Planning Board - Regular Meeting

We'll call this meeting to order.

This is a regular meeting of the City of Callaway Board of Commissioners. It is Tuesday, August 11th, 2026. It's 6 p.m. You will stand with me, Commissioner Bergstab. Will you please do the invocation tonight? And Commissioner Briggs, lead us in the pledge.

Thank you, God, so much for allowing us the opportunity to represent our city in these matters. I pray that we would use wisdom that you provide us in all of our decisions. I thank you for the people of Calloway trusting us with this and continue blessing us throughout this year. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

I pour allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

City Clerk, please do a roll call. Commissioner Bertzell?

Present.

Commissioner Griggs? Here. Commissioner Pelletier? Here. Commissioner Ayers? Here, ma'am. And Mayor Henderson?

Here. OK, we have a couple of presentations tonight. First, we have Deputy Aaron Martin doing the Bay County Sheriff's Office July statistics.

All right. For the month of July, we had 1,070 calls for service, 25,127 miles patrolled, 55 arrests, 152 traffic stops, 134 citations, and then a grand total of 53 traffic accidents. Mm-hmm. 10 of them were parking lot related, 43 of them were not. And 7th Street and Tindall Parkway was the highest intersection with nine crashes occurring at that intersection. And that is all I have.

That was 53 instead of 44? There is a total of 53. Okay. In Calway.

All right.

That's more than double what it was.

Somehow there was an issue with pounding the parking lots. And I don't know how they were still one off. But it was an issue with parking lots not categorizing what they should have. So we hand counted them and there were 53. Anybody have any other questions for the deputies?

Were the citations accurate?

Yes, 134 citations and 152 traffic stops. Are they driving better or? I'm expecting it to be bad or worse for the next couple of weeks with everybody rushing with school starting back. But as a general whole, yes, I have seen an improvement. But everybody be patient with us for the next couple of weeks because I know I can tell you Monday was unnerving for a lot of people.

Very busy.

I'm sure it was. Thank you.

OK, our next presentation is this Charlotte Lynn here by any chance? Not seeing one. She is the winner of our Yard of the Month for this month. She lives at, I think it's 7003 Cherry Street. So if you happen to be down Cherry Street, please look at her home. It's very lovely. And we will see that she gets her sign and her certificate. Okay, that will take us on to the mayor's instructions. Do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda, city manager?

Yes, we're requesting to add an agenda item for grant administration services for the city.

Okay, do we have a motion to that effect?

Motion to add the agenda. Second.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that item will be added. Anything else, City Manager? No, ma'am. Okay, and as far as public participation, your public can speak on any of the agenda items or all of the agenda items if they so choose. When I call for public participation, just raise your hand that you would like to speak. When you recognize, come up to the podium. State your name and address for the record if you so choose. And then your three minutes will start. At the end of the meeting, we have a section for public participation on non-agenda items. So if there's something you want to talk about that we haven't already discussed in the meeting, same process, and you have three minutes for your non-agenda items. So with that, we will go on to approval of the minutes. We've got the minutes of the July 28 budget workshop and the July 28 regular meeting. So did anybody have any comments or questions on any or either of those minutes?

No, ma'am.

No.

And if not, I would entertain a motion to approve either one or both.

Motion to approve both. Second.

OK, we've got a motion and a second. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. The minutes are approved. And we will go on to our first item, which is resolution 26-08, request to abandon a 20-foot unused easement at 7043 Hugh Drive. And these first two items do require a public hearing, so we will open the public hearing. City manager, no, I'm sorry, city attorney.

Okay, this is resolution 2608, a resolution of the city of Callaway, Florida, abandoning, releasing, and vacating a 20-foot easement lying within the boundaries of lot 18, Callaway Shores, unit 1, according to the plat thereof, as recorded in plat book 10, page 81 of the public records of Bay County, Florida. Drive, Callaway, Florida, providing for severability, repealing resolutions or parts of resolutions in conflict herewith, and providing an effective date.

City Manager. This particular easement was created in 1969. It actually was not even on our GIS maps. We didn't even know it existed. So they petitioned for us to go ahead and abandon it. It's never been used for anything. Of course, we didn't really even know it was there until we built it. Not really. So just go ahead and get it off our books.

This one's actually located on their lot, so it's not like a right-of-way where it's in between and both property owners get it. This is on their lot.

Okay.

So the property would go to them. I remember we looked at this a couple years ago, this neighborhood, Downhue Drive. So we do have the city has access over there. it unopened right away about three lots down. So I can't imagine the city would ever need this one when we got one three lots down. It's just an easement. It's not necessary.

So as little as we know about it we don't know why it was an easement in the first place.

I mean it was when they recorded the plat they put it on the plat probably just to continue You drive straight away to maybe we needed it for drainage or something, but if you kind of followed it down, kind of stubbed out a road. Some engineer in 1969 decided it would be a good idea.

We had drainage elsewhere over there. We didn't need that. Right.

Anybody else have any questions? If nobody up here has anything, would anybody in the audience like to comment on the easement? Yes, ma'am.

Karen Custer, 216 Lonnie Road Drive. One thought that I had about the purpose of the easement is In a number of places, they're put in an easement like this. In this case, it would be to allow people to walk across Hugh Drive to go down to the bayou or to ride their bikes down. Are we sure that nobody uses this? The kids don't go walk down. They don't ride their bikes or anything like that. That's just something to think of, because that may be why it's there, for the convenience of the people who live in the subdivision. Thank you.

Well, in easement, the property owner still owns it. It just means that we have access to get on it for whatever the purpose was. If it was drainage, it would be for us to get on there to mow, to keep it up-kept. But technically, it still belongs to that property owner. So we have a lot of easements for utilities that actually runs through people's yard, but that don't mean people can walk through their yard. You can put a fence across an easement. It just means if the city has something there that we need to maintain, we can maintain it, but it's not right-of-way.

Remember, this neighborhood has that park parcel right there, and it's got the Mike Lane right-of-way, so you've got plenty of public access to the bayou.

Pam Wilson.

I'm sorry, Mr. Bohack. If he'd sit up here, I could see him better.

That was an interesting little discussion on the side there. It provided a little bit of insight. Paul Bohack, 7010 McLean. I've lived in Callaway Shores since 1983. A neighbor told me easy access to the bayou was via an easement the city had at the end of my lane across Hugh Drive. I just had to stay close to the fence on the property line to the right. I fished off that easement several times, but when I bought my canoe, I found that easement had been abandoned and a gate installed. Now there's a request to abandon another easement, one that provides easy access to the bayou, one that offers an opportunity to launch a kayak or a canoe, especially for someone of my age. Certainly, it would be easier to do so at 7043 Hugh Drive than is possible currently at the end of Bowtree Expo. The applicant suggests it has not been used. Probably true. In the absence of indication that it is not private property, most residents in the area would not trespass. Had it been identified as city property or accessed through city property, riffraff such as myself would probably have been driving down that piece of land to fish the bayou for years. The easement has already been fenced in the absence of commissioned approval. I find such arrogance appalling. affirming Henry David Thoreau's belief in a majority of one, I respectfully oppose this request on behalf of those of us who have refrained out of courtesy and a lack of knowledge to an easy, heretofore unknown second access to the Bayou. Thank you. Yeah, I did it less than three.

Thank you.

Did anybody else want to comment? Kevin, did you want to talk about public access to an easement versus right-of-way?

Yeah, I mean, this plat just says 20-foot easement, period, and it's not even dedicated. It's not even listed. It's not even dedicated, so I can't sit there and tell you what it was for, whether it was for utilities, drainage, or anything. Because it's, again, they said streets, alleys, and roads are dedicated to the public. It doesn't say where this 20-foot easement goes.

But I think what he's saying is the difference in a right-of-way and an easement. Right-of-way is city property that you let up. It's in front of somebody's home, but it's still city property. An easement is the property of the property owner. It's just that the city can get on it to do utilities. That doesn't mean it's there for citizens to access.

Thank you.

I think that's what he's trying to differentiate between an easement and a right-of-way.

Typically, yeah. It depends. If this easement was specifically ingress, egress to the public, yeah. But it's not. It just says 20-foot easement. And you do have that Mike Lane right-of-way, and also you've got the park right there to the north.

But that's the difference. It's an easement, not a right-of-way. And the easement is private property. It's just the city has the right to go on it, but not citizens, because it's part of this guy's property. I know there's an easement across the street from me. There's an easement between two houses that goes to the lake. But that's so the city can get in there and do utility work. Those two homeowners don't want people going down between their houses to get to the lake. It is their property.

Not to mention we have a great boat ramp that you can launch your boats and canoes and all that.

Well, Paul, what you were talking about was city property. And that's why you were using it. And I think this was addressed, what, six or seven years ago that it was brought up. And we allowed them to, or the board then allowed them to go. Put that gate across there.

Yeah, after a long conversation, we went back and forth on that. Yes, we did. Because we did have a lot of people upset about that.

Yeah, but that one was a right of way.

Right.

But there was no easy access to the water. There's a drop-off.

Yeah, that's right. There's a cliff drop-off there. That's right. That's right. But that's why we're not taking anything away from the citizens. If anybody was accessing, they were going through that gentleman, George, to do it. Yeah. So did anybody else? Anybody in the audience have any comment? Or anybody up here? Or would someone like to make a motion?

Motion to approve resolution 26-08, request to abandon a 20-foot unused easement at 7043 Q Drive. Second.

We've got a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, City Clerk? Commissioner Bartow? Yes.

Commissioner Griggs? Yes. Commissioner Pelletier? Yes. Commissioner Ayers?

Yes.

Mayor Henderson?

Yes. OK, then we will go on to item two, St. Joe developers agreement for capacity. And I don't think this one goes straight to city manager.

No visible.

Mr. .

Do you want to see me pass that off?

Sure, Holly, then. OK, so last commission meeting, this got put on the agenda. We saw that it needed to be advertised seven days out. So for a development agreement under statute, you have to have two public hearings with seven days notice. So we noticed the first hearing for tonight. And the purpose of tonight is to, again, have a public hearing, to hear public input, have the commissioners review and give discussion on this. And then the only thing we need to do, we don't need to vote on this tonight, announce the date, time, and place of the second public hearing and there's no time limit on that necessarily. But yeah, for tonight it's just to review and discuss and hear input on this agreement and then pick a date for the next public hearing. When I saw it on the agenda last time, I did go through and revise it for statutory compliance. So we added some language in there about the requirement for the notices and some statutory things in there. But I specifically kind of withheld any sort of substantive revisions until a fair deal or a good deal, let me know. I mean, there's a few things that I would put in here, default and remedies, sort of tighten up the assignment, put some dispute resolution, some basic things like that that we can go back on. But really, it's just to hear from the public and hear from you guys. you know, the substance of it and any changes that you want, and then we can make a revision, go back with San Joe, and then set up for another hearing. I know Ray Greer is here on behalf of the developer, and Eddie has the background on it as far as the, you know, the park parcel and the road parcel and things like that that we can tighten up.

