Order I call to order this special city council meeting for set Call to order I call to order this city council special meeting September 16th 2024. Please roll call Mayor DePieu present councilwoman Gillis here councilwoman Bennington here councilwoman Dolbo here councilman powers herenington, here, Councilwoman Dalbo, here, Councilman Powers, City Attorney Wolf, City Manager Erby, City Clerk's Latinac President. Please stand for the community and the community and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence. Okay. I want to start the meeting by saying my heart and soul go out to our residents that was impacted by Saturday night's rain event. I want to thank Mr. Dany Robbins, our county meeting by saying my heart and soul go out to our residents that was impacted by Saturday night's rain event. I want to thank Mr. Danny Robbins, our county representative, for being so responsive to me, of providing and offering any county resources that were needed. I also want to say thank you to candidate Randy Dye for coming to this area, observing and listening what has occurred. He is in attendance tonight. I also want to thank Chairman Brower who offered the same services Mr. Robbins did and also reached out. Please keep in mind tonight that it has to be related to tonight's agenda item for public comment. The discussion of our city managers contract, whether or not we need to do a national wide search. I've contacted our city clerk about scheduling a special meeting related to flooding in our area. And I think each council member knows how important and near the flooding is. And with their agreement, I'm sure that we can come to agreement that we can schedule a special meeting to see what occurred and it will be addressed in this meeting tonight was scheduled before this event on Saturday. I've reached out to personal state and several local resources and I will work to get to the bottom and see why our infrastructure is failing or what we need to do to improve our infrastructure. And I think we could hold a special meeting with consensus of the council at a later date to be determined tonight. I think that we need to open up, I mean there's people here already that want to speak about the flooding and I think they need to be let to be speak about the flooding I think. Can't we just open it up for regular citizens comments and then they talk about whatever I mean. Typically not in a special meeting but if there is a consensus tonight I believe that we could dedicate a certain amount of time to solely the citizens' commons. I think a lot of folks don't always understand the structure of how the meetings work. There's a large response and so I would rather be able to hear from everybody tonight and open it up. Okay let's just do one person in the town. No getting up over and over again. I can't ask you. Thank you. We go out. I wasn't talking to you people. I was talking to the mayor of the meeting. Okay. Are we struggling? We can't dare you. Well, we will allow citizens comments tonight with the direction of the council related to flooding items. Okay. All right. Let's put a timer on that for an hour. Does that sound reasonable? And'd like to get the council's blessing on as well before I move forward. What I saw this weekend, as we all did, as we drove and evaluated what occurred, completely contradicts the engineering and the professional testimony that has been fed to me for the last four years. Please, now public participation at this time. So either it was wrong or it was a lie or it was a combination of the two, but either way, this isn't something that I accept for the future of our community. Regrettably, I was on the winning side of a development that was proposed an additional development on Volko during our meeting last week. Because I was on that winning side, I have the ability to recall the vote. And so what I'd like to do tonight Mayor is make a motion to recall ordinances 2024-0-39. Two-Zero-2024-0-40 and 2024-0-0-41 for a revote at the October 7, 2024 Council meeting. Is there a second? A second. Roll call. Mayor DePueh? Yes. Councilwoman Gillis? Yes. Councilwoman Bennington? Yes. Councilwoman Dalbo? Yes. Councilman Powers. Yes. Okay. Gillis yes, Councilwoman Bennington yes, Councilwoman Dalbo yes, Councilman Powers yes Okay, we're gonna open up citizens comments at this time. Please make a statement related to the flooding issues We Please state your name and address for the record Alrighty Kara Hanukh 3131 Victory Palm Drive. I am proposing that the I'm proposing that the city council postpone their vote to terminate the city manager until they can fully hear and process the questions and concerns the citizens of edgewater of the citizens of edgewater tonight. The citizens of edgewater are entitled to know the following. What are the city managers specific deficiencies in performing his job duties and warrant terminate? That warrant termination. What is the interim plan to fulfill the city manager's responsibilities until the position is filled? Termination without cause as outlined in section 9.6 in the employment agreement for the city manager indicates the city shall pay the city manager a sum equal to 20 week severance pay five months of health and dental insurance and the total balance of all occurred vacation and sick leave. Therefore the city would pay Glen Erby a total severance payout of $131,790 to terminate without cause. Termination with cause as outlined in section 9.5 indicates that if the city manager is terminated for cause, then the city is not obligated to pay severance pay. Section 9.5 defines 12 causes of termination. My understanding is that the City Council is responsible for holding the City Manager accountable for his performance. There should be documentation regarding the City Manager Performance concerns. In fact, according to the City Manager Employment Agreement section 4.2, the City Council annually evaluates the city manager from the previous fiscal year. The HR director summarizes the completed evaluations along with a recap sheet outlining the performance and goals for the city manager. If the most recent evaluation of city manager outlines deficiencies in his performance, then terminating will cause should be feasible. The saving the city of Edgewater $131,790. Terminating an employee without cause is a disservice not only to the employee, but also to the citizens of Edgewater. And here's a contract, and along with the outline of the severance so thank you thank you for your comment please now public participation yes take a pause one second this is related just to flooding items at this point of time the next contract agenda item is for discussion in determination whether we should do a national wide search. Good evening, Council. I just changed a little bit sitting here listening what just happened. I'm kind of proud of what happened now. My name is Eric Rainbow. I live at 118 San Remo Drive. I'm also on the Edgewater Planning and Zoning Board. And I was a little frustrated because I come in here just like you guys in Jonah. I stand up there and I listen to these engineers tell us, well, we can't put out more water and we know that's a lie. One of the biggest developers in this state built right up against my fence and now what did we see? Burger King, Walgreens, in front of Wheel Away. My wife's car was up the door on Rues 1. So, Jonah, that was great. We, we don't know on things, and then you guys pass them anyway. Jonah had a point, we could get sued. But so what? We could sue back. The builders of this state, and some of them don't even live in this state, are going to tell these people that my profit's more important in your house. My insurance company dropped me, and now I got to pay three times more to get a new insurance company when nothing happened in my house. They said, well, your town's getting flooded a lot. 100 years storm. We couldn't have 100 minutes storm. I mean, so please, please no public for today. Thank God there's, yeah. Thank God there's a little sense here But I was feeling Albert's on the planning and zoning board with me Why do we sit up there and make our decisions based on? Well the last plat That's agricultural land up there by motorcycle haulers in front of Carl Trace. That's agricultural And we're gonna put a hospital and probably the biggest building in edge order there now. What's that going to do? We already know about the flooding guys. So to keep the meeting short, they know what's going on here. I think we got a plan in here to fix it. Jonah, great decision. It might even be worth putting a moratorium on building till we figure out what's going on. Good evening. My name is Greg Gimbert. I'm from Daytona Beach. I'm a former district to chairman of the Volusia soil and water conservation district. I'm the author of the County Fracking Band. I've rewrote in the Daytona Beach City Charter on initiative referendum. I'm here to talk to you about the rules because changing the core rules is the only thing that's going to save you. All y'all. So there's three things I want to ask you to consider tonight. I've got three minutes. I'll try to keep it short. You're encouraged to ask follow-up questions. Number one, stop the bleeding. And number two and three, how do we prevent it in the future? Number one, if you talked about a moratorium on building, I don't want to get you sued. I want to see you have a moratorium on clearting lots. Because what's already clear-cut, that's already in progress. Don't waste your time trying to triage that. But if we can stop them from clear-cutting, only until we get the flooding solution worked out. So we can clear the canals, assess the capacity. Can we expand them to not only hold the current load, but the new additional? And then and only then, once you've got the current capacity to hold the current load, then you consider lifting the moratorium on clear cutting. Number one. Number two, we need to change some policies going forward, and these are going to sound radical, but they're both legal and possible. The first one is the Hibbit wetland mitigation further. The process of wetland mitigation is to hurt here, help there, and we promise not to screw something up in the middle of farm to and if you let us pave over here in edge water. We have wetland mitigation ourselves and to a complete disaster. We need to stop it. You can prohibit it here in edge water. The state has not preempted you. That should be the vocabulary where everybody looks at tonight preemption, that's where the state stops you from being able to do it. So as soon as the state gets a sniff that you're gonna stop the developers from wetland mitigation, they're gonna preempt you. So you better hurry up with this one. Number two, we've done so much wetland mitigation that even if you stopped it, it's dry places getting wet now. So forget wetland mitigation, you gotta stop re-cont contouring the dry places because we've done so much mitigation dries wet. So the second thing is you can build wherever you want. You just can't change the contour of the land. Maybe 11 inches to balance your foundation, but that's it. If we stop mitigating wetlands and we stop allowing people to fill up 8, 9, 10 feet to build, you will solve this problem tonight. I have 30 more seconds before I close. Do you have any questions about anything that I've shared tonight? Would you leave a comment card because I would love to talk to you more about this after the meeting? Okay. Thank you. There's a lady outside with my last couple seconds. Her name is Wendy Anderson. She is an environmental scientist. She's a lady outside with my last couple seconds her name is Wendy Anderson She is environmental scientist. She's a professor at Stetson University and she's the current chairwoman of the Volusia soil and water conservation Commission she's outside they will not let her in there's an empty seat right there could you could we maybe let her into address you guys Why would they not let her in a capacity crowd capacity crowd? Can we just get her to bring her in for one input because of her scientific background and I'm sure she will she'll go or I can go whatever it takes to make room for her. I believe that everyone should be able to to comment may I have permission to go get her? Thank you for hearing me. I'm going to have to go back to the next one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Jeff Bohr. I'm at 35-04 on Brella tree. And I was here last week at the Planning and Zoning Board meeting to speak about the issue with that development. And at the time what I told the people that were here sitting where you're at now, I would had concerns. I was building a home in Saxon Woods in DeBerry in 2004 when the hurricanes went through. The building construction was stopped in my neighborhood until they could resolve the water runoff situation into a golf course that was next to it. So I mentioned that at the meeting that I had concerns, that I had concerns that this development was going to do the same thing. The person that spoke before me talked about how much fill that was brought in to elevate the wetlands, basically, that had been there before. And at the end of my talking, I was assured that the engineers and the city were very sensitive and understanding of flooding and that they weren't going to allow that to happen and They told me that additional What's the word I'm looking for the area that the water was supposed to run off into I'd been resized and would be even larger than what they planned So that it was going to be even more difficult to have this issue That they designed for a hundred year storm. It's only been three days. Literally three days since I was told that and we had the issues that we've had now. So I really appreciate you guys opening this up and allowing us to speak today. It kind of encouraged me. I'm here to do my civic duty and I'm in support of anybody up there that's willing to help us out. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Thank you for allowing me to come in from outside. You have quite a crowd out there. My name is Dr. Wendy Anderson, I live in D'Aland, and I am one of your elected representatives on the soil and water conservation district board for Volusia County. And I first wanted to say that what Greg Gimbert said is right, and I don't even agree with him very often, but on this one, I do. And I don't think it takes a PhD or to be a professional engineer to know what we're all saying. This is your lived experience here. It's the lived experience across this county and across the state of Florida. When you fill in build in wetlands, it will push that water over to lower lying areas. Areas that... Please, for the second time, please no public participation unless it's citizens comments. Areas that used to be dry, areas that were not wetlands, areas that perhaps drained into those wetlands previously as the natural hydrology allows, as state law allows for water to follow its natural hydrologic path. But once you put a big block of 10 or 12 feet of fill in something, the hydrologic path changes and the water backs up into those lower line neighborhoods. So I urge you, I urge you as a council to, you know, to take this opportunity, this crisis of leadership that you all are pondering with your city manager and take the opportunity to look at your staff, at your processes and at your own souls about what needs to be done. Edgewater could be a leader in this county for having much more robust wetland mitigation laws. I'm also an in-rack, which is the environmental and natural resources advisory council for the county. And we are reviewing the environmental ordinances for the county, the land development code. And we are considering really strengthening those laws, those ordinances about wetland mitigation and about storm water management, a more low impact development, I could go on and on. I won't because I'm already over my three minutes, but we can do this at the county level, but I think that local control and you are the most local, as it gets, you all can be the leaders here and set some new standards. So I'll leave it at that and encourage you to do some good work here. Thank you for your call, ma'am. