to go forth with constructive ideas and everybody being agreed with is not too hard for you God. And we give you the praise of the glory, the honor is all we have done and all the God's Thank you so much. I pledge allegiance to you. I pledge allegiance to America and to your God, for which it stands, nation under God and invisible liberty and justice for all. I cared away, sorry. OK. Could I get a motion to adopt the agenda? Make a motion to adopt the agenda? I'll second that motion Okay Okay public comment We have any public. My agenda. Oh, just took it under. That was fast. Okay, Liz with Mulligan. Good evening. I just want to say to thank you for having this meeting and I encourage everyone to think of the good for the city in the long run for getting a professional city manager. And I know there's a question with the cost but in the long run I think maybe just spend a few dollars up front will really help us in the long run if we need it. Thank you. Okay thank you. Any other public slide. Why don't you come up and then you can fill it out on your way back. That's what on our agenda today. We'll do the other public comment after this for the regular city meeting at six. Okay. Okay. Great. So, um, unfinished business city manager applicant discussion. When we last met, we went to the applicants and we had 17 applications. We advertised it for six weeks on the League of Cities website, Florida League of Cities, Florida County League of Counties website of the area newspapers, indeed. And I think that was about it. We got our website too. We got 17 applications and we interviewed a number of folks at our last meeting in February. We selected three candidates and ranked them and asked our attorney to negotiate with the three candidates, one candidate with Drew. We got some information from another candidate on some things that they wanted and then I'm going to turn it over you to. All right. And so I'll just summarize the results of the duties that you gave me from the last meeting, which was focused on salary requirements, expectations, a start date, and background check, as well as references. So the two candidates that are left for your consideration, the two candidates left for your consideration are Michael Brillhart and TJ Fish, starting with Mr. Brillhart. He indicated that his ideal starting salary would be $90,000, but that he does remain negotiable. And his start date would be two to three weeks after an offer is made. He'll be able to report to work both his background and references checked out no problem. Then as to Mr. Fish, TJ Fish, his salary expectation and this was relatively firm. Um, when I say that, he did say he was all points were negotiable. But he had a starting salary of $112,500 with FRS in mind. The explanation logically is that he had been part of the FRS system before and then he left the FRS system. If he's looking to go back into it he would need to match or exceed his when he participated in it before because otherwise it would have adverse consequences to his potential retirement. We have $1,12,500. He also requested a vehicle allowance of $800 per month in lieu of an assigned city vehicle, PTO of 10 weeks to accrue annually, and that must be utilized or cashed out each fiscal year, so it would not accrue, a housing allowance for a period of one year to acclimate to the community, and also consideration of a contribution benefit into the ICMA retirement account. And again, he stated that all points are negotiable and offer for consideration. And his start date was approximately one month after an offer is made, he would be able to report to work. And again, Brenda Ash withdrew her application. And his background check was? I'm sorry. And his background is correct. His background and references checked out fine. All right. Commissioners, Commissioner Elliott, you want to start? Thank you. So between the two candidates, I know that we discussed at the meeting, I guess it was just last week, time is marching on. Out of these candidates, Mr. Fish was my top pick. I think that he has a really good background in municipal utilities, specifically water management, which we really need to get on top of right now, as I think everyone can agree. I'm understanding of the salary request because someone's retirement, that's something that he has worked hard for for a long time. And taking the job to come here, I wouldn't want to dance and to buy somebody for coming to say, you got to sacrifice part of your retirement to come here. And if we're all being frank with ourselves here, we all know that what we're offering for a city manager position is lower on the average scale than anywhere else where somebody does this professionally. And I think ultimately that is where we're at is professionals have standards. And if we want a professional city manager we have to make some concessions and figure out how we're going to do that. I am fine with negotiating on the 112 or not negotiating on the 1,200 500 on salary, addressing specifically the ICMA account. That was wanting us to make an additional contribution to a separate retirement account. Yes, I believe that is, I'm not sure it's, well, yes, that is a separate type of retirement account, so I think it's probably existing retirement account, the system is in now, and is asking for a contribution towards that as well. Okay. I would say that since if we were to go with the requested salary in order and going with that salary in order to honor his FRS to make sure he's not penalized in a sense there. I would deny a ICMA contribution because we're doing our part to contribute to that retirement and hopefully make a concession for him in that regard. allowance. I think the housing in the vehicle allowance are kind of a hand in hand issue because vehicle allowance is going to vary. I would say instead of $800 a month, I would say track every mile and we will do reimbursement. Typically