City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Everybody ready? I call this meeting to order. Welcome to our council meeting for August 25th, 2026. Virtual participation in council meetings are available on your computer or smartphone via Microsoft Teams or by telephone. You can learn how to participate virtually by visiting our website www.climboutfl.gov and search for 10 council meetings online. In the interest of time, efficiency, and ensuring that everyone who wishes to address the council is given the opportunity to do so, the following will apply to all comments made by the public in person and virtually. Each speaker will be permitted three minutes to address the council. In an effort to be respectful during the meeting, please make sure your cell phones are set to silence. Thank you for participating in your city government. Today's invocation will be given by Reverend Jordan from New Jacob Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. Reverend Jordan, please rise and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Can we bow our heads? Heavenly Father, Lord, we give you honor today. We come with a humble spirit. Lord, we ask that you look down upon every Congress, every Congress person that's here today, Lord. We ask that you would touch their heart, touch their mind. Lord, give them the spirit of Solomon. Lord, give them the heart of Moses. Lord, we ask for understanding. only that you can provide. Lord, we ask that you would guide them, strengthen them, and Lord, that they will have the right judgment for your people today. Lord, we pray for those that are here. Lord, we might not see eye to eye or always come out to agreement, but Lord, we know that the verdict would be just. And we pray, Lord, that everyone that leaves here, Lord, will leave here with that spirit in mind. Lord, we ask that you look down upon the with the police chief today, Lord, that you would touch him. Give him wisdom. Give him guidance. Lord, we ask you to look down upon the fire department. Lord, we ask that you would strengthen them right now. We ask you to look down upon the city of Claremont. Lord, we ask that you would bless this city. Lord, that you would prosper this city. That it be like no other city here in Florida. And Lord, we ask in that as we go forth, Lord, we go forth with your guidance. We go forth with your spirit. Lord, we go forth that you will bless each and every household here. Lord, we pray for that and many more in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Okay, this afternoon we have a proclamation honoring the life of Alberta May Toni Bell Roscoe. Yes, ma'am. Hold on just a minute. Miss Renee, you want to come up front, please?

okay you just turn and send their face whereas Alberta made Tony Bell Rusko a beloved educator mentor and community leader devoted more than 30 years to educating and inspiring generations of students and families throughout South Lake County and whereas Tony was part of the Bell family legacy that brought Bell ceramics to Claremont a successful family owned business that grew into an internationally recognized leader in in ceramic and porcelain products and made a lasting contribution to Claremont's history, economy, and community. And whereas Toni began her teaching career at Mineola Elementary before serving at Claremont High School as a language arts and senior English teacher, yearbook and drama club coordinator and National Honor Society leader, where students affectionately knew her as Ma Bell and later served as a guidance counselor at Southlake High School, continuing her commitment to mentoring young people and helping them build the confidence to pursue their goals and dreams. Whereas Tony's influence extended far beyond the classroom through her compassion and humor, wisdom, and encouragement leaving a lasting impression on countless students, colleagues, friends, and families who considered her a trusted mentor and friend. Whereas throughout her retirement, Toni remained deeply committed to the Claremont community through her service with Beta Theta ESA Sorority, Cooper Memorial Library Association, Kiwanis Club of Claremont, Claremont Historical Society, and as a volunteer at the Claremont Historic Village. And whereas Toni passed away on May 16, 2026 at the age of 86, leaving behind a legacy of education, service, kindness, and encouragement that will continue to live in the hearts of many people whose lives she touched.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the city of Claremont recognizes and honors the life and legacy of alberto may tony bell roscoe expresses its sincere appreciation for her extraordinary contribution to the city to the climbout community and extends its deepest sympathy to her family friends former students and all who mourn her passing in witness whereof i have hereunto set my hand and call the great seal of the city of climbout to be affixed this twenty fifth day of august in the year two thousand and twenty six Before I come down, let me say this. I see a lot of her students and other people, club members and all that's out here. If it's okay, I'm going to invite you all, if you want to come up and take pictures, I'll come down and present this. I just want to say Ms. Bell was a very inspirational and great contributor to this community. She was my 10th grade English teacher, okay? She taught me in 10th grade, and I can remember, I don't think a lot of people know, but there used to be some railroad tracks used to come through Claremont down here doing around the front, and one of the properties where actually where the boat ramp is at, Tony Bell and them owned a business there called Bell Ceramics, and the business I remember many nights the trangers come and drop boxcars off the area for all their supplies to be unloaded there and everything. So they contributed a lot to this community, and she owned different other properties and contributed. I am a member of the Kiwanis Club, as a matter of fact, and it's because of Ms. Bell as well. She had the influence on me and encouraged me to join the Kiwanis. So I just want to say this is great. It took me by surprise to see her missing. I'm going to truly miss her. And I invite anyone whose lives she touched to come up, if you will, and join me in this picture down below. I see some of the students. I know a few of them out there that she taught. And one young man, I know he's here. It's probably the first or second time I've ever seen him in the council chamber. So I'm figuring that's why he may be here. Mr. Abraham. So please, if you all want to come down and join.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yes, I love that.