You know, as you all know, St. Joe, we've had many discussions about Kimbrell. One of these things that the agreement does, and this is external to their development, but they are offering us right away at Kimbrell all the way to Gulf Coast Parkway, which we will eventually need. That's going to be a developable area at some point. We know that Kimbrell is going to have to be completely redone because we're going to have to, lift station there that will attach down Kimbrell to our force main on 22 to be able to service that area probably some water upgrades and they are also offering us is it 23 acres is that right 25 acres for a a what we would like to say is a new soccer complex. We are outgrowing our soccer fields very diligently. Also, as you all know, we're now home to the LAX soccer team. They're also wanting to partner with this project as we move forward. And so they are offering us up 25 acres for us to develop. And I think, Kevin, there was some language that you wanted to talk about for that.

Yeah, just to back up. The big picture of this, a lot of development agreements come and a mixture of land uses and densities and intensities. That's not what this agreement's trying to do. Basically, they want the city to reserve water and sewer capacity for 750 ERCs, which is basically houses or units, reserve water and sewer capacity. And in exchange for that reservation, instead of capacity fee or something like that up now, they say, we'll give you a road right away and we'll give you 25 acres for this park complex. The one thing I was thinking of is, hey, let's tighten this up, make sure it's good land, it's developable. I think Ray had mentioned that you might have already picked out a site.

We've seen several sites. That's one of the things.

We can either tighten it up and make sure it's...

why we like to kind of the language like it is it's you know on the kimbrough extension for the 25 acres is that area has not been delineated it hasn't been surveyed but that's the whole coordination part and you know we were given the layout and approximation of where you wanted it and you know that would fit in that area so was, we would leave it. And we can tighten the language up however you want. But given the general vicinity area where you want it, so you can. I mean, you don't need 20 acres of land to do a park. So you know what I'm saying? That is why we've left it. So when that time comes, that area can be delineated and boundary surveyed and then turned over, which would be a coordinated effort between the St. Joe Company and the city for the actual park location.

Do we need to talk about 25 acres being contiguous?

Yeah, it would be contiguous. It would have to be. Because it's written here, it's got to be still mutually acceptable. They can't just pick it out and say, here's what we're giving you.

Or broken.

I would like to comment. Eddie made the comment that we've been working on this for quite a while. Very honestly, we've been working on Kimber going to the parkway, et cetera. I've been working on that for seven years. But we've been trying to do these things. And a lot of things you have to do in the background. And very honestly, people out there didn't know what was going on. And I didn't realize we were really going to be bringing this up until I saw you added that into this document here. So it's all good. And very honestly, it protects the developer from somebody 10 years from now deciding somebody up here or a group of people up here 10 years from now, oh, we don't want that, that kind of thing. We run into some of that now with projects we're trying to get approved. So this protects them on that. But it also gives us things within the city, land, roads, dollars, and everything. And this is our service area. And it's going to be up to you as an engineer to try to figure out where to put all that water that's in there.

Yeah, and it's an important part, too. All the impact fees, I mean, this does nothing with impact fees. So every house will pay the same impact fees. This is only reserves capacity. And special capital extension fees to pay. Yeah. So the reserve capacity, and it works both ways. So you would reserve it, and it's a scale reserve as it goes on. But then if something happens and that development doesn't happen, or if it stops, that capacity will come back to the city. So it does have a way that if development just stopped, never happened, or if it started and stopped, the capacity would come back.

I've actually asked a question about, because I know with the AWT, we have a certain amount, Callaway has a certain amount reserved, and that's why we put in the 7,000 units years ago to put water and sewer extension, and that comes out of the capacity because that's being... fill it up. But that's, I don't think water is an issue for that, but sewer could be, particularly the way that there are other cities, particularly Panama City, up Star Avenue, you know, everything that's going on up there, that a lot of capacity is going to take place But Callaway, as I understand it, has plenty of capacity for actually this project and all that. That's something for Bill and Eddie to bring up. So capacity is not an issue for us. But we do know, sooner probably than later, we're going to have to expand the AWT situation.

Yeah, and the county's looking at that now for future planning. As you know, several of the cities, and Calaway's one of them, are in an agreement. Basically, y'all own the... Military Point Plant, y'all are partners on that, and you have a lot of capacities. Pound City has a very small amount. Pound City actually has their own. They have two sewer plants they operate, and their problems that they're having in Pound City North is associated with those two plants. So that will not affect Military Point Plant at all.

None of that from up there comes down here.

Yeah.

We're separate. We're separate. We are separate. So our flows are separate from their flows. That is right.

One of the things, and we've been working on this for months now, was that my biggest fear was we'd get in, we'd give it away, and then if something happens in the economy, or if they decide not to build, we're just locked out. So that was one of the things that we worked on coming forward, that as long as they're building, they can keep getting their capacity. If they shut down and stop, then their capacity comes back.

Yeah, but this is a 30-year agreement. Yeah, 163. 30-year agreement.

30 years. And I think they have the reverter. The reverter is in five-year increments. Yeah, I don't talk five years. Yeah, so most people get a development order two years and I get an extension. So right now it's got a five-year reverter. They just obey their development order or whatever.

Well, who are you saying we've been anticipating this? Who's been working this? This is the first I've heard of all of this, and I've been on this commission for 10 years. Who is we? I'm asking you, who is we? There's stuff going on that I'm not aware of. You know, you're saying we've been aware of this, and who is we?

OK. Well, very honestly, concerning the road, and that's it. I wasn't involved in the soccer field possibility and all that until recently.

Yeah. But you were involved, and none of the rest on this commission was. So again, our city manager is not communicating with this commission. Maybe he's communicating with everybody else, and I'm left out in the blue. I don't know. But again, you know, I just, I

I can clarify a little bit. We've talked about Kimbrell and the low-lying areas for many, many years, and that we wanted it to go all the way up and eventually tap Gulf Coast Parkway. Now, that's not anything that's been hidden. We've talked about this in meetings. We talked about where the curb cuts would be, that it would actually be right across from where the paving that is – a tram road comes in and touches Gulf Coast Parkway, that we would be directly across and coming due south. So, I mean, those things we've talked about in commission meetings and budget meetings and sorts of stuff about, you know, at some point we're going to need to start looking at that when that develops, if not just know that it's coming and it's something we're going to have to do and be looking forward to. So, you know, when St. Joe came forward, you know, there was in the beginning, I mean, There was, hey, you know what, we sure do need another soccer complex. It wasn't until this agreement was written that I knew for sure that they were going to offer us that. And so that's just – honestly, the soccer – a new soccer complex, that's just a little icing on the cake.

And it's been recently agreed upon. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's just not – In the last two to three months. And I really can't come up here and say – I don't want to spoil or get anybody's hopes up whenever I didn't have anything in my hand that actually said, yeah, we're going to do this to you. It was just discussions across the table.

And I think we talked about the road back when we made that part of our service area. That is correct. I know there was something we had to do to make that our service area. We talked about the road at that time.

Now, as far as the road and all, we were going through the TPO because they had to go through the TPO in the state in order to let them know ahead of time. Now, we know where the road's going to go into because what they have told us, they didn't put the cut in. at this point, because we didn't have our plan on the road ready for that. So they didn't put the cut in, but they know that's where we're going to be going into that curve up there on the parkway. So that's what I was, and very honestly, There are a lot of things that, well, let's say that I do as part of my responsibility as commissioner or even a citizen. And very honestly, I use the term we because there's very little that I do as an individual in anything in life. So I've used the term we very honestly. We, when I'm talking to an engineer or something, we.

It's always a we. It's just public hearing. Yeah, I understand that. We could still take it.

Well, we're not talking about- I'm not necessarily deceiving you. I'd ask city manager for information. I didn't get that information. My concern is that we keep on talking all the capacity is not going to be a problem. We don't know that. We need the Bay County to come and tell us what our capacity is in writing, okay?

Do you have that?

Because we don't know. I don't have the current numbers. But, you know, it would be nice to have some numbers that we can look at.

Those are numbers from the county that is in the data analysis.

I was about to say, whenever we were thinking about that today, all of that was in the original...

It was in the comp plan amendment.

It was in the comp plan amendment, that's right.

And that's data from... The county, they do it monthly. And so Bill has requested it. And they put those reports out monthly. They track that, water and sewer for each city monthly. And Bill's requested it. They'll give you that report so you can see where you're operating at. Right.

Well, that would be nice to know before we I mean, you're operating like sewer.

You're less than half of your capacity. Right. Is what you're at, when we did the comp plan amendment.

Yeah, it was. Because I remember, that's where I kept going. I thought we had those members. They were in that comp plan amendment.

It complains that you're old. Exactly. That's why you need current data. Bill's requested it, so they'll give you the most current data. As soon as we get a hold of it, I'll email it out.

Because we have another public hearing, then it'll come back to us.

Like I said, tonight is discussion and input. If we need to get some data and have some revisions, I'm not suggesting we do it in two weeks. I would say... Yeah, the next meeting in September. Probably plenty of time to get. But that's all you need to do tonight.

You don't vote. You just pick the date of the next hearing. I had another question which has kind of been answered. What kind of land are we getting? Is it developable? Does it have spaces that we can't use this property? And we need to have that in writing. enter in agreement with St. Joe, you know, if half of it's wetlands, what good is it going to be?

Yeah, I think with your consensus, my suggestion would be put predominantly uplands from environmental contamination suitable for the city's purposes. I don't think so. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've got that.

Yeah, they just wanted to have that language like it was so they could, when it was delineated and surveyed.

This has given us 25 acres.

I'm looking at my notes.

I'm still, I understand every five years we're going to review it, but it's a 30-year agreement. Still, that's a long time. I don't understand what we can't, what's the difference? Why do we have to go with 30 years? So the 163 development agreement. Yeah, development agreement, because it gets recorded.

So basically it just protects the landowner and says, look, I've got this capacity. Subject to the language in the agreement, but the agreement runs with the land for 30 years under the development agreement.

that this applies to, which is that 1,000 acres, it will be 20- to 30-year development.

I understand that. The agreement applies for 30 years, but we'll have the five-year revision or reverted language in here if that's what you guys want.

If they don't use it, it goes back. I know they don't use it, they lose it, but at the end of the day, we're committed for 30 years. Correct?

Well, for this parcel... this parcel of land, this agreement will apply to that for 30 years. Now, having said that, if they don't, you know, if they abandon it and don't do anything, then, okay, great. We get the reservation back. All right.

As long as they're building, it will stay in effect.

This locks them into residential, correct? Yes. Okay. I don't want to see an AI data center coming back in. No, right.

Thank you, sir. If we're tired of reading, we need to look and see. We need to confirm that, yes, we have 50% of our capacity available.

We need to put that in writing, talking about it and giving us numbers verbally. I don't like that. You know, this is something we're doing in the future, and I'd like to see that in writing. That's what I had asked for a couple weeks ago when this was on the agenda. And, of course, it's not that. And, you know, I just don't know how it's working. Yeah, this commission.

I'll send it to him and Robin, I assume, so then you can share that with the commission.

Yeah, I'll coordinate it any way I can with Bill, and make sure that y'all get that done.

And I really think, too, in the long run, the minute we're at, obviously we're going to grow. And is this going to, as a commission, we need to look at, is that going to, in the long run, prohibit us from growing in the future? You know, because we've got one property that's going to have a hold on us for 30 years. We've already got a city that's outgrown their capacity, correct? Yeah, big one. Several. So, as a commission, as my... Of course, Parkway, be it wherever it is, you know, we need to almost have a workshop and discuss some of these issues.