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Mike Masek. I live on the same street that you do, sir, and you do, sir do sir With all due respect our current problems predate all this construction that's been happening in the past couple years Prior to your home being built sir. I had the city engineer out to my property because it floods And he agreed that he would have to go all the way down the road And clean up the ditches and clean up so that the water would flow southbound instead of into my yard and the and the empty lot next to me How did he fix that? Well, he just dumped the yard of dirt in my in my property He dug the ditches in my property and the property next to me down. So what did that do? anyone Which way does water flow? Downhill? So, he made it deeper and now the flooding is exacerbated. And as we saw yesterday, in my own yard, it was knee deep. And I challenge you to have him do what he's supposed to do. We pay taxes all of us, right? I think we need some basic services here. You know, you sold a big piece of land to a developer out here that used to be a cow pasture. That could have been dug into a lake and a whole bunch of these flooding issues could have been mitigated. And instead, you took the money and did what with it? Anyone? Thank you. Could you state your address for the record, please? 3017 Unity Tree Drive. Thank you. I just have a question. It's my understanding that oh sorry kind of for Reynolds 1870 South Air Park. It's my understanding that there were some ditches that were clogged that was preventing the water from going out. And we're all very aware of what season we're in. I'm just curious if I understand that we had a storm management thing or whatever. But why weren't they out there digging knowing that we were going to have rain this weekend? Why did we wait until after that? Does anyone know? Please throw out a contact card in the back, and we will be in contact with that. Thank you. My name is Sherry Raider and I live at 460 Palmetto Street. And if you don't know where that is, that's right where you're going to put the new car wash. My road flooded. It didn't come from the stormwater in the back when we had the three hours of rain. It was on the street, which is eroding my front yard, which is making the big roots from the live oak tree that who knows when it'll topple. I came to that planning zone meeting and was told that edge order once growth. I can understand that. But you're building up again. I've got the four apartments, habitat apartments in front of me. Ten street was built up. That road used to be a little wooden bridge that leveled across that was even with the road. Everything is building up and everything is coming down in our yard like gully. And now you're going to put a car wash just the thought of car wash is water. I actually have post dramatic rain disorder. Every time it rains I go into a frenzy. I seriously, I'm like oh my god I'm checking door the garage. March 18th of this year I moved back in my house in Two days I will be in my house six months since hurricane in with What you're called just getting the contractors move in being short on supplies actually we didn't have enough Contractors for as many people in the community got hit. So I would like you to look at edge water city wide. I mean, they got this pretty round thing in the middle of the road, but it don't do nothing. I guess it's like a road decoration or something. I don't see no water go down anywhere. I have a video that I took. You know, and that is on the first entrance welcome to the city of Edgewater. You know, and again, now you don't think for a minute I'm not afraid but this car wash is gonna do. Once it gets built up they told me they'll put a nice pretty fence up there and make it a cold sack. That's not gonna stop the water. Not going to stop the water. Please help us and stop all this building. Thank you for your comment. Good evening. My name is Patrick Fisher. I live at 2100-year-old Park Road. This morning you received an email from a friend of mine. And it says, good morning, councilmembers. I'm writing each of you to urge a building more auditorium on all applications currently pending and all new applications for development in the city of Edgwater. The recent rain event is proof of the flooding concerns that the citizens have been bringing to you before you at each meeting. How much more proof do you need? Please institute a moratorium that will include all pending developments and all new applications. In our opinion, the flooding is caused by widespread destruction of wetlands and vegetation that slows the flooding down. All your citizens know this and all the developers and their lawyers come in here and tell you they're smooth talking to you. They'll take care of container water and it doesn't happen. Tell the developers that you aren't changing the zoning of wetland property You're under no legal obligation to change the zoning for them And Jonah, thank you and I think I hope and wish and I would ask that you would do the same for the assisted living across the street on 442 Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I'm Mary Forrester. I'm at 1937 Edgewater Canal Road. I am in the county not Edgewater, but I'm speaking because I hope that you listen and talk to Greg Gembert and the lady Anderson that spoke after him because what you're doing doesn't just affect Ed's water. I mean, in the county, when I saw the videos of what happened Saturday, you know what it reminded me of? Oakleaf Preserve coming down on Elizabeth Street, and tunneling down on to Gateway, which is a private road, some of those property owners just got back in their homes two months ago from Ian. Now they have fled again because the same thing happened. Oakleaf Preserve, again, came down on Elizabeth Street and Gateway. I bought my home in 2002. After Oakleaf Preserve was built and in came, I had 42 inches of water in my yard. I have never had water like that in my yard. I've had a little bit, like maybe a foot. I have an acre and a quarter. It's never come up past maybe a hundred feet in my yard. My yard's almost 400 feet deep. It was lapping at my foundation. There were fish right outside my back door. I was taking pictures standing at my door. Go for tortoises, swimming, looking for a place to go, and I picked them up. But it's not just edgewater that this building is affecting. I drove down Volko Road because a friend of mine has a farm down there. If any of you have driven down Volko Road, the property, the 117 acres that you annexed in August, every single house that's in front of that is now up for sale. They're terrified that once that starts getting developed and lifted, they're gonna flood also. It's a genuine concern. And I hope you listen. I hope something is done because people can't go through this all the time. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. City of Edgewater, my name is Hope McEver, and I'm speaking on behalf of the and my sister, Amanda McGore, resident of 3103 Galtry. We're native to this area, and speaking for our hometown, we have a huge family who's also And I'm speaking on behalf of me and my sister, Amanda McGrory, resident of 3303, Galtry. We're native to this area. And speaking for our hometown, we have a huge family who's also from this town as well, with more than just one generation here, still living here along with our spouses. What do we hope to gain from this message is information on how we can make a change. Resources to point us in the right direction and come together as a community to fix the flooding issue in the Forteshores. With Hurricane Ian, my sister and her husband van, along with all the others, threw away memories of furniture and sentimental things that will they will never be able to get back. Their entire home by the road exposed for everyone to see and soon be dumped. Along with so many other families, even a slight rainstorm has these families worried if they need a rush home to check their house. Now a small rain storm that rained for a couple hours, eight inches of rain from my understanding. Caused another flood. On Saturday we received several pictures and phone calls asking if my sister's house was okay. Trying to rush to photo shores, being respectful for the other homes and properties, we couldn't even make it down her street, which jeopardizing our daily vehicle, running through knee to waist-deep water to get her to her house and seeing that the devastation has happened all over again. My niece mentioned, after noticing the rain that she felt like something back was going to happen. She's 12. Thankfully, this was nowhere near like it was the last time, but that's because the rain had finally stopped and we did our best to keep the water from continuing to see through. Our questions are what will they do for four to shores homes I've been here 50 plus years with all this water. The development is causing this drainage to drain into four shores and other areas too. How can we keep the digits maintained more often than what's being done now? I'm sure we can stop the progress of the development. So, city manager, mayor and city council, please tell us when we flood again, which this is just a wake-up call for what's to come, what's the plan of action for our current flooding situation? Stop thinking about what we can add to this town when you can't even fix the issues of what's happening now. I appreciate the work that was done after the storm of the drainage, but the problem after a simple storm should have never occurred in the first place. What's the plan to get the water to drain from our existing town? We have only one of the highest, we have one of the highest utilities bill in Felicia County. We can't even afford to make changes in our existing town. This is why we're here, and this is why we want answers right now. We the people of Edgewater demand you, the city council that works for us. Higher and outside engineer company who has no vested interest. That can give us an unbiased evidence. If this over development is our cause of flooding, you owe us an answer he worked for the people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your call. Hi, I'm Claudia Adkins. I live at 3230 Woodland Drive. My home experience flooding during Hurricane Ian and coming home Saturday after just going to see a movie with my husband after being gone for two hours, I experience weight, uh, way steep water. There were vehicles that were going 30 miles an hour down our street causing wakes to come into our garage. My husband and I cannot afford to move. Like where are we going to go? We looked on Zillow, we cannot afford to move. Something needs to be done about vehicles being driven during rainstorms. There should be a law or something that comes up that says when water is this many feet away from your home, you are able to do something. There is not enough police officers to shut down the roads. We get that. But something needs to be done about the fire truck who was driving 40 miles an hour down the road causing wakes to go in home. Edgewater towing had people driving during this. Not towing a vehicle and just flooding people's homes. Something needs to be done. There's empty lots all over Florida shores and the best thing that they can do is just put in a new home that's causing our houses to flood. That needs to be turned into something. That's what the City of Port Orange did back in 04 after those hurricanes. The City of Port Orange went in and bought people's homes and bought them out just so they could turn it into a dog park or the All Children's Park. Thank you. Oh, and oh shit. I believe you had 30 more seconds on the clock. So I also started a petition on change.org to try and stop the development. I understand that nothing can be done that's already done, but something needs to be done. So it's on change.org. My name is Claudia. I can look it up. Thank you for your comments. Greg Matthews 28 25 victory palm. I've lived here for about three and a half years. We bought this property. It was high and dry we thought. I went through the hurricane that was really devastating not too long ago, a couple years ago. And the flooding was close, but I went to work the other day and I came home and I needed a kayak to get down my street. It was terrible. The water in front of my house was 14 inches in the center of the road. This is unacceptable. It's also your responsibility to fix it. We've had problems. The roads are not right. The schools are not here yet you want more people moving in and you want more buildings and more development with no roads, no schools, no utilities, no plan for that overload. We're all tired of everybody here's tired of the growth without a little bit of research. So I speak emotionally because it affects us. Every one of us that owns property here, we all are paying and you need to fix it. Do your job please. Thank you for your call. Hello, my name is Heather Voise. I live at 2092 Oxtrive. For those who do not know me, I am a wife of a 100% disabled veteran and I am a mother. And my daughter is Helena Schowalter, the one that was hit by the train two years ago. With everything that is going on, I'm not here to point fingers. What I am here to say is we are concerned. We have our families. We have our children. We have our parents, our grandparents here. When I had to see my in-laws house on Facebook, being flooded down the street, is hit panic into my heart. My father-in-law is a completely disabled, Vietnam veteran with Parkinson's disease. He cannot move. My mother-in-law has been sick since before COVID. She cannot leave her house without assistance. Helena is currently a paraplegic in a wheelchair that cannot speak, cannot eat, cannot move. She also doesn't have an immune system. What I would like to see is the infrastructure to match what we currently have going on. The water that gets stagnant, it creates illness. And for people like my daughter, Helena, she will die. She has no immune system. She has to take an antibiotic twice a day every day, and something as simple as a common cold causes fluid to build up in her lungs. And then we're in the ER, and then into the hospital, and having to get chest tubes. There's a lot of people here that are really concerned. And I don't want to point fingers because I have met everybody on this board for exception, the mayor. And I appreciate every single one of you. I do not know what is happening currently, but I do know I seen the building start before you guys got in office. What I would like to see, like I stated before, is the infrastructure to match what we currently have as been stated, the schools, the water, the water collection, and then the people that are on the reclaimed water, that that's been an ongoing issue for a long time. But with that said, I appreciate you guys. I appreciate our communities turnout. This is fantastic. I think right now we have an opportunity in the state of Florida to set the standard for the entire state from this small little town. And I really am hopeful for that. Thank you. Man, thank you for coming. Could you say to your address one more time for you? Two zero nine two oak striped. Thank you. Hello guys. Gloria Mitchell, 34-22, Umbrellatry. I am five houses from the new building road down there. I watched interior, it collapsed, and the dirt run down our street. The neighbor at the very end on the west side, her yard, is half filled with that dirt from that, they made that little road for the equipment to get in. The company did come out Sunday morning early and they were trying to move it, but it was solid mud at that point. I think all of us in this room are just terrified. I cannot recall the last time anybody came and worked on the retention pond at the end of umbrella. And I'm sure that half of my drainage tube under my driveway is filled with dirt. I don't ever recall anybody doing anything. And I can no longer reach in to turn the water on on my reclaimed water because it's full of dirt and I'm afraid of a snake or a spider in there. That's part of the problem but we want we want to help. We don't want to beat you up but we want some answers. Maybe the water department can figure out a role for when they're going to do what streets. Is there something we can do as homeowners? I've owned this house in 2004. I'm a police family from Chicago, Illinois. We left that horrible city to come here and enjoy it. My husband has been dead for three years now. I'm in this house alone trying to be the maintainer of it. I get scared. I do have a couple of good friends, but I'm 71 years old. I don't know how many times I can dig a ditch. So we just want we want you to work for us. That hill is 10 feet tall at the end of my street. And the water came so fast and up so high. So let's get these departments together. Let's get that water department. Let's get those stitch people. If we have to do something, there isn't anyone in this room that wouldn't say, yeah, I'll help you. We just need the answers and we need to stop this and we need to follow what science tells us to do I know we're gonna make tons of money and the city's gonna grow That's what we do, but let's do it right and let's be the example. Let's not be Orlando Let's do it our way. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Kimberly Penny. I live at 224 Come Quot. I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude to the council members who actively engage with the community, especially those who respond promptly to messages and are out in the field, knocking on doors to assist the residents. A special thank you goes to May, the mayor in Charlotte. They're unwavering dedication over the past two years since Hurricane Ian. Your efforts may not always be visible, but your commitments of this community has not wavered, and for that I am grateful. Don't make me cry. It is important to acknowledge that I am not new to following local news and understanding the dynamics of play. I'm fully aware that I will voice concerns when necessary. However, I must highlight the lack of outreach from the city manager who is not engaged with the community or shown support to the council. Despite claims from, I believe it was Jeff Broward that he has offered assistance, he was reportedly told that none was needed, which raises questions about the effectiveness of this leadership This is the same city manager and this is short. It's not about him This is the same city manager who requested an exorbitant salary Nearly $200,000 a year without delivering tangible results for this community Therefore I respectfully urge the city council members to consider two crucial actions firstly I think we should terminate one. The city manager. Secondly, impose. Please wait till the next agenda. And secondly, to impose a three to five year building moratorium immediately. The first year should be dedicated to identifying various issues that we are facing. The second year to formulating a comprehensive plan and address the challenges. By the third year, we should be prepared to initiate the necessary development. If at the end of the third year, we find ourselves prepared to move forward, we can commence. If not, we should be willing to extend that moratorium as long as needed to correct these issues. This structured approach will not only allow us to systematically tackle the pressing issues within this community, but it will also ensure that we are making informed decisions that benefit all the residents in the long run. It is imperative that we take these steps to safeguard our community's future and foster an environment that encourages responsible growth and development. Thank you for your comment. Cindy Shorish, 2328 Needle Palm Drive. I think I have a comment, really. Can anybody here buy a wetland? A piece of wetland? Why would we let a developer buy it? You know why? Money. There you go. Thank you for your comment. Ken Romer, 518 Segal Court, Edgewater, Florida. I've been doing some research as some of you know on this situation, and I've given some information to some of you already, but part of my research took me to the Edgewater Library, and they had a flood insurance study that's in the back right of the library, right, where the chairs are. January or June of 1990. Principal Fred and Mrs. For Edgewater, principal flood problems, section 2.3. Edgewater is subject to storm surge flooding as a result of hurricane and tropical storm activity. Flooding is caused by large tidal surges into the Indian River combined with a heavy rainfall that accompany these storms. But the big one is 2.4 flood protection measures. Flood protection measures are not known to exist within the study area. That was June of 1990. So my question is what have you done since June of 1990? You've had two decades of 100% plus growth and you've had three decades of 20% growth. You've had plenty of time to start catching up. I would like to suggest you have an additional meeting every month and every single department, all of them. Report what they're doing, the problems are in county, the solutions, the things they're finishing because a huge problem is communication. And we hear the developers all the time, they have put me to sleep all the time. But we need to hear from the department ahead saying what they're doing with the money that they're being paid to do. I do want to thank Randy and Jeff for helping out with digging a ditch in our area, but our neighbors that went like Niagara Falls are, as it's a little tribble down a ditch. It didn't work so well. But we actually had some water filling up our street today. It didn't even rain. Why did we get that? The pool company came in and emptied a person's pool. And because there's zero storm drainage, we got this big puddle. So I let this poor scared mother is trying to chase her kid out of there. It says not it's not storm sewer water. It's only pool water. You can smell the chlorine and stuff so the kid went back to playing in the water. But even when it's not raining you can have things happening. You're flooded. I mean come on. Let's get some input. Let's get some plans. I've started to try to provide some for you. I'll continue to do that. But I'll need your help. I've got a ton of questions to be asking people so I can put, I want to see a community analysis, a community diagnosis of what the problem is, what you plan to do about it. And then once I get that information, I can help provide some thoughts to implementation, how to put it forward. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Applause. My name's Robert Patterson. I live in 2904, well, O drive. Across the street from us, they built two new houses. When they built them, they filled in the ditch. Right? So the water turned around and can't flow. They turned around and put pipes underneath the driveways. They had them blocked up and they put saw in the ditch. So you only got a half water. Yesterday, the water or Saturday, it was flowing across the street in my yard into my ditches and flooded now west. Something needs to be done with the ditches in this area. Thank you for your comment. David Canisler 2319 unit T3 drive as water floored it. At the last storm that we had we had 17 inches of rain. And I had as much water in the last couple days at 5 inches of rain as much water on the ground in my area as I did with 17 inches. And the only reason that is is because of two new developments that are out there on the airport road. And you need solutions. You got an engineer. And I understand from what I heard, you can't pipe the water to the ocean, but you can drill a hole through the underneath. You got auger's that'll do anything. Drill a hole underneath the 95 and pipe the water out on the other side of 95, but it isn't developed yet. Find property out there where you can put the water. You got engineers, he's on staff and get someplace to put the water and get a solution to it because you can't stop water from coming down So you got to learn how to move it in a place is safe right now You don't have a safe place because all the water that was going from my house to where it was stored is going from them to developments also Please get that straightened out and find a place to put the water. Thank you for your comment. Applause. I'm my name's Robert Walker, 21-29 Pine Tree. I'm a third generation edgewater resident. I have two kids and I got flooded in Irma. Sorry, thank you. Too many of them. A month after my remodel on my $60,000 remodel, one month later, flooded. So of course, I'm scared this weekend. I just got back in the home. I would like to offer community help. I went out today and cleared out a lot of culverts myself. Not mine, not mine in my house, but in the neighborhood. Many of them covered up. So I know we all pay taxes and that it should be on you, but I can't stand around and let it happen again. So I would like the community if you want to approach me to arrange something and we can make a difference. There's many engineers here. There's probably sight workers here. There's many people that are smarter probably than most of you guys in this audience. So no offense. I'm just saying as a community we're strong and we can do it. I would like to be part of that. So anybody wants to approach me. I'll be working on that this weekend. Thank you for your comment. Applause. Hello. I live at 32, 22 Willow Drive. Been there a year. I moved down here. Been wanting to come down here for 18 years. Both the house and loved it. But Saturday my street had a foot of water in it. The manhole cover was jumping up out of the street. My yard that's never flooded was half covered in water, at least eight inches deep. And something's gotta be done about this situation because they shouldn't have never ever started filling that in until they fixed the water problem up the street. They've got the dirt up four to six feet higher than the road and I think one of the women heard a while ago live across the street. Her yards covered in dirt, down side of her house. And something's got to be done. If the engineers can't do it, fire them, get some more. If the city manager can't do it, fire him, get him out, get somebody that will do the job. Please have public participation. I mean, I'm going down here because of health problems. And I'm trying to, I just got an operation on my hand, and I'm going to get one on this one, because, and then I want to live peaceful in this neighborhood. And the only way I see to do it is fix the problem in the city government first. Then you can fix that problem out there. But if it comes to hurricane, I promise you my house is going to flood. And my house is one of the higher houses in that neighborhood. So please do something. Get the problem fixed one way or another. Thank you. Thank you for your comment This will be the last comment Yeah, my name is much slack. I live at 3031 on brellis reed drive Florida 321 411 and that Area there is the Florida shores. It's not edgewater. Look how many Mr. Mayor I'm talking to you. Look how many houses residents are in Florida shores. I'll tell you a last call at 2023. 11,777 residents. We, Florida shores the largest, pays the most taxes and Mr. Mayor, which really liked second-red citizens. All right, I was out there. My yard was being breached, plus the rest of the and addressed it. Mr. Mayor, where were you? At the time, well everybody's being flooded. Where were you? I was there. You were there, what? I was there in there. The local boy. No. Was not. I was there locally. Yeah, well, I didn't see I rolled that neighborhood. The Florida shores alive. 11,700. We pay a lot of God damn taxes. We want something done. Understandable, please no public participation. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Good evening, guys. Thank you for having us here. This will be the last public comment. My name's Sean Atkins. I own the residence on Woodland, made your Facebook post, made it on Wush2News for the flooding. Obviously, we see the damage I was done on the outside. I had water up to my garage. Luckily I was able to get home at a reasonable time and secure the back door from flooding. It was level with my floor. So I was able to secure that from flooding again. I was a flood victim of the hurricane. Cost me $15,000 out of my own pocket and I had to have friends and family help me rebuild my house. If I wasn't home this time on Saturday, I would have been another $15,000 in the hole and rebuild my house instead of being here. So please do something to help us out. I can't have to go through this every year. It's just it's not fair for us. There's many more people in the same situation as me. It's just it's not fair for us. There's many more people in the same situation as me. So I'll leave it at that short and sweet. So let's make edgewater drag in. Thank you for your comment. Folks, this is supposed public participation. I'm sorry that was the last comment. Okay. My name is Rob Wulke. I've been 209 San Remo Circle. I will be sitting where Jonah is in December Taking his spot now we talk about the city council and I'm on the city council come December I thought there was things that I could do when I come in the city council that I've realized my hands are tied behind my back Okay, you look at our council members and I look at things on social media and how people treat these five people right here. Okay. Do you realize that a lot of these subdivisions were approved years ago before they even came in here? Okay. No, it doesn't mean it can't change what it takes baby steps. Okay. It takes steps to do it. Please, public. We will go. But when we say, when we say like people like, okay, diesel and Charlotte, you said it's out in the public eye. Okay, but you don't see Jonah or Debbie or Gigi. Okay, I run a business here for 30, what, eight years now, Wilkie's pest control. Do you know that I'm out there doing volunteer work? And when I'm out there doing things and putting things together for people, do you know I'm just the face of it? Do you know all the people in the back end really do some things? I've sat with Jonah over and over and talked to him about the city stuff. He is so intelligent when it comes to what's going on in our city. If you really have a problem with these five people, I bid you I bid you to run Okay, but I'm talking about the flooding. I am talking about the flooding because we're talking about our city. Okay. Please, I have a public comment. Okay, so basically what I'm saying is with the flooding, I know when I talk to Jonah, there's things in effect that we worked on in 2000, I think he said 23, we had it evaluated, was it a lie, was it not? We're looking into it. I beg you please give them time to work. They're new at it. There's a lot of new people in here trusting them. Please no public participation. Thank you for the final comment. This will be addressed at a later meeting I would like to thank each and every one of you guys for attending this meeting and making your voices heard. We listen to each and every one of you guys. I personally went through this in 2022. An eye-to-year-old grandmother had water up to her countertops. I could barely get my vehicle through. Had to crawl out through a window, had to break a window to get her out of her home. I completely understand what you guys are going through. My family lost everything as well on a separate home. This is a terrible thing that has impacted your community. And as you're mayor, and I think I can state for this whole council, not trying to speak for the other council members, this is our top priority. We have taken measures since Hurricane Ian, and clearly it's simply not enough. It's not enough. We need, we need, we need to look into what occurred. I have only got four hours of sleep since Saturday. I was out in flooding areas since till 5 a.m. on Saturday. Understand what you're going through. Excuse me, please no public participation at this time. Please let the council comment. Understand what each and every one of you guys are going through. We need to look as a council, our structure. We need to look and see what we need to do, what exactly occurred here from our department and here from more residents at a special meeting that needs to be set as soon as possible. We need to see if we need to improve our infrastructure. I've reached out in