If you don't mind, I'll come up here for the second.

Wow, I can't go without saying thank you for recognizing all the years of service to Toni. I'm Renee Ward, I'm not Toni. For those of you in the room that maybe not knew her, Tony was also my high school English teacher, 12th grade, and my next door neighbor for over 40 years, and a very dear friend. So I thank you for bestowing this honor on her, and the family wishes to deeply expressed their appreciation for this honor and recognizing her for all of her years to this community. Claremont was Toni's favorite place on this earth. She would rather be in Claremont than anywhere else. primarily because of the people. But she lived here for over 60 years, or close to 60 years, and just really cherished this community through all of the things she did, from an educator to community services. So thank you. She would be well-deserved, and I know the city council is going to miss seeing her sitting on the front row next to Dieter. So thank you very much.

Thank you. You're right. I am going to miss her looking out and seeing her sit there in that front row at every council meeting. And by the way, on Saturday at 1 o'clock at the Living Hope Church across the street, there will be a memorial service for Ms. Bell if you care to attend that at 1 o'clock on Saturday at Living Hope Church. Again, thank you. This afternoon we have three presentations. The first presentation is the Employee of the Quarter.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. So today we're going to recognize the employee of the quarter for the months of April through June, which highlights our public services department and our heroes from public services. So the winner of the employee of the quarter for April to June is Mr. Steve King. Steve goes above and beyond to keep the Oak Hill Cemetery in pristine condition, and his colleagues believe he represents the city of Claremont in an exceptional way. A quote from Steve's nomination that we can all strive for is that he shows exceptional empathy by patiently assisting families in their most sensitive times, helping them pick out plots and consistently receiving feedback as the most professional person they've ever met with during difficult times. Congratulations, Steve, for being the employee of the quarter for public services.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Steve, that is a well-deserved recognition there for all the work you do over there at the cemetery. Of course, I go past that cemetery I don't know how many times a day because I live right up the road from it. And one of the things I get most compliments on in the city is how well-maintained it is and the care and concern you give, even when people come out there looking at plots and everything, the time you take with them and just explain everything to them. They constantly come in and tell me about the... The pride you take in that cemetery, so it's well-deserved. Thank you. Second, President, is the quarterly budget report. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Scott Boer, Finance Director, and thanks for this opportunity to present to you the third quarter budget report for fiscal year 2526. Let me also take a quick moment to thank the accounting team and the finance department for their timely work and due diligence, and of course, that of their colleagues in the other departments. We appreciate their efforts in making this available for us this evening. A reminder to the public, this report in a dynamic format is available on the city's website through any of the finance department links and have drill down capability to see additional detail. I'll go through this report fairly quickly, but of course be glad to answer any questions that you may have. The report starts with an executive summary, which I'm going to bypass by and large. A lot of my talking points will cover what's in there. And I'll start with a citywide presentation of revenues and expenditures. Beginning in the middle column, this fiscal year, 26 year-to-date actuals. Again, this is all funds across the city, our revenues at the end of the third quarter. $109.9 million received, over $88.9 million in expenditures. Both are about $9 million below where we were at the same point last year and well below budget in both cases as well, largely because of capital spending, and I'll speak into a little bit more detail on that beginning with our next table. THIS IS THE SAME PRESENTATION TYPE, BUT SPECIFIC TO REVENUES BY FUND TYPES ACROSS THE ENTIRE CITY. NOW I HAVE A PERCENTAGE IN THE LOWER RIGHT-HAND CORNER. YOU'LL SEE THAT $109 MILLION EQUATES TO 74% OF OUR BUDGETED REVENUES FOR THE YEAR. year to date. If you go to the top, you'll see in the general fund, we're at 83% over 75, which obviously is a good sign. And within the enterprise funds, we are also above 75% at 79%. A couple notes on those. In the general fund, I'll save that comment for a few moments, but in the enterprise funds, the impact fee collections during the third quarter were extremely strong. So much so that we've already surpassed our budgeted total for the year by the end of the third quarter for impact fees in both the water and sewer funds. So obviously a good sign. And side note, we've actually received our first couple transactions for impact fees on