And also, one of the statutory things that we added in there, which the Secretary of State was fine with, is that paragraph R, and this is under the statute, that we're supposed to review this as a city every 12 months. Say, all right, are you complying? What's your progress? And it may say, you know, hey, yeah, we're working on our development agreement. We're not going to apply. And whatever, but, you know. You do have to do annual review under the statute.

Didn't you just make the comment that the county is already looking at Expanding the treatment plant, so how we could expand. Yeah, they're looking for a future.

If it's not shovel ready, it's seven or eight years out. Oh, yeah. See what I'm saying? We could say that they're looking at it, but the reality here is that if it's not shovel ready, it won't even be built seven to ten years out.

We're not going to need it right now.

You have more capacity than it would. You have plenty of capacity to get you 10, 15 years out. They're looking long-term, and you have water and sewer. They're looking at a new water treatment plant. They're looking at upgrading military plant. You're looking at capacity for future, because Bay County's growing quite a bit, and building another possible wastewater treatment plant in another part of the county, too. that would serve us a different area.

They're also improving our water from 50 million gallons per day to 60 million gallons per day. And they're adding three filters. They already have 11 of them. So that was just approved the other day.

I have no problem with the 30 years because, very honestly, you know, if we're going to, this is how, Our service area. And we're responsible for it. And we're looking at it every year or five years and all that. And we may have to look at what our capacities may be. But this is our service area. We can't turn down a development because we don't want to provide what we're obligated to provide, which is the service.

I'm not saying turn it down. It's just that we need to look at the big picture. you know, where we're going tomorrow other than this development?

Well, the big picture today is we have plenty of capacity for 10 to 15 years or so. And here again, you know, we're going to be looking at what's taking place east of us, the developments that are going there. So we have to be looking at these things, and our engineers have to be looking at these things. And, you know, we need to be looking at five years of what we're going to be doing or 10 years of what we're going to be doing. Everything is not today. I'm not saying it's not today.

Did you have a time frame, Bob, that you were interested in instead of the 30?

No, just throwing it out there, that's a long time, 30 years. I don't know what the time frame is, what the commission agrees with. It's just that I just thought that we need to think of what we're doing with this thing. 30 years is a long time. And none of us are going to be here.

Realistically, planning a development of that size to build that, to build 1,700 units, it's going to be anywhere from 15 to 30 years. Depends on market.

When we first started this project, you were up here telling us that within the next 10 years, and now we're talking. No, you wouldn't build 1,700 units in 10 years. You can't sell.

within the next 10 years. They're not necessarily going to start building next year.

No. And I know that. The market is going to drive what they're going to do. That's what's happening across the right, right over here. Nothing's happening because the market is just not there. And when the market comes down and the interest rates come down, maybe they'll start building.

But there again, if they don't in that five years, it comes back to this.

And that's something like other developments where people locked it in, local governments locked in their capacity, and they had no way to get it back. This gives you that mechanism so it will come back if something happens and it sits. The city will get their capacity back.

Anybody else? Anything? Anybody?

Okay, we'll open it up to the audience.

Thank you, Ray. Ms. Custer? I'll get you next.

Karen Custer, 216 Lightning Road Drive. I did make a post about that meeting we had in March or whenever about capacities. And at that time, if they built 2,000 homes, we would hit 90% of our allocated capacity of the MPWWTP. So that's if they built 2,000 homes. And so since you're talking about 1,750 homes, If it was 2,000 homes, then it left room for 1,093 more homes to be built separate from this subdivision. So that becomes 1,343 since they've reduced the number. So that's the number you were talking about. How much capacity do we have? It's 1,343 homes, assuming that the numbers that they used were current. OK. They're talking about 200 units per year commencing upon executing the development agreement. OK, so we know that. However, they can decide not to build within a five-year period. But then they can say, well, we couldn't have where shortage of labor or materials or supply chains, a whole list of reasons why they don't really have to build in this time frame that they're agreeing to build. At the very bottom of page two, it says, any unused portion of the capacity shall remain reserved for exclusive use by the developer. But the reserved capacity may be used for any use beyond the property consistent with a comprehensive plan. And also, I was surprised that they can. OK, so then they turned it over to us 200 units at a time, and we're responsible for maintenance. I was curious, am I paying taxes to support that? I mean, is everybody in Callaway then paying to maintain this new property, or is it the people in the property? I'm curious about that. And they are entitled to number N to apply to modify the land use designation for any portion of the property as the developer determines in its sole discretion. So do we get a vote on that or not? OK. And like you said, they can review it every 12 months. that Kimbrell extends to Gulf Coast, is that going to go over to the properties, the Gulf Coast Parkway?

Kimbrell extension.

The Kimbrell extension, just make sure everybody understands, Kimbrell has nothing to do with that development over there. That's completely, totally separate. North Kimbrell, which is just right off of There's already North Kimbrell goes up at Dead Ends.

Highway 22.

Yeah, just right there from Highway 22. It'll go north all the way due north to Gulf Coast Parkway. It's not part of that.

It's not part of this. I just wondered if it had something to do with the project.

Instead of them writing a check, and we'll give you a right-of-way per capita. It's just a consideration for the reservation.

Do you want to address the question about the higher tax payers to maintain?

Yeah, so when they do a developer's agreement, they'll go in and put in the infrastructure and everything else, but they won't dedicate it to us. Bill, you may have to help me out with this. They'll dedicate it to us once the infrastructure is put in, correct? It'll have to be platted. The lots will have to be set. They'll go in. They'll put the streets in. They'll put in all the infrastructure. There's going to have to be lift stations out there. They will have to put in the lift stations. There's no cost going to be to the citizens. Once they turn it over to us, then that means they're building, and then we'll start seeing revenue from the houses once they get their COs and they get sold.

Ms. Langston, I think you wanted to comment.

Teresa Langston, 6031 Lance Street. So my question is, did the city offer to reserve capacity in exchange for the 25 acres, or did St. Judd ask to reserve in exchange for the 25 acres? Because it sounds like St. Joe just woke up one day and said, my goodness, Calvary needs a new soccer field. Let's offer 25 acres to them.

Now, we've had multiple discussions with St. Joe over the years. I know many, many years ago, we all sat down across the table. And I don't remember what it was about, Ray. I think you were actually in there when we talked about it. At some point, we were going to have to have right of way up Kimbrell for that. And we didn't ask them for 25 acres for, I don't remember sitting there going, oh, we need a park. I know we've always talked about needing parks, and they may have took off on it, but there wasn't a negotiation or anything like that. It was, you know, in the beginning. Ray, do you remember where the park came in at?

You know, in discussions with the city on St. Joe, and not only this property, but other properties, and then also looking at long-range planning, with the Gulf Coast Parkway being planned, Kemper Avenue came up, the extension of that, bringing that up. And then as discussions went along, we knew that the city needed additional parks that talked about parking out here. So the St. Joe Company offered that. As an incentive, as Kevin said, instead of writing the check, paying for reserve capacity, the city's offering the property in exchange and the right-of-way dedications.

I don't really think there was like a quid pro quo that somebody came and said, we'll give you 25 acres if you'll give us capacity. I don't think that's right.

You know, the St. Joe Company, and I mentioned this before, they're very good partners. They will partner with the city on anything. Schools, I mean, they do this with all the cities. Park spaces, schools, I mean. Lots of stuff. Airports? Yeah, I mean, they want the community. This is, St. Joe's here. They want Bay County and the cities to do better. I mean, they're a local developer that is willing to work with the local criminals. And always have. They've done a lot in all the cities.

Yeah, there hasn't been any negotiations.

Sorry, it's too late now. I know we infringed on your three minutes because he answered your question. Was there anything else? I'm sorry, Tricia, you can go right ahead.

That's why I wanted to just give you. I think you answered that as I kind of asked, as long as you don't take away my three minutes. Well, that's what I'm saying. Was there something else you wanted to comment on? Yes. So when we did the comp plan, I think we were at capacity of a little over 60%. And it seems like every time that we're approving a development, it comes at, oh my gosh, we got 40%, we got 40%, we got 40%, oh, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine. We're approving all this stuff. All this stuff is going to eat up the 40%, because I know if I only have 40% of my income left and I go out spending money and spending money and spending money, that 40% ain't going to last forever. So I think it's crazy that every time we want to approve something, oh, we have plenty of capacity. We have plenty of capacity. When we're building all this stuff to take up this capacity, because 40% only lasts for so long. What happens when all of this stuff that we have approved They build. And then what are we going to do? And I know, I get it that we've got to look for the future. And I can sit there and say, it's not going to be our problem in 30 years. But, I mean, do we really want to set people up for that? Because the people who did stuff in the past has kind of set you guys up for some stuff that you guys had to, you know, figure out. Or you could just look at the citizens and say, well, we're sorry. Somebody, you know, 20 years ago passed this, and, well, there's nothing we can do for you. You know, I mean, that's kind of crappy, but, I mean, I get it that it happens. But then I also want to say that... You know, you talk about the 25 acres for this new soccer field and this stuff, which I'm assuming that we're going to have to have more employees to maintain all this extra stuff because, you know, we have all these positions that we can't fill that we, you know, use salaries for and stuff like that. But, I mean, we can only run our employees for so long without hiring new people. And, I mean, it's not... It is kind of funny because of the way that we just use salaries for this and salaries for that and unused salaries for this and that and whatever. But that's all I just wanted to say is that 40% ain't going to last forever. And with all the stuff that we have been passing, 1,000 houses here, 750 here, this and that and whatever, that 40% ain't going to last forever. And I think we need to actually take that into consideration.

Thank you, Ms. Langston. Did you want to address any change? Mr. Bohack, you come on up, please.

Well, Mr. Bohack's coming up on kind of an average. 500 houses is about 700 or about 7 or 8% of capacity for each 500 houses based on some of the math they tossed out there. Capacity, 500. about seven to eight percent of capacity, or takes away about seven to eight percent of capacity, approximate?

Yeah, I mean, we're going to get some solid numbers from Binghamton.

Sure. That's why I asked.

Oh, absolutely. We're making decisions that don't have terms.

Per day per house of 2,000 units, that's only 700,000 gallons.

Okay. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Bobak. I apologize. That didn't come against your time.

Yeah. Paul Bohack said it. Excuse me. Paul Bohack, 7010 . I had originally reviewed the proposal that appeared in the package a couple of weeks ago, had compiled some comments I wanted to make. This evening, the city attorney upended everything with some comments. So I need some clarity from you, sir. Please explain precisely what you intend to do and how what you intend to do will affect or influence the document that we received previously.

Is that all? I mean, is that it?

That's all I needed. Thank you. So the one in the packet tonight

I printed it back in. It's in here.

Did you get what I emailed to you? Because there's a six-page document.

I did not. You did not what? I did not get the six-page document. However, there is one here I will take you with me.

Yeah, I mean, this is in the agenda that was published Thursday or Friday, whatever. So I just made from the one from two weeks ago, because that was kind of the first time I saw it, too. It was Thursday. you know, the annual review, and you have to have the publisher notice and all that. So I just made statutory compliant revisions, and everything was fine. I told Ray and the St. Joe attorney that I'm going to hold off on any substantive revisions until we have this hearing so I can get input from you. So, I mean, what my plan would be is to go and make some revisions to – the 25 acres, that sort of stuff. If you're going to deed it to us, deed it to us in 60 days. It's going to be a suitable site, primarily uplands, those types of things that we heard today.

