Is that what you're saying we're missing information? As to the rates. Yes, I think we need more information on the rates. If we don't have it, then I don't think we can discuss anything. Mark, can you kind of walk us through B and you're concerned about adjusting the open space and parking bonus? What does that mean? The parking bonus was you you Thank you. Good evening everyone. Today is Monday, November 7th. And this is a October 7th excuse me, because I'm wishing it's November 7th. What we're thinking. Today is October 7th. Let me hear myself twice. That's not good. This is a town hall regarding the bond questions that are the, sorry, the various city charter referendum that are on the November 5th ballot. And we are having some feedback here, but thank you. This is intended to basically help inform the public on the three questions that are in before voters, for possible consideration. Mr. Manager, do you want to introduce the items? Yes, sir. I'm here. We have a short PowerPoint that'll go through the three questions and just a little bit of background information. And certainly, as last time we had opened it up for any questions and answers. So we'll go through this first. As you know, these questions are on the ballot for November 5th. For those that are voting on election day, but as we understand ballots are out already for early voting. First question is, and this is the actual question, which is the enactment of a purchasing limitation by ordinance of the City Commission without reading the question itself. The authorization for the manager to spend dollars without going to the commission has been set back in 2000, the year 2000, and it is set at $5,000. Anything over $5,000 will require city commission approval. So the question to the voters is shall the charter be amended to allow the commission to set the city manager's purchasing limitations by ordinance at a public hearing at the commission instead? So if the voters say yes, the commission would then add a commission meeting to readings and act an amount, that over time you could amend by ordinance instead of a charter referendum. And so why was this brought forward? Certainly given the time that this has been in existence since 2000, it is something that requires a lot of agenda items for what we consider low cost items, but because of the limitation of the charter. So it may provide greater flexibility and efficiency in our process. Any changes that would be deemed appropriate at a later date, many years later the commission can do that by ordinance instead of having a citywide, I'm sorry, referendum. We feel that it is going to kind of bring this to more current times as it relates to the purchasing limit and you see cities our size that could have between a city manager authorization between $25,000 and $50,000. So you see why this $5,000 is really in our opinion a dated amount. So that's why this is before the voters potentially for their consideration. The public will continue to be involved in the process because when you So that's why this is before the voters potentially for their consideration The public will continue to be involved in the process because when you set it It'll be to the public hearing to readings and anytime that you set it or change it in the future The public will be able to also weigh in at that time Okay questions of the council and vice-mere The only thing that I think is important to know with this is the threshold at this point is so low that even something is minimal as ordering office chairs As to end up with us and so what it ends up doing is it backlogs actual work that the commission has to do That is why it's really on the ballot because instead of having us do the work of the people we're actually stuck in atman work. Yeah, that's correct, Vice Mayor. And this was identified as an efficiency initiative given the amount of staff time that a one-agent item may take from the department to our city attorneys to deputy manager and myself. So imagine the additional costs of that time. So that's what I was identified as a potential update to our charter. Okay, I think we can move on to the next one. So, referendum number two is for your term of office for city mayor, Commissioner Leibman. I brought this forward as a policy initiative and the question before the voters that should the charter be amended to set the mayor's term consistent with the city commissioner's terms of four years beginning with the 2026 South Miami general election. Currently the mayor's term is two years. Notwithstanding the commissioners being at four years, commissioner Liebman have brought this forward, feeling that it's appropriate to align the mayor's term with the four year term of city commissioners. So this would extend it, but it wouldn't begin until the 2026 general election. Basically, the policy initiative that was sponsored was under the priority of aligning the mayor's term with commissioners term and therefore providing a little bit more stability and reducing the frequency of elections. And that was the initiative and the points that were made on that day when commissioner Leibnett had brought this to the commission. In this case, I don't know if there's any other comments or questions as it relates to referendum number two. I have them. Anyone? No, okay. Okay. So the third one, so let me referendum number three. This is a bond referendum for improvements to infrastructure and property for parts recreation, public works and public safety. The question is on the screen right now, and in essence, it would be allowing the city to issue general