sanitation. So that process is in place and has started already as well. One of the outliers on this data table, though, is that 1% collections in capital projects and expenditures fund. And the reason for that is a specific capital project that was budgeted that we've not moved forward on this year. that being the garage. It was a budget-neutral item, so we haven't received the bond proceeds we anticipated, and conversely, we have not spent any money for that project as well. So it creates an outliner within these projects. But if you take out that anticipated debt issuance, that 74% now is above 80%. So our revenue collections citywide have been very good year-to-date. Staying on a city-wide basis, all fund types. This now is expenditures. Lower right-hand corner, you'll see we've spent 52% of budget across all funds. The major reason again is not just the parking garage, but capital spending in general. Across all funds, our capital budgets was at $51.7 million adopted. At this point, we can make some reasonable projections as to where we'll be at the end of the year. And it's looking like we're only gonna spend about 20, maybe slightly below 20 million of that. So that's $31 million that's included on the expenditure side that we don't believe we're gonna end up spending this year. In addition to the parking garage, that's projects such as Meet in the Middle, the Heartwood March, road expansion, which have been deferred until next year or a later time. Okay, now I'm moving to the specific to the general fund. And this first data table in the general fund, again, is all revenues over expenditures. And you can see at the end of quarter three, in this year to date column, our revenues We're at $51.6 million, slightly about $1.6 million higher than the same point last year. And on the expenditure side, we're at $40.2 million, up from about 37.6 this point last year. So revenues at this point exceed expenses by about $11.4 million. Again, in the name of some early projections for end of the year, it appears at this point that the amount of money we're going to return to fund balance at the end of the year is going to be north of $4 million. Now, four, yes. Four. Don't hold me to that, but I think that's going to be, I can sit here today, that'll be a minimal number. We've got a lot of activity to account for still. Of course, when I stand before you presenting the fourth quarter report in November, we'll have a much better idea exactly where that looks. But I wanted to give you at least an initial estimate as we go into wrapping up the budget process for the next fiscal year. Next data table is in terms of general fund revenues. Again, at the bottom, you'll see year-to-date, we've received 83% of our budgeted revenues. And up at top, you'll see our primary category, general government taxes, we're at 90%. Included within that is our ad valorem taxes. We're at 94% of our collections for ad valorem, which puts us squarely in our historical collections for ad valorem with still a disbursement or two remaining. So our ad valorem taxes have looked in line with our historical averages. One thing I wanted to point out on this, it's not readily available, but it is in this drill down capability, is on the intergovernmental revenue line, you'll see year to date we're at $5.5 million. And that's been buoyed by staff's effort with grants this year. Our grant collections this year in the general fund have been fantastic, and we're pushing the $1 million mark, which is a historically high number for the general fund. And the best part about it, in my opinion, is it's across all of our activities. Obviously, there's a lot of public safety grant dollars in there as well. But our grants manager has really been knocking it out of the park with FEMA. And we're getting a lot of storm reimbursements from prior years coming in this year. And they're a little bit more cooperative right now. Don't quote me on that. But the point is that we're getting a lot of grant money in this year. That certainly is a good thing in helping the general fund. And then finally, in terms of budget numbers, the expenditures on the expense side, or the general fund side, we are at 60% of our spending to budget in the general fund through the third quarter. And if you look at that far right column, all of our department groupings are below 75% at the three quarter mark, which is obviously a good sign. To some degree, that's because of our diminished capital spending. But the fact that they're all below 75%, including public safety at 63%, obviously is telling that the department directors are managing their budget quite well. Last report within the quarterly report is just a snapshot of where we are with our fund balances through the third quarter. Again, this will be much more informative and accurate when we get to the fourth quarter, because at that point, the fiscal year end, we'll have our soft close done. But again, if you look at the top line, the general fund, it looks like we're going to end the year in the mid to high 20s in terms of our unassigned or unreserved fund balance above and beyond what our fund balance requirement in our policy is. So general fund will remain in a strong position at the end of the fiscal year. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have. Okay.

