And women, they got a bunch of stuff because I told my son and he's out on spinnative I'm sorry. I call to order this City Council workshop for March 3rd 2025 roll call. Mayor DePueh. Present. Councilwoman Gillis. Here. Councilman Thomas. Here. Councilwoman Dalbo. Here. Interim City Manager Thurman. Present. City Attorney Wolfe. Here. City Clerk's Latinick Present. Item two, discussion. Rolls responsibility in membership. Item two, a small business advisory committee. So what I would like in order to effectively and efficiently create new boards or committees, having specific rolls responsibilities need to be in the bylaws when the committee is created. So I would like to go over each one individually and have the council determine exactly the roles, responsibilities, the powers and duties of each committee. Then I can move forward with the resolutions to create and the bylaws to create the boards. That way there's specific purpose for them when they have their meetings and everybody knows exactly what they are supposed to do. And just as some examples like the Planning and Zoning Board, they, you know, under their powers and duties, provide recommendation to City Council regarding applications for the following. I'm not going to list all of them. Subdivisions and plaz, rezoning, annexations, text amendments, land use amendments. They review proposed amendments, Chew the land development code code make a recommendation to city council Another example the economic development board they Promote the city of edge water as perspective site for businesses and industrial development cooperate and assist cooperate with and assist interests that wish to develop new or expand existing businesses in the city of Edgewater. I recommend a budget to city council formulate plans for the use and development of property designated for commercial and industrial development. The very specific things that these particular boards are tasked with doing. So I just want to make sure for these that we do the same as far as making sure it's very specific way. They're meant to do. I'm very glad that we're having this discussion. I's been all on mind for several weeks and months now since I've been elected. I'm glad we're at a point in time to where we're collaborating, talking about moving forward. So I brought this forward, this workshop discussion, so I would go ahead and just like to state what I thought each board could do if the council's comfortable with that will collaborate and see the bylaws that we could come up with. The Small Business Advisory Task Force Committee, regardless, I think everybody on this board is small business friendly. Two of us is own small businesses. I do have a small business here in town. There's a lot of issues that small businesses have, a lot of struggles, and a lot of businesses in Edgewater share that same struggle. Therefore, I think it would be a great idea to create a committee that would meet quarterly. And in the bylaws, you have to be a small business owner for more than one year. You have to be a small business owner for more than, I would say, six months in the city of Edgewater at least. And you have to be committed to be able to attend the quarterly meetings, unless an excuse absence from the board is presented. They've done this in other communities, and the roles and responsibilities of that board would be to meet, say, hey, I had the struggle. We've both gone through this together, as small business owners. I don't think that the council is necessarily aware, because I'd say each and one of us up here on the board were in separate professions than several business owners in the community. I would also like to have in a way citizens comments but business comments come forward to that board and state any concerns that other businesses may have that do not have a voice on the board. And that is kind of where I'd like to go for that for the board to meet, create any kind of solutions that they may possibly have to move forward for some kind of resolution and policy decision that the City Council can enforce. They would make recommendations. Recommendations for the City Council to draft ordinances and then therefore come to us for a vote to see if we can help with any kind of ordinances, or if it's a code issue to have Jeff Laires' opinion to say the best way to get resolved is, and Jeff and I have talked before, a lot of these small businesses, one of the problems is, they really don't know what they can and can't do. So I think that that board could be at Crate of Leazon as well. For somebody on that board that they can relate to, to be contacted and say you need to go to this department for this information and what you can and cannot do with the board. So in the city of Edgewater, it's regulated and permitted. And can I have a banner now we can, the rules and regulations are different in exactly which department I go to because unfortunately, I mean, we're not scary people, but a lot of people are scared to come to their elected officials. So maybe having that committee would also create that kind of relaxed atmosphere for small business owners who are like-minded to ask questions to another fellow small business owner. And you can set the number of people on the committee, I think, and also what he would like a core of the committee. But P and Z is seven members, of in a quorum's five set of four Normally would just be the majority would be the quorum, but that's something you can decide I would recommend seven members The same as the planning is only bored because we want a different perspective and a different small business owner Any category in a quorum as a city manager or city attorney stated would be five. Yeah, the only thing about setting the COREM five instead of four is sometimes it's harder to get a COREM and four and four. So for clarification as far as the roles and responsibilities, Like the Planning and Zoning Board, you have to have submitted an application in order to have your request be put on the Board's agenda. How would people have to request to be on an agenda or are there here repeat that one more time. Would how would someone get on agenda like for the planning and zoning board an individual would have to submit a specific application to the development services department in order to be placed on planning and zoning board agenda agenda. How would these agendas be? Would it be, you know, their specific way, an individual or business owner would have to, something specific that they would have to do in order to get onto the agenda or because it kind of sounds like it would just be like open comments. can just in that that's now I would recommend that they go through you for a while because probably not me. I mean when you're talking businesses I mean that really would be like economic development. But you are the clerk right. Right but I don't do anything with the planning and zoning board. Well how would would small businesses have the planning and zoning board? What's that? I'm sorry? How would the small business fee advisory committee be in the planning department? Well, economic development. Okay, so this is going to go through the economic development. The economic development department. Is that what you're saying? So