Technically separate the 750 acres as part of the Kimbrough extension from the 1,098 acres that was recently

Kimbrough is anywhere near there. So I don't think we need to.

No, because that was then as part of the original agreement that came from St. Joe's, which is part of my concern.

This agreement, when it's recorded, runs with the land. So that's just our consideration for locking in capacity for this 1,000 over there. Which has nothing to do with the 1,000 acres. Say again? The Kimbrough extension and the 25-acre part, that's just the payment or consideration for locking in that 1,000 acres over here. They're not related to each other other than that's just the city's payment.

And they are not a part?

Part of the agreement is because it's how we're being compensated for blocking in the capacity.

But they're not- But the whole 750 acres is not part of the agreement. What he's saying, 750 acres at Kimbrell.

No, it's just a road right away.

Yeah, it's just a road right away at Kimbrell. Right.

is tighten up that language and then, like I said, add dispute resolution, some other general legal stuff that's not statutory but I think needs to be in there. If there's a dispute over it, here's what we do. They can't just assign it to anybody. It needs to be another St. Joe. Because we want somebody like St. Joe, if we're going to do this, that has the financial wherewithal to be able to perform. But yeah, I mean, the big thing I kind of wanted, input one, is are you guys good with, yes, we'll lock in capacity. Once you know what the capacity is, obviously you don't make their decision until the next hearing in exchange for the road right-of-way and the 25-acre park parcel, conceptually. And then we can make the revisions and set a hearing.

So we'll have that information when we have our next meeting. We'll have that information by then.

I'm okay with that. Yeah, did you want to move it out to a September meeting? I would, just to give you guys time.

I would too.

That's really the only decision we need from the commission tonight is the date and time of the second hearing. I think we should move it to a September meeting and give the county time to get the information that we want.

So how about the second meeting in September?

Or the first one. I mean, that's a month away. This is just the first meeting in August. That's right. So after the first meeting, what is the date for that? 8th. September the 8th.

That's a month. Yeah.

We need to advertise it seven days prior. We just put it on the county website.

I'm going to see if anybody else wanted to comment. Did anybody else want to comment? I don't see anyone. I'm not missing anybody, okay. So we just do September the 8th. We'll be our second public hearing.

Thank you.

So we don't need to vote on that, that just? Nope. Okay, so we'll close the public hearing and we'll move on to a regular agenda. So agenda item number three, submission for submerged land easement from the state.

All right, this is resolution number 2609, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Callaway, Florida, authorizing the submission of an application to the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida. Through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Division of State Lands, Bureau of Public Lands for a submerged land easement over sovereignty submerged lands necessary for the Bertha Spillway Rehabilitation Project. Authorizing the city manager to prepare, execute, and submit such application and pay applicable fees. Authorizing the mayor to execute the easement and related documents. Authorizing city officials and staff to take all actions necessary to obtain the easement, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

This is the cat chasing its own tail. The state, the Corps came through with some weird RFIs and they just want us to apply for a submerged land permit for the Bertha Spillway replacement. It's the wildest thing we've ever seen, but if that's what they want, we drew one up.

And we kind of went through this with the bridge replacement. Because they did look at that right-of-way. And one year, it got widened to certain. But if there's some stuff in the water, they say, hey, get this little square. And we'll give you an easement over it so you can do the work. It's silly.

I actually approved a right-of-way agreement with myself. That's why I ask you, do we have a form? to myself to give myself access to my own right away. And I signed it and sent it to them. They're saying, great.

As long as they're happy. Does anybody have any comment or question on this one?

Nope. Just one. How much are the fees? There may not be one. No cost.

Did anybody in the audience want to comment on? requested that we have to, yes, ma'am?

It would make more sense if there were fees involved. They were trying to get paid.

I just had a real quick question. When would this project, do you think, even start? Is there a planned date?

Right now, we have submitted all of the documentation to the state. They came back with a couple of RFIs. That's just a request for information. A couple of other documents we had to provide. We're waiting on them to give us an executed document. Once we get an executed document, then we've got the bid prepared, do we not, Ashley? Approve the birth disability?

Pretty much.

Yeah. That's what we're doing. This is the grant that's going to pay for half of this. Okay. And we already had it in the budget. So we were prepared to get the grant. We just weren't prepared to build it all ourselves. So now we're in the final stages of the grant. And once they send us an executed agreement that says, yes, we accept we're going to pay half. Okay. Or, I'm sorry, $1.45 million, something like that. Then we'll start executing it, putting it out for bid.

All right, thank you.

So we'll be able to start the project real soon. That's kind of the beauty of some of the things that's been going on at the state. The governor took a new stance on grants. He started kicking projects out that didn't have engineering already done. Well, we've got... 10 lift stations, and we had the birth of Spillway. We already had engineering plans for it. We had heard this was going to happen a couple of years ago. This year, he actually did it. We was not expecting to get the grant for the Spillway this year. We thought it would be in next year's budget, but he went ahead this year, and he started kicking projects that had engineering, and it just brought ours right up, and ours was engineered ready, and he said, give it to them.

Does it have a certain duration already set out, a couple years to do it, to execute it?

Oh, well, no, they'll execute the agreement.

No, I mean to execute the project.

I don't know what the time frame on it. It may be a year project at the most. And we're not planning on shutting down Bertha.

This is an easement for 5,000 square feet. So basically, the city has the Bertha right-of-way, and the state's saying, well, you might need to have an easement over 5,000 square feet of water so you can do this project. So we're getting an easement over 5,000 square feet of water that no contractor will step foot in.

Anybody else?

Now, I say that, but if we had a concrete truck, we may have shut down for an hour. We'll try to keep those planned. Maybe just one lane, OK? But we're not planning on it.

It's been part of the old deal. Don't say we won't. I'm not going to say we won't.

Because I guarantee you, you watch me. I'll go out there one day and have to shut it down for a couple of hours. And I'll be thrown under the bus and beaten, kicked, stabbed.

You know that?

Yeah. OK. So nobody else in the audience wanted to speak, so gentlemen?

Motion to approve submission for submerged land easement from the state. Second.

OK, we've got a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, city clerk?

Commissioner Gray?

Yes.

Commissioner Pelletier?

Yes.

Commissioner Ayers?

Yes, ma'am.

Commissioner Bartzell? Yes. Mayor Henderson?

Yes. OK. So we will move on to agenda item number four, advisory board appointments. City manager or Ms. City Clerk.

So this was, this item was tabled at the last commission meeting. We do have a planning board vacancy for an unexpired term ending December 31st of 2027. Mr. Bostick and Mr. Cormier are both in the audience.

Well, I guess we'll start out. Would either of you gentlemen like to say anything on your behalf? Or, I mean, we can discuss it some, and then you can, we'll have public comment, and you can do it then. So, I was just giving you the option.

Maybe an introduction by each of you.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, would you like to do just a brief intro? I mean, we've got, both you gentlemen are here, so...

Tony Bostic. I live over on North Kimball. Retired from the military. I had one of the great pleasures of serving in three of the four branches of the military. So I kind of been there, done there, bought the t-shirt. I retired from the military in 2004. I've been here since. As most of you know, I'm kind of engrossed in the things I do in the community. And I had a lot of choices of places to live, and I chose to live in Callaway because even when I retired from the military, I think Callaway is the city with the most solid plan. to be a great place to live. You guys have done an outstanding job. Yeah, we don't always like everything you do, but you've done a great job of managing growth. And so we don't overbuild or outgrow our, I know you're gonna hate this word, capacity. But I think you guys have done a great job. Post Hurricane Michael, one of the things that further impressed me was that you were one of two municipalities in the county that wasn't underwater. When I say on the board, I'm talking about financially. And yeah, you did take a little hit because you had to get things rolling, but you bounced back like real champions. And I think that says a lot for the people that sit where you guys sit. Again, we don't always agree with all of your decisions, but I think if we take and be honest, you guys have done an outstanding job. And when a new commissioner comes on, they seem to... get on board the bandwagon. And they seem to have the same idea that you guys have. And that's making Callaway the greatest place in Bay County to live. The deputy earlier, if you take those same numbers and you go to Panama City or you go to Landhaven, you'll see the difference. You'll see the difference. And yes, we're going to have traffic accidents. Yes, somebody's going to get a ticket. The way that law enforcement over here handles things are a whole lot better than they do in the rest of the county. The mayor, we've got the friendliest mayor in Bay County. We've got the friendliest mayor in Bay County. City manager, we've got probably the most accessible city manager in Bay County. We definitely have one of the most friendly in Bay County. But it's very rarely that I've ever heard anyone say that they called to talk to Ed Cook. And either they didn't talk to him right then, or he didn't call them back in a reasonable amount of time. So I think that says a lot for our city manager. For those that don't know, He had stepped in here at the worst time he could have ever decided to change jobs. He stepped in here one day, and I guess it was probably within a week of Hurricane Michael, and it was all on his shoulders. And he stood in the paint. He stood in the paint like a real champion. And I think his leadership has been on display ever since then, and I'm exceptionally proud. I talk with him a lot. Well, I should say I argue with him a lot. But he's always got the right answer.

Thank you.

Mr. Griggs, Commissioner Griggs. I talk with him probably more than I talk with any of the other guys. And that's not because I don't want to talk with you guys. I just happen to see him more often. Now, Commissioner Pelletier, I see him at my favorite shopping spot, Walmart, all the time. And so I think you guys are great. And I think I would love the opportunity to work with you guys to help shape our great little city. I think we have the best, again, the best city in Bay County to live. 159 North Kimball is where they'll lay me to rest from. I'm not leaving Callaway. And I just hope you guys will decide to let me be a part of this great family. Thank you. Have a good evening.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Mr. Cormier.

Afternoon, James Cormier. I'm going towards the end of my military career, 16 years. I've been to quite a lot of boards. And at this point, I'm looking to more put my focus and energy into the community. I have been in the area for four years, but I just recently bought a house here in Callaway in the recent year. That's kind of why I'm looking forward to getting involved into the planning board. I don't have the experience of knowing everybody on this board, but what I don't have in the experience is what I have in youth and the gung-ho and the ambition. A few things about me. I've been a part of so many boards in the Air Force. I was a part of the Air Force Service Association and Division II, which covers seven states, 10,000 members. I was on the International Board for Communications Committee, where we revamped all communications for all 100,000 members, updating old, outdated software, stuff like that. Ultimately, I just want to make Callaway the best city it can for my newborn son and my wife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cook. You want to discuss and then we'll open it up for citizen comment. Anybody want to say anything?

I've said No, at the last meeting I covered a lot of things that really involved Tony and his actually input at our budget meetings and input that particularly after the hurricane, you know, the cream rises after the situation like that. He's always been, he's aware of where we have to go with our goals on the city. And he's also been aware of the, also is aware that the planning board has to follow certain rules and regulations, etc. Some people think, well, I can get on the planning board and I can make a change. The state has a lot of toward that and of course the city. But I make no bones about it that I would welcome Tony on the planning board. And citizens that are coming into Callaway, really appreciate them getting involved. I know, Pam, I'm looking at you and all that business, but we were involved with the city for, I've been involved with the city for over 20 something years on various committees and various developments that have come in. Not as a commissioner, but just as a citizen like so many people that are sitting out there now. and the more you learn to realize that history is important, today is important, and the future, as we talked about today, 30 years is important, that kind of thing. So we need to understand that, and whoever advises us needs to understand that, too.