certain areas. Please let me finish. Please, please be respectful. In certain areas more than others, we need to fast track areas and for the record I believe at this meeting we need to discuss legal grounds for a moratorium with our city attorney and city manager. And I would like that to be a discussion at our special meeting and I'd like to have the rest of the council allow to comment at this time. See what they'd like on the agenda at this special meeting. I'd like to know what's going on with our infrastructure, why it failed, what state resources we need, how our flood vulnerability assessment is coming, when exactly it will be completed, what kind of update and what else needs to be added to the agenda to this special meeting that other council members agree as well. And we need to discuss, I believe, a building moratorium at this time, which other communities have done, and they have legal reasons. And I believe we have more than enough for legality reasons to have a building moratorium at this time. And I want to thank Mr. Powers for the vote he did at the beginning of the meeting. So obviously I agree. I don't have anything to add with what you said. Those are all items that we need to be forward with. Okay. I am all for the moratorium. I was going to bring it up before I believe it was explained to me by this. I looked into this before this meeting because I was gonna bring it up if it wasn't already brought up already. Don't we have to have several meetings to pass it? And I want... That's right, under the peace law to enact a moratorium, you have to go through the same formalities as a rezoning of property. So it would first need to go to the planning and zoning board, and then there would need to be two public hearings in front of the council to enact the moratorium board and I think and I I don't know I've never done this before so I wanted to see can we call emergency meetings for all those things so we're not waiting for our regularly scheduled meeting because We just had one so we had an emergency P and Z so that way they can move forward on it and then if we can speedy our other two readings Yes, we can and at that point in time. I don't know I'm in new territory here I don't know the legality of this are we able to Putting a stop on the permits that people are applying now while we look at doing the moratorium because frankly I'm terrified that people are gonna start flooding in and trying to push stuff through at the last minute No, you can't just stop permitting without a moratorium, because that would in effect be a moratorium without going through the formal process that is required by state law. So no, you can't just make a motion to stop all permitting. But what's the soon to stop? Please no public participation. This is council comments at this time. Please no public participation. When's the soonest we can have a meeting? For a special meeting there should be 72 hours notice. That would be the first step of special meeting of the City Council to give direction to staff on this moratorium if that's the direction the council wants to go. When is first available Miss City Clerk and when does it work with the other council members the schedule of this meeting? So I would be able to notice it until tomorrow. So that would be Friday. Monday we already have a workshop scheduled. So I mean really Tuesday would be the first day. Next Tuesday the 21st is the first 24th the 24th is the first available date by the City Clerk is what she just stated does that work with every other council member? What was the other one Friday? Friday? Oh Tuesday, what does that say? I didn't hear what I said. Friday would be the earliest. Well, Friday is the earliest. Friday, the 20th or Tuesday, the 24th. I would like to. The 20th. I'd like to do it the 20th as well. I'll tell you that. Okay. Friday, the 20th at, let's do 6 p.m. Our same time as our normal council meetings. On Friday, the 20th at 6 p.m. we will call a special meeting to discuss a moratorium. We will discuss our infrastructure, our maintenance schedule, and with any other council member like that, anything else to the agenda. I would like to bring up. I do not have all the specifics on it, and I believe that Chair Brower was going to speak on it tonight at the end time but I know that the county is bringing up doing a rural boundary amendment that they could so in it makes it so it's harder in some of these areas for people to keep trying to flip farmland to housing and I would like to see us look into that. Sure. Because there's too much of this is where it's like people are coming in with the agricultural and I would like to see that curbed for future. Like there's so much I can do about stuff that was done in the past but it would change some of our, as we said about changing some of our laws in the future to move forward to prevent this from happening more. And then I also, I would honestly, I would like to hear him speak about that. But I also have something else I want to say before we get to this. And I believe that, I mean, I get it, we cut it off at an hour, but I would like to hear from other people if they are able to, because everybody's here. There's another meeting coming, but I don't really see people can come to those meetings. It's, I mean, everybody's here. I think we're gonna be here all night anyway. And I wanna hear from them. I would like to hear more talking. I mean, I get why we cut it off in an hour, but I mean, how many times do we have council chambers filled with this many people that want to speak and I want to hear more people speaking and I would like to open it up for more I I guess I know that's not up to me but I'm okay I make a motion to open it up for more public comment I would like to hear the rest of the people speak that want to speak I don't like that there's so many people here that clearly want to keep talking second. I'll say I was. Okay, roll call. Mayor DePueh. Yes. Councilwoman Gillis. Yes. Councilwoman Bennington. Yes. Councilwoman Dalbo. Yes. Councilman Powers. Yes. OK, we will continue the discussion of flooding. Please come up. Say any kind of concern you may have to the agenda item. My name is Trudy White and I live at 3414 Vista Palm Drive. I have lived here for 30 years. I've also am a native of New Samarna Beach, my whole life. I moved here when my husband retired from the Navy to raise my three kids, which I did. I bought back on 3414 Vista Palm Drive because that was the high part of Florida shores. My house is up a little high but every time we get a good amount of rain I have a lake in my backyard and I'm not talking just a lake. I'm talking it is my whole yard. So far it has not been in my house yet. This was just a two hour rain storm. What's going to happen if we get a hurricane? Again, what's going to happen? Are y'all going to replace all my stuff? No. My insurance is going to go even higher. Or I'm going to get dropped by the insurance company because they know that we are the high risk area for all the flooding. I'm tired of watching my family members get flooded. I'm tired of watching them lose everything that they have. You don't know me. I don't know you. But you're going to know us. You're going to know as you've heard all these stories. You've heard of everybody that's gone through everything that they're going through and continue to go through. I know you're trying to do your job. I know that you can only do so much. But you know what? You're at the point now where you have to. You have to help us. The ditches are not being cleaned. The culverts are not being cleaned. The culverts are not being cleaned. So where is the water gonna go? In our yards, where it went on Saturday. I wanted to literally sit on my back porch, watching the water get closer and closer to my house. And then when I heard how the streets were flooding, I didn't have water over my road yet, but the ditches were completely full. I've got y'all seen the pictures. You don't need to see any more pictures. You've seen it all, so you know what's happening. It's sad when you hear your family members are so scared to go home because they're afraid that they're going to lose everything that they built since Ian and replaced out of their own pockets since Ian remodeled their homes since Ian and not knowing if they opened up their front door if it's going to be bad again. So what are these people here? Our community because we're all here for each other, to you, to ask you and plead to you. I'm asking you, I've been there for 30 years. I don't want the water in my house, but I'm the close, I'm right there beside Valker Road. Thirty years, I have never seen a deer in my front yard. I'm seeing deer in my front yard. I'm seeing deer in my front yard Why because all this building and it's being chased into our neighborhood? We appreciate it. Thank you for your comment I'll be quick my name is Carl Freeman 3410 woodland drive over an edge water When it rained I saw a bunch of kids in kayaks coming down the street and the water was so high. One guy is paddling his paddleboard down the street. And I'm just suggesting along with you all that they do put a moratorium on all building. That's so they can figure out what's going on. And if the city doesn't have the resources or can't do it because they need more help, they might want to consider asking the governor's office. Because they might be able to bring in engineers also to help solve the problem. I don't know the answer, but my prayers are with you, and with all these people that are hurting. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Doing council. My name is Andre. I'm just going to kind of keep this kind of short and sweet because a lot of y'all know me because I actually helped a lot of you guys that needed to rebuild from the last time. I donated a lot of material and I had to because you're talking these are some great people and some of them retired here. It's a very big retirement community. Some of them don't have husbands anymore. And I was driving down the street helping old ladies get their generator started because they didn't have the access of their own children to get to them, okay? What we have to start realizing is that it's becoming a serious threat to life. Period. And what's happening now is that people are more at risk now because when you start having high waters, you could have power lines, you could have things that happened, and also in kids are gonna be getting lurch cuted. But the most important thing is you have elderly people, just like one that I helped today, I'm all dirty, because there was water trying to help somebody. My daughter's house, same thing, water got in her house. And while I wanted to know why the water was getting in her house, so I went to her back part of her yard which is down by unity in like 31st and I dug down about three feet. I'm so qualified you have no idea. I'm highly educated and I can tell you everything how this stuff works. Dug down three feet and the waters pushing through the ground from the backside. That let me know that there was huge amount of water flooding from the back area so when I went that there was huge amount of water flooding from the back area. So when I went back there, sure enough it was. When water has nowhere to go, it will push and it naturally pushes this way. Okay? That's why all the water goes this way. So when it pushes in people's yards and people's yards are filling up, their yards can't drain. This is something that needs to be taken seriously because what's going to happen is people's foundations are going to get ruined. And when they get ruined, their homes are going to crack and they'll still get water. And even though you don't see it, the water's coming up underneath the floor. And if you remove the baseboards, you'll find water and mildew along their baseboards and they have no idea that they're breathing that in Just like the 83 year old lady I helped today who has 4% of one kidney working Doesn't want to leave her house because this is her neighborhood, right? My daughter just bought her house a year ago. She's out there in tears because her house flooded She did everything right. She grew up here. And the sad part is that if the water doesn't get maintained somehow, and there's not any type of dryness to people's backyards, that water won't go down. So we could say what we want, but that water pushes underground through the soil. It's not just running down people's streets. Once the foundation of their home gets cracked, they're at risk for mildew in all their homes. And I want to be surprised of a lot of these homes, if they ripped off their baseboards and checked the underlying other baseboards, they would find mold. And you don't want to breathe that in. So let's just leave it like that. Thank you, sir, for your comment. Thank you for making the right decision to let the people talk some more. I know it's inconvenient, but what they're going through is inconvenient. What you're going through is inconvenient. Two years ago we had two hurricanes in a row. It was horrible decimation. People suffered, but one of the good things it did for us is it showed us where all the weak spots are. But we didn't act on it. Now I'm not gonna remark about what Edgewater did because I don't know what steps you took, but I know at the county level there's not enough been done to look at the areas that are flooding now and change it. Here's the problem. The developers are following the law. The law says you can't leave let one drop of water leave your property and go somewhere else. It's faulty. It's alive. There's no way to do that because they're building, they're clear cutting hundreds of acres, putting in retention ponds, and thinking that we're gonna put all the water that used to be dispersed over hundreds of acres in a retention pond and it's gonna stay there, it does it, it goes right through the sand to the hard pan and goes to the next lower property, or it just goes right through the sidewall. So now what we're doing is blaming all of these people that live in the original neighborhoods that were built at grade. We come in, we fill in wetlands, we clear-cut it, we bring in thousands and thousands of cubic yards of fill to lift these developments up and that displaces all the water to them. And we're blaming them. We're telling them it's the way that you built. You need to do something. So here I'm going to end with this. You are doing the right thing. You are setting a standard that the rest of Alicia County is going to have to come to terms with. We cannot continue to build and develop the way that we have been. It's not just the definition of insanity. It's a definition of economic disaster. If you want to see something that cost too much, let's just keep telling developers, come in and clear cut, fill in the wetland, build it up, and then fill out all these people All of their properties. They have private property rates to not just a developer and a moratorium will say you have to stop until we know How to build something without flooding everybody around it? There's there's possible there's low impact development to set stop to the clear cutting. But here's the best thing. Just stop building on wetlands. We have to stop filling in the wetlands and build its, its insanity. And we're ruining our county. We're ruining their property. I will come alongside of you. Let's work together. I am putting a rural boundary amendment on the agenda. I need your support. I'm going to go to every city and ask for their support. It'll stop the hostile annexations and it will stop to just changing the plant, changing the zoning. We need to stop changing the zoning and allowing building where it was never meant to be. So I will come alongside of you. I will help you. Let's get together and solve this problem together. Let's see what stormwater ditches the county has in your area that we need to maintain and not just blame you for it because it goes both ways as you know we have county ditches here and city ditches I'll work with you I'll come along side of you please. Thank you Chairman Broward absolutely absolutely we'll take we'll collaborate with any kind of effort to help better our residents we appreciate your comment. Thank you. Jeremy Tadeski, 3320, Lime Tree Drive. Here, talk again about responsible growth. And we're not doing that. We've built a dam surrounding Florida shores from all the wetlands. Everywhere that these new developments are at, or flooding out, like we've never seen. Six to eight inches of water, is did waste deep water on the backside of the shores, all around, just look at the way the Florida shores was made and then look at where we're developing. You were with me, you saw it. How much higher was that development than ours? I mean, where's it gonna go? All the flow of water usually goes south towards Volko Road. And we have now, how many acres of a eight-foot berm stopping it? Over on Air Park, we have another development that was built there in flooding happening there. It's not a coincidence. It's not rocket science. All it takes is responsible growth and a step back to look at what we're doing. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Hi, my name is Jean-Marie DeVise. I live at 1868 behind Tree Drive. I think the last time that I talked to you guys is right after Ian when our house took on 24 inches inside 36 inches in the garage. We lost everything. We are back in our house, but we're still building. We spent $70,000 and still have more things to go because we had to cut up to four feet of our house. We placed all the flooring, all the furniture, and I haven't seen a change. I haven't seen a change. And I know that you guys wanted just as much as we do, but you got a whole people accountable that aren't doing their jobs. I looked at the maintenance records that were put out by I think Mr. Robbins posted off the city website on Sunday. I looked all the way back to January of 2023. The canals and the ditches haven't been mat and maintained or dredged. They haven't. I went through every single one and specifically looking for that and there was no evidence whatsoever. You guys have gotta hold these people accountable. That is not that big of an ask. There are so many great ideas that were presented here tonight and I really look forward to seeing the things that you guys do. Jonah, I really thank you from the first comment. I've taken it back to the engineers because somebody failed. They failed us. So I look forward to seeing what you guys do to change. I know that you can do it. I appreciate you hearing all of us and giving us time tonight to speak to you. I'm charging you guys with getting us out of this hole. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Hey everybody, Chuck Martin, 20 or five cherry woodland edgewater. Still trying to catch my breath. I got here as quick as I could. I just want to thank you guys for being here. Jonah, I've listened to you on the way home. Thank you. I want to thank everybody up here. Charlotte, thank you for what you did so I could speak. You're doing an awesome job, by the way. I think everybody up here is doing a good job of the best of their ability, but you know what? United, we stand, divided, we fall. Okay. And I too was flooded during Hurricane Ian and didn't realize that we had water right up to our door, but a little later my daughter's room and my room had replaced the floor and then we had mold and all that we dealt with all that. But Saturday night I personally wrote around with the mayor because I don't think anybody here can say they know the streets better than me. I don't think anybody here can say they know the Streets better than me. I don't have been here for 56 years. Maybe you can. I don't know. I think I've swam them all road bicycles down them. And we got a problem. It's only getting worse. And I think we're all in agreement of that. We all. We all know this, okay? Now we got many, many miles of ditches and canals that need attention. And I will say Sunday morning, when I was ride down travelers at Fluttered Unity, or I'm sorry, I'm brother at Flutter really bad. I did see Randy Coslow out there in his personal family van waiting way steep out there in the water and doing what he could to help the people. I honestly believe in my heart that the public works people that we have right now are doing the very best they can with what they've got. Okay, our cities grown so much. We're just way behind. You know, we're way behind and I think everybody understands that, but you know, we're hurting but we're hurting right now. And we need a way forward. I heard some really good comments in the beginning. I forgot to gentlemen's name, but they spoke earlier some day tone, but we need somebody like that leading us down the road, man. Some what's in that that's that really hit me good there. And with all the problems we got here and it didn't start with our city manager that we got. Now let's start away before that. But you know, we have to move forward. We'll talk about that later but I think at the end of the day here it starts at the top and it ends at the top and something has to be resolved and I mean it's got it's gonna have to be resolved tonight one way or another thank you for letting me speak thank you sir for your comment Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Kathy Keglow, 2613, Jennifer Drive. I've lived here since 2017. And we have a canal in our backyard, which they come by occasionally and they clean out the dirt and the grasses on the side and the weeds. But not as often as they should. And I can remember as early as possibly 2019, when the engineering department said, we'd need to look at how our canals function, how they should be changed, the possibility of even putting in a concrete bottom in the canals to make a tube for the water to flow. We've had things like tennis balls and volleyballs sitting in the canal in our backyard for weeks because the water is not flowing. That does not help with the flooding. But we've never had we never had flooding in our yard on Juniper Drive until the hurricane's in and in a cold. And my husband was trapped at work beachside and I was home alone watching the water come up halfway up our driveway and the canal which is never overgone as banks come over the banks to almost to our shed where the lawnmower is. That was a hurricane. That was 23 inches of rain. This last rainfall was seven inches of rain. And yet the water did not flow. Even as of today, the water passed our driveway to the second garage on our building is still standing on the ground. So something is wrong with the drainage and the flow and the water is obviously coming from other places, didn't just the rain coming out of the sky because the cadals are not flowing. The parts in the front yard that are technically town-owned land, but we own, are not flowing. The water is not disappearing. So if a 22-inch storm and a hurricane can do that, which I would understand, a seven-inch storm should not flood as badly as a 22-inch storm did, and yet it did. And that's where the problem is. I came tonight because the original discussion was about the city manager. But I think it would hold the development and planning committee guilty for what they've approved. And you're gonna tell me all these things have been pre-approved prior to your appointments. So there's nothing you can do about stopping, farming from developing, and during from developing because they're pre-approved. And yet if they develop over more wet lands that has already been developed, the flooding down to shores is just going to get worse. Thank you, ma'am, for your comment. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Chengay. I live at 2216 Umbrella Tree Drive. We just moved in six months ago. My fiance and I are first time home buyers. A couple days ago on Saturday, we were celebrating with friends and family for upcoming wedding ceremony. Thankfully, most of our guests left earlier in the afternoon so they didn't get completely stuck in the flood water. We noticed that the ditch in our front yard was filling out normally fast compared to other storms we have encountered within these past six months. Within 10 minutes, the water was coming up and into our front door. We were not prepared. Thankfully, for a tarp and some pavers, we had some chance of keeping water out of our home. The water was up to my knees in our driveway, and this is unacceptable. We should not be living in fear and the unknown of which rainstorm is going to wipe us out. Please help us, and I thank you for your comment. I congratulate you for your merits. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Councilor Mayor. Can you please see me, Senator? I am Rachel Risa. I have sent you guys an email this morning. I live at 34 or 11 Tamer and Drive. I have lived in Edgewater since 1983. I grew up on 32nd block of Woodland. So with that being said, we have a canal on Woodland. Back when it was dirt roads, yes, the roads would flood. And then sometimes they would hang out for a couple days or so, but our canals would never breach and contribute to the floods. Then in 1990s, they had the big statewide stormwater rules come up and we had to pave the roads and which that's another topic because those they haven't been repaved since the 90s but since they did pave the roads and turned some of the side streets into the dry retention ponds we did see a decrease of those flooding and on an occasion where we did have a freak storm where it rained nonstop for three days to three days we would get a flood like we did Saturday. But with that in mind I don't recall any of these houses being flooded out. It was just our streets. And with these developments, I thoroughly believe. And of course, yes, the lack of maintenance on these canals, keeping them clean, the ditches, because Saturday I was supposed to go to my 30th class reunion, which I did thankfully end up going. I didn't think I was going to make it once I got on 30th Street. I had made a joke about taking a kayak there and I should have. But the last two and a half years versus the 10, we have really developed, we had there's what, three or five different developments that just popped up in the last two years. And Hurricane Ian shows up, bam, we're flooded. Now, yes, people were saying, oh, well, you guys live in a swamp land, it used to be swamp land, blah, blah, blah. Okay, yeah, but we corrected that problem in the 90s, 40 years ago. And now we're over developing, taking away those wetlands and the waters nowhere to go. And just before I had left, thankfully the rains had stopped us. And I went to take the dog for a walk because he was stuck in the house. And the water was just not moving. And you could see it was bubbling. So my husband and I started scooping out. Thank you, ma'am, for your comment. We appreciate it. We just need to do something. Yes, we did. Thank you for your comment. Thank you, man, for your comment. We appreciate it. We just need to do something. Yes, we did. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Yes, sir. Danny Shields, 1225 Volka Road, Edgewater. I just wanted to make a comment. I try to stay out of like anything like political or anything, try to be active with the city. And the more I'm like sitting here looking at things and like what's going on. Somebody asked me after the storm how do you make out whatever and we have 10 acres and a lot of it's lower. And so we actually made out pretty well, which was scary. I'm right on the corner of Liza Clinton, Beacon Light Road and Volcker Road where they So we actually made out pretty well, which was scary. I'm right on the corner of Liza Clinton, Beacon Light Road and Volcker Road, where they all meet. We're fine, we're not flooded, we don't have any problems. We're, you know, we have wetlands on our property, which brought my attention to like the shores. Somehow that water obviously is getting moved to the shores. So I know everybody can do what they can do and you have like so much legal whatever. But my concern is with seeing how we made out okay if the fact that if something is wrong and then somebody comes into the city and finds out something is wrong may not have been y'all is doing we might be worried about the developers doing us but if we flood out all the homeowners and they sue the city, that's probably going to be more detrimental on the city than worrying about what a developer is going to sue us for. Just looked at Google Maps, made a big statement in my mind. Zoomed in a little bit, looked on the shores. It's a huge part on the map. Okay? Pretty big. If you look at the developments are not very big Those are the people were worried about I've always said I don't have a problem with growth at all Cities got to grow. It's got to bring in revenue The residents that we built our business around that's the people that have kept us afloat that have built a city If you turn around and look, if you demolish that, worried about just new developments with 3,400 or even a thousand houses, floor to floor is huge, it's been able to sustain itself. Even talking to Joey Posey about the building when we all had the meeting out there on Volko Road right there. I said, you know what? They don't want to touch wetlands. They only want to touch the uplands. I don't agree with it 100%. But the fact't want to touch wetlands. They only want to touch the uplands. I don't agree with it 100%. But the fact of not touching the wetlands, I agreed with that. But any development on 35th, if you look, when that got, we haven't had any major rains since after the hurricane last time, everybody got flooded. So now that they've started that second part, obviously there's some massive concern in the shores. I'm fine. Like I have no, we didn't, we weren't standing in much water and all receded. I don't know where it went, but the development right there, obviously they have videos on Facebook, water gushing out in the shores. So I don't want to take all of the credit to the workers at the city that clean out the canals and say it's your fault. I want to say most of that needs to go towards development and I really truly feel that we're looking more problems if we don't tell them you need to hold up. You broke a dam, you flooded our city, stop building because what happens if we find out they can't build there without flooding the city forever. Those houses go up so quick. You can't ask them to bulldoze all those houses. Now we are going to have a major comment and being a local business owner. I'm not sure if you're going to see the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the part of the side streets. But I had the canal behind my house. It has never built up that quickly before. It was full life within 30 minutes. I actually notified the police department because I was watching the cars go down the roads and the waves were like foot from going into the house across from me. Fortunately, my house is up high. So I wasn't having that problem. But the canal was already right at the peak within 30 minutes. And this has never happened. So I knew that was unusual. And I also want to mention you recall in that vote, you need to go back and look at Mission Road in 442 because I in that vote. You need to go back and look at the mission road in 442 because I pulled that up. None of that is sown agriculture. It has not been sown agriculture. It is already listed in the city. The city has been collecting taxes on that for years. It shows on the collection of taxes that the taxes are going to the city of Edgelwater. The property right there at the corner, 31, 45 Indian River, is sewn. There's almost 17 acres there. Over 16 acres of that is sewn wasteland. It is not agriculture, there's 0.4 acres that is selling residential, but the rest of it of that almost over 16 acres is Wasteland. The old orange grove part of that is selling single family. You all need to go back and look at that. Somebody's pulling something here. Anyway, that's all I got just for you. Thank you for coming. Could you say to your address one more time for the record? Um, umbrella tree. She has it on her records. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Russell, butanza 312, cherry wood lane, edgewater, Florida. I just want to say I've been listening to a lot of comments tonight. A lot of good ones, a lot of bad ones. There are a lot of backs and there's also a lot of non-factual stuff that I've heard today this evening. And I own a small business here in town and I walk through a lot of people's yards on a daily basis. And I've always give free advice to people when they ask for it. And sometimes when they don't ask for it on how to like mitigate your storm water on your own property. And I deal with a lot with gutters and stuff like that. And I see a lot of people's houses filled, their gutters are completely filled with leaf litter and stuff like that. So their houses don't properly drain and the water kind of just stays on their lots. And I'm not blaming them. You know, it's a lot of people can't afford to clean their gutters or anything like that. And I'm sure a new company could start by this meeting tonight on cleaning out the pipes underneath everybody's drywalls. I don't see a business that's open in edge water for that yet. So if anybody wants to be an entrepreneur, they could start doing that. But the most, I mean, I get really passionate about this stuff because I did some of this stuff when I was in college. And the biggest thing I see when I look at some of these ditches is you'll see 10 in a row that are completely clean. That's if the city has cleaned it. Which they do, they do a very good job. We are under understaffed period in that department with the, with the, we were the biggest subdivision in Central Florida for the longest time. So, but I think we're very understaffed. When it comes to that, I think if we had some incentive, I think I seen a position open for the storm water. I'm not mistaken. And no one has anybody filled it yet? Yeah, $12. $12 now. So there's like an incentive for someone to take over a position on that or incentive for more workers to get involved with that. I think that would be who? Boy, that goes really quick. But yeah, but like I said, if you keep your, and stop water in your lawns, I'll walk through these subdivisions. They're completely soaked, soaked with water. And you know, so, I mean, you know, I don't, I don't water my lawn. And that's just a personal preference of mine. I don't care if my grass dies, to be honest with you. Thank you, sir, for your comment and being a local business owner. We appreciate you. And before we hear another comment, Chief, are there anyone else outside currently? It seems like some have vacated the room. Do we have any kind of, can we take more capacity inside passing inside of this time to hear their comments. Okay, thank you. Good evening, thank you for seeing us. My name is Barbara Dyer. I live on 3507 Victory Palm Drive and that new development. On the end, as dewatering for a while, I listen to it at night. I've seen animals I've never seen in my yard. My son and I had taken a walk on the property before they started to develop. And there were a lot of turtles that you're not allowed to stop from digging underneath your house or you're getting a lot of trouble. But they did not relocate them. They went ahead within a day or two after it's walking on the property. We'll dozed over everything. So I don't know if they have special privileges than we do, but I feel like they need to be stopped doing that. They also have put the land, you're standing next to it, this high above your head, and that's at the end of the road road And then they've been digging in the middle and dewaterizing that and I'm wondering will that create a collapse of Land going inward when the people build their houses on it It's displaced a ton of animals. I have come in, birds, I follow up on everything. I'm not going to talk about that. That's so much all I want to say. Thank you for the comment. We appreciate you. We're going to take one more public comment and we are not going to adjourn, but we're just going to take a simple recess for five minutes. Hello, I'm Vicki Keepsmith. I live at 2129 Sable, and I have a home at 22401 Oak. I just want to say thank you all for everything that you've been doing. I watched everything on Facebook all weekend, and just praying for the people's homes. I have lived in this area since 1972. on Facebook all weekend and just praying for the people's homes. I have lived in this area since 1972. My father was a builder here, so I have seen things come and go, rise and fall. Roads, no roads. I remember when, when Dixie wasn't even there, okay? And I used to ride horses on 35th Street. So I know what was back there. And the growth has been intense. And there's nothing we can do about it except to move forward. I appreciate what the doctor came when she came in and said. I believe that we are standing at a moment that we can make a president's in our state using our city as an example to bring forth something new for the wetlands of our of our state. So I believe that we can do that for such a time as this. I believe that every one of you are placed there for such a time as this. Thank you for all your hard work and being out there all weekend running around on the water. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. We and being out there all weekend running around on the water. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. We appreciate it. We're going to take a brief five minute recess and we will be back in order. Okay. Okay, we're going to recall the order about the issue of flooding for citizens comments at approximately 8 o'clock on our special meeting for September 16th. Oh, I thought you were about to talk about the next one. Are there any further citizens comments? Any questions I encourage you to write a contact card in the back and we will reach out to you. No, we're still on the flooding portion. If there are no citizens comments, we will go to the next portion of the meeting. I would encourage at the next part of the meeting. Saying no further citizens comments, we're going to move on to item item to be other business item to a the City Manager, I'm sorry, I lost my just give me just one second I know two a city council discussion and determination whether or not to conduct a national wide search for a new city manager. I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and the city manager is available to the public on the city of Edgewater website. 2023 evaluation for Glenn Erby outlines his performance along with the 2024 goals meet expectations to five outstanding on the last evaluation from these people. So in fact the City Council scored his decision making as a four exceeds expectations budgeting 4.5 proactively identifies effective efficient innovative solutions to problems 3.8, establishes appropriate course of action to accomplish goals, makes proper assignments to staff, and appropriate use of resources 3.8, personnel management 3.8. It goes on and on. His ethics, five, outstanding, from the people that did his performance evaluation. So all the scores from the evaluation reflect that Glenn at least met expectations of his job in all categories. He was not deficient at all according to our council members. So I understand that this This evaluation was for the performance through September of 2023. I propose the scheduling of a special meeting to present the 2024 evaluation of the city manager for the citizens to review. I think before we decide to look for a new manager, we the citizens should be able to see what your performance appraisal is of this manager because clearly it was good the prior. So I'd like to see what's compiled now to see what his performance is. I'm not saying it's been good or bad. I really don't know. But when I look at this performance appraisal, which I read thoroughly inside and out this afternoon, you all or whoever did it, which is the City Council, whether you were in office or not, said he's doing a great job. Your job is to hold him accountable for his work. Your job is to work for us who vote you in. If you can't figure out how to hold him accountable and he needs to hold these people accountable that report to him to do their job. So ultimately it does fall on him to make sure that they are cleaning the canals, that they're doing whatever we need to do to prevent the flooding, but it's your job to ensure he's held accountable. So to me the failure here is our city council who has not sat down to hold him accountable in these performance evaluations or will you? an application for that job. Thank you for your comment. Hey, Greg Denver, they tell me to be issued. You saw a lot of work. Y'all heard from me before. Had an interesting conversation during the break with your city attorney and your city manager. I went straight to the city attorney and I asked him, do you see any problems with any of my proposals? If I'm not mischaracterizing your answer was none. I mentioned that well with the gross management statute changes last year where they slid the scale for developers with where you have to give them the zoning change if they have things for affordable housing and other stuff. They complicated things and one of them is you have to perform an economic impact study if you're gonna make the rules more stringent than the state, which is what I ask y'all to do tonight. So although he saw no value or no problems with it on the surface and I kind of bush hogged him, you are gonna have to do an economic impact study to implement what I suggested. But you don't have to do it before you do the moratorium. I want to do a moratorium on building, do it. But do a moratorium on the clear cutting too. You need to be double protected. Because they may not be able to build no more, but they can keep cutting. And you don't want to stop that. Next, I asked the city manager, do you have any problems or can you pick out any holes in what I propose? If I'm not mischaracterizing, I believe you told me no. And then I ask him, well, why haven't you done it up? Tell me now. And we didn't have an answer. So we're talking about, do we want to get rid of the city manager? You might want to figure out what he want out of the next one first. So if I was shopping for a city manager I'd want one that would drain the lakes. I don't want to be pretty. They're not a water feature. They're a safety thing. We need to drain them early. I'd want a city manager that would say if I don't have the resources to get it done I'm going to go to this county. I'm going to go to this county. I'm going to go to state. I'm going to go to business community like that guy who is sitting back there who means that a word. Before I came here, I secured commitments from leaders in the business community that if necessary, they will go out and lobby Governor DeSantis and whoever they have to even theme what to bring funds here to start a public's work project like with the big claws after the hurricanes to start digging out them canals. We can't wait for the handful of guys you do it. It's like a donkey and a cart trying to build a hotel. You need major help and you got to put your hand up. So Mr. Irby may be excellent at adjusting the nuts and bolts. What he fails you on the vision. And you folks are supposed to have the vision and you don't know nothing about the nuts and bolts. You should have but your Baker candlestick maker. You need somebody to bridge the gap. Somebody who cares what these people want and knows the rules how to deliver it. I'm not saying get rid of the guy. I'm just saying, figure out what you want. Mr. Erby is great at running the nuts and bolts, but he is not gonna get you where you need to go. And if you all want to get rid of him, and you all want another person to warm the seat until you get somebody proper, even I will do it. And I'll tell you why. Because I want Edgewater to be the test case. I want to prove to the county and every other city that my policies work. And I believe it will work for all of you. And when they do, I can embarrass the county into doing the rest there. You guys are my proof of concept. You save yourself, you save Volusia. I know my three minutes is up. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for your comments. Applause. Are there any other public comments at this time? I'm going to go to the Catholic Church and I'm going to go to the Catholic Church and I'm going to go to the Catholic Church and you vote on it. Yeah, you're not. If you vote on it, yay. manager is to then follow what you've dictated to be what you want and manage it. It's not his job to decide whether it should have been approved or not because you approved it. He just has to deal with what you've approved. So when it comes to engineering of the canals or new development or anything else, they have their own meetings with their own departments which may be under him, but those departments then come to you in separate meetings which are held weekly and you vote yay or nay on what those departments have approved. So if engineering approved it and development approved it, you've now voted yes All he can do is work with what you've told him he has to work with because you've approved it He's not the engineer. He's not the development person He's the one that has to work with the you've told him he has do with the town budget. That's all he can do. So if you approve bad policy, there's nothing he can do more than to try to make that bad policy work to its best. And that's what I have to say about what we came here to talk about initially, which was whether we're replacing the city manager. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Can't really tell you 20, 24 come quad drive. I am wondering if we can ask the city manager stop on today. What does he is, can he speak? I mean, it says in his job description at the meeting, so he's allowed to speak speak and he's not. This is Citizens' Commons. At this time, I'm sure Mr. Irby would like to comment and he's appropriate in the next agenda. Because you guys have had things to say, but he has had nothing the whole time. We would like to hear from him. I'm going to go ahead and get the staff. Donna McDavid, 12-01, bond street. Good evening, Mayor and Council. We have gathered here with a special meeting because some of you feel that we need a new city manager. In reality, this is not the right time. It's the wrong time for our community, the wrong thing to be doing. Do I think that Mr. Erby has done a perfect job or that he has held some of his subordinates accountable for their actions? Or should I say lack of actions? No. But again, this is not the right time for our community to be doing this. We have a much bigger issues at hand and this is just going to delay or impede these issues from being addressed. Mr. Coslow, we have all heard your repeated remarks that Hurricane Ian was a thousand year storm. I as well as many others stood here in these very chambers and called yes to that statement. Well, here we go again. Saturday, September 14 was a rain event. Repeatedly, the community has raised concerns that our ditches and canals have not been getting cleaned. You have insisted that they were. I would like to know your definition of clean. At this time as a community, we need to focus on the larger issues at hand. We need to be looking for an assistant city manager and not looking for a new city manager. We have been brought here under the guise that the council fills that Mr. Erby is doing a horrible job. However, in reality, you are the ones that direct the city manager and you provide his performance evaluations. And looking back at 2022 and 2023, evaluations that you the council submitted, his performance greatly improved between those two years. In some cases from a 3.4 to a 4.0. We need to restructure some of our departments within this city, such as environmental services. Maybe we don't need a director. Maybe we need two supervisors. Maybe we already have somebody on staff that's qualified. They could fill that city, assistant city manager position, and we're not even tweaking our some thought. Thank you for your comment. 