obligation bonds, not exceeding 65 million, and one or more series, maturing not later than 30 years from the date of their issuance. And this would be supported through adverloirum taxes, levy by the city and the purposes of acquiring and constructing and improving equipping various capital improvements, real property and infrastructure for parks and recreation and public safety. This question revolves around general obligation bonds which are basically secured by the full faith and credit of the issuing municipality, in this case, South Miami, they would be paid back over time. These projects are, these programs are typically a 20-year program where some of these purchases in our projects come in to play throughout the life of that 20-year. This is not necessarily an initiative that would borrow $65 million on day one. As it is, some of these projects would require a lot of planning, design, and engineering and permitting before you would even go to market. So you typically see what's called tranches meaning there may be series of bonds over the life of the program 20 years whenever you have certain things that are ready to be purchased, replaced or acquired. So this is a typical financing scheme for municipalities and part of this is the analysis of what is our capacity to take on debt and based on a multitude of factors that come into play. For example, potential new revenues from growth from the city, a taxable value that grows over time, retirement of debt as the city has it's parking garage debt. When you retire that debt you free up that debt service and those payments that are being made and they can be repurposed. So all this is taken into consideration when you're looking at a bond program and we use our financial advisor to do that analysis and take a look at what are our revenue streams, that service payments and when some of these may come in into play from a financing standpoint. And so the mayor may not require a tax increase. In fact, that is part of the consideration. You may be able to design a program of which you monitor that over time. The approval does not, the approval does not approve projects day one necessarily. It approves the authorization of the tax basically and there'll be other commission meetings where you would be discussing projects and we have a list of ideas of which a commission may be discussing October 15th. But over time, the public will still be involved in public hearings as it relates to the commission discussing type of projects, authorizing certain issuance potentially. If there's an authorization up to 65 million, you may look at a bond program initially or a bond issuance of 10 million to say a number. And those are the projects that would move forward. And you would authorize that in our FAA, our financial advisor would work towards that and add a later date throughout the life of this program. You may add another $10 million for another tranche, and that's how this program works. So it's not all done on day one. Could there be a program somewhere that does borrow all the money on day one? Yeah, you could have a specific project of which pretty much all the money goes to that. And you may do that over the two to three year construction period. But in this case, there's a series of ideas of which would provide this program over a 20 year program. Some of the ideas and bond program initiatives, I'll call them initiatives, they're not projects, you have not necessarily approved that yet, but some of the ideas range, you know, from a parks and recreation, public works and public safety, and these will be discussed by the commission and given further direction to staff. But some of the categories you see, you may have some land acquisition, why, as our needs, and we're going to be embarking upon a 10-year master plan, we may identify certain deficiencies in our gaps, either in programming or green space or areas of the city that do not have enough green space. And so these funds could acquire land for that purpose. We have allocations potentially for art installation, a potential improvement to a little house preserve from restoration and improvements. Aquatic center, pool resurfacing, potential improvements are our current community center, and a potential expansion given that the community center has been around for quite a while. And right now we have a lot of programming that prevents additional uses and we understand that if we had more space from a fit dancer gym standpoint they'll probably be full tomorrow if you will. City White Park's master plan implementation so once we go through a master plan process in this next year those will identify some opportunities that that will touch a parking recreation throughout the city. And so as a general line item for that, possible redesign of improvements for things like a specific soccer mini-pitch. And then you have some things that are capital replacement, like fleet replacement. And there's a conversation about access to blue ways which is maybe some launching pads in canals for kayaks and so forth. We have category of police and then maybe provide vehicles that could support some of their operations and then from my infrastructure and beautification we have some projects that we're dealing with right now in Manor Lane Colbert replacement, Colbert replaced one of the broad canal, a bridge of which we have one lane that's closed, and this is infrastructure that has been around for a long time, but funding to repair and replace has not been allocated by the city, and it really exceeds our capacity from a pay as you go standpoint