then that would fall underneath development. So this is correct. Okay, great to know. That should have been a step. So, okay, well then I would recommend the same process as far as being on the agenda for the building or the planning and zoning board. So, but like what type of applications would they have? Because like planning and zoning,'s very specific. Variants, annexation, conditional use permit, rezoning, sub preliminary final plans. Well, in my understanding that we would elect a chair for the committee. The committee would elect their chair. And therefore, I think that the chair could come up with the agenda for Robert's rules of order. But you have to have a mean. Okay. How do you recommend the agenda? I mean, I'm not really sure on this. Mr. Attorney, do you have an opinion? They could simply submit the request to the Director of Sorry development services And what would be your qualifications? I would submit them with a minimum of 12 no no not for the board members and I don't for agenda items So I mean they would just it would just have to be a business I would say related to small business questionnaires as far as I want to bring forward comments questions and concerns that small businesses have um That any kind of this is this is the voice for the small businesses in the city of Edgewater. So if a small business has any kind of questions, comments, or concerns they can go to this board and I would like the chair to also relay any kind of comments, questions and concerns to the board member or to the council members which typically I believe is done through you you, if there's any kind of sunshine violation or anything like that, that's typically the easiest way to do it. So I think that the agenda qualification would be, as far as an item lies, number is, if you have a specific comment, question, or concern, that you would like to bring to this board the voice you're picking up. What is considered a small business? I would say larger than 50 to 100 employees. What would you guys think? I wouldn't believe anybody else. I mean, anybody out? I guess just doing small visits like Boston, we all are 800 or 1,000. So they would not be eligible to sit on the board. I mean, they're not as small as they are. Right. But I mean, I would advise against, I mean, I think that the mom and pop stores are going to have separate comments, questions, concerns. Although we really would like to hear their questions, comments, concerns, maybe that could be more than 100 employees to sit on the board and the agenda items could still follow if you do have a large corporation. But as far as on the board, I'd really like to hear it toward small businesses say no more than 100 employees. So one year, so we're talking, it'll be one year of being a small business owner anywhere, six months being a small business owner in the city of Edgwater. Under a hundred employees. So more, okay. That's what I would recommend. And then to get on the agenda item, we go to the building department, and therefore that's how the agenda would be created through the chair of the committee who would oversee the agenda. Will the chair write the agenda? No staff. Yes. So the chair hypothetically would go to the developmental services with what they want to discuss. services will will write the agenda, but will the agenda have to be posted so long before the meeting and will the meeting be recorded? I think the meeting. Yeah, so definitely a sunshine law committee is still going to be making recommendations to the council. Yeah, so the agenda is what have be posted minimum of our policy is five days prior to the meeting. And the meetings technically do not have to be recorded. That is not a requirement of minutes have to be done. But we do record the meetings and the minutes are done. And I mean generally the chairs, all the other boards there's deadlines even with City Council deadlines for the agendas. I mean generally staff does all of that work. The chairs typically just from the meetings. And who would be here from the city to do what you do? Will you be here to do the take the minutes? No. So it'll be someone from environmental services that will be someone from development services. Someone who are developing all services. And the meetings will be recorded. And our policy typically is to record. Then we're only required to do minutes. So, yeah. Okay, then I assume that the board appointments and would not would go like the other boards we do, which is just everybody puts an application and everybody all turns around. Correct. So initially, I was seven board members. If we if we got seven applications, however many applications we got for the initial appointments, we would bring before city council. And then we would have each council person would appoint someone there would be two people that would appoint two because there's only five council members, but each council person would appoint someone and then yes, as the appointments expire and everyone's up for reappointment, it would alternate through, like, redo all the others. If you have two years or four years, a two year. Two years? Yeah, I'm going to go to the majority of your two. Because a lot of times, businesses, and the only qualification is the board members, they have to own a small business after only qualified. And I would recommend to also be a resident of the city of Edgwater. You want them to own a business envy resident? That's really limit the pool of applicants. I would suggest you can say there's seven board members. have to be residents don't necessarily have to be business owners um And then the others business owners In the city obviously your point though because um sometimes the we have People who and businesses that you live in you smarter or poor orange or even the county or county And when it comes to like boating on things they their hands are tied they can't boot so maybe Belish account It's limited to Belish account and then if the here's my other question if the small business folds. How would you guys like to handle that? Well, yeah, they would forfeit their seat if they're no longer a business owner or a resident. Which those are typical, I mean, all of the bylaws have, if a board member does not meet the criteria for membership, they forfeit their seat. So just to clarify, we said something about Volusia County, so resident of Volusia County, do we want to have one or two members that are specifically residents of Edgewater. I would recommend that. You have to be very careful. Under my last term, we voted to create the environmental board. And it died, I believe, because of lack of qualified members. No, it wasn't lack of qualified members. It was lack of direction. There was zero direction for what that board should be doing, what they should be hearing. And there were no bylaws created prior to appointing the members to the board. There literally was nothing for them to do. There was zero direction from the city council at that time. And that's why I wanted to have this meeting because we can't have a committee and then go, well, right, exactly. What are you gonna do? And then we had the board members trying to tell us what they were going to do. That was my point. And yeah, and the council creates the board