Commissioner Birdsell, I think you wanted to say something.

I had some questions. really simple questions they answered some of them like why do you want to serve they both kind of explained why they wanted to serve I've read y'all's experience of where you're at but two questions if you weren't selected tonight would you be someone that would want to apply again when a position comes open like when this term ends in another year or if another person ever steps down or something else up would you be wanting to or is this like hey I'm going to try it once and if it ain't for

me if I don't get it I'm out I would really apply again I try to be as involved as I can and not only in Callaway quote-unquote politics but throughout Bay County so it's not a one and done for me I'm gonna be around I'm I'm planning on drawing Social Security time 110 so I'm

So I would absolutely look forward to other board positions, even if it's not even with the planning board. Any way that I can volunteer my time to help out the city, I'd be down for it.

Mr. Cook?

Go ahead.

What's your address that you're at now?

702 Michael Drive. Gotcha.

Question for you. You said that you're still active military. Are you on a control tour or anything, or are you potentially getting orders before you're retired?

So as of now, I am not getting orders to move. Obviously, I have some say in that, but not a lot. But yes, to answer your question, there's nothing projected in the near future. And with being so close to the end of my term, they're not going to try to send me somewhere else for another four years. I wouldn't have that kind of retainability.

What kind of, what are your duties now in the Air Force? Is it Air Force?

Yes, sir. So I'm Air Force. I'm in munitions systems.

Munitions?

Yes, sir. I currently just stood up the first ever Tyndall shipping and receiving section. We track $181 million worth of hazardous material in and out of Tyndall. Obviously, Tyndall was being built up as well. There was a lot of in and out bounds coming out. And now I'm in a more supervisory role, and I have more troops now. So before, I was in charge of three people with a lot of duties. Now I'm in charge of 13 people and less explosives.

Are you in your 30s?

36. 36, OK. Thank you.

Are you good? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Did anybody else have anything they want to say? Okay, I'll let the audience, if anybody wants to say anything. Just want to give you an opportunity. Yes, ma'am.

She's pulling me a chair if you're right.

At least get you one of wheels if you...

All right, so I'll give you the same spiel that I've given you before when we have applicants. You talk about how you want citizens to be involved and how you want this and how you want that. You want citizens to love y'all and come to the meetings and all that stuff. When they do apply for positions or come to the meeting to speak, they're kind of treated poorly. by some members of the commission. And here we're going to be faced with the same old same old of putting the same person on multiple boards and stuff. And I think we should have different people on different boards. By doing that, you have more diverse perspectives, more broader community representation. But we seem to kind of want to default to, well, we know Joe Smith over here, so we're going to put him on this board, this board, and that board, just because we know them and we think that they're a good person or whatever. We've seen that over and over again when there's been applicants. I've been up here for incumbent meetings for several years, and it just seems to be the same old, same old. They will have better accountability with different people, have different views. I know some people don't care about that. Some people just want to go, hey, my buddy's on this board or that board. And as far as the planning board, sure, we've got things that we've got to follow. We're an advisory board. We don't make any decisions. You know what I'm saying? And sometimes you listen to us and sometimes you don't care. Sometimes you don't care what the citizens say. You just kind of do what you want to do. Depends on your relationship with the person that's applying or whatever. And I do think that... that in this case that it might benefit the city of Catteray to have different people on the different boards. I get it that y'all know people and stuff like that, but you gotta give other people a chance to get involved in the city. And y'all seem to shut new people down. I know for a fact that y'all seem to shut people down because y'all have done it to me before. But I don't go away. I come back week after week after week with my opinion, and whether you like it or not, I'm going to say what I'm going to say. So I do think we should give other people a chance instead of having one person on different boards or whatever.

Thank you. And we do appreciate your input, Ms. Langston. Thank you. Custer, and then I'll get you. No, it's OK. No, I saw your hand, and then I saw his.

Karen Custer, 216 Laney Road Drive. I just met Tony last meeting. He seems like a nice enough fellow. But like Theresa mentioned, he's already on one committee. And he said he'd be willing to apply for this position when it expires at the end of next year. And then we have the opportunity to have somebody who works on Tyndall who maybe could bring some other people into meetings. You know, it's like some fresh ideas. So I thought, well, it might be good since he's available now to bring him in now, and then Tony or whoever can think about it again next year. I really appreciated you saying you'd be willing to wait. So that's my thought. Okay. Ms. Fossler?

Martin Boston, 6303 Wallace Road. I've looked over the city charter a lot, read a lot of it, looked at it, looked for certain things. One of the things that's important and these positions, your guys' positions, and positions that people are applied for, planning board, it's nonpartisan. So if you have somebody come up here and they say a person's name that might be our president, that's a little bit partisan. I don't like that. I couldn't find anything in the city charter saying anything about somebody being on multiple boards. But I think you've got to spread that knowledge and wealth to them. Also, if you look at that person's application and they list in there a lot of stuff that they are qualified for, and in me having that qualification, look up on the website and it says application denied, that makes me wonder what else they're lying about. And then... A lot of stuff, when I looked up, I still have no access to some random database. I just look up what these people post on Facebook. It looks like one of them spends a lot of time in Lynn Haven. We want people to come here. I want people to come here and voice their concerns for here, not for Lynn Haven. This ain't Lynn Haven. Don't tell me you're going to die in Calhoun, but you're spending most of your time over there. And I ain't singling one out at all, so you might all want notes for that. But I'm going to fire some at the other person, too. We, there's a lot of us up here, a lot of us standing here, a lot of us here that are military. And we know how that job is, how you can be gone, how you can be doing all kinds of other things and not have time for what needs to happen. I think that everybody should take that into consideration too. It's just a lot of stuff that you've got to do while you're in the military. Did that for 20 years. You all have a good one?

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Did you want to?

No. Okay. Bring it away, 7126, singleton, circle. You're a little short. I'm short.

I know.

Shorter, I said. I'm not sure. It's fine. How many applied? Was it just the two? Just the two. How many do we usually get applied? More than two?

No.

So we're limited to what we get. That's what I was thinking. My resignation had already been booked in for the end of November. I will gladly leave my seat early if it helps both gentlemen get their position. Let me know what needs to be done, if that helps. I know I can't drive right now. I know there's a process, but I'll give mine up if it helps. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Is there somebody? Did you want to say something? Since you're the applicant, I'll let you speak again, or an applicant.

Tony Boster, 159 North Kimball. I'm not exactly sure what the young man was alluding to, but I think everybody knows me. I spent a lot of time in Lynn Haven, just so everybody will know. I spent a lot of time in Lynn Haven because I thought it was an injustice. I don't spend a lot of time at Callaway City Commission meetings because I've found very few injustices. I think some of the injustices that I've seen here in the Callaway Commission meeting is that sometimes you guys on that side of the dais are a little too civil. You're a little too easy. You're a little too, I don't really want to upset them. When sometimes you have to take a hammer to a marble. And I understand you guys. I understand you really well. On my application, it says that I worked in military intelligence, underground utilities, business and church security. That's all easily verifiable. Firearms safety instruction. Me and my wife have ran a weapons training company for the last six years here. So that's verifiable. Other than that, there was nothing. That says eight licenses with the NRA. I pay $88 a year times eight to maintain my certifications so that I can continue to hold my license as an instructor for all eight disciplines that the NRA has. And as far as me invoking the name of the president, it was a joke. I've done that in Panama City. I've done that in Calaway. I've done that in Lynn Haven. It's just to lighten the mood. If you take that to heart and believe that I'm Donald John Trump, then that says more about you than it does about me. If you can't last sometimes, you probably got a problem. As far as military service goes, I had the great privilege of being a United States Marine for 13 months. I had the great pleasure of being a United States Army soldier for nine years, six months, and a couple weeks. I had the distinct pleasure of being a United States Air Force member for seven years, four months, and a couple days. I've done my time. You can go and pull my 214. You can do whatever you need to do. But then again, if you have an issue or a question with me, you can always, you look at my, if you can find my Facebook post, you can find what I believe, what I stand for, and you know that I don't back down. I'll follow my sword if I believe it's right. And I don't take kindly to things like that because I'm not going to get up here and if me and Commissioner Pelletier might have an issue over or whatever.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. OK. I want to give you equal time. Did you want to say anything else?

I think I'm good. OK. Can I ask you a question? If Spring's going to step down, does it just make it mute? Can we put them both on? She's got to do it first.

Yeah, she needs to do it first. I think we probably need to select somebody, and then if she steps down, then maybe we could. Wouldn't that be the more appropriate way to do it? Yeah, so we need to appoint somebody tonight and then see what happens. If she decides to change her mind, that's okay, too. So did anybody else want to say anything? Going, going, gone. OK. Would somebody, would anybody like to make a motion?

I'd like to nominate Mr. Cormier for the position. I'll second that.

OK. Is there any other discussion? Or we'll vote. If there's no further discussion, we've got a motion and a second. OK. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No.

It looks like we're 3-2. Did you say aye? I said aye. 3-2. So congratulations Mr. Cormier. I imagine Ashley will be in touch with you to let you know about the first meeting and stuff. And we appreciate you stepping forward to to work with the city, to serve the city. And thank you, Mr. Bostic. I know we'll see you again. You're very involved in all communities. So I know you have enough to keep you busy right now anyway.

Well, plus the choice. We couldn't make a bad choice. That's right. You couldn't make a bad choice.

But thank you both very much. Yes, sir. Okay, so now we will go on to our item number five, surplus equipment. Leisure services surplus equipment, I apologize.

Yeah, so just basically at the last meeting we did the adjustments. That equipment's been ordered and we're gonna go ahead and start the surplus property, the surplus process.

Anybody have any?

I just have any on the 2016. That's not too old. Is it just unserviceable? Or 2016? I can see the 2007 and 2014, but. It still runs.

It's just got a lot of hours on it.

It's a lawn mower?

Yes.

Yeah, but can we use it as a backup?

We have been using it as a backup.

I know we replaced it already. I understand that. But my question was, do we have to get rid of it?

But it is a lawnmower. It is a 10-year-old lawnmower. So I know mine's wearing out pretty damn quick. Yeah.

No, I was just curious.

Maybe it's in good enough shape that we still get something for it instead of running it into the ground and then we get nothing for it. Anybody else have any?

No.

Did anybody in the audience want to comment on surplus in this equipment. I don't see anybody.

Motion to approve leisure services surplus equipment.

Second. OK, we've got a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, motion carries.

And for you that are wanting a really good mower that's

Please. You need to put out when they're going to have an auction so that city people know in case they do want to go and see what the city's surplus is. We need to put that out there. Yeah, put it on the website and say.

I'll reach out to him and have him send me the information.

He's got one that's going to be in auction and let citizens know. You know, people are here and they see what we're surplusing. If nothing else, they can go and see that we're really selling it.

I sure don't want to go down there and bid on it.

No, I know you don't, but somebody might. I mean, somebody was indicating they could use that longer.

We run the full out of them. We take care of them. That's right.

Yeah, there you go. It's got to come with the person. Okay, we'll go to item number six, bid award, Public Works 2026-07, water meters.