What some of these projects would do if they're financed through a bond program would allow that the general money that we bring into our Capital improvements program will still pay for other capital improvements But some of those are are being delayed as a result of having to pay for some of these on a pay as you go Which really exceeds the city's capacity so very traditional to for some of these on a pay as you go, which really exceeds the city's capacity. So very traditional to fund some of these and finance them. And the life of these assets would certainly be longer than the financing. So you don't want to be financing something that has a life of two years over a bond that's 10 years, for example, certainly. So we would want to match those up. We have place making implementation as the city commission has embarked upon a process of the consultant for place making and town center improvements. Sunset drive, not only town center but on this side of the city hall side of sunset drive. So that study is ongoing. We're going to have a number of recommendations but we know that those improvements certainly are much needed and would be costly because it's really bringing in improvements that have not been done or quite some time. In other general roadway lighting improvements that could be part of this. And lastly from a public work standpoint there's some capital needs. Some of the operations need to be supported by the fleet replacement. Again, depending on how we fund this, if some of it is financing, because some of the operations need to be supported by the fleet replacement. Again, depending on how we fund this, if some of it is financing, because some of these vehicles we try and keep, we have some that are 15 years old. It would free up our capacity to do other capital improvements from on an annual basis. But we haven't really stretched ability to replace our fleet and maintain it current with a pay as you go model Which is what we've done this far and then there's a placeholder category as you know We're having a discussion of city hall and police headquarters and the redevelopment of city hall and That'll those negotiations will be taking place and starting believe this week There's a placeholder there for about six to 16.1 million. That's not the full amount of the estimated amount that City Hall would cost, but it's a placeholder that could help finance a good portion of that through a bond program potentially. So these are ideas and you're going to be discussing a little bit more and there have been questions about how would the city spend money and so therefore this illustration is provided as to possible bond initiatives. That's it from a content standpoint and certainly wanted to open it up for you as it relates to anything further you want to add and any questions that you may have and or the public. Colleagues questions? I can. I think the only thing I would add is obviously that list of projects. Two things. One is its priorities today. I think for the public's benefit, we should be clear that those priorities could change over time. And this commission or subsequent commissions could rearrange the priorities list. I think depending on what the immediate needs are and also what opportunities are in the marketplace to leverage third party funding. So for me, one of the important opportunities that approving this does is allow us to get more money from other sources, particularly state and federal money by showing our ability to kind of match that funding. So I think the $65 billion in my mind, we set it so that we could set a number that we could possibly build in over time within our existing budget series structure, but would also provide enough money that it would provide a substantial match for other sources. That's the only thing I really had to add by way of comment. Colleagues, if you have anything else you wanted to share, happy to hear it. I was going to touch on the same thing, the amount of matched dollars that we have available. I was just going to touch on that because we didn't speak about that, but that's all for me. Sorry, just want to get feedback. Okay, I want to touch on a couple of things which I've been asked so that at least we have that at the forefront. I've had people ask me, how did we get to 65 million? Because it's in transparency, it's been a concern for me and it's been actually something that's been asked of me. But I think maybe before we get to that, we should clarify what we voted for in August and what that means because we did change the charter. So in doing that, can we clarify what that means first? So that when we have this conversation, we know what that is. So let's, I think to explain what happened in August, let's assume that this referendum item fails, that does not garner majority support we could still borrow We require four out of five votes If this proposal were to pass I think the difference with the charter chains that was passed in August is that we could borrow Under this authorization with three out of five votes because it would have been approved by the public. That's the main distinction Okay, so then let's say that we wanted to borrow $30 million for City Hall. Three out of five of us would have to vote to borrow that $30 million. If we were going to use bond approved proceeds, that's correct. Now if we were going to, I think, use something other than general obligation bond approved proceeds, it would probably require four out of five votes because it's a different kind of indebtedness. That was not approved by the public. For example, the deal in City Hall