and says, this is specifically what your duties are, what we want from you, what your purpose is and You know, then we can accomplish that and Been here 50 something years and usually You have the same people that come and participate. It's so hard to get people to participate. This would be good if they will come and participate. We currently have one application for all boards on file. One. no not for this just in general there's one application in probably two years or any resident to sit on any of our boards. Boys are consensus to accept the bylaws as forwarded do you have any kind of clarifications of user-by-convent? I mean it just kind of sounds like a business can contact the development services department and say I have an issue I want to bring to this committee and... How are we going to advertise? Kind of a free for all. How are we going to advertise what? Pardon me? How are we going to advertise what? Sorry. The board. So we put it on the website. It'll go on the newsletter. And we'll have it posted on Facebook. Let me add it to the resident information book once it's created with all the other boards that we have. I think it's kind of big. I don't know. I just think we should make it have more teeth. It's just, you know, and businesses will go to this committee for struggles. This is my news. Business committee, business community to the go to the board. The board will create solutions for policy and then come to City Council with recommendations. For example, if a business has an issue, I don't even know what this board would be dealing with. is if they have an issue with code, so instead of going to code enforcement, they would come to this committee and then this committee would go to code. If you have multiple businesses that are all having the same code issues, and it shows like there is, that's how I would take it as if we've got, you know, 10 businesses that are all approaching this board saying they're having the same kind of issues that they're running into possibly with the codes and signage and whatnot. And it's a prominent issue that's affecting our businesses that we give them a platform to come and bring it to them first so they can see, oh, this is a problem. We've heard from ex-Samanis small businesses because I mean, people might come to me, but they may not come to me. We don't all know who's talking. That is well, but they may not know about the Code Department in general and know about Jeff and my wife. So the chair or any members of the community could say, I dealt with that similar phase, any contact Jeff Lairsy at extension. For example, feathered flags and banners. But we didn't need a committee for that. Luckily, we had enough of business owners who came to all of us. Right. Through the years, this is not a new, that wasn't a new problem. Right. But I'm just concerned that, and I like this idea. I'm just concerned that, I don't know, let's just give it a shot. I'm just concerned that I'm not really have people in place that take care of things like this? By understanding what you're saying, Charlotte, if 10 people were having an issue with... I don't know, let's just give it a shot. I'm just concerned that we already have people in place to take care of things like this. By understanding what your science Charlotte, if 10 people were having issue with flags and we were already created a solution for that, if someone's having, this is having a same problem, go to the committee, the committee here is enough of it, they're gonna come to this council. So if we could interrupt, if we could keep in mind as far as this committee making recommendations to the city council regarding changes to the land development code, that is tasked to the planning and zoning board. They are tasked with making recommendations to the city council. So you really don't want to have this small business committee making recommendations to City Council on Land Development Co-changes when the planning and zoning board has been for at least the 25 years that I've been here. They have been tasked with that. So you want to make sure that any of these committees are not doing what other boards are already responsible for. I agree. I agree with that. I think that we're getting off hand here. I think that this board can also create a liaison that could go to Jeff, could go to the other departments and say, and have this information when I was a small business. How do we get out there and get this information out of what a business can and cannot do? I just think that there's a lot of small business owners voices that have a lot of concern that could possibly be solved through this board. What do we have to lose? Give it a shot. What do we have to lose? If we're gonna do it, maybe give it a one year probation and see what kind of return we have with volunteers, this will be a volunteer committee. And the commitment, because I know being a small business owner, your time is very valuable. And I appreciate the ones a quarter. That way they're not, they're not meeting every month which is more difficult. Four member, four I'm going to make four, that's fine. We don't four or five for the core, my head five down four. Four. I would like to, because these committees will directly affect especially development services, also code enforcement. You don't know if either of those directors have any input. Do you hear that if they do? Definitely. I just Ryan Solsis Development Services Director, Economic Development Director, just a little clarification on, so in this advisory role, this board will give recommendations, I understand that Bonnie's concern regarding the duplication, and they would give that recommendation would then be heard by the PC board and then the council is that, because to Bonnie's point, a lot of it sounded like land development code changes, which is fine as well, having multiple eyes on it, but I just wanna make sure that the process is set. I think that would be for staff to dictate if it needs to come to the City Council over the planning of zoning board. Okay. Well right now any application has to go to any text amendment change has to go to the planning and zoning board. And then ultimately ultimately City Council. Correct. City Council has a final side. Correct. Right, so I think what Mr. Solcissist is asking is do we want this committee, their recommendations for land development code changes to be to the planning and zoning board, then they make an additional recommendation to city council, for the land development code the planning and zoning board has to review land development code changes. So we can't bypass them for changes. They can't be that this other committee just there's no need to bypass but I don't think that I mean this doesn't even have to go. We're not stating that we're talking about one point of view for this committee. I think that yes, I mean, absolutely. There is no bypassing the planning and zoning board. There's a lot of qualified members that give the recommendation of the city council. Ultimately, of course, that's protocol, standard protocol. They don't need to break our standard protocol. I have no problem. And then it sounded also like so. I think I'm kind of clear. So I don't think there's any issue with the planning and