I'll take it. This is just kind of a new way that we're starting to do business. Currently, there is only one supplier for our water meters, and that's corn made. But unless we bid it out, we can't do the large quantities. And we've been keeping shorter, smaller quantities as we budget through so that it actually doesn't end up being a capital purchase because that would put us into having to go out for bids. So we're going to bid the whole entire year out because we know it's a sole source provider. They're the only ones that produce the eye pearls. We put the bid out. We actually did get two bids. But the one company didn't bid our meters. They bid a completely different meter that will not work on our system. So with that being said, this is just going to be in that we've talked about in the budget. I think we've got about 400,000 in there for meters this year. So we will put through one large purchase order. But we'll dole out how they come into us. It won't be at one time. It'll just be as needed. And if they have that purchase order, we don't have to wait on meters. They'll keep them in stock for us at all times.

I have one question. Do we have space to store?

No. We'll find space. We'll put two pallets there.

That's where you said it. We're not going to get a year's worth up front. We're going to get what we need for two weeks, a month, or whatever we need.

We're not going to buy them all. We'll just pull off that purchase order as we need. We may order two pallets at a time. And then when it starts dwindling, we'll say, hey, we'll be ready for another two. We'll be able to get them easier. It's going to be a more efficient way to do business because they are a sole source provider.

And the bill proved it.

Yes, it did.

We got two, and one of them wasn't even the right thing.

Yeah, that baffled us for a couple of days, didn't it?

Because the brands were specified.

Yeah, we specifically said this is the meter that we have to have that only fits with our system, and we just got a random bid. Obviously, they didn't read it closely. I don't know. Or they thought we wouldn't. Even their bid amounts didn't match up, right?

No, it was wildly off.

Yeah, everything was off. The quantities, the totals, we were just baffled.

Does anybody else up here have anything? Would anybody in the audience like to comment on the bid award for the water meters? This one gives y'all the opportunity. Not seeing anybody. Do you need a motion?

Motion to approve the bid award for the Public Works 2026-07 water meters. Second.

OK, we've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. We go on to the bid award, Public Works 2026-09, fire hydrants.

Almost the same situation, only there are multiple providers. But when we need a fire hydrant, we need hydrants. And it's hard to know how many we're going to need ahead of time. So that being said, it was easier to go ahead and put this out for bid. and it actually did drive the cost down significantly by doing it this way. So it's going to be versus what we have budgeted, so we will be going ahead and probably getting a couple of extras since the bid came in love.

Now, is this, I mean, the bid amount, is that for one? Yeah, for how many is that?

It looked like 12 to me, wasn't it?

I think 12. Okay.

Yeah, that was for 12. Yeah, we put the bid in for 12.

I knew it couldn't be for one.

No, no, that's for 12 hydrants. Okay. But the bids came in below what we're actually budgeting, so we'll actually be able to, I think, get 14 or 15 when it's all said and done.

Wonderful.

And we always need hydrants. This also has to do with the new hydrants that we're putting in, the extensions that we're doing, and adding fire protection.

The new ones that we're putting in to add fire protection, will those be paid with impact fees? Yes. Because I think we talked about that, that that is eligible for impact.

It is eligible, yes.

So if you're just replacing one someplace else, a car head, that's not going to be impacted. No, no, no.

And we do have aging hydrants that we put on rotation. The chief does his testing. And then if one is not adequately working right, then we'll go to them.

I know I see them test because one of them happens to be kind of catapulted from my house.

Car head, you go up to their insurance.

That's true. That's true. That is true.

I wanted to ask that question too. Do we have any firefighters that are not working in our city?

We might have a few public works working on them. The issue that we're having is lower flows, which they are being addressed with the bigger lines and stuff like that that the guys are doing.

I don't understand. We have a few that are not working. We have a fire in that area. What's going to, you know, we've already been through the way to get water there.

If I could call tankers or lay an extra, you know, 500 foot of hose, we will definitely.

We won't let our yacht. We don't, we don't want to. We're aware of it. Okay. Fire wasn't aware of it.

So they tied in and they, you know, they planned everything right there and there. That thing was dead, and they're like, now we have to pick everything up and be mobile. So we are aware we have a great relationship with Public Works.

I know you've got water in the trucks, but at some point, if it's a big fire, you know.

Of course, yes, sir.

Hopefully we don't have that issue. We've had kitchen fires and small fires, but I was just curious. I need to ask the question, you know,

If we know they're not working, why haven't we replaced them?

We have been replacing them. That's what he said, Public Works is working on it.

Yeah, there's balance issues sometimes underground that Thomas is located.

So these are going to, those two are going to be replaced, correct?

Yes.

Okay. Are they still functional at the moment?

Some of them are functional. They will have water come out, but we've just got to understand that it doesn't have to flow. Right. And we'll compensate for that.

Anybody else up here have any questions? Anybody in the audience want to talk about, comment on the bit of work for fire hydrants? Not seeing anybody. Would someone like to make a motion?

Motion to approve the bid award for the Public Works 2026-09 Fire Hydrant. Second.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries and we will go on to item number eight, task order, DH group. Lift station, rehab, grant, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, EDSC, CEI, project . So we've got the grant for the three lift stations that's coming up. There are some modifications to two of the lift stations that are going to need to be done. study that came forward that talked about certain stations needing other things. So we will not do anything on this task order until we get the executed agreement back from the state for the three lift stations. But we'll be able to do those modifications under under the ESDC portion of it. That's where they will review the plans. And this is all grant funded. But this is also the CEI. Now, when we did the engineering for the 15 lift stations, as part of that, we put in the agreement a set price for CEI for lift stations, which is like $45,000 a lift station. price from normal CEI work. So we're going to go ahead and execute the CEI for these particular lift stations so that whenever they do the grant award, we'll be able to start the EDSC immediately. And then, of course, there'll be just some minor modifications to two of the three. It has to do with the electrical. We're going to move them from 220 up to 480, something like that. So we can increase the power of those, and we've been working with FPL right now to make sure that we have power in the area to be able to cover that, so we'll be able to put the larger pumps in, which will ultimately all be impact fees. In fact, two of the lift stations will be definite upgrades. We're still looking at the third one, which means we won't match with impact fee money to keep from hitting our Even though our sewer budget's fine. So we're just getting a little bit of a head start on it. Go ahead and get this in so that when we get that agreement back, we can go full speed with EDSC so we can get that up to bid.

The $45,000 you mentioned, that's 50%. And then that's 50% of the CEI because it says $92,000. But I mean, is that 50% of the cost? In other words, we're matching that.

The state's going to give us a grant for half and we're paying the other half? I mean, the way it generally works with the grants, you can't look at it that way. We have to say, because it If it come in real low, the state's only going to match 50% up to that amount. So the numbers will vary. It doesn't apply to CEI or to construction. It's all lump summed in there, and we'll split the cost 50-50.

50% has been in zero.

I'll take 50 right now. We got spoiled at 90-10. We got spoiled at 90-10. Yeah, we did.

But at least we took advantage of that as long as we could.

We did. Yeah, we did. And like I said, with us having these shovel-ready projects, that's just pushing us up to the front on all the lines for granted. trying to start thinking ahead of what we need to go ahead and start engineering. Because I don't think the state's going to change. They're just trying to maximize their money. And they basically said, we're tired of you throwing a project at us. And then you go out and you spend a year and a half engineering and then a year and a half in construction. And these projects are really waylaying out many years whenever they're saying, we want to fund it in this year's budget. And they don't want to run carryovers.

Anybody up here have any other questions, comments? OK. Did anybody in the audience want to comment on the task order for the lift stations? I don't see anybody. So would someone like to make a motion?

Motion to approve task order. DH Group, formerly Basket Rail Donovan, Lift Stations 31-8-4, Rehab Grant, ESDC, CEI, and Project Puzzle. Second.

Okay. We've got a motion and a second. If there's no other discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And we'll go on to our add-on item. which is grant administration services, city manager.

First, I thank you all for letting us add this on late. We had the RFQ meeting yesterday. What we're sitting in is we have these three grants that we're going to need to pull grant administration in on to help us with our paperwork, which is funded through the grant. So most of the time, there is no out-of-cost pocket to the city fees. proposals for administration of city grants. Proposals were received from K2, GURAS, and CRI. The three committee teams scored the proposals. Two members scored GURAS as the first, K2 as the second, and CRI as the third. One member scored K2 as the first, GURAS as the second, and CRI as the third. However, when you put the scores in to the table and you add the scores up, it actually put K2 as having the highest overall score. So this kind of really puts us into a position of thought of two people said Gouros was the best, but due to scoring, individual scoring bias could actually lead to flipped numbers. And so we've currently been working with GRRS and its staff with grant administration since 2020 with no issues in performance, no de-obligations, no issues at all. And so we would like to request to continue working with GRRS to maintain the continuity of the grants process. And we're going to review the scoring criteria situation and see. Because this has just been a really weird effect that, I mean, somebody could actually go in and score everyone super low, one person super high, and it could flip a whole entire committee as opposed to looking at it in terms of how many people scored what highest. It's not a good situation. So we are a very unusual city, Commissioner. We're one of the few cities that we allow residents to sit on RFQs and RFP committees and on big committees.

But there's a big disparity between the two of them. I mean, if you're saying that you want to throw out the first bid, the first award, the K2, is a 20 plus votes difference.

20 points. I have 100. Yeah. Yeah. Once again, you had two members that said this was the better. One member chose them as the second instead of the first.

Yeah, I know.

Cumulatively, you would go, okay, well, the majority wants to go with grass. But when we put the points in, which I'm going to be honest with you, I've never really paid attention to the points. I think we've determined we have a flawed process. That's just the point thing is not working for us right. And they are an advisory committee, so I spoke to Kevin today, and Kevin said, no, it's the commission. We can choose whoever we want. I know that. Yes, it's not the way.

We've done that many times. I understand that. You know, if the track record, and again, we don't know, maybe we need new blood. If the qualifications.

Yeah, and the other two picked Gorass. Right. So we're sitting in a weird spot. I would say if we had ever had a problem or an issue with our current grant writer, then yeah, I wouldn't have a problem switching over. But in six years, we've never received a single issue and all grants have been paid in full. I think also without getting into the proposals themselves, one thing that did set GURUS apart from the other two is when it was in pricing. They gave us people's names with their quantities per hour, but it wasn't never addressed the situation of how much does a grant allow. GRUAS says the maximum that they will ever charge is the cost of the grant, what we get for the grant. So we're guaranteed to never have an out-of-pocket expense. The only time that there would be an out-of-pocket expense was they could come back if We had a grant, and y'all know we've done this many times where we got a grant and then all of a sudden we talked the state into giving us more money and we doubled the grant size. Well, in that case, then their fees would double in a case like that. Of course, all those would come before the commission. They have to come before y'all, before that's done. It's a very weird situation, and we were trying to evaluate it, but just looking at it from the back, two people said Varese was the best. I do have a preference. I've been working with these same people. They're very good. Switching over to all new personnel and new assignments. It'd be a hassle in my opinion.

The one grading was... just way out from the other two. And there's only three people, so it's hard to throw out the high and the low. But normally you would do that, come up with a better average that way. But in this case, The grading by one person was so out of line, not out of line, but so different from the other that it was almost, what, 33 points difference versus the other ones where it's only four and six points difference.

I think we may probably have to start taking these committees and taking their scoring and have them discuss their scoring. during the meeting, why they came up with that. In case they, you know, if somebody scoring when they say, well, why is there so little, why do they think this?