Anyone have any questions?

Once again, I just want to remind everybody that we did not have our financials in this type of order two years ago. We did not have audited financials. We didn't have reconciled financials. And here we are operating at reconciled financials 45 days at the close of each month. And so, Scott, I just want to commend you and the entire finance team. You're doing an amazing job. For those who haven't been coming, we finally received our GFOA award again. And I just don't want people to forget that. It's going to become easy to say this is business as usual, and it should be, but it wasn't. And so I applaud you once again, and I'll probably keep doing that as long as I sit up here.

That's very much appreciated by the entire team. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Mr. Board, just one question for clarification on the general fund balance. You said roughly 24 million. Is that 24 million total or is that 24 million above the percentage that we are required to have set aside?

That is above the required percentage.

So the actual total is higher than that.

Yeah, the unreserved amount is in the neighborhood of 35, 36 million.

Just want to make sure I was clear on that. Thank you very much. Of course. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you, and tell your team we said thank you for all that they're doing for our city. We really appreciate that.

Thank you. Will do. Yes, sir. Mr. Peterson.

I mean, I ditto what Councilman Strange said. In the past, we've never had this kind of accuracy on a timely basis, and I think you've accomplished way more than we ever expected, and I'm very impressed by the budget the budgets that we have, 35 million, we're like 25 million above what we ever needed. So in other words, this is actually taxpayer money that we collected from them, but now we can actually give that back to them by keeping our millage rate low and anticipating of what might happen in the event that the property tax amendment goes through. As you said, we would only be 1.5 short, I think. Is that what the statement was on a past... conversation?

I don't recall what my projections...

Okay, we'll take that as a yes. What I do recall... I just want to thank you again for the great job you're doing. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Scott, as always, I always tell you thank you. I can still remember two, three years ago when we looked at putting you in this position and we thought about transferring, changing over the software so we can get the budget to this point and everything. We were both a little leery about it and everything. I think our prior city manager made a great choice when he came to me and told me we were doing the right thing by putting you in charge of finance and everything, and you've done a fantastic job. And thank you for converting everything. It went a lot quicker than I expected it to. But it's great, and we can really look and see how things are going now. Thank you. One question I had was, The requirement now, is it $14 million? 25% of that's $14 million?

25% is what our policy states. Okay. 25% of our operating expenditures in the general fund.

Right.

Yeah. In terms of dollar-wise, it's around $13, $14 million. I recalculate it every year based off the audited figures.

Okay. So... And looking at our upcoming budget and everything, that figure could change a little bit, too, based upon our operating expense and everything. So right now, we're still around the 1314 in reserve.

Correct. And then that's based off of a calculation of the 25 audit. And then next spring, when the 26 audit's concluded, I'll recalculate that.

Okay. Okay. I thank you. And again, I appreciate all the work you've done. Thank you. And all of that, thank you. Making the moves and finance that we did a couple years ago is really paying tremendous dividend for the city, so thank you. That's all I have. Anyone else have anything? Thank you. You're trying to get out of there. Is it ready, Wayne?

We're good.

Okay, and the third presentation is the parking garage update.

Clickers? We good, sir?

We're good.

Oh, okay.

