We have any where we just It's not on this agenda so they're gonna just do the joint meeting and then that'll adjourn and you'll go and she regular CRA meeting with the Pledge of events in practice Thanks everyone for showing up. Thank you staff city CRA. I wanted to call this special meeting to have a conversation about the current situation in Tallahassee with the CRA and like to start off with Ms. Rosmilk, you can kind of go over and give a short overview about what's going on with Tallahassee with this bill. The potential future of the CRA could happen and we couldn't happen and then I'll jump into it. Sure. Catherine Ross-Mell with Lewis Longman and Walker here on behalf of the CRA and just for clarity this proceeding is between is both the City Council and the CRA sitting together. So with that in mind I'll just give you a brief summary. There are two bills currently in the legislature that are moving forward. That can affect the future of the CRA. One is House Bill 9991. There is Senate Bill 1242. And both of them are very similar. There's one notable difference, but they propose to view a number of things that would affect CRAs generally. They would prevent new CRAs from being created, they would sunset existing CRAs no later than 2045, and it would curtail some of the activities that CRAs can engage in. This particular CRA here in Boyton Beach is already going to sunset in 2044, so that provision doesn't really affect the CRA. We obviously already exist, so ban on creation of new CRAs, not particularly problematic for us. However, there is a provision that if passed would prevent CRAs from initiating new projects if they are not started by October of this year. So there's a slight difference in the House and the Senate bills on that language. The House bill specifies that a new project is something that is not in the budget for the existing CRA in October 20th, in the fiscal year ending October 2025. The Senate bill does prevent CRAs from initiating new projects, but doesn't describe new projects as only those budgeted line items. So the bill is much more of a priority in the House than in the Senate at this point. It's traveling more smoothly through the House. The House has stated that it is a priority, but this House also has an unusually large number of priorities this year, and it's not been made clear where this falls on that list. the House, the last committee it's set to go before is the Commerce Committee. They're going to meet in week six, I'm sorry, week seven and eight, we're currently in week six. The Senate has the last meeting of the committees. There was a lot more concern expressed with the bill. And Senator Pasadomo, who's chair of the Rules Committee, has taken a vocal interest in this bill. As you all are aware, the CRA is hired a lobbyist from my firm. On this effort, the city also has a lobbyist. The FRA has a lobbyist, the League of Cities has a lobbyist and several other CRAs also have a lobbyist. They are all coordinating as a block to respond to the potential legislation. the current position of the block is advancing, working to advance a version of the bill that was originally drafted by the FRA. This is similar to the Senate bill except that it removes the prohibition on initiation of new projects and replaces it with a provision that would prevent CRAs from engaging in event type activities, festivals events, that kind of thing. So the current efforts are moving there. Those are there's interest in moving it in that direction. We understand both from the elected to end from the lobbyist. And so that is sort of where that's being leveraged. But that's where it is right now. To be clear, if this bill does pass, the CRA does not dissolve in October. I know that there's been a lot of writing on that front. That's not how it's currently set. It's just that there would be a prohibition on undertaking new projects. So with that, that's kind of a summary of what's happening and where we are. I'm happy to answer any other questions to the best that I can. And if I need to try to get a hold of our lobbyist, I can do that too. Perfect, thank you, Catherine. So I'm hopeful that this bill gets amended before it's finally passed or maybe it doesn't pass, but in the case that it does pass as it's written now, I think it's crucial for this body to identify a few projects in our CRA plan and our strategic plan that overlap that we can utilize the CRA and the city's joint partnership to accomplish a strategic plan a CRA plan are great, right? But if they sit on the shelf and we don't take action, they're useless. And so I want to make sure that we're working collaboratively to get that done. In the CRA plan, you talks about affordable housing, it talks about infrastructure, it talks about the waterfront quite a bit. In our goals and principles, page 32, 33, it mentions the waterfront preserving the marine industry, the marina, allowing for public access to the water and identifying new opportunities to produce waterfront access three to four times. More than it talks about affordable housing in those goals and principles. Recently, over the last five, ten years, we've seen a lot of allocation of $tif dollars to high density housing. And I think it's time for this body to take a shift and focus on commercial development which doesn't produce the same amount of Problems that people create right we have over 2,000 apartments that were approved that are coming into