Or maybe have a talk about the scoring a little bit so someone didn't get penalized by such a large amount that it affects the overall score.

The issue that we run into, and I'll be real honest with you, is it has to do with bias. If I stand up here, I have to be extremely careful with what I say because I don't want there to come back and there be, oh, well, there was bias involved in this. You know them or something like that. And so it becomes very difficult during the process when they're up here of, you know, we may need to write some specifications of, okay, you know, item number one, discuss this line. Item number two, discuss this line. Item number three, discuss this line. So that, you know, because in most of these, you know, we have a whole pool of people that are randomly chosen and put on there. We always try to put one staff member on there. So if they have any insight, and that makes us very unusual from the other cities because the other cities, their RFQ committees are all done by staff members. City staff sits on every one of them, and they just choose who they want. And, you know, we've tried to stay away from that. We've always only put one staff member on there, except for after the hurricane, you know, we had all the issues, and so we did actually use commission members on some of those in the beginning. But, you know, now we have a pool of people, and we just randomly choose off of them and say, and Ashley does that.

But this one, it's almost like you look, it's like it's a two-to-one vote.

Yeah. And maybe that's the way it should be. That looked at instead of graded it.

Yeah. Or maybe we look at it in terms of the majority internally. And if there is a tie, we don't score. Here's the issue is we've never looked at two-to-one.

We've always looked at what is the score. Everything that we've done on this commission has always gone by the score.

But it's never been, we've never had this situation.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah. We've never had a situation where it swayed so much.

So that's where we look at our procedures and see if we need to tweak our processes. Wish we were perfect, but we're not.

We just got to try to adjust for the future. We just try to adjust for the future.

But I'm just saying is that everything we've ever done is we've always gone with that we up here disagree especially you know on some issues you know I'm just I'm just bringing up the discussion I'm not saying that it's right or wrong I'm just saying is that obviously there's something going on with our system that we need to look at and I understand what they've done for us because I've been up here for all these years

Really good people that do our RFQs for us and our RFPs and our bids.

But again, I listen to the citizens. How do we know that this company is not going to do better? We don't know.

How could you do better? Either way. Yeah, so anyhow.

Anybody else have anything to say? Anybody in the audience want to comment? Yes, ma'am.

Karen Custer, 216 Lanny Road Drive. I think basically, Eddie, you're saying if it's not broke, don't fix it. You know you're working well with the people you have right now. And since two of the people voted for the one with keeping that person, it sounds like a good idea to me. Thank you.

Thank you. Did you want to speak now?

Kathy Christodoulou, 224 Sakoshi. I was going to say the same thing. If it's not broke, don't fix it. You're talking about three people, but really kind of you're talking about one, right? Because the other two were in more agreement. And I really don't know the details of all this. But yeah, if you guys are happy with it and they've been successful in the past, if you don't get those three people up here to explain their decision, then I think you should just go with what you know.

Thank you. Anybody else? I didn't know if you were just exercising your finger. Be careful with that. If you're at an auction, you'll be bidding on stuff.

Mr. Gohack?

And any time you're dealing with an evaluation where you have outliers, the question is, how much attention do you pay to those outliers? It would seem, in the absence of any knowledge regarding the actual substance of the issues that you're discussing, discussing, if those numbers are significantly different from those compared to the others within the evaluation, you would theoretically not consider them for inclusion because they are

Well, Mr. Bohat, can you give me a standard deviation that you would like to put on the criteria? Because I don't get it. Not without seeing. I know exactly what you're talking about. Not without seeing. Do a standard deviation on the mean?

Not without seeing the entire package. Right. But you understand my point. I do understand your point exactly, yes. OK. that would be the approach i would take under these circumstances because it would be legitimate and reasonable thank you thank you of course you know a standard deviation is only going to be based on the number of samples available

rectify this, was you rate them one, two, three, and that's it. You don't add the extra points, and if you did that, then Gurus wins.

We'll look at a couple of different ways. And this commission will be the first one to tell you ranking one through five. That often doesn't work very well either. We ran into the flip side trying to rank off of Hoosier one, two, and three.

Well, then if it's tied, then you discuss it and you choose.

I don't have any problems with Gore because they have a good track record. I just have a problem that all this came out. I know.

I understand. I'm with Bob. It's

And we're asking people to serve. Yes. And then we put a hand over their head.

Well, OK. Well, you know, we knew that's the plan for a part of the act. Yeah. I mean, they're advising us.

We've done that before.

Did anybody else want to say anything? I'm not missing anybody, am I? Jump up and down, if you. OK.

Call me, and you're going to talk after the meeting.

It's back to us.

I'd like to make the motion to award the Grant Administration Service to Gores. Second.

OK, we've got a motion and a second. So if there's no other discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, that carries. And that completes our agenda. I just had a couple of things. I was lucky enough to be selected again as an honorary commander, so I was inducted about a week and a half ago. And then that same day, I helped with a back to school promotion that they were doing at Tyndall. And I also went last week and presented certificates for their quarterly awards. I know it doesn't sound like much, but Tyndall appreciates it so much. I get so much feedback that they are so appreciative of the support that Callaway shows to Tyndall Air Force Base that it means a lot to them. So I try to go to anything at Tyndall that I can just to show that we do support them. We know how important that military base is to Callaway. Then the other thing, and I know some of you were there, the health fair that we had here on August the 1st, I think it was pretty well attended. The leisure services crew did a great job, as they always do. thank liz hunt with anytime fitness and also our lax soccer league because they were the volunteers that they were doing you know checking people in and doing a lot of the leg work so thanks to all of them and that also gave me the opportunity to meet the new principal for kellyway elementary and we were talking and you know i was talking about we really like to partner with the school if there was anything that we could do to help them we you know we want to be good partners because that school is important to us and it came up about their the school board's contract for mowing mowing all the schools had run out and it was not renewed. The school board's in the process of going out for a new contract, but it hasn't happened yet. So they had a small maintenance crew who doesn't normally have to mow grass. They were trying to do a rotation that each one of the schools, I think there are 32 schools in the district, that each one was getting mowed every once in a while, basically. So there were a couple of the teachers that were actually doing the mowing because they were trying to keep the campus looking good. You know, they had orientation coming up and school starting. So, after I spoke to her, I got in touch with city manager and said, hey, the school's got this problem. Can we do anything to help them? Well, he got in touch with the principal, and I don't know if any of you saw Channel 13 WMBB did a story about it. He had one of our, I think, public works crew, wasn't it, that went out and mowed?

No, he had our whole street department. We had five zero turns and we mowed that whole entire property in two and a half hours.

I understand Superintendent McQueen called and was very appreciative. But that way the school looked good for the kids to start school yesterday.

And we did a lot of pruning too. We pruned up all their trees and all their bushes while we were out there just to go ahead and go that extra mile that we knew the mowers wasn't going to do. It was a really good partnership. And the principal and assistant principal were just ecstatic that we showed up.

So we're hopeful that we can work with the schools more. I know we've done events there and then it kind of got where the school didn't really get in touch with us. So we want to partner more with the school because that school is very important to this commission, to this city. And I did, do you remember... There was a citizen that sent an email. He sent it to me. He also sent it to city manager about it. No, it was a good thing. It was a job that had some piping that was put in underground someplace. And they were complimenting Chris Griffin and the crew on the good job. And I appreciate that because more often you get the complaints. It's not very often that somebody actually sends an email of appreciation for a job that they did. So that was something else the street department did. So thank you, street department. Keep up the good work. And now we'll go, Commissioner Birdsall, if you have anything for us.

I can't talk much of that, ma'am. I can't talk much of that. No, I've got the, it gave some of our And the city department's been on it, you know, lickety split as something that he might say there. Yeah, I don't really have a whole lot to add up to it. School is back in session, as you know. I'll be walking my garter across the street, so please don't hit us. Pay attention to that crossing garter.

Yeah, be careful. Commissioner Griggs.

Well, I've got some COVID issues that I'll address with COVID enforcement. But I want to add to the school situation that Superintendent Mark McQueen last, at first Friday, actually looked me up and Commissioner Birdsong to really stress very forcefully how much they appreciate what the city did and is doing, because there's a lot of history, particularly after the hurricane, that we've stepped up, and Mark realizes that. So he was very complimentary to us, and we appreciate that. That's all I've got.

Okay, Commissioner Pelletier.

It's 8-10, thank you.

OK. Commissioner Myers?

Yes, ma'am. It's been a busy few weeks. Answering citizen issues, been working those out. Hopefully we've got everything answered. And if anybody has anything else, feel free to call. I will jump right on it, I promise. I mentioned earlier, Bay County is adding three sand filters, which is raising filtration of our drinking water from 50 million gallons a day to 60 million. So this will not raise our prices any more than They have already. Eddie Cook and I got together several times and went through some of the issues around Callaway, and all those were resolved. I did attend First Friday where all the stump speeches were given from our new politicians, so I got a chance to meet with several, and I think it's important that we establish good relationships with our new representatives, and hopefully I've done that. And that's all I have.

Do you have anything for us? I did want to just let you guys know that we are at 221 bricks. So we have basically space for two more if anybody has two more that they want to get a hold of us, but we'll get to working on. We're working on it.

Perfect. And everything laying out for the wall. I know. I know. Well, you know, if I can help, that's kind of my baby. If I can help, you let me know.

Can you do masonry?

Well, I can probably look at YouTube and maybe figure it out.

That's what we do.

City attorney, do you have anything else for us? City manager.

I'm going to be real quick. Cherry Street. Got some RFIs done. We've been working primarily between the houses the last two weeks. They're forming up concrete sidewalks on the south side going down to Comet. Compaction is where it needs to be, and we're going to continue going on down to Barthas where we are. A couple of potential conflicts, I think we got those situated this morning in our meeting. When we're digging, we just never know what we're going to find down there. It's still going. Everybody's still very active, and it looks like we've got approval from the county now. We're just getting that couple of things that they had put into our plan, so once they hit Bertha, they will hit Star running right away. The lift station project for the five lift stations, it is complete, and it's in closeout, and all five lift stations are operational and on our system. Sandy Creek is still waiting on them to acknowledge that we have acknowledged an indigo snake. That's all I know. Cat's chasing its tail again. The three new grants, I'm waiting on the state to come back. We've fulfilled all their RFIs. We're waiting on them to send us executed contracts. We'll turn those over to the grant administrator, and we'll start that process immediately. Street painting. I know there's a lot of people been questioning. I want to explain to you some of what we're doing. We can fix small holes. That's easy. Larger 20, 30, 40 foot sections of roads that need to be redone. We put out the paving. We called it a turnkey paving bid to where we already had significant prices built in. Everything's lower. Mobilization is lower. And we have them scheduled to come in on Thursday and Friday. We have approximately, don't ask me how many, I could count them, six or seven major spots that we're working on. Ashley has put it out. Yes, J.H. Cruz is on there. They're going to be milling that probably on Thursday. They'll mill first, clean, and then they'll come back and pave later. But there will be some minor detours that's going on right now. What we're doing is we're basically cost-saving about 75% by doing our base work in-house. So we're going through, we're pulling up the asphalt, we're recompacting, making sure that that subgrade is right. But a lot of people don't realize that we have to match these crowns. And on 20- and 30-foot sections, we have to pull strings, make sure that it's exactly two inches all the way across that crown so that when they come in and they the paving machine, pave across it, roll it, we're good to go. So there is going to be a patch on Bertha. That's probably our biggest area of concern because we don't want to shut down Bertha with a little detour, but we'll have one for one day. The guys will have to go in, pull that section out, get it ready, and then the next day they'll come in and pave. So they're paving Thursday and Friday. They will be complete by Friday, so all roads will be back open come Friday night. We are still actively trying to get on track with all the water replacement water mains. We're finishing up Gay this week. Then we're going to kick over to Beulah. I want to let everybody know, get ready. We're going to start cutting those lines across Beulah as we drop in. The bids for these, did they go out today?