zoning board taking it up with them being focused on small business matters as far as LDC changes. It's also sounded like there's just kind of flushing out like whether it's a pamphlet or the creation of a pamphlet or an identity for that the city of Edgewater maybe like a rebranding is small business friendly and here's all the resources and this is how you Specific to that is that also kind of what this committee. So maybe that's kind of like a end goal of the committee perhaps is to Generate this sort of document. I know the county has used committees in the past to kind of address matters specific. So I don't want to speak for you guys. I'm just trying to get the direction. Yes. I would think that's a good great recommendation. So when a business, for example, when a business is established, they come to, they get everything, they're ready to go. How will they find out where this board is? Would that be something that will be in their paper work? Because they go for a business, you know, decide they're going to invest here and put a business here. They go to your office? Yes. Finance? So what's finance being responsible for? For giving them information? No, so they typically go and get information regarding a business tax receipt. If someone's just going into a new space that's already built, and that gets reviewed by planning and zoning staff, the whole TRC reviews that application typically. As far as reviewing whatever the plans itself, I don't know if they would do that or not, but as far as conversing between departments, I don't think that'd be an issue. We've just added to the web page as far as it'll be under economic development. And yeah, so there'd be there. And that's how staff would direct them until this document is produced, right? And then that would be kind of maybe that's a landing page on the city's website, I don't know. But obviously that committee could create, you know, if that is what the role, this kind of public outreach rebranding goal is, then that committee could also kind of, you guys are forming the outline, and then they could get specific with it. Are there any further comments or questions? Do you have to do anything you need to add? The only comment I would make is in the bylaws where it talks about you're going to have a meeting every three months, I would say that should be the minimum. And then that way, if you guys are working on a project, it doesn't limit you to just every three months by bylaw, you can actually have meetings in between that time. But the three months would be mandatory. You can't go more than three months without a meeting. That's my only recommendation. Great recommendation. Okay. Good. Is there clear consensus for the bylaws? All else. Got make the move forward. Thank you. Okay, item 2B, the Vision Committee discussion. This is City Clerk. So, it kind of, we used to have a SEDS committee which was the comprehensive economic development strategy which was based off of that 2008 vision. In that document there was the visions, then the goal, how to accomplish it. And I know it was, is that Ryan, economic development board? Okay, I thought so. I wasn't 100% sure on that. So the economic development board was the SEDS committee basically. So to me, it kind of sounded like as far as the vision committee, that it was the same thing With when we come up with the vision we have the goals we have the implementation and Then we can monitor and track We are achieving those goals I think that was what you were Kind of wanting this community to be based on the last meeting. When you gave a bit of an overview? Yes, that's the general of it. You know, each resident received several surveys in the water utility bill. And we've had several vision sessions. We just spent $200,000 on our last one for this past year. And I'm sorry, because nowhere sits on a shelf. We've accomplished a few things in that vision. But I just don't want it to sit on this shelf to move forward with a plan that the residents were a part of and have feedback. I don't think that this necessarily needs to be a monthly board meeting, possibly not even a quarter meeting. I think that it should be established to where there needs no less than twice a year. I just think that it's something that we need to keep talking about and keep moving forward with a vision because right now I don't think we have a vision. I don't think it's a clear vision. And I think that the residents were unhappy with the way that the current, or current, that process was handled, although they were part of that. I think that we need to keep what vision we have moving forward and what we want to be in the future. It's just my thing. So we could basically take the SEDS committee. And I don't know, do we want to create a separate new committee or task that back to the Economic Development Board basically how the SEDge was. Because even though the economic development board meets monthly, they don't have to do the vision part, monthly, that could be every six months, however that ends up being. But why did that stop? So I don't really know necessarily that it stopped. I did not have an opportunity and I did want to to look and see when the last time the committee, when, well, the last time the economic development board did a review of the said document. Because I know it has been periodically updated based on the achievement of the goals. I it? Yeah, because you're on the economic film port for a while so yes that might have been yearly. So we found the council for two years and I don't think I've had any recommendation about how to move forward with the plan. I'm not arguing. I'm just just talking. Oh no no no I understand, I understand that. So they, I think one of the only, sorry, the city hall location was identifying it at 2008 plan. So what the SEDS document was, it was taken from the vision and the goals and recommended actions were all put into that document. And then that was what the board then reviewed annually or however often what goals were accomplished. So it wasn't necessarily that they were making recommendations or anything so that came from the vision that was put together by council based on the vision plan. Okay, here's are the things that we want to accomplish. And then they monitored it. And staff would sometimes make recommended changes that this is no longer feasible for whatever reason, along that nature. So it could be done by the economic development board and maybe annually isn't enough to look at where we are at and achieving maybe quarterly is too often, but maybe the twice a year. So it is. So it wasn't necessarily that they were then making recommendations to City Council because the goals and the vision was in place. So I mean that's just a suggestion because it was something that they were doing. I guess the biggest thing is collaboration. I'm sorry, I don't think we have just been 100 and what are we at? 162,000, I think the last time I looked at 122,000. Anyway, upwards. I'm sorry, I don't think we have to spend 100 and what are we at? 162,000 I think the last time I looked at 120,000, anyway upwards over $100,000 has a public opinion based on how we want to develop and grow. We are going to develop and grow. And I want to keep the conversation