Nathan Norris, Director of Economic Development. Just to give you a quick update of what the Parking Garage Committee has been up to. As a reminder, we started with nine committee members. We now have eight committee members. We've met over the last two weeks. And I want to thank Zane Ertel, who's helped manage this process along with me. Those meetings were designed to essentially provide an overview of what their tasks were and to start talking about the individual details that might go into identifying the different concept plans that will be developed for both of the proposed parking garage sites. We've provided them with previous studies. We've had them discuss various things earlier this week we met with the Architecture firm that's going to assist an engineering firm as well It's going to assist in creating those concept plans for us That's a group called CPH led by John Lenti and we met with him and his team Through a video conference on Tuesday. No, not on Tuesday yesterday. I Days are flowing together. We met with them yesterday for a long period of time to talk about the process. They modified their schedule to fit our schedule. Our schedule is to provide you with the proposed concept plans no later than the 22nd of September. So it's a short time frame, but they were willing to assemble everything in a way that they could get the job done. We have been meeting on Thursday afternoons at 3 o'clock here. We'll have our third meeting later this week where we're going to take a lot of the things that have been discussed so far and try to prioritize what they think is most important. to give sort of the final feedback to the consulting firms so that they can go ahead and get busy coming up with the alternative plans. They're going to be coming up with at least three different concept plans for each of the sites, and that's generally where we are right now. Do you have any specific questions?

Anybody have any questions?

All right.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next item is public comment. If you wish to address the council in person, please come to the microphone and state your name and address. Once in-person comments have concluded, we will move on to virtual comments. If you are participating online on Microsoft Teams and wish to provide comments, please raise your hand and you will be called upon to unmute your microphone when it is your turn to speak. If you are participating by phone, you will press star five on your phone to raise your hand. When called upon, you will press star six to unmute your microphone. For all virtual participants, if you wish to comment on other items on the agenda, please stay on the Microsoft Teams or on your phone. and raise your hand when your item come up on the agenda. This portion of the meeting is only for items that are not on the agenda. This portion of the meeting is only for items that are not on the agenda. In the interest of time, efficiency, and ensuring everyone who wishes to address the council is given an opportunity to do so, each speaker will be permitted three minutes to address the council. To avoid disruption of the meeting, speakers should avoid inappropriate language, personal attack, and derogatory statements and direct comments to the city council. Everyone requested be respectful even when we disagree.

Yes, sir Good afternoon City Council My name is Robert mock. I live at 270 Division Street in Claremont I'm here today to voice my opinion on and it's to talk about the parking garage. Considering the locations that have been being talked about in the parking garage, the one proposed location in the existing dirt parking lot, there's a lot of, right directly in front of a lot of several businesses. I want to be clear on support of long-term solutions to downtown parking needs, but I understand the firsthand we need to make that more parking, but where we build it matters. Building a large parking garage in this particular location could mean significant disruption, temporary loss of parking that customers currently depend on, reduced access and visibility to the surrounding businesses, and very financial strain on the small businesses located along this part of downtown. It would permanently change the character of this area, an open view towards the lake that makes this part of downtown so special. We're gonna be sacrificing the charm, the views, local businesses, and a sense of community that makes this city special. We need to protect the small businesses that have invested in downtown. Claremont is about preserving the character of our downtown and lakefront. It is about making sure that Claremont continues to grow, that we don't lose the very things that make people want to live here and that make it advertising for small businesses to come to Claremont. I believe that the other one of the proposals to build a parking garage right out here behind the City Hall and the Sissy Park would be an ideal place and that any considerations where the garage is parked that this area needs to have weighted concern and deserves a thoughtful consideration. So I want to make my voice heard. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Yes, ma'am.

Valerie Shewitt, 931 West Montrose Street. First of all, rest in peace, Dolly Parton. I don't know if you all saw that. Yeah. I just saw that.

Just had to acknowledge that.

Yeah, everybody loves Dolly. But that's agreeable. I'm going to be a little bit disagreeable now. I don't know if you all have walked the waterfront lately near the boathouse area between Victory Point and the boathouse specifically. But if you did, you'd see some of these things. This is a swale stormwater runoff from the lumberyard apartments there that runs the full stretch of trail. And terminates on this beautiful vista overlooking the water. What is that?