You know just in this one square mile around city hall right that's That's about another 13,000, you know gallons worth of 13 tons sorry 13 tons worth of trash. That's 2,000 more trips daily 10 to 15% increase in calls for service for our police and fire fires The city bears the responsibility of budgeting and Producing those calls for service and as we know the CRAs is hand tied on what they can and can't do as we've seen what's going on with Tallahassee now. And so I'm asking my colleagues to look at a couple things. Look at our CRA plan altogether removing the MU core, MU high density in the plan. That way, long after we're gone, we can make an impact. There's a lot of things that have happened, live low goal, preemptions by the state that we can't control. We can't fix the past, we can't change the past, but we can do is shape the future. And I think it's crucial that this city has an identity, you know, similar to what Boca has in Meister Park, Delray has an Atlantic Avenue to create a place for people to get off I-95 to come to Boydton Beach. Why do you get off I-95 to Boydton Beach? I think that we have overlooked our number one asset, which is the waterfront. And optimizing that we're the closest to the Gulf Stream on the whole eastern seaboard. This has been a fishing community for as long as been around. And I think we've missed the opportunity to really activate and double down and promoting that and producing some form of destination tourism, which is also part of our CRA plan along with destination commercial. And so what I'm asking, you know, is we identify where we could potentially have, you know, more waterfront access between the CRA in the city, you know, whether that's a marina, activating some form of waterfront, identifying public or private parcels that we could look at to achieve this and then also a hotel. We have a lot of 55 plus communities, not just the West 95 but the East of I-95. I think it's crucial that we provide whatever incentives that we can to bring a hotel to the east side of Boydton Beach, right? You know, we have the Nova Inn, which is under construction, formerly the homing inn. We have the Grand Old Boydton Beach in on I-95, three stars, right? And so I think it's crucial that we provide, or at least work towards, and partner, to produce a better product for our residents, better product for the city, and better product for the local economy. And so I'd like to hear from my colleagues, you know, what you guys think about this, because I think it's important that we start this conversation now with worst case scenario, the CRA, you know, potentially not being able to fund projects after October 1, right? That's why I wanted to call this meeting immediately. Get this process started, because I don't want, I don't want, you know, time to pass, we not prioritize this this and we miss an opportunity to focus on what's written in our strategic plan and our CRA plan. So my proposal is to have staff and CRA work on these initiatives and identify these projects at some level where they're in writing legally so that we can utilize the funding if you know worst case scenario happens in Tallahassee with this bill moving forward so Anyone else have any comments Catherine do we know I haven't seen what the FRA is. I haven't been able to track anything down. I checked their website and checked all the emails that I've received from them. What is your feeling or what are your thoughts on it? Because I know you and I have talked about this also. Moving forward as far as do we just need to budget and have a budget line item to preserve our ability to initiate a project or do a project because that's something that's very unclear when you look at these bills is what does it mean when you say Because we have a grocery store on our budget, you know a proposed grocery store Money set aside for proposed parking garage and we have all these the these monies that are allocated that we've been allocating every year For different projects and I just want to make sure that we are doing it right and I know that at this point we're probably still too early to know exactly how we're doing it right but I just wanted to get your input and what your thoughts are from dealing with this the FRA on what they're proposing and what they're how they're explaining it to the CRAs as far as preserving our abilities to do what we do. Sure. So it's almost two different questions, so I'm in a treat it that way. The FRA bill does remove this language about not initiating new projects. So if their bill goes forward, then that's simply not a concern. The main impact to the CRA in that case would be, it would remove the CRA's ability to work on events, essentially festivals, that kind of thing, which is something that our CRA participates in. But that would be the primary impact on us. If this FRA bill does not go through and some form of the bill goes through that puts a damper on initiating new projects or debt. It's going to depend a bit on the language and you hit the nail on the head when you said that it's probably a little bit early to tell. But I can kind of game it out for you based on the two existing forms. So under the House bill, it actually defines new project and it says any project for which there is no appropriation in the community redevelopment agency budget for the fiscal year ending September 30th, 2025. Or which we have not retained appropriated funds under some. So