would potentially have a revenue stream, lease payments. So that revenue could be something that could be pledged towards offsetting that service over the life of that revenue stream. So it would be an alternative to something that could be pledged towards offsetting that service over the life of that revenue stream. So it would be an alternative to just purely Advil Long Tax support. Okay, so maybe we want to explain for the benefit of the public what different ways there are number one of borrowing money and Number two what that means for the public because When I borrow money at my house. I'm gonna borrow $30,000. There's only one way for me to pay it back And that is I get a loan on my house and I pay the money back from my pocket every month And if that's not the case for this city, then we as residents should understand what that is. So the way I've explained it to people who've asked me is this would be the equivalent in our personal situation of taking a line of credit on your house. Your house may be worth a million dollars, and you can get a line of credit for half a million dollars. That line of credit is available to you, but you don't have to, it might be a little bit for a term of 10 to 20 years. You don't have to use it all at one time. So there may be an opportunity to make an improve that adds value, and you take down and you decide to invest $100,000 of that $500,000. I think the same is true here. We're asking for a gross authorization of $65 million. In my mind, the opportunity for us is we all know that on October 1 of 2026, we retire a substantial portion of our parking garage debt, which has debt service payments of about $700,000 that are in our existing budget. Right? Certainly my immediate, I think, opportunity when I see as the goal is to see how we can put that $700,000 to work after October 1 of 2026 to begin to start investing a portion of these proceeds. If it's $8 million or whatever that debt service would support based on current market rates, that's a goal that we could set. And in contrast to what we've done historically, which is, you know, when we got here, we found out we had spent a half million dollars in mining police station and another half million dollars in designing a pedestrian bridge with no plan as to how we're going to finance it. Here we can say, okay, we've got eight or 10 million dollars that we think will have the ability to borrow in 2026. What do we want to spend the next 20 months designing, spending money on design? That could be refunded out of the bond and then actually finance with bond proceeds. So I think that's the short term opportunity that I have certainly highlighted to voters. I've spoken to about this. Mayor Feigard, just to support that, I think it's important when you ask a question by smear. Our current millage supports the debt for the garage, right? So when that, as Mayor mentioned, when that debt is paid and that principal amount and interest that's paid the debt service of $700,000, that's included in the millage that already is paid by the voters, by the residents. So when that gets retired, that frees up that 700,000, then there's a decision to make. Okay, now what do you do with that 700,000? There's multiple things that could happen. You know, you may have increases in operations. You can put it towards capital. You can reduce millage. You can also let it offset a different debt. And so that could be taken into account as to how much that can be issued with that amount and maybe level setting. But it wouldn't be a separate taxation scheme. In some places you may see a debt service, a separate line item for debt service. In our case it's included in the millage. Well I would differ with the manager there and just simply say, we may want to take down an operating millage, but pass a dense service millage. Of the equal amount so the taxing effort in total is the same. But we've actually allocated it to capital as opposed to just operations. Commissioner, you recognize. No, and I just wanted also to make sure people understand just like an online credit using the analogy you provided, you only pay interest on the money that you borrow. Now, necessarily the $65 million upfront with a bond referendum, it's whatever you pull that you start paying the interest on, just to make sure people understand that. Thank you, Rick. Thanks, go ahead. What is the backup? If I'm not saying we. What is the commission decided to take out $65 million for City Hall? They voted amongst themselves because the public says yes. You can borrow up to $65 million. And the commission said fantastic, we're going to borrow $65 million. Realistically, that would mean a tax increase for our residents. So I think it's very important that the residents understand that in voting yes for this, there exists the possibility that maybe not us, but a future commission could do this. They could, I mean for lack of the right word, they could go rogue and decide that that's what they want to do because I think everyone here has been very clear that that is not the intention, but by doing this we open the door for somebody else to make that decision that would definitely impact their tax situation. It's absolutely a possibility and I know I think a remote one because we all are governed by the fact that we are accountable to voters right at some point. I'll, you know, I'm on the ballot every two years as you'll be on the ballot in two years as well. So I think there is that, there is that check on something, someone doing something reckless like that. I think there's also one of the items I