What is that?

I think it's stormwater infrastructure for the lumberyard. Right on the boathouse. Actually, also... Can someone tell me what that is?

I think it's called a poop tank. It's called a what now?

Just kidding. I knew what that was. I wanted to hear somebody say it. I believe that our lakes in Claremont are our greatest natural assets. It's a huge part of our charm. And we also have very little public access to our lakes. Um, and this here is on public land, um, right in front of the lakefront. Um, this, I think there's a residential house right behind the poop tank to put it in Miss Stranger's words. Um, And this is precious, precious land. But I am not here to blame or try to step on anybody's toes. That's the last thing I wanna do. But what I do care about is that we do something to beautify this. I think this is, these look pretty permanent to me. This is a decision that has been made. But what can we do now to beautify this stretch of our waterfront is very, I think, important to me. And I have a couple ideas.

And there might be better ideas out there.

But this swale, it could have maybe been a bioswale. It's not. But what if we made it look like a bioswale? And that's where there's more vegetation and plants that help filter the water. My understanding is this is just a standard conveyance swale. But what if we planted native Florida wildflowers all in the bottom of this and just went chaos garden style and did some beautiful landscaping around it? The last thing I want to see, I don't know where this is going, but the last thing I would want to see is some kind of fence or something like that around there. And then the same thing for the... This infrastructure here, I think right now a black chain link fence is being put up around it. That's not going to do much to beautify this. So I don't know if we could get something taller with some vines or greenery growing here, or if we could make it a feature with some panels that the South Lake Art League does some art or a mural on. What can we do? That's my question. I'm happy to help and support ideas. I want to see solutions for this. But I would love to see us do something beautiful in both of these spaces and take this featured space and try to make these things a feature instead of some failed attempts at hiding them with a fence or builder grade landscaping. That's all I'll say. Thank you.

Thank you.

Valerie, can we get a copy of those pictures, please, for the record? Thank you.

I know, all right. Good afternoon, my name is Sarah Jo. I'm a Claremont resident. I am a nurse. I currently work as a nursing instructor for Lake Sumter. I'm a mom of three. That's two of my kids in the back. If I look a little bit disheveled, it's because they changed pickup and I had to sprint to school and sprint back before I missed public comment. I'm here today to talk to you guys about Kratom It's a designer drug that is currently being sold in 12 different smoke shops in Claremont, as well as 11 gas stations. It is otherwise known as gas station heroin. So I want to talk about this pack that I prepared for you. And then I brought some items to show and tell. So here is a drug fact sheet from Kratom. Kratom is based off of a leaf that has grown in Indonesia. It has been used for thousands of years, but you cannot think of this as any kind of natural product because it has been processed and turned into a synthetic form. It works on the same part of your brain that narcotics do. So it does cause overdoses per the Tampa Bay Times report, which is the second sheet that you can see there. This is part one of the Tampa Bay Times expose on Kratom that was produced about two and a half years ago. It's been linked to at least 500 overdose deaths, including 50 that were Kratom exclusively. It's very dangerous. It's very addictive. And it's all over the place. And we need to do something about it. So the third piece of information that I provided for you is in a Sarasota County ordinance where they are banning all designer drugs. So not only Kratom, but synthetic bath salts, as well as synthetic cannabinoids like spice. So Kratom has been around for a long time and it's kind of always been in the background. Unfortunately, now that the opioid epidemic has kind of calmed down and there's tighter restrictions, people are turning to Kratom. when they can't get their prescription pills anymore. Um, and like I said, it does cause overdoses and it also causes seizures. Um, it's deadly. So I want to talk about some of the products that are, you can purchase. So, um, I mentioned this previously, this is free. I'm sorry. This is synthetic novelty urine. You can use it to pass a drug test. I talked to an addictions nurse that I know, and she says it does work. So people use this product to bypass drug screenings for their employment. Um, this is a meth pipe. I purchased that. Um, And then this is a THC drink. This was purchased from Circle K. You can get high off of this. It is less than the legal limit. This is a kratom drink. It doesn't even tell you how much kratom is in it. But the last piece I really wanna highlight with my last minute here is there's no safe known amount of kratom. Researchers at UF say no more than 40 milligrams per day. Do you wanna know how much is in each one of these pills? It's four times. So this is 16 times the known safe dose, a two year old overdose. I mentioned that last meeting, a two year old overdosed on two and a half pills. I guarantee you it was something like this and died. See how small it is? It's smaller than my fingernail. And so I want us to pass a ordinance that bans the sale of designer drugs. We don't need it. It's not a freedom issue. We are allowing drug dealers, legal drug dealers to profit off the suffering of people in our community. And it's disgusting and we need to do something about it. And so I would love to speak to you guys further on this. I'd love to review this ordinance with you, but I will be here again at the next meeting to discuss this because until we do something, I'm tired of seeing people die from drugs and we need to do something about it. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Mr. Wagner, I know we don't have any workshops scheduled, anything scheduled. How soon can we do a workshop with her? go over some of this stuff and we need to have make sure mr was there as well because i think i heard a request about uh passing ordinance and everything and i don't know what kind of ordinance we can pass of course that we can so that's why i figured we need maybe a workshop with legal and everybody to sit down and talk with what we can and cannot do please because i think state regulates all that right

