appreciating how tasers work have added years to my life. And right now, I want to challenge my fellow elected officials to enjoy learning how tasers really do serve our police force. So go experience in that, if you can. But I think I'm just going to volunteer. I don't know. That's a hard ride. The real part for me though. What was that? I'm not sure what kind of moves I would make. The real question that the community will have though when we see sole source providers. And I think you answered that because you compared, you know, Apple and Android. But sole source means we didn't put it out the bid necessarily. But this is a sole source. Just please briefly explain what that means. Well, the only organization company and provider of the taser 10 system is manufactured and all the technology is proprietary to and only taser international, which is also known as axiom. Excellent. Thank you and I support it. Thank you very much. Okay, no further questions. Council member Kramer. I would just like to make a motion. Can I do that? Yes, sir. To accept this resolution, 7A as presented. Second. I have a motion for approval from Council Member Kramer and second by Council Member Petranov. All in favour, signed by I? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Council passes unanimously. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you. Council passes unanimously. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So you guys, that concludes 7a going to 7b. I'll take this one. Okay. Quick one, easy one. We need, yes, this is to the resolution. Mr. McConaughey. It's a resolution, Mr. McConaughey. Thank you, Mayor. Resolution for the purpose of designating a voting delegate for the Florida League of Cities annual conference and providing an effective date. I can answer that. I can. Mayor, you can do this presentation. Thank you. So the Florida League of Cities has required that or that since we're participating, member that we have a vote as a delegate at the board meetings or at the annual meeting. And I am going to the annual meeting. Vice mayor is going to the annual meeting and I don't think there are any other members going to this meeting. It's basically about their business and the decisions that the Florida League of Cities is making. If there aren't any questions, I'd like to nominate Vice Mayor for being the voting delegate. I'll second that. Thank you. Any other questions? All in favor, saying by aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All in favor, saying by aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. It passes unanimously. Is that Mr. McConnell a problem? No. Just wanted to make sure I heard the change that needs to happen. We pre-filled in a name, and we'll make that change. Oh, sorry. Well, yeah, there's no reading. Thank you. I'm on the board of, I'm on the board for the League of Mayors. So I will actually have another activity when there's a, when they're in session and voting. Okay. With that, we are adjourned until... We'll quit. Can I make one thing? Yes sir. Well. Because you know this lady. Suzmom, angel cyst drunk is 95 today. My wife's mom. And everybody knows Granny Angel that was involved in Naples Eye. Oh yeah. She's the sweetest, smartest, hardest work in Godliest Woman on the Planet. So happy birthday, Angel, 95 today. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy birthday Angel. Happy Thank you. you you you you you you you