Yes. Beulah and Southgate.

Yeah, for Beulah and for Southgate, both of those paving bids went out today. They'll be out for, what, 21 days?

Yes, I can't remember the date at all.

I'm pretty sure it's 21 because of state appropriations for Southgate. So they'll go out for 21 days, come back, we'll execute that contract. They'll be coming in and resurfacing both of those roads. So we know the road cuts are a problem. We know that people are, I tell people, I have a lot of people call me up and say, hey, I ran over your hole and I caused damage. And I say, well, then you need to slow down. I'm sorry. That's just what I'm telling them. I mean, everything's got tape and cones and everything else. Just slow down. We're trying to make it better so that we never have to go back and dig these roads up five, ten years down the road. So with those street crossings, we'll be able to do that by putting the chase lines in.

If you haven't had the leisure services, it's been paining. How far along are we over here in the...

Yeah, so over here in the grand room, you know, we've got all new carpet. We are now painting. Yes, we got rid of the maroon. That has been the biggest issue that we have over here. Everybody that comes in and wants to have a wedding, they go, maroon clashes. So we're neutral. We're going with... Light grays, dark grays. It's actually some people, depending on how the light shines on it, it's got a little blue hue to it. The amphitheater, we're working with FPL to get our service line in out here. We're also working with Chris Walker. Electric has volunteered his time to do the electric work. And we're working with a distributor that's going to give us a grant to help pay for the materials to keep the cost down. So that'll be going in just as soon as we get our list of materials and FPL. gets us on their schedule, so they've got everything that they need. The amphitheater itself is going to be delivered in, I believe, two weeks, maybe three, and we're working right now trying to figure out how we're going to get construction on that to be the most cost-effective. I'll be coming back to you all to discuss that at the next meeting on what the best way to move forward is going to be. FlexNet, we're sitting in like... A lot of this, what we found out, is it has to do with our meter change outs. And as I told you all, these meters are now getting close to 15 years old, and they're starting to die. So while we've got breaks, we're also trying to change out meters. And there for a while, there was not a lot of issues with water breaks. We were doing really good. We were actually in-house running a three-day turnaround on breaks. The construction crews got to finish up gay and get over, so we don't have as many people working breaks right now. So we've pushed that out to five to seven days. Some of them have gone a little bit longer on the smaller ones, and we're diligently trying to. Every day they go out, they monitor all the breaks, and I know they did a ton of break repairs today. So we'll get caught back up on those here pretty quick. I'm really not sure why we had such a. just a huge outbreak over the last week. A lot of those are caused by people driving over them, driving over our service lines. So that's all I got. As soon as we get the capacity in, I'll get that out to you all immediately. It probably won't take but a couple of days.

I just have one comment, City Manager. I discussed with you today about damages that are being created by a specific contractor. And I'd still like to know if we got that money back on the big break they had. And also, if we're pursuing any additional damages that they're creating to our city, because it's not only our city, it's the entire county.

Yeah, and I have talked to some of the other cities.

My stand is to send a bill on that one, right?

Yes.

Have we received payment?

I don't know if we have yet. I don't think anyone would know that either. We haven't? I don't think we got it in yet because that gets generated through public works, through the work order section. Then that comes in, and then it gets billed out. But the contractor is aware. They know they've already said that's what they have insurance for. It'll be paid.

Okay. Then we're going to go down and take a look at the other one I told you today. That damage is down there on Bertha.

Yes. Yeah. I have not made it down there yet.

I see.

My notes from our meeting today are still sitting on my desk. All right.

Anything else he didn't cover? Anybody? Okay. Oh, sorry. Okay, we'll go ahead and read the announcements. Tomorrow, right here at 1 o'clock, we have a budget workshop on... Sunday, the 16th, the Historical Society meets at 2 PM in the museum. The speaker will be Ms. Robbins, continuing her Panhandle Pioneers talk. Then next Tuesday, the 18th, there's a potential. Does it look like there will be a planning board meeting? We will have one. We will? OK. So there will be a planning board meeting. Evens, no offense, evens more important than the planning board meeting, August 18th is voting day for the primary. So make sure you get out and vote. Regardless of who you're voting for, get out and vote. And check your voter ID card, because Since we moved our election, this is not the only polling place for Callaway. Some people vote here. Some people will vote at the community center. That is correct even for the primary, isn't it, Ashley?

Yes.

That some people will vote at the community center. So check your card and make sure that you know where to go vote. Because if you come here to vote and you're not supposed to, they'll send you down there. So try to check it before you waste a trip to the wrong place. And then our next commission meeting will be August 25, right here at 6 o'clock. Anybody know of anything else?

after tomorrow's budget workshop is also the 25th at 1 p.m.

Yes, if we need to have a continued budget workshop, that will pick up at 1 o'clock on August 25th. It will be in the afternoon for probably like 1 to 4, and then we'll break for the commission meeting. If we're lucky and we get through a lot tomorrow, we may not need another budget workshop. So we'll know that at the conclusion of tomorrow's budget workshop. put out if there's going to be another budget workshop on the 25th. So that's all that I'm aware of. If nobody has anything, we'll open it up for public participation. Yes, ma'am.

Kathy Christodoulou, 224 Sakoshi Drive. So where are we on the plan for maintaining the Sakoshi ditch?

I have no plan yet.

Would it be possible for the city to hire a company that could come in and maintain that ditch if the city can't do it and the county can't do it or won't do it? It has to be done.

Bill, do you even know anybody or a company that could do it? Very expensive. It's going to end up being, it would have to be a, probably. It's going to have to be a budget item number one. Right.

Yeah. I mean, we're probably looking at voodoo money. Right.

Is it our ditch? We have an easement, yes.

But part of it's the county's too.

Yeah. We have a county set now. I've been trying to schedule some time with the sheriff to see if his crews would even consider going in there and doing it. I'll try to call him in the morning again.

Because we can move our fence, but we don't want to move unless we're sure that y'all actually are going to go back and do anything.

I don't think moving your fence would do any good. There's no equipment going to go in there. The only way that I can see that ditch is going to get cleaned is people in hip boots with chainsaws and weed eaters.

Right, which is what we've been doing, but we can't keep doing that. So something's got to give because that water that is county water, city water going through the ditch in the backyard that trees fall in and then we don't want to have another flood in our house because we know this is going to happen. And before the storm we had you guys come out to the house and said this is going to happen and three weeks later it happened and now here we are years later saying the same thing. So it's got to get fixed. Whether we put pipes down, whether we have somebody come out once a year and clear out all the trees, I don't know.

I can promise you piping that ditch in one would be the worst thing that could happen. Because whatever size pipe you get in there, you're going to get 50% runoff for it. So a 24-inch pipe will carry 12 inches of water. It's the hydraulics. So by having an open ditch, 100% of the water can move.

but it only moves up into that point where it's a small tunnel that was laid and trailers put on top of it, and then it backs up.

How big are those pipes through there, Bill? Do you even know underneath that trailer part? They're big ones. I was about to say, those are awesome. Because I know we've actually had, I know at one point we had, I think we had an employee that crawled through it, didn't they? 48 inches? Yeah. I'll contact the sheriff tomorrow and see. I don't know that they'll consider it.

I have not looked at the ditch, so I don't know. But she talks about trees falling in. Can we cut down the trees before they fall in? Is that feasible? I mean, can you get to trees?

We don't even have access to the ditch. That's enough. So you can't get to the trees. The trailers are just so far in there. I mean, if we can get equipment in there, it might be a possibility, but there's just...

And you might want to look at the trailers, whether they're back far enough, because I don't think they are. There's one that's almost over the ditch. So code enforcement might want to knock on some doors there and get that to where you can actually have access. Because we were told to move our fence back so y'all could have access. And we did, but we can move it further to give you more access. But it's a problem that has to be fixed one way or the other. And I watched y'all on the recording. We're out of state, and y'all didn't talk about it last time either. So we're just going to have to keep coming until we solve the problem.

I'll contact you more and see what we can do. Bill, come see me in the morning. I must brainstorm. I just don't know.

would you? Sure. Let us know how we can help. It's been a while since I've been. It's been a minute, as they say.

There's a couple of places where we can get to the ditch, but it's so steep down we can't even get in it.

You can fall in it like we did.

We can make a slide.

Maybe we can use Commissioner Drew's pontoon boat.

Have you got a pontoon boat?

Maybe.

Would anybody else like to speak? Ms. Custer and then Ms. Langston.

Karen Custer, you have my address. You mentioned that the primary election is on Tuesday. And actually, early voting is going on right now. And early voting is, I believe, from 10 to 6 every day through Sunday. And then it closes down on Monday for the election Tuesday. Every registered voter can vote for school board election. They can't vote for the other ones if they're not in the two main parties. But they can vote for school board.

Well, but then there's also the state offices. I mean, there are several things.

I think most of those are. Well, anyway, people think they can't, if they're not a this or a that, that they can't vote. And I've been telling them, no, you can vote for school board you know absolutely in bay county and district two and district three school board positions are open right now we are in district two and so everybody can vote for district two and district three not just your own district But please, it's important. Get out and vote. Your vote counts. And I did want to mention, for the first time in a long time, we actually have a candidate for school board who cared enough to come tonight. So thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else want to speak? Ms. Langston, I'm sorry.

I just want to say that I know I give you guys a lot of slack week after week at the meetings, but I do appreciate the city stepping up and helping Galloway Elementary out. It's nice that our city supports our schools. It doesn't seem like the school board does a lot. We kind of do a little more than what the school board does.

Oh, I know. I had even made the suggestion to the teacher when she said the teacher's room. I said, well, if the school board's not going to approve a contract, maybe they need to come to Samoa.

Right.

But I do appreciate it. Well, you're welcome. We're glad to work with the school. We want to do as much as they'll let us do. Anybody else? I'm not seeing anybody.

Thank you. You said there was a member candidate for the school board here tonight? Yes. Could you see me after the speech? See me after the meeting.

Can you just say please vote?

Well, you're really not supposed to campaign at a meeting. So you can get up and say who you are and that you're running for an office. But then Commissioner Griggs wanted to talk to you after the meeting, I think.

Michael Petty, 305 South MacArthur. The one thing I do want to say is when you were called to get a comment, you said 8-10. And I looked at my watch. It was 810. It is now 835. That is fantastic. The fact that you all have a 6 o'clock school board city commission meeting, that's what I would like to see the school board do, have the meetings in the evening so that the public can be here instead of at 1 or 3 o'clock. If I may, how many are just here for the meetings? You don't work for the city. You don't have a piece of business. Wow. And you don't have a complaint. I just, that touches my heart. That's really the only thing I have to say. I appreciate y'all. Thank you.

Okay.