it does and there are statutes on the books about this subject now it's my understanding that sarasota's ordinance predated the state regulation um there's a real question as to whether it's exempted to the state okay or preempt i'm sorry preempted to the state and whether we can

but i can look into that yeah please but i would like to as soon as we can try to come up with something we could do it in october that's realistic we have a scheduled workshop for october 20th if that's agreeable okay it's okay with me is it is that it's our scheduled date but is that okay for that subject matter that's what okay all right all right thank you

Yes, sir.

I am Farmer Banks Helfrich. I live in the Clay Road District. Farm tip of the day. It is time to put the fall crops into the ground. And the best things to grow now are things under the ground. Carrots and onions, rutabaga. turnips, turnips do real well, radishes as well. Also your brachias or your cruciferous vegetables, which are your broccolis, cauliflowers, cabbages, kales, brussel sprouts, and then any type of lettuce will grow really well right now. Mayor, council, distinguished guests, We are in the harvest season. November 3rd, we have a harvest in our country. We get to choose as citizens our next two years where we go. We get to choose our state representatives, our congressmen and women, our senators, even some of you on the dais are up for election. We get to choose you. As someone who harvests as a farmer, the individuals, the citizens out here get to choose you. And this is the least that we can do as citizens because in this country that we live in, in this republic democracy, it only works if we participate. So I encourage not only all of you, but all of you listening to me right now to participate, to vote, to decide where we go for the next two years. Above that, we can also do more. We can write letters to the editor. We can stand up in front of you all and speak from the heart, maybe share a farm tip or two. Beyond that, we can even do something more. We can join a party. We can join a caucus. We can join a group to push an agenda forward. And then ultimately, there are some of us, and many of you on the dais are in that group, where we want to serve the community. We want to serve others. We want to be at that table with the most amount of resources to help the most amount of people. And I am that such person as well. On a note to the side, I have a very short time, I'd like to add, and that is, as Floridians, this is our water, this is our electrical grid, this is our natural soundscapes. Before we give up any of these precious resources, let's do our due diligence. I am not saying no, I am saying not now. I support and stand in front of you in support of a one-year moratorium on data centers. May you all be blessed. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Vincent Nemec. I'm here to speak on behalf of myself and an advocate for Hartwood Marsh Road and South Claremont. For nearly 10 years, the citizens cried out to the city council and raised the concerns about the serious traffic hazards at Hartwood Marsh and Hancock Road. Today, the situation has become more than an inconvenience. It is now a major safety concern, affecting at least 14, that's right, 14 new communities along Hartwood Marsh Road from 27 all the way down to the Orange County line. And that's also affecting thousands of residents. the private homes, and so on. The photographs that I'll be showing were taken within 24 hours. Some yesterday, some this morning. So they're current. So you could get a firm grip. And just to show how serious this problem is, during the Imagine School dismissal, dismissal, 20 minutes. This picture was taken 20 minutes before dismissal. Road was backed up all the way to the Arts and Rec Center on 27th. Okay, so explain to us that we cried and cried to the council and to the county. Okay, you sit in the chair, you say, well, it's a county road. That's no problem. This is not a county road problem no more. This is a Claremont problem. Okay, I'm not here to just point fingers. I'm here to show you a solution. You see that white car? That white car has its blinker on going to the left. So no matter what that poor traffic police officer on the top is doing, that traffic's not going to move. The people at the light are not going to move for gridlock. Okay, here's your solution. Your solution is as follows. You see where the arrows pointing blockade? Put a police officer there and keep the flow of traffic moving. If the cars don't want to move, then incite them for a ticket. Okay? It's very simple. We used to have two offices there. We only have one poor officer all the way on the top of the hill. You know the expression, when the cat's away, the mice will play. Well, that's what they're doing, okay? We cried about this for over 10 years. In 2024, we came here with close to 300 residents complaining. It's not the development. It's the unsmart development, okay? But we lost because there was a commercial building that was going to be put on a certain property right at that location. We lost through a three to two vote. It was very simple. Mayor Murray, you were on the council and you voted in favor for this building. So did Michael Gonzalez. So did, she was here before, Michelle Pines. Okay, the only two people that opposed it is the city council member right there next to you, which is Shonda Meyers.