going about how the residents want to see their edge water be in a future, and how we keep manufacturing here, and how we keep the younger generation here. So I would really like the board to also keep public participation going. Mrs. Jones could have a great vision that nobody ever thought of rather than the council. That's basically my biggest concern is we don't need a consultant to tell us ways that we could strategically develop in the future for a vision that somebody may have. Financial is always a target. Yes, absolutely. We're financially constrained in thisality, but I just want to keep that conversations going because I'm afraid that we don't have an identity. We do have several ways of how to get to an identity. But I just really want us to be a place that is known all throughout Belichia County as far as how we developed and how we grew because I'm sorry, I could or not, the statistic shows we are still going to have 12,000 new homes that have already been approved almost as early as 1980. We are going to develop in those ways that we can target a vision without consulting out with our residents. Can I make a suggestion along those lines? Because it was last week or the week before that we decided to go ahead and do this workshop today so that didn't give me a whole lot of time. Can you give me a little bit more time to pull the seds, pull what the economic development board has done, find out if the consultant that we have recently hired actually provided a vision book like we have in 2008. See what we have done, see and that way we can look at, okay, you know, do we want to have the economic development board do it? Do we want to actually create another board? And from the vision, have the goals, not to say that the board can't look at other goals to implement. But that way, we're not redoing something that's technically already in place and just to make sure. And if we need to expand on it. And like I said, if the determination is, yes, we wanna do a separate committee that's fine or if here's what the SEDS committee did, here's what the Economic Development Board does. Do we wanna to have them do that and make sure annually, biannually, they do a review and bring a report back to council. I don't think so. I think there's like a dream, there's consultants. And it's not a reality. I've been here a long time, I've been through a lot of these business sessions, and everybody has a lot of opinion. If you took a shotgun, a shot double up buck over that wall, you get nine holes. Take it again, put another double up buck in there who get nine different holes. Everybody has a different opinion, a different vision. What we need to do as a council is listen to the public, see what they want to do, you know, and get a majority. I ask what I try to do when, I mean, I talk politics when I go and win Dixie or the dollar store or wherever, you know, people give me their opinion what they want to do. and I think we need to listen more and pay attention, but I think we need to listen more and pay attention. But I think the visiting is just to a consultant is a dream. They can put it on a paper all they want to. But you can't tell what business is coming here. A business says he has to think, well, that's a good place. I think my business will really do good in that little town. And that's what you're getting. That's where you got $3. I mean, I mean, I'm a dollar store we got. You got two car washes next door, and you got three auto parts stores next to each other. I know I mean there's what kind of vision is that but you know I just think I don't see how you can listen because I participated the last third the night we had a good workshop there was over 50 people there we're gonna get a results tonight on their papers. Okay. Everybody had a paper they put on the wall and you know I'll be really interested to see what they had to say but it's going to be it's going to be a lot of different times. That's my opinion. I will say that Kimlee Horn is updating the SEDS currently. Those have gone to the Economic Development Board and they should be back. I think they are due in April. Okay. So we're not going to get the results denied. No, no, this is for the SEDS update. Thank you. That would have been great to know before we did this workshop. So I think mine's right. I think the public doesn't have enough ways to participate. I know several people that have great vision that would even do a public private partnership in several areas that I think the public would really like, parks and business centers and the right areas. Everyone is going to have a different opinion like he stated, but we just need to open it up more and have the public participate as much as they possibly can. I would like that as well, my biggest, like, the economic development board already has their ability to and not a lot of major issues and I would just like if we were to move forward with another committee just have a more input from more citizens in different walks of life. I think that as far as when we're looking at some of these things and we're looking at input about the future of the city, we we are already. I mean statistically when I've looked at the economic, at least as long as I've been up here the economic development board has been, you know, somebody from the Tony States, somebody from Advent, there's a handful of businesses, it's usually somebody from some of these places and I would like to see, you know, somebody come up to these boards that have, they are giving the input of a mom at Indian River. And then an input of my other retiree. I would like to see some input from different walks of life throughout our city and what they want to see from moving forward in just different voices. My concern with this is we've spent all that money, as you said, on two division sessions. At what point do we say, and Kimberly Horn did a great job of bringing it down and we put it all these questionnaires and the residents who chose to interact they did. At some point we have to say stop. We have all the information that we can gather at this time. We can gather information from the next five years. Everyone's always going to have different opinions. At some point we have to say, OK, this is what we have. The chance was had to participate in it. But now we have to start moving forward. Council is having an issue, not an issue. But we're still discussing between us. We see things differently. So I think the two family-waring studies that we had, I think we need to hold on to them. They were they were bought and paid for the resident's spoke and I just if we want to do a vision committee that will possibly keep track of where we're at, the event council's library sure, you know, do you want to main street, do we want to help block? You know, we're still discussing that. So having another committee put more into it that we, I don't know, I just feel that we've been holding on to it since 2008. Let's do something. That's the point. That's why I really would like to bring this committee moving forward because all of us can sit up here all day long and talk about what we want to do like you stated. We all have different opinions and that's great. But I'm sorry, but 10 out of probably 15 individuals that