31 31 victory palm drive carer. Handic so we are here today all to determine subject 2A. So I have a question for you guys in his employee agreement in section 9.5 termination of cause. What's the termination of cause? Do we have one? Because if we don't, edge order citizens, well, I guess edge order as a whole, we need to pay Mr. Glenn $131,790 for a severance package. The breakdown includes his vacation time he didn't use, his benefits, and so forth. Another thing I'd like to add onto that is not just the cause. I guess as a leader, you are responsible for the leaders under you that report to you. Mr. City Manager has any of these council members met with you about the things that they don't like and presented or had you come up with an action plan? Okay. So that's the thing. You guys are in charge of making him make the decisions and work towards what he needs to that you guys would like. I definitely think that I encourage you guys to meet with him, discuss the things you do and don't like and create an action plan, each of you, for Mr. Erby, and see how far that gets us before we work on spending $30,000 to hire a company to come in as a recruiter along with his severance package. Thank you for your comment Chuck Martin to a five cherry woodland edge water So I think the topic here is to discuss Whether to conduct a national wide search for a city manager. It's not to fire him So at some point, just like myself, one day he is going to retire or he may get tired and quit tonight or who knows, but he's not going to be the city manager forever. Okay. And I kind of like the idea of an assistant city manager. So I'm going to kind of get an area and maybe help them out and fill the ropes and get comfortable with our other staff. There's one day he's going to be gone. Who knows, you know, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it might be next year. It may take us two years to find somebody. But I met a man back here tonight for the first time never seen him before. Um, great, Gimbert. And, and I like a lot of his ideas. I think he'd be a great asset to our city. So in the event that Mr. Irby is either unemployed tonight or stays here or whatever. If we're maybe going to hire somebody to step in and help him out. That has experience in this. So I think he'd be a good man to do it. He's kind of throwing that out there. Another has been some projects. The work that the city has done that I've seen is good work. I know some pounds were cleaned out and that helped out a bunch, but they're understaffed and under budget. We just got to figure out a way to get the money to do this, whether it's like he said, going and asking for help, you know, and putting on an old crane operator, and getting older and as the younger guys come, we've got to train them to take over our job, you know, because I'm not gonna be able to do it forever. He's not gonna be able to do I guess the you know the balls in your court tonight whatever you guys decide I respect it and I'll go along with it like I said before I've supported about you, Debbie. You volunteer and do more here than physical, than out there than anybody that I know. And Mr. Mayor, you get out there in the ditches. With me, we've ridden hundreds of miles of them. We were out there in a storm till midnight. I think I could go to bed so I can go to work. And you had a lot of fun at your place too. It was pretty bad But I think this is a wake-up call for us. We need we need some help here and I think this man back here behind me Is the perfect one that can get us that help when need that Maybe even be our city manager one day and lead us down the road. We don't know But I think maybe we should give him a shot or at least interview and Great job Charlotte and GG and attorney and Glad you guys have a good night. Thank you Thank you for your comment Are there any further comments at this time? I think that timing is very bad for doing something like this, even talking about looking for a manager. Because to me, it looks like you five guys are trying to make a fall guy for the problem that's been created in the last few years. I think that's wrong because this is something that you had to agree on. And last week you said, we need the money, we need to develop. That was what came across right from you last week. And because of that, we have this problem right now because of development. And he can't do no more than what's been told by you guys. But I don't think you need to make him the fall guy for this situation we're in now. Find an answer to getting rid of the water out of the problem where it's at now, move it across on the other side of 95 or wherever you find a place to put it so that we can have dry land on this site. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I will say there's a lot of conversation about money and about what the cost is going to be to search out somebody and potentially fire somebody. What I will say is our money needs to stay in edge water. We don't need to be firing anybody. If we're going to spend $130,000, it needs to be in Edgewater. It needs to be in our streets investing in our community, investing in our homes. Our people are children because let's be real. My kids are going to be here for another 60, 70 years. My family has already been here for 30 years. My husband grew up here. We have three homes in Edgewater, within our family. So this is gonna be a problem that's gonna go on if we keep sending our money out. I'm not pointing fingers at who's at fault right now, but we need to come up with a plan. And anybody who knows anything about gardening knows. You don't want flooding? Plant more plants. We have a lot of beautiful areas that are completely cleared right now. There's zone for one thing. That's fine. We may not be able to change it, but what we can do is we can demand plants. We can demand trees, things that are going to absorb that water right out of the soil and have enough root system to keep the soil intact. Mr. Glenn knows I'm an avid gardener. I do a lot of gardening. I have one of the biggest gardens in our neighborhood. I will be more than happy to give my advice on that. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I'm Deena Brown. I'm at 3006 Silver Brown Drive and I'm on the fence about this honestly because I think we're all forgetting the problems in Edgewater aren't new. We have been going downhill steadily. So either you all have gotten complacent or we have a bigger problem than that. So whether Mr. Burby needs to go or not, I don't want to be the person to say that. All I'm going to say is that change is need to be happening. You guys saw the turnout tonight. We were standing room only inside. There was just as many or more outside. We're not going away. You all need to start listening to us. And we all need to feel like you have our best interest at heart. And if you don't, you all are up for a re-election at some point. We will replace you. So you guys decide what you want to do about Mr. Irby and we'll support you. But just now we're watching and you guys should want us to be watching. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. I spoke earlier tonight. Greg Matthews 2825, Victory Palm Drive. I too am a city manager for a national company. So I know the pressure that come with that job Also know that it's guidance and instruction that comes It really shows what you're all about and what your work is developed into and as she just said The city's been doing bad for the last three years since I moved here. It hasn't improved The flooding has been a problem. It has not been addressed. The roads are a problem. Only a couple have been addressed. You, the city council here, are in charge of the decisions. Yes, I agree we need to grow. We need to grow responsibly. We need to stop ruining our wetlands. Much of Florida is like an island. It's got marsh in the middle. It's surrounded by water. We have water issues because you're allowing new developments to come into our area. And it's building up so that all of their water runs into the existing properties in edge water, particularly the shores. This could all be avoided if you would stop building on the wetlands. That's why the wetlands, you're not to build on them. They're supposed to be protected. What we need to have happen is to rethink the growth and stop looking at development just to get more growth. We don't have the roads, we don't have the schools, we don't have the infrastructure to hold more people. Yet we continually bring more growth to this area without the foundation that it takes to make this city operate and be a benefit to the citizens of Edgewater instead of a problem for the citizens of Edgewater. I suggest you have a real heart to heart talk with each other about the improvements you can make about the job that you're doing and learn to serve the people of Edgewater. That's who elected you. You work for us. Please help us. Thank you for your comment. Thank you, Black umbrella tree drive. I think the complicit is the word that we are all looking for here. I think some of our departments have gotten complacent in what they do. It's been the same thing year after year after year. Edgewater has gotten so big and they've been doing the things the same way. It's like our water bill. It was supposed to come down, not go up. They started going up on it, I don't know, maybe 12 years ago and they said, we'll get, we'll be going down after this increase. We're going to be increasing it for the next five years, but then to go down. We're going to buy these new garbage trucks and then we're going to go down because we're going to only have one man on the garbage truck. Well, it went up at five years. We passed that five years mark. We're like at the eight year mark. It is still going up. We're complacent. Our environmental service has got complacent. We're not doing as good a job on our Now's cleaning them. They were just cleaning my canals last Thursday or Wednesday or Thursday. In fact, what I'm telling the guy, you know, I'm not to put the wheels on my side because I've collapsed so much I've lost like eight feet now. I can't even walk in part of my backyard because two years ago I fell and I bruised up to whole side of my body and He's like he's actually being a smart ass replying to me and I'm like what the hell you know I had for years I had to go out there and tell them not to put the will on my side because it falls down every time they come to Florida. He didn't have to be rude. He knows I have to go out there and remind him or do, but he sees like, the wills aren't on your side. I remind him not to cut my bushes, but they just been complacent about how they cleaned the canal. He'll clean part of the other side and not the other. It's a matter of the other side. It's a mess on the other side. Part of it. We just got complicit in some of these departments. I think maybe even in the environmental section, we need to put a fire under their ashes. They're complicit. Why are we starting the budget for the water department when the budget is coming to it they need to start that budget right now and look at what's wrong in the water department. Don't wait until come summer and look at we how we're going to revisit it we keep it the same what's going on you know I've mentioned suggestions to Randy before and it's like yeah will you do this that. Well, why aren't you looking at this now that you've finished with this 2024 budget? Why aren't you looking at what we can do for 2025? These chemical costs are going up. Look at other avenues. I know that you're in a co-op, but something's wrong. We've got to look at other avenues. Don't wait when it's time to do budgets again. Thank you for your comment. Okay. Thank you. Are there any further comments at this time? Okay. Council comments. I'll start one addressing the lady that got up and was given the city managers critique on her his evaluation. I did the last three years. Totally points to 40 items he's he's graded on. In 2020, 2021, he scored an overall acceptance of 264.40 points of the council. Last year, he scored, or year before 2022, he scored 157.80. This past year, he scored, he went up to 168.70. Now that's 40 items. There's four pages of this. Plus, there's an item on the back of the things that we want to see him do and all. So we have been, every council that has sits up here grades a city manager and we've had this form of evaluation for, I say 10 years. So he's up and down and a city manager is going to do that when you have five people sitting here or grading him I don't I have to agree with most of you. This is not the time. We are in a crisis right now This is not the time to get ready read of a city manager Not even start looking for a city manager if the least we need is an assistant city manager for when the city manager isn't here or he needs time off or whatever, we need an assistant city manager. We do not need to get Ritterberg city manager. Apparently he hasn't been giving listening to you all tonight. The enough guidance from what we expect and it's hard to get the five of us to sit down like we were trying to do tonight to discuss what we expected of a city manager. In my opinion, everything that I have talked to him about he answers fully, and I'm sure was Charlotte too. He answers fully. He gives us everything that he has available to us. I'm constantly going in there, at least once a week updating, being updated on the situations. Now, granted, I will admit, I didn't realize that the flooding was as bad as it was since the hurricane. Because I live on the other side of the street. I live on East Side of Ridgewood. So I don't have that flooding problem. I didn't realize it was that critical to all of you. We do need to do something about that. Well let's go out and get some help that can do it for us and not put it all on the City Manager's burden. Let him go out and find the people that we need to fix the situation that you people have brought to us and go from there. And let's have this discussion in a year from now to see if the improvements have been made. That's all I have to say. I absolutely agree that it takes vision. The way our local government is designed. We do. We set the vision. We set the policy. We have a chief executive officer who then executes that policy. And the comments that have been made are 100% true that if we don't set the policy, if we don't set the vision, then it's not going to be executed. There's nothing to execute. We are in a state of destability and we have been and we need to get on the right side of that and removing our chief executive officers going to leave a vacuum. And as we move forward and as we continue to improve the things that we already have, we need to continue on a path to not halt that and cause a greater issue. So that's that's where I am with it right now. Oh, I do, we did at the last meeting take the economic development director position, reclassified it to a director position. I would like to see that also as economic development director slash, consistency manager. If that's something you all are willing to give direction on to re-structure that classification. But if you don't want to, no worries. I think it's important just putting it out there. I think it needs to be a separate position. I think they need to be two positions. I think it needs to be two positions because we may have one qualified, do one position and one not to do the other. And I do believe that we need a assistance city manager desperately. Well then I'm really to have both. I just was trying to sort of say to release and understand that a little bit and understand that but I just don't think that that is feasible possible. I think the people would would accept that more than going out just app hazardly looking for a city manager and spending that kind of money and paying him off. They want us to show with physical responsibility and that's how we do it. Look, the assistant city manager, Delton, is at middle class salary, not much higher than that. That's the typical salary in the state of Florida for assistant city manager. It's not a high paying position such as our city manager. I never said it was. No, I'm just giving the example. Who's going to pay for the extra $1,000? Please no comment. Okay, here's my swing on it. Two different times, it's important to cancel that we're not happy with our city manager. And I want to have this conversation open and transparent. That way