You gave everybody else a minute, I would respectfully get mine. Please keep to a point and no politics. I am going, no, I'm not getting no politics.

You should have told that to Mr. Banks when he came up here. Plain and simple. I'll play word games with you if you want to play. Please don't think this is a county issue. This is our issue. But here's the bigger problem, Your Honor. That's why we're in a more of an uproar. So you don't go down to South Claremont, but we live there. This sign was put up yesterday. Starting September 7th, Hancock is going to be closed. Now, why is that a concern? I'm going to show you the concern. Back to this picture. You see the construction right here? That's going to affect Hartwood Marsh Road, where these cars are going to go to pick up their kids. Nobody thought about that.

And here's another problem.

You're going to close Hancock Road. That's against the law. I spoke to the fire chief yesterday. Fire chief says that's going to be a major problem. They didn't confirm with us to close it. It seems like Lenore, who hired another contractor, thinks that they could just close roads. You cannot close a road with two major communities that have egress exits come in and out. Now you're putting our safety at risk.

If we can't get up the road this way,

How are we going to get in the road on a closed road? We're very upset about this. South Claremont is really upset. This is going on for too much. We gave you solutions. It seems like it's falling on certain deaf ears. Ten years is enough.

Wrap it up in the next 30 seconds, please.

I actually would like to make a motion to address this item.

Well, Ms. Strange, hold on. Let him finish and I want to address it as well. So give him 30 seconds to finish up.

Clock is running, sir. Oh, I know it is. And I'm just about wrapped up. I'm going to say, Ms. Strange, I reached out to certain council members and she is telling us she's looking into it. so is Councilman Peterson, and so is Councilwoman Myers. I didn't reach out to Councilman Baines yet, but I was planning to do later on this evening. So please, it's a concern with the citizens. This is a city. Safety has it. Find it in your heart to help us. Thank you. God bless.

Thank you. Keep it political.

She was told that to banks.

Mr. Van Wagner, Hancock closing. First I heard of it. Why is it?

I'm going to get a call into Lane and try to get the details. I don't know all these details. Some of these I'm just hearing about. So I'll get with Lane and try to figure out what's going on.

Okay.

I move to add this item to the agenda as the first item after consent so that we can discuss it as a council. I second. Okay.

Call for a vote.

Yes. Mayor, I just wanted to speak into this. This matter was brought to my attention yesterday. I had a conversation with my fire marshal.

Chief, we just added this to the consent agenda at the end of, you said at the end of the consent?

After consent.

At the consent agenda, we'll talk about it. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Yes, sir. I think there was a motion and a second.

We have to vote on it.

Yeah. Okay. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Go ahead and add this in after the consent agenda and for the discussion. Hearing none, all in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And Chair vote aye as well. So we will take up