presented we didn't get to last meeting was to build in some citizen oversight and accountability. And so certainly I would be open to having, you know, the budget and finance committee not only review the borrowing but also the scope of any scope design projected cost of any project that we would want to fund out of this program so that there is again beyond just our oversight. There's another layer of citizen oversight that can be added to the process. And certainly that was my proposal last meeting and we'll hopefully consider the next one for possible adoption. Yeah. Vice Mayor, I would certainly have possibilities there and that could be a concern to somebody that could also happen during budget time on the millage. That same commission that you described could increase the millage, that same commission that you described could increase the millage rate to a certain point that some may feel like, hey, tax increase, not even a definition of tax increase, I'm talking about a real tax increase. So yeah, those possibilities are there and none of those process are ironclad from that standpoint. But if it'll take some time, there may be some purchases that you can do with an inside of two years if they're part of the bond program. Some of the vertical construction and land acquisition, those things are definitely going to be over time because they're not intended to be day one. If it was single purpose, building a city hall and police headquarters, yeah you could see that a large allocation, whatever that would cost, could happen day one but in this case the program. Based on if the commission approves it and has had conversations by wanting to try and address a number of needs, these things would happen over time. And those at those moments, they'll be public hearings because the commission have to approve the insurance of that specific amount and what the financial advisor is going to take to market whatever that amount may be out of the 65 million. So you could end up with different series of bonds over the life of 20 years. It could be 10 million, 15 million, and that would happen over time. But the one time that would trigger that won't allow for taxable value growth and won't allow for a retirement of debt could happen. That could happen with the budget itself. And I think I want to be clear and I want to ask our CFO this as well, just to benefit the public. We may not be the issuer. It may be that we borrow through an existing municipal pool because it's cheaper. They have some conduit programs that we could borrow through. The key part here is the pledge. The pledge is not special purpose remedy, it's our full faith in credit. So we could issue on our own. We may find that it's cheaper to issue through, this is a Sunshine State loan fund, for example, or afford League of Cities fund. It's a pooling accreditation pool of cities that typically has a lower issuance cost. They pool that across multiple jurisdictions and get issued as its own debt series. And we obviously can get a portion of those proceeds and we remit. And the questions, what do we pledge? We could pledge our general of alarm revenue and we remit and the questions what do we pledge we could pledge Our general of alarm routing or you put a special purpose having like we have with the bonds for the garage in the past or we had a trouble there But there is it's basically a tax-advanced financing so because it's public financing So I think if any further questions, I don't want to try I think think we have a couple people online, and I see a couple of people here in the chambers so they can ask some questions. Are we good? Okay, so let's open up for public comment. I see two folks in the chamber, not to put you in the spot. Did you have any questions? Do you want to come forward and ask? Help me shy, please. It was a bad afternoon. a couple folks online. Did you want to ask them if they wanted to raise their hand for a question? Anyone else want to, if you'd like to speak, please raise your virtual hand. Hello, everyone. Hi, good evening. Hello. Good evening. I might have misunderstood and thought that tonight we were going to be discussing sunset plays. Sorry, guys. It's okay. I want to put you on the spot. This is all fascinating because I did find the verbiage when I voted in favor of changing to allow for the vote to happen to make it easier for you guys to vote. I feel like I'm a college educated person. I should be able to understand the verbiage. It is quite dense and so I appreciate understanding what you're all discussing and what it's going towards. So that part is quite interesting. But yeah, I came to discuss sunset place. Guys, it tonight may not be appropriate. The both sunset place items will be on the agenda October 15th. Next Tuesday, I apologize if you got mistaken information. Okay. I know I'm a husband, it's always my fault. So it's okay. It's okay. No, no, no. By the way, the neighborhood chat is quite active. We're all very concerned about sunset place and the high and the density. So neighbors have been encouraging each other to come to the meetings and which is great If we're the only ones who came if you if you won after the meeting I'll stay by and we can talk again. We can certainly talk afterwards Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for coming I have someone online. Yes, ma'am clerk I can't read the name. I recognize if you could unmute yourself. Thank you very much. Good evening. Good evening. We have a couple of quick questions regarding the bond issuance. Is there any other way to finance any bigger projects that the