for our existing contracts, our existing TIFF agreements, those types of things, those are untouched, those remain and we have a contractual obligation to continue those, those will not be impacted. What it might impact is our ability to certainly to take on anything that's new that we haven't done before, no new grants, anything like that, or new forms of grants, you know, typically we, as the CRA, have a fairly broad buffet of methods that we can use to achieve our ends. And so this would limit that to some degree. What is not entirely clear about that definition is how broad a budget could be made to cover existing sets of activities. CREs in general are talking about what that would look like and it would probably look something like simplifying your budget and being a little bit less specific to allow your existing initiatives that you all intend to keep to move forward. Certainly if there were specific line items that we wanted to include in a budget we could do a budget amendment to make sure that there's an appropriation that exists. But it is a little bit, the language is a little bit uncomfortable with how the budgeting process actually happens. And so that's not abnormal with legislation. That was clearly drafted. But that is where it stands. On the other hand, if the Senate bill moves forward and it doesn't have this budget language, then that gives the CRA a much cleaner path in that the CRA could take legislative action to announce what its existing projects are to set that forth. And then we could work under those umbrellas moving forward as I read the legislation as it exists now. If this goes through, there will be great areas. And so our goal would be to set you up to do the maximum that you would be allowed to do. And then as it gets narrowed by Attorney General opinions or lawsuits or bad actors or whatever, we would try to adjust. So that would, I assume, be the goal moving forward, subject of course, your direction. So just to kind of recap, if the FRA bill goes through, we don't worry about adjusting the budgets of the project list. the FRAA bill does not go through and a bill is passed that contains this kind of limiting language, then we hustle for the next two months to put in place what look to us to be the most appropriate measures at the time to make the CRA be effective because it will continue to exist and it will continue to collect funding, including from the county until it's on set. And so the assumption would be that the taxpayer money should go back to work. So we would take it from that stance. Okay. Thank you, Catherine. Yeah. I mean, I thank you Commissioner Jerkin for calling this joint meeting. I think it is very important that we start having this conversation about, you know, and I've spoken to Tim about this and spoken've spoken to city staff, about really being a little bit more collaborative and how we seek and I know that there's a clear definition as far as floor statute on separating out CRAs but at the same time I feel like we really could be a lot more collaborative and how we work with the city and so I would like to see more collaboration on how we can help each other because at the end of the day I've said this a ton of times. At the end of the day they don't look at whose logo is on the shirt, everything that we do as a city and a CRA is the city. And so anything the CRA does represents the city and anything the city does represents the city. So I think it's very important that everything that anybody of the city is doing is doing it in a collaborative way. We're all working together to make sure that we all look good and that we are all providing our residents with everything that we can to, for their enjoyment of life, for our enjoyment of life, for peace and all that stuff. So I am all for working together to come up with projects and focusing on the marina. I have said it at meetings before that I think we are not focusing enough on federal highway and looking at businesses that are available in properties for sale along federal highway and that you know to really look at our you know federal highway corridor and and Marina district and really focus on on projects that you know that the city and the CERA can collaborate. So I am all for that. I think if we, you know, we have, I feel like we have developed and projects under our belt and now we can really focus on what the, you know, the fun things that people can then enjoy when they come here. So I think that's a great opportunity for us to, you know, to look at this budget and really focus on projects and work together as the CRA and the city. And so if that means that we call more of these joint meetings so that we can have these discussions on moving the city forward, I'm full support of that. So thank you. Chair, I'm up, or hey, do you have any comments? Yeah, just a lot has already been said, but you know, we have a very successful CRA and we have a lot of projects going on. and so I'm wondering, and since you said, Kathy, that the wording is still being misogized. I would just, and since you said, Kathy, that the wording is still being massage. I would just wonder and have you talk to a will, you talk to someone to ask whether or not there will be exceptions or waivers available for CRAs with proven success and community support. As far as, so, there have been discussions that have been had regarding the best way to sort of weed out the CRAs that have not acted in