the manager has a brand new vehicle so we just bought one so. Okay that you know that confused me the why the request was in there so okay gotcha okay well that demands out. So PTO 10 weeks annually 10 weeks annually to accrue. That's like two and a half months. I don't think we need to hire a city manager that's going to take two and a half months off every year or I mean or pay it out. I think, I mean if the goal is to pay that out, again I mean that's smart personal finances, but I just don't think on principle if we're awarding 10 weeks of PTO. I mean, do we really want someone to take 10 weeks of PTO? Are we prepared to have to pay out for 10 weeks of PTO? I wouldn't suggest negotiating that down to maybe seven weeks, six or seven weeks. I'm not sure what he's working with now. And when you're on housing, I don't know if necessarily we should provide some sort of stipend because I think with housing in and round apolachicola, East Point Carroll, Franklin County in general, some spaces, some places are exorptent. And I think that if the city leverages our power and connections and relationships with local real estate companies and see what is on the market right now, can the city come to a contractual agreement for the city to rent a space for six months to 12 months? I would say 12 months just because we all know how the housing market is here and finding a rental can be kind of hard So if we could maybe provide rental either six to 12 months And we would have to figure out if we're gonna offset that cost by having Factor it as part of the salary as in kind or Negotiate a reduced rate with a real estate company and they'll pay a reduced rate. I'm not really sure what the best avenue would be there but I will say just to go along with all of this whatever negotiations we make for housing or PTO, I would like there specifically for the housing. It would be some sort of, I guess you'd say claw back, claws to say if you leave this job after one year, then you will need to reimburse for some of that housing. You see where I'm coming from on that? Because the thing that I would like to avoid here is we do have two very qualified candidates. But I am also concerned that before we fully make an offer to one of these candidates, I think we should bring them here. And we should give them a full tour of our city facilities and everything that's going on. So we're being honest with them about what they're walking into because we don't want to be in a situation where we hire someone and six, 12, 16 months down the road, they go screaming for the hills because they didn't work fully aware of what they were getting into. So I would like to see them brought here or followed up with an interview before that final offer is made. Those are those are all my comments for right. Thank you. The discussion. Commissioner Duncan. Remind me again which candidate has already received another job offer. Actually, it's my knowledge neither candidate has received a job offer. I know that both one of the Mr. Bill Hart has applied to because his term is interim city manager is coming to an end so he has applied with some other municipalities but to my knowledge no offers have been made. Okay. I don't have any other comments right now just listening. Commissioner George. We may rank these at last week's meeting. We had two strong contenders. We had Michael Brillhart received three out of four as it's votes as a top pick. And Mr. Fish received two out of four for the second pick, but had a first place vote. So they're both strong contenders. I like the idea of both of them for different reasons. I think at this point, since unless opinions have changed, I think we should begin negotiations with Michael Brillhart, who was our top pick. His starting salary requirement is $90,000 under the job was advertised for 80 and there's been some discussion about whether or not we could offer more than 80. out our budget for this current fiscal year, our previous city manager was making gross pay of 84,000 by 1056. That was his annual salary. So we're already at 85. If we offer Mr. Brillhart is asking salary of 90,000, that would add an additional annual cost over what we were previously paying of 7,000, 804 because it's another $5,400 in gross pay at about $500 in payroll taxes, another 1900 contribution to the Florida retirement fund. So the annual difference is $7,800. So I don't think that's significant. I think to have the opportunity to hire a professional city manager, I don't think that we should play games and try to get him for any cheaper than that. At this point, I mean, I would like to see as extended offer to Mr. Brill Hart for $90,000 and have attorney Hartman work out a contract and employment agreement with him similar to the agreement that we had with Travis Wade. And we do we have finds in our budget for the $7800. We in this car fiscal year our general fund had an an overage of $138,000. We paid of that amount. We paid Mr. Wade about $21,000 for his vacation pay-outs. So that has been taken out of that reserve. But we have adequate reserves to offer Mr. Bill Hart the job at $90,000. Thank you, Commissioner George. My comments, I agree I think three out of four of us voted for Brollhart as our top choice and I'd like to see the attorney proceed that direction first. Mr. Rohart, I also feel like he's a little more seasoned, had a little bit more patience and experience. Mr. Fish has never been a city manager. He said jobs are similar to a city manager, but he's never been one. I applaud him for his list of, request, but I think they're out of line with salary we have to offer. Keeping in mind that we have at least a quarter of $9.00 we need to put into the water system to resolve this suffer issue. So I suggest we ask the attorney to move forward with getting Mr. Brillhart on board, giving him the offer. You want Mr. Boat on that? Yes. Okayril heart at a starting salary