city may want to plan for or build in the future other than approving the issuance of these bonds at this time. So I think I'll try and summarize Mr. Manager and Mr. Riverwell you can correct me. We have typically financed things on a pay as you go basis and it has limited our ability to meet kind of exigencies. I think the most recent example is a bridge on 63rd court, which has now been closed about 18 months for one line of traffic because we didn't have the capacity to borrow money to do the needed structural repairs. So we have been exploring alternate means. We did look as part of this discussion. We've been talking about this for about a year. Before we arrive at this question, we did look at the possibility of pledging non-advalor revenues. And we do use a substantial portion of those revenues for current operating needs as well. So there was not a whole lot of additional capacity in those revenue streams. The bond, I think, became an option because we are looking at retiring some debt and thought it might be, we'd give us the most flexibility to introduce this question and ask the public for this authorization. Again, I think clearly we understand that if we wanna stay within our current budgetary framework and not increase taxes We're going to be limited by when we're retiring capacity or revenue growth that we can dedicate to this purpose But as I've discussed with the vice mayor who certainly, you know, has been very concerned about this, you know, rightfully so You know, I think as we look at our policy choices as a board We have not had ever really had the opportunity to discuss dedicating future revenues to long-term capital improvements outside of our annual budget process. And so, as you know, we talked about since the place, as that project comes online, and the revenues come online, we right now have two choices. We can invest within the structure of our budget, or we basically can return those savings or new revenues back to taxpayers in the terms of a tax reduction. Those are perfectly good policy goals. What we've not been able to discuss is, do we want to take a portion of that future revenue not dedicated to operations or tax savings, but dedicated to a capital plan that's focused on parks improvements, public space improvements, other basic infrastructure that has been seen a lot of deferred maintenance over the last 20 years. Yes, Madam Vice-Mirror. Are there other mechanisms other than a general obligation bond that are available? Yeah, we've talked about non-advalorem revenue bonds, which we talked about things like our people's transportation tax. That we could basically, you know, as we discussed, we fund our transit operations and wrote a resurfacing out of that annually. The other, we have also looked at some new financing innovations. There's a company called Sustainability Partners that has looked at a utility model and we have been exploring conversations along those lines. That's a pretty untested model here in the market to date. But to the questioner, we've tried, I think we've tried to look at any and all available options and certainly thought it was prudent at least to introduce this question at this time. Yeah, the mayor if I could add to also, I think not necessarily a financing scheme, but a capital practice, which is also what we're sort of battling against, which is not having a partially or fully funded capital plan that has been funded over time. So there's something that we want to graduate to, a move to, which is identifying all our capital needs. 65 million is nowhere near touches are unmet needs that we've identified. And so typically what you would see is a combination of a capital plan that's been funded over time, where you put money away to deal with these things based on their life cycle, and then a combination of financing over a long period of time for things that have a life cycle that match the borrowing, back to analogy of a home and a mortgage. Most cases people do borrow money for a home because of its asset and the long tenure of that asset. In municipal spaces, very similar to, it's the best practice. What we're dealing against is that we don't have the support of a well-funded capital plan that has had money put away over time. And we're dealing with some of these infrastructure issues that need immediate attention, bridge, culverts. So the stress of those two things also further complicate this and thereby proving a financing scheme even more important for the city over the long term. So I just wanted to add the capital plan for us to try to move to identifying and having reserves that identify some of these assets that we know at some point we're going to have to replace. So we're dealing with that as well. So, Parrot Household, we just wanted to make sure that that was clear. I mean, I know it's a long-winded answer. There's a lot of different opportunities and possibilities, but was that clear to you to make sure you understand the different possibilities? Jeremy? Yeah. Yeah, thumbs up. Thank you. possibilities. Thanks for using the other questions to do. Yes, if you want to ask another question, you're certainly recognized. Yes, thank you very much for the answer. And I have another question. Do we have, does the city have research or cash or the 2023 period? Yes. We do. We have reserves that are prescribed by our own orders and we have fairly healthy reserves for city of our side. One of the reasons since you asked about reserves, one of the reasons I've kind of put the borrowing question forward is because in today's environment, you know, now that we're