I've spoken to in the community are not satisfied with the vision plan. And we have tried multiple times to sit up here and give our goals for the years and they have got nowhere. And you and I have both stated that with former management, every council member has, that it has gone nowhere. We have had this plan since 2008. None of us were on the council at this time at that time. Well, we had a recession. We had a lot of things occurred during that time, but where has it gone? And we keep just spending the money like you stated and spending and spending it. Yes, I agree 110% that we need to take what we have and work with what we have. But the point of this would be for the committee to come together as a joint, give their opinion to the board, the council. And if Ms. Jones, like I said, it has a great idea that we never would have thought of it's achievable. And you have the plan from 2008 and 2022 for a park avenue corridor. We can have the residents come speak to that board, see if that's really what they want or if we need to come up with a different committee without going to the consultants and have that come straight to the council. We hire consultants and hire consultants and we don't give enough public input. We don't listen. We give us an opinion and as many, I don't know, this can be, I think it's going to be confusing. I think the will establish this committee, it'll be seven people. They'll come in here with all these different ideas, which is fine. But then it's going to, okay, now what do we do? We have ABC, now what you have D. And every person, like you said, will have a different opinion. I just think at some point we have to stop. We've got a great study. I don't know. I think the vision, the vision committee is portable economic development. Okay, I'll come under them. And what, what we don't have a, we have Ryan as inter-mechanomic development. He swam. Completely swam. We're all swam. Unfortunately. How many people participated in the last visiting session? How many public members? Do you remember? Not only that. It was less than 100, right? No, there was more. There was more. Okay. We got 24,000 people in that war. We did two times because people said they didn't know. We did a second one spent more money. I just want to say that at some point we have to say, okay, you know, great ideas, but that ship is sealed and now we have all this money. I'll make it compromise. When is the vision session stated to be completely sealed, completed? That we have already been contracted out at the beginning or the end of 2022. You happen to know that in this results? So the SEDS or the whole vision, the NAN as a whole. As a whole, I don't know. I just know about the SEDS. I'd have to go back to the consultant. What I am most disappointed about is Mayor Thomas stated, I went to the vision session. In 2008, I remember being here as what I don't know, four years old. They had tables all over the public participation. They did not do a good job of public participation. And I think that the residents would even be happy with a moment of time for a workshop period or a special meeting had to be a special meeting where they could come in and voice what they want to see. Yes, I understand. We had to take what we have. We set it out as a whole to our, in our utility bill, but one or if an apartment complex doesn't pay for the water, HOA pays, they should have a voice as well. The main key here is public participation. I'm not satisfied with the way that the vision plan went. I'm not satisfied. And like you say, we had to take what we have and come up with a plan, but there's never a plan following. And so we could put a lot of residents and a lot of business owners on this community that may be able to make a connection for a public partnership to have the park out in a corner completed, or have a business park end of our community for both communities come together on both sides. I just think there's a lot of things that we're not discussing that we need to discuss for a vision in the future, but I will make a compromise if we receive the end goal of the vision in six months to revisit this topic. But I think that it's a very important topic and it's time as of the essence because we're still developing and I don't want us to lose an identity of the residents say that they wanna focus on river quality and river projects. I think that that's what we should do. It didn't stay. And that's where they a they did the vision about what do you want to see but they didn't see they didn't say where you wanted to see it like they did in 2008 like the city hall complex that we bought was in the 2008 plan I'm just dissatisfied and it sits on a show it's just my opinion and there wasn't very much public participation. So do you want to get the vision plan and then Council reviews it. Hopefully it adopts it and then have a committee to make sure to do the goals, monitor the vision. I don't think so. Well, I think the main thing is well that we discussed is there wasn't very much public participation. So I don't know how the contract reads per se, but I think there's a lot of things that should have been tightened and for public participation. And I don't know if we could still add it. Wonder if we could still add it. One of the things we say we have a great project. We'd like to put that in the plan. How would the contract read? I mean, I'm sure we could. There's just going to be additional costs to adding work to the plan. That's the big hold up of money. But I mean, one of the visions that the most prevalent provision, our vision that I've seen was to make park avenue look like Canal Street. How many in this room believe that will ever happen? Raise your hand. I would who, so I know Yes. It has to start with. It has to start with. Would they counsel? Well, I mean, we just don't we just don't have the room that can house. But we talked about we do. Propagies. That would be the start of living towards. Well, we started in 20, last year, I wanted to have a workshop to hold our vision and goals, and we got up here and gave a wish list, and then we got a sheet about how much it would cost. And I kept saying we've never had the conversation if that's what a park have me wants to do. Well, we did, and we moved forward with purchasing the land. The consensus was that that's what the council agreed to, but we had some concerns and voiced and that we want a public participation. And not all the goals even had the cost and stuff like that. We never really kind of followed up on all of those. So if we could just circle back just because of the time and we've got one more to discuss. So you want to revisit this one in six months and I'll get I would after the information that we get yeah that's that is we need dropping right right yeah for sure so perfect why is there consensus to table item 8B I'm sorry to be bring it back as soon as we get that information from that. I do a date to be a certain. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I mean, it's just a workshop. We don't have to do anything. So then the Community Task Force, that one I'm not clear at all what you're looking for on that one item to see community task force So what they do another community is that the city doesn't necessarily sponsor it But the city helps provide a location and help provide resources if they're in The qualifications for this board as well as I don't know about you guys, but when we had the hurricane, I was getting calls left and right. And one was from the Red Cross. I'm very disappointed with how the Red Cross handled things. They call 6am at four o'clock, what do you need in? It was never followed up with. Well, during that time period, I was helping assist, getting sandbags out and help assisting elderly residents and trying to take all the calls I possibly could. We need a liaison, which would be a community task force, with some kind of credibility for dealing with natural disasters, whether it's a retired EMS service or anything like that to communicate with a natural disaster resources. Jeff, I'm not saying that or Joe, that you guys don't do that, you do, and you do terrific job at that, but the different boards contact me and quite frankly or council members. And quite frankly, I think that during a time of natural disaster, that is a lot to keep up with and that's a lot to handle. The other point of the board would be all of us, Mike, I don't think you were on the council at the time, but the three members that were on the council at the time, us three were out there doing all the work that we possibly could. There's local organizations like the Rotary Club. I just became a member last Thursday and really looking forward to helping them. There's retired veterans. There's different grant opportunities for residents. They want to be a liaison in health. This would be a way and quite frankly I don't necessarily think that this has to be a liaison in health. This would be a way, and quite frankly, I don't necessarily think that this has to be a board, but quite frankly, a group that the city would approve to come together or establish a board, whichever way the council decides. But we have a lot of residents that are elderly, we're an elderly populated community, and their husband passed away, they can't move their grass, they can't clean their gutters, they need sandbags, and it's a lot for the council to handle without a great team behind us. And our staff does a terrific job getting ready and preparing for disasters disasters and it's not necessarily the council's job. I understand we just it's legislation but I think we need to establish a community task force that would be a group of seven individuals from different organizations that could help read our residents with the resources that they need and it would be the same thing if you want to get on the agenda as far as the probability to hear your case heard and why you need help, and that group would help get you to the resources, or the group could help establish volunteers for their homes, that the repairs that they would need. They do this in several other municipalities and it wouldn't cost a tax payers anything that would be strictly volunteers. And there would be one communication officer that would relate to the Red Cross that would be certified because there's several certified individuals that can communicate with natural disaster-related teams. And then we would have one designee for the City Council that that member would contact. You know offhand, the city that does this? Not offhand. The mayor of it was a town down south. We were at the Republican League of Mayors conference last month. We were discussing different community ways that we could get involved. And this is something that they did. I'll provide his contact information after the meeting. He called me time. I've been working with the community for a long time. I've been working with the community for a long time. I've been working with the community for a long time. I've been working with the community for a long time. I've been working with the community for a long time. I've been working with the community for a long time. and tears watching when this community was crumbling during the hurricane, y'all got together and you brought this community back together and I was in tears watching y'all on Facebook, you know, take the sandbags, take food, you went over and beyond the college, you know. I personally thank you for doing that. Thank you. I'll try one more time to finish this. But I wanted to ask a couple questions. So the city could possibly provide a location and resources and What would the resources be? Well the resources would be that we would have a board and as far as the board members they could say I know such and such like we could have a member from Habitat for Humanity, a designee from the rotary club, a designee from the ambulance department, that they could get a group together of all of us to go out and members in the community citizens who will volunteer and help our residents, or Habitat for Humanity may know several grand opportunities. It's a way to help our community or habitat for humanity may know several grand opportunities. It's a way to help our community members with resources, long-term services, but they have to meet certain criteria to meet that. I would, to be on the task force, but not only that to be heard, and for the task force for help. I believe that the qualifications would be 65 years or older or financially constraint. To receive help or to be on the committee. To receive help. No. To receive help. And. It demonstrates a financial need. Demonstrates a financial need. such reason and I'm not going to say the church out loud because this is a topic I want to bring up here in our city council meeting. There are several organizations that people don't really realize it will help with utility bills. It will help with sectioning housing vouchers. It is needed to be publicized in our community. So if the city has a committee that here's requests, then ultimately the city is determining whether or not a resident gets help. I think that it would be the board. I think that it would be the board. But ultimately that's the city though. If it's a city board appointed by city council. Well that's why I want to. That's why I want to. I wanted to discuss this and see if it would be better off to see if we could establish a volunteer committee, which would. No, all of our committees are volunteer but the air and jimmy thoughts on We guess first the city Determining miss miss Smith gets help but miss Jones doesn't but it wouldn't it all be volunteer help all volunteer We want a City committee making those determinations Rather than just providing recede you know having the availability of resources Yeah, don't we do that anyway? I don't I don't know necessarily that type of help. I mean, during hurricanes and whatnot, we do have a booklet that we provide with resources for help after storms and whatnot, not to say we couldn't elaborate on that and do in general, that if someone can't mo their grass, here's some groups that you can contact, that, you know, they have volunteers. What about emergency response? Because I can't handle it. This coming up here to do this again. I enjoy helping the people. I need help. And thank the Lord we had a great team last year, but it wasn't enough as far as elected official. And I'm not talking about the volunteer base that we did. I'm talking about communication with the Red Cross. And I gave them each of our directors' extensions and numbers and how to reach them. And they continued to call an elected official, said. And they say that that was their standard protocol. So if we keep giving the directors phone numbers out and it goes nowhere and they still reach out to say an elected official. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, we can't force the Red Cross to. I'm not finished yet. I lost my train is on but the the elected official could coordinate I think that a little bit more because a lot of it was coordinated on a weekend days that it couldn't be reached like I know several times and when to reach I had to run and they needed it sometimes two to four hours of information. I couldn't get it. I Mean I could get it through the city manager, but it was just hectic times and we were all worried about helping the community as much as they possibly Just my thoughts and opinions. What if we made a committee seven members and and then they created, each member created their own team. Let's say, like you recreated the high school group, okay. One guy recreated the high school group. Another guy is a coach. She recreated the little league baseball team or whatever, you know, what do you think about that? And having one stand by, you know, it meet her, it can't see them sick enough long. I don't know when they'd be one of me, but anyway, what do you think about that? I think that's a great opportunity and there's several members in the community like Tyler Peacock, the community coffee house, and Edgewater Lions Church. Boys' house of Merck. Exactly. Exactly. It has a lot of resources that want to help. And they just don't know who to help. And I understand if the residents are a little bit uneasy about reaching out for help. And I think that it would just be a start if they are in dire need of assistance. So each member would have his own team, you know, whether it be the boy's council, the league, the high school group, football players, clubs, whatever. So everything about that. That way you just wouldn't have seven people. You'd have seven people with seven teams. I think that's great and wonderful. And even if they can't provide teams, I think that they still can provide some great resources. Right. So, I think that it's a collaboration thing. And I don't know. I want to make sure asking this question as far as since it would potentially be city sponsored insurance if we would be liable for anything on our insurance and that could be possibly done. I don't know if the attorney or the party department wants to answer that but as far as if the city would be liable for any kind of mistakes that would occur, injuries, mistakes, anything to that nature. And it just curious. I don't think it's important not to put the extra burden on the city. Of course. Of course. And actually, what would happen? For a period. Yeah. Period. And it's not meant to do that. It's meant to be strictly volunteer. Is there any kind of feedback? I would have to check with our insurance carrier on that. I'm off hand. I do not know. I think community involvement has been talked about a lot tonight here. And I think that this is one of the ideas that I had. It could be followed through. What I do, I like it. If for some reason it becomes a liability on the city, this could still be created just not by council. It could be created at the Rotary Club. I mean, even if we would be liable and I could put, you know, risks cost, cost-risk to the city of Edgwater, this is a great idea and we need volunteers and meet people out there with boots on the ground for willing to help those who cannot help themselves. I agree. And the reason I wanted it to be some kind of city sponsored to get this is because the Rotary Club is wonderful. I love the Rotary Club. It's small inside. And everybody knows that this is a community space. And it's meant to be for all of the community members, not just one organization. And I'm a Rotary, and I love the Rotary Club, I have absolutely nothing to be able to say about them, to help anybody to the edge of time. But I thought that this would have been established if it was a liability or not. So I'm going to make the recommendation that we'll move forward with the guidelines that was set, that there would be one emergency coordinator, that the guidelines for the seven members would be, that they have emergency experience, or that they have resources that could be provided to help, by different organizations, or that an organization could appoint somebody of seven members and that the volunteers for each seven members, each member of the seven member committee could establish volunteers to help during natural disasters or if somebody has something that they need help within the community such as an overgrown lawn or something to that degree and the agenda would be set by the protocols of 65 plus or financially constructed if it's not a liability on the city and I'd hope to that answer of five and next council. Sounds good to me. Even when 65 and older, it may even be like candy cap. I mean, it could be even younger. So maybe we can expand to who could apply. As a great point, candy cap as well. Any kind of disabilities, let's correct that. Any kind of disabilities or if the family has some kind of disabled or not able to help be it provided that they have a special need. So many in the family has a medical condition or something that I do. A member of the household has a medical condition. and it would be up to the committee to decide if they can or can't help? Yes, or if they could provide them resources. So if nothing else their committee would be to provide resources for that family to get with the mic? Correct, because I don't think that a member is going to ask for help. They'd be more comfortable to ask for help in front of that committee than the city council. Is there that recommendation? I would like to see if that's going to be a liability in the city. Well, that was a recommendation. Say, here back in the next city council meeting, if it's not going to be a recommend if it's going to be a liability Yeah, it's not and more So to be clear we're going to revisit item 2b once a vision is completed and Item 2a with a small business advisory committee. Can you establish what we got with that, Mississippi? So small business advisory committee, I will put together the bylaws and the resolution creating the committee. Seven members, four is a quorum. Small business owner for at least one year. Small business owner within the city of Edgwater for at least six months At least one of the members to be a resident of the city small businesses considered less than one Me quarterly and then So they'll be able to bring forward comments, questions, concerns related to having a business within the city. And they can bring land development code changes to the planning. So any board that's a city council, we're going to work on rebranding, revamping business information to be able to have out there for businesses, potential businesses, to go to understand where they need to go, how they can accomplish everything, whether it's a sign permit, business tax receipt, or other resources that we'll look into. Okay, great. We are adjourned. you