accordance with their, with their mandate and the CRAs who have done a good job. There has been no consensus reached on what that language would look like and what the standard for that would be. So there is no current proposal for that that's being workshopped that I'm aware of. Other than like I said that I know those discussions are being had, I can look into that further and get back to you, but amongst the block of CRAs that are working together as a law being effort. I don't think that there's any particular sentence or clause that's being advanced for that purpose and no other particular waiver and play right now. Okay, thank you. On Senate bill 1224, has there been any input from the medical, the emergency medical professionals, or house bill systems, or community health boards about the potential benefits or risks? As far as I know, the medical community is not involved in this bill in a particular way. I'm not sure if there's a particular interest there that I'm not aware of, but I have not heard a word about that. The League of Cities is involved in taking the same position that we are and the Florida Redevelopment Agency, but that's at other organized groups as far as I'm aware. League of Cities? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Board member Cruz. Thank you. I would say it's thank you for bringing this to our attention. I think it's a positive conversation to start planning ahead of being proactive. As we know, we have to wait a few months more for it to be finalized. But I do support having potential lists of things that we can prioritize or projects or things of that nature. I think it's always good to be proactive. Thank you. I'm sorry. Can I ask one more question. Catherine, you mentioned Win House Bill 991 was up week seven week eight When is the next I know it's before the the Senate bill 1242 is before the rules committee do you know when they meet? They meet right up until the end and I was speaking with Chris earlier today So session ends at the very beginning of May May second and it could go right up till the end They the end. They're one of the last to meet. Rules and appropriations are among the last to meet. So we would know before the May CRA meeting or, but in terms of an actual date, it's not available. Okay, thank you. Yep. I appreciate the support. And again, maybe I'm jumping. They're going a little bit, but I definitely don't want to miss the boat, no pun intended. And I think it's important to get ahead of this. And so just to be clear, I would like to direct staff and CRA to work together, identify sites, identify funding mechanisms, to identify these projects and hopefully propose a budget amendment if we need to, and where they overlap between the strategic plan and the CRA plan, starting with Marina, labeled in both hotel labeled in both, and also destination commercial. I think that's, again, like I mentioned earlier, that should be the focus, right? And so, you know, we have the ability with TIFF, we have the ability of land acquisition with the CRA, we have the ability of bonds as well. And so, I think we need to have a measurable plan. I'd like to do this again in a month like Commissioner Kelly had mentioned. Come back, see what we have so that we're holding ourselves accountable, see our A's holding themselves accountable, cities holding themselves accountable. So this just isn't lip service, we're actually getting things done and identifying what we can do. Obviously things could change, bill could be amended, You know, we don't have to move this quick, but if everyone's okay with that, you know, that's my clarification. I'm good. Does anyone else have any comments? Hi, my cup. Okay, if not, we may have a motion to adjourn the meeting. Sorry, if I just may for the benefit you are we can take by consensus your directions for CRA and staff I can you just good everyone to agree That we will that we will Work together towards that front and we'll present to you at our respective may meetings or if another joint meeting is called the Results of that collaboration and the current status of the legislation. Is that correct? Alright. Everyone's nodding. Okay. Right. I got it on the nods. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Is there any question? the results of that collaboration and the current status of the legislation. Is that correct? Everyone's nodding? Okay. Right. I got it on the nods. Thank you. Is there any questions about anything that I can clarify about what we're looking for? No, we're clear. Thank you. I'm just fine. Yeah. And then, yeah, I think I look forward to this collaboration. I think it's good. It's new. You know, there's a lot of stuff. You guys are neighbors right across the street on the fourth floor. But I think having these joint meetings and having that accountability piece is huge. We've been without a permanent CRA director for over a year now. And so I look forward to this continued collaboration. How do that may look? Thank you. Motion to adjourn. And I have a second. Second. Okay. Commissioner Turkin moved to adjourn the meeting. Commissioner, I mean sorry, board member Turkin moved to adjourn the meeting and board member Kelly second the motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Yes. So we are going to take a five minute break before we begin the next community redevelopment agency meeting so we can change out our staff so just be patient with us for a few moments.