seeing, now the Fed is moving in the opposite direction. But you know, our cash returns have actually been have been higher than our borrowing costs. So particularly I have been in, I think, our CFO agrees in this kind of an environment, sometimes it's more prudent to borrow and keep your cash and cash earning more interest than it would cost you to borrow in the municipal market. So this will also open up that opportunity to have better cash management practices than what we have had to date. Mayor, if I could add to, I mean, there's a, there's a smoothing effect to this as well about generations that are using and or creating the demand on our infrastructure. So when you smooth this out, you have users over the life of that that are paying for this as well because they're supporting that debt service through property tax if it's a general obligation bond. So those that have used the asset and will use the asset for whatever number of years to come participate in contributing towards the wear and tear of some of these so that's also why municipalities at sometimes spread the burden of of financing or the cost of replacing or repairing or building in this manner. A parent household if you have other questions, you're recognized. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, by the way, for providing all these answers and for allowing all these questions from us. It's really appreciated. And a one more question. Are there other times at which general obligation bonds could be issued? In other words, do we depend on these elections in order to be able to issue bonds for future plans or are there other opportunities so that we, issues, bonds can be issued as the projects arise and are discussed with the public? Excellent question and there's one that we discussed as well. So by statute, we are now limited to issuing bonds in either a primary election or a general election in an even calendar year. So we could do it in August 2020. If we did not approve this today, the next time we could ask a residence for authorization is in August of 2026 or November of 2026. And I'm looking to our FA if I'm incorrect in26 or November of 2026. And I'm looking to our FA if I'm incorrect in my recollection of the statute. That was a change that was recently promulgated by the Florida legislature because there were concerns that a lot of special election are being held at off times when voters were less likely to participate to authorize these kind of programs. So to your question, if this were not to be approved, we could not come back to you to ask you for any further authorization until August of 2026, or November of 2026. And before when I met, and we had made a policy determination as a board that if we were gonna ask for these kind of authorizations, we would ask of them in the November election cycle, because that is the highest participatory cycle. So I think as a board, if that rule were to hold, to self-impose rule, we would not come back to you until November of 2026. Now one point I wanna reiterate, we could have waited, and I think some people would have felt it more prudent to wait till November of 2026. I think one of the reasons this board decided to put this question in front of the voters was to take advantage of the next 20 months. Right, we know that in October 1 of 2026 we're going to be retiring debt. We could take the next two years plus or minus to plan for that debt being retired and design projects that we could put into service faster if we knew that authorization was already in hand as opposed to waiting to November of 2026 for it to be approved. So that was part of our rationale if it helps explain the timing for what we have been proposing to do. Madam Vice-Meghan, did you want to add something? With the charter change, would it be possible for the commission to say no we're not going to wait until November 2026 we're going to bring it up and we're going to vote four to one and not put it on the ballot. So I would answer that question and I want to play lawyer and I'll have the client but I think that by statute if we want to issue general obligation bond debt, it requires authorization from the electorate, the timing of which was what I discussed before. So we could not approve a general obligation bond issuance by a vote of 4 to 1. We could approve a debt issuance that's not backed by the full faith in credit of the city by some sort of special purpose revenue So for example for the benefit of the folks listening and everyone here if in fact city hall Had a pledge of recurring revenue that was a predictable upstream we could go to a financial institution and ask for debt backed by those revenues Exclusively or some other revenues that are not are are general and the law of taxes. Commissioner Coyne. I'm gonna restate the question, I think the way I understood it from the constituent. If this gets approved on November 6th, and we wanna issue that, that's our think, let's say for City Hall, we want to issue a $50 million. I forgot the word. Trunch, trunch. Does that have to go to public election? It does not. That's the way I understood the question. I just want to understand that. Yeah, once if this were approved, then the other approvals are at the level of the commission I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think If I may and I apologize, thank you. So the city manager mentioned oversight and accountability. If I understood his statement correctly, currently we do not have a way to look at what the oversight or to understand would oversight and accountability be added if the constituents