everyone knows how everyone feels. And this is the best way to start it. I feel that in the next 10 and 20 years, we're going to need a leader who's going to take us forward with a vision. I feel sometimes I'm lacking in vision who's involved in our community, you boots on the ground, knows our residents, knows our businesses. And Mr. Erby is a great guy and I've always, he's always had an anxious when I have questions. I'm not saying he hasn't. But sometimes I won't know what questions to ask. I don't know what I don't know. And knowing that I don't know everything, if something's coming for counsel and I meet with them every month and sometimes more than one month, once a month. And I'll have all my questions listed. I might not know to ask certain questions that are going to come up that might be important to the residents and to the city that I don't know. And so I don't ask the questions. And then I kind of get sidetracked. Why didn't know that? Well, now what do I do? I feel like I'm not set up for success, not knowing what I don't know, and I'm learning. We're all learning up here. I think it's very important. And some of us will engage in other cities and be part of networking. And I don't know, bring counsel together. Sometimes I feel we're very, we're on different pages. I don't feel we're together. We all here together to work together for our residents. And that's the most important thing. We have great minds here. Everyone thinks differently. We're all different stages of our life, from life experiences. And we learn off of each other. And I just feel that sometimes we're not together like we need to. Not that it's a lens problem to do that. But it's part of the city manager's kind of to nurture counsel and guide them. And I feel that sometimes that I'm not being guided. And when city say, compliance or complacent, sometimes I feel it's complacent as well. We're not moving, we're not strategizing for the things that we can fix in our city. So that's just where I'm at with the radio. I just feel that this is a good time to start, to make a change and this is, it's gotta start sometime, it's gotta start somewhere. And why not today? I mean, I said Glenn's always been there for me. And personally, I feel horrible saying this. And I met with him Friday telling you know, and it's nothing personal. I mean, he's a great guy. And, you know, it's not about me, it's not about my feelings, it's about what's best for our community and I just feel at this time, we have to take a first step sometime and why kick the can down the road if it's something that needs to be addressed, needs to be changed, I just feel that this is a good time as any. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I agree with most of your statements. I think this is absolutely nothing personal and this is not to discuss the term term termination of our city manager. This is to see what kind of options we have in store. We had a vision session here. It was a yelling match between the City Council and the Planning and Zoning Board. And I just don't think that that is much of a vision. When I was first elected, I asked for Mr. Erby's five-year plan and I never got back from you. I was disappointed to hear that. I've asked a couple other times. We had council goals for the years. And yes, for the year this year, no other council has done that. We tried to come together for goals and solutions. As some of those and most of those included stormwater. Anything we could do for stormwater for the year. We got a piece of paper and how much it would cost. We didn't get any plans or solutions of how to move forward. The stories with money. It does. I understand that. But we have a huge ex-fist reserve this year. And we got one of the- Oh, no. This manager, this is just my opinion. At this time, if you'd like to comment, you're more than welcome. I will. I respect you. This is an absolutely nothing personal. And I think that we, as a council, it is our job to come together and to have a vision. Yes. So council members have, we need to take responsibility in ourselves as well. We collaborate with the city manager as much as we can. And we did get one of the projects funded, but we didn't even workshop the workshop funded but we didn't even workshop the workshop and we didn't discuss what we wanted and I think that there's a lack of vision there for of and I think that this is about what kind of resources we could rely on and have and I think that this is about seeing what's out there this This is nothing personal. And if it doesn't go through at this time, we need to hold a workshop and we need to see what goals we really want for the year and have the city manager come up with his goal for the rest of his tenure. Not much, but he's seen into you. Yes, it is. You're correct. But it is to have a collaborated vision, which we are going through a vision session right now. And that's just where I'm at. I think, I may say so. I think the mayor has been given, I mean, not the mayor. The city manager has been given his vision that we want to control of the flooding and the building. We want that changed. We don't want, I mean, I've lived in Edgewater for 50 years. And I don't like all of this water. And I go out there and wonder, you don't think I do, but I do. Don't tell me I don't know about it. I'm telling you over the years I have served on this city for a long time and I have seen a lot of changes and and there needs to be some work done on our canals. Please, please no public participation elections up you can vote against me if you want to but I can speak my mind right now and I'm not sinking down to any of you. I'm just trying to be a sort of a voice of reasoning here. We can either throw the baby out with the water and start all over again, or we can try and get an assistant and see what's available to help us do this water problem and the storm water problem to help us do this water problem and the storm water problem to help us correct this situation. So we don't have this flooding anymore. So we don't have this excess building. I don't like it. We vote on it because it comes to us from the planning board. We approve it. We've done that. That's the system. We don't like the system then we need to talk about changing it But that's the way all public offices in Florida operate the way we operate here And I'm not putting any of us down. I'm not putting you people down We realize that you have a real problem. We have a problem. It's our problem. I live here. My family lives here. My children, my grandchildren live here. I want what's best for them too. I want Edwater to be the glowing spot. That's all I've ever wanted for Edwater to shine. We haven't had the participation in the past from the people that live here, like we've been having for this past year and a half. People just haven't bothered to come out and tell us what they wanted. Now you have invoice in max, maximum. We heard it. I did. I know what you want. And I'm willing to do whatever we need to take to fix this problem. If we have to put a more to her in my building, if we can do it without any kind of legal repercussions from the state, I'm not talking from the builders, I'm talking about from the state, I'm all forward. I don't like the way Edgewater is growing right now. There were hardly any houses in Florida's shores when I moved here. We had dirt streets. We had dirt streets. We had septic tanks. Look at where we've come in this amount of time. All we're doing, all we're doing here is saying let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let's get into the system sitting manager. Let's get Glenn on a unit that what we want as a council. No, it's time for a change. Please, no public participation. That's all I'm saying. On a separate regardless, I think we need an assistant city manager because we had one before. We had one for years and I do not really clear why that position ever went away because we've been growing and there needs to be. No, it's not built. So that's I think that needs to be discussed either way. My question for Glen, if we move forward with the moratorium, do you support the moratorium? Yes. I just I have concerns with the timing. I know people aren't going to like some people aren't going to like my question with that, but I have concerns with the timing. We are in other places and other positions like we are about to have a change of council in shaking. I don't know. I just have a lot of thoughts about shaking everything up like in the middle of budget season right before an election. It just seems like weird timing. And that's one of my big concerns. I would like to, I mean, how do I say this? I mean, personally, I would like to see this table till Friday when we have the other meeting because, honestly, I would like to see how you respond to what was brought up today and the things and what your plans are to enact. I believe that's what Ms. Penny was asking. I mean, if you want to speak on some of that now, but I mean, there's concerns that came from the residents and plans that have been offered and I need to move moving forward. What's gonna change? And I mean, that's not just you. I mean, that's other departments too. I just, right now, I'm a little nervous that if we move too quick though I mean they'll get me wrong I don't I see a need in the future but right the second in the middle of everything we're dealing with I just I've got concerns with that that's what are your thoughts on having this discussion? We bring somebody else in. I mean, my focus right now is this moratorium. That is the end all be all. That's all I really wanted. That was my main focus that I wanted to bring up today. And I had the last two days. I have been calling him and saying, well, you support me on a moratorium. Yes, how do we get it going? What do we need to legally do? And he's been on the phone with Aaron going back and forth with me. These are the things we got to do and was gun-ho on helping me with that. And that that that moratorium's my focus. And I know he will support me on that. And I don't know. I would like to see otherwise what what other plans you have moving forward to address the resident concerns. I mean, I do and again with the assistant city manager, I think a lot of people's issues are that you're not boots on the ground. Maybe that's that person that we need to hire to have to be out there because I do, I see you answering phones and being in more of like a calm position, but not, I don't know, I think we need extra people in that office to handle everything because we did before. And now we've got residents and adding residents and adding residents but we haven't added the staff and that kind of goes for all departments too because I do believe that Randy's department is highly understaffed. I don't know if that's something I mean I know some of the other areas will bring in day laborers. I don't know can we bring in day laborers to get out there and help with the ditch maintenance because I mean that this is something that this goes off of the Glenn thing because I do have an upset as far as looking back at questions I've asked because when we went through budget season I did ask the question how much would it cost to do more ditch maintenance and the answer I got was we believe our maintenance is adequate and I wanted to scream and I'm sorry I didn't scream then, but I'm bringing this up again now and it's That's not adequate and I don't know if it's not adequate because we don't have the people We ask for more people or how we have to enact it, but I want plans and This is me given I don't know if it's me giving you everybody a chance to bring me a plan by Friday I know that's not a lot of time, but we gotta do something. And I don't know if we call somebody else in here tomorrow or I don't know, I don't think that they're going to have a plan right off the bat either. But at least I know right now you've been dealing with all the people and dealing with all the things and that you've got a better start of what we should have a plan come Friday then a random person off the street. I don't know. You broke. So I would like to know consensus or thoughts on that. I would like to see a plan as to what's going to transpire in the next few days before that Friday meeting because that Friday meeting we need to address this. I mean, well it needs to be addressed now but that will address them moratorium. I mean, there's other things I want to bring up because we got the issue. I know there are some of the zoning issues with early on development code. I think that needs to be addressed to you. I know there was a lady who was upset about the car wash because that's been in my head for since that comment came up because that's not even something that comes to us. Some of these are just straight zoning. So if people are allowed to do certain things and they go in and apply for it, they get it. Because trust me, if I had to say on that, I would have been going all against that car wash. But we need to look at how what of our zoning is and what people are allowed to do with the land that stop doing that. I mean, I was asking around and there was projects that may come up later that terrify me and I want to slow some of it down. And that's, I don't know, I guess what is everyone's thoughts or consensus on bringing it, having this conversation on Friday? I want to know what a plan would be. A plan of action that will be discussed at the next special meeting is fine with me. That's where I'll do it. On Friday, the 20th, the 20th. Six PM. Is there consensus for that? Okay. So this is tabled until Friday the 20th. I want to, I mean, I want it to be where, I mean, this is your chance. I mean, if you come to me, I mean, you can tell that there is some division on the dius, and if you come to me, you can tell that there is some division on the dius and if you come to me with a plan and I am not happy on that plan, I mean, and it's probably going to follow me and I just, but I want to see a plan and I cannot, I can't in good faith not give you the chance to present me one. And that's just kind of where I'm at. And then. I'm not speaking. You're not choosing this product. OK, he chose not to speak at this time for the record. Is there consensus for Friday? Big risk. I don't have a problem with Friday. Jesus comments his clothes. I don't have a problem with Friday. She says comments is close. I don't have a problem Friday. That's fine. I would also. I'm sorry. What can we change tomorrow that has been changed in the last couple of years? That's the only thing I want to say is, you know, we've been here on campus. I've been here two years. You know, some of you have been here almost four. And a lot of things have not changed. So it's great if things sort of change now, but why do we have to put the boots of the fire to have change? I mean, it just should be organic. And I feel that's what we're missing, in my opinion. I mean, we can talk about it Friday, it's fine, but we're just kicking the band down the road and I would like to have Glenn come to us with some ideas, but we should begin those ideas all the way around, all the time, not just when we're insisting on having ideas. Well, I was spoken tonight that maybe the manager needs to be more active with groups in the community. Several business owners and locals believe that we have a very reactive system of government instead of proactive. That's what I'm hearing throughout the community and that has to change. Please no public comment at this time. Please no public comment at this time Please no public comment at this time Boy is there right I do want it. I will I want can we talk more about the assistant city manager idea because I think that's let's Let's add that to the next agenda at the special meeting as well. You're in do you need a motion to table? Yeah, I think there should be a motion Is there a motion to do a national search at this time or is there a motion to table until Friday the 20th? Is there a second? So I can roll call. Mayor DePueh? Yes. Countswoman Gillis. Yes. Countswoman Bennington. Yes. Countswoman Dalbo. Yes. Countsman Powers. Yes. Okay. Table, we are adjourned.