of $90,000 and direct attorney heartman to negotiate an employment agreement along the basic outline of our previous city managers employment agreement. Anyone want second? I'll second that motion. Discussion. Thank you. I did just want to point out on fish as well and I totally appreciate all of the discussion that has happened here this evening. I really appreciate it. Just a little bit of background on that. Mr. Fish does also. He holds a Masters of Public Administration, which was the degree that we are looking for also hold to bachelors and mass communications. And something in particular that had also struck me with his application is under his achievements. He is listed as a part of the American Institute of Certified Planners and the American Planning Association for over 20 years. And I think that is a very important role and important experience to have in order for us to continue to maintain all the grants that we have going on and looking forward to trying to provide strong leadership for our building department, which we still don't have a building inspector and the city planner is having to kind of head and of that up mostly on our own. So I think somebody that has a strong background that is able to be well-rounded with not only the technical side of of administration and planning but also has technical knowledge on the infrastructure side as well. So this is why this candidate was a top pick for me and I still will advocate for him as well. Okay. Any other comment? I believe that Mr. Brillhart was also a public, a degree in public administration. So I don't see a loss there. We're in planning. All right. Let's put it to a vote. What's a you? I. I. and we're reconvened for the regular meeting. At the point of order, we need to appoint an interim manager. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped ahead. I was so proud of our accomplishment. I said that. All right. I'm still in office at this. So we have, we need to appoint a interim city manager and we've asked several of staff and Bri Robinson has agreed. Attorney Hartman, did you want to give us the details? Sure. So So, as we discussed at the last meeting, we had talked about the two staff members that we talked about two staff members. Ms. Robinson being the one that actually would be willing to walk the plank here for the and. And I'm just being facetious. But she's willing to do this. I discussed with her the terms on which she'd be willing to accept the position. And in discussion, the amount of $1,250 a week during the period of time that she's serving a interim city manager is what she would like and is additional compensation for taking on those responsibilities. Thank you. Discussion? Thank you for being willing. I would like to know what ideas we have to make sure that she doesn't get overwhelmed with the responsibilities of trying to keep up the city manager and that we have some plan in place to assist with her ongoing duties so that that doesn't become a concern because she does she does a lot she does it well but I just wouldn't want to that to suffer just for her you know it's a lot to even take on it interim. So I'll be honest I'm not very concerned with the planning side of it. grants is a lot. Grants is probably 80% of my time right now. Working a lot with Travis over the last few years. The city manager should be very involved in the grants. And with contracts, talking to the people you're working with. I'm already doing all of that. So I think that's fine. We do have money budgeted for grant consultants. We haven't dipped into it much this year. I haven't really been bringing consultants on if we didn't absolutely need them. But if I'm put in this position, I would absolutely reach out for help if I needed it. Not in the business of stressing myself out too much, but yeah, I think it would be okay not to have resources. We wore out the first couple of years she was here, so she learned, which is very well. But definitely we don't wanna lose you, so I appreciate you stepping up also and hopefully it sounds like we can get Mr. Bill Hart in quickly. So any other comments? No other comments? I'm amenable to the ask and think we need to move forward with it because this is, I think this, every debacle we have all gone through up here, I think this is a very positive way to start forward on a path that shows we're serious and we want to treat our employees right and compensate them for jobs well done. So I think that- I would make a motion to appoint Bree Robinson as the interim city manager. I'll second that motion. Okay. Director vote. What's a you? I. I. I. Okay. Gene Animes. All right. Any other comments before we take a break and start the next meeting? Okay. your first meeting. Oh no, we're going to burn that cell phone up. Yeah. No, hopefully it'll happen quickly. All right. Let's take a break until six o'clock. We'll see you back here. All right. Yes. I found a sore gland this morning, but I don't feel great today. Doing the whole hot coat, hot coat. Everybody, you know, everybody's in the world's room around me. Seeing them, I think it's a lot of fun. And that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I always feel bad. Yeah, I just feel like my body's fighting something. Um... I'm not a little bit nervous. I'm not going to show you. It all looks a bit like a nightmare. It's a nightmare. I'm not inviting something. Um... I'm not inviting something. Um... I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not inviting something. I'm not to go back to the hotel. Yeah. I'm going to go back to the hotel. I'm going to go back to the hotel. I'm going to go back to the hotel. I'm going to go back to the hotel. Yeah. I'm going to go back to the hotel. Yeah. I'm going to go back to the hotel. Yeah. I'm going to go back to the hotel. Yeah. I'm going to go back to the hotel. I just saw them with her advisor and all those coal on it. Yeah.