approved the issuance of these bonds? I think, Mayor, when you mentioned the Budget and Finance Committee, I believe that may be. Yeah, so I apologize. I may have confused the issue a little bit. I think what I have proposed in writing by way of a legislative ordinance that we could consider for adoption would be for an existing committee that we have, which is our budget and finance committee, which is comprised of city residents, city stakeholders, and advises in the budgetary process to also as an expansion of their duties provide oversight on the financing and then the scope design and related costs, cost validation of any project funded with GOB proceeds. So that beyond our review at the commission level there would also be a board, I think it's five citizens that serve today, that would also weigh in and provide us advice and guidance on specific projects. Yes, Madam Vice-Mier. I also think it's very important to note that there are financial professionals that are involved in this process. This is, while we may vote on this, there is an entire financial team, financial advisors. There are many, many people involved in this that are professionals in that layer, that are not the finance board that are not us. So I don't want anyone to think that there is not an inbuilt accountability layer already. The entire finance team of the city and our financial advisor who you don't see because he is sitting in the audience, that entire company as well. And I think that's an important point. Beyond the advice and guidance they would give us as professionals, there's also the oversight of the market, at the end of the day, whatever we put out into the market by way of a debt issuance, we wanted to have the highest credit rating. So see what that's going to be, car that we write size and justify the obligations and one that we can sustain and fund given our current fiscal picture. So or future fiscal picture. What is that? What is our rating? Like who are we? We probably don't have a credit rating right now because we have not been to market in 25 years. So, you know, yeah. But our FAA, I mean, you can speak to us. We were interested because we had not been to market. We were interested in how we as a city fair. And that's why it's important to have proper reserves and good financial stability because all that weighs into how you get rated and the interest rate that we can get. And maybe Sergio can, as we move a little bit to this analysis. Mr. Vassal, would you introduce yourself? Sure, Sergio, must for all PFM financial advisors, financial bit to this analysis. Mr. Vassal, would you introduce yourself and? Sure, Sergio, Master of the FM Financial Advisors, Financial Advisors to the City, where I address to or is that okay? We're in core gables. So to the question, I think you don't have credit ratings right now. You haven't been to publicly offered debt in a number of years. I don't even know how long it's been. We did run a credit analysis on the city based on your reserves, financial profile going back and looking at historical financials. We penciled out about a AA credit rating. If you're familiar with the credit rating scale, it goes from triple A all the way to triple B. Well, it goes below triple B but we don't generally... We don't want to be the junk bond worker. thank you. Yes. But AAA being the highest based on the metrics that we looked at, the city, you know, and that takes into account management, financials, budgetary reserves, what state you're in, kind of where you are geographically located, the taxable value, taxable base of the city, as well as the per capita income of residents, and things like that. There's a number of factors that go into it, but you pencil out about a double-a credit rate. So it's a very high, very strong credit rate. It's what we'd expect, of course. When we go to market, we'll have a Q&A period with the large rate-name season, and we'll ultimately determine what the rate is. Yeah, and maybe if I could add to the vice-manger comment, comment because it's a good one as it relates to this process. You know, there'll be bond holders and as a mayor alluded to, you know, the market kind of holds us to that accountability. And there'll be bond holders. We have bond council. We have to hire. And then we have to abide by, you know, those covenants over time. So we're not in the fall. So there's a lot of layers and regulations that are part of this process for many years if that's the will of the voters. Councillor Gai. Not to mention that. I'm talking about justifying. We still have to go through public meetings and justify it to constituents to understand what we're going to go do. It's advertised, it's spoken about in two different meetings that has to be voted on a consistent basis. And the public always has the ability to come here and raise the concerns and we can talk about it. So there's a lot of layers that go into this to make sure it gets approved. Paired Household, would that address your question? Yes, it does and thank you very much for addressing it so completely and comprehensively. Happy to. Any further questions? If not, we'll move on to the next public participant. Is there anyone else online? Ben Clark? Yes. M.B. on the score of P.A. Would you like to speak on this item? Okay. To our friends in the audience. Anything else you want to ask other than about some someplace before we go? No. Okay. Well, I think with that, I'd like to thank you for joining us. I'd like to thank the parent household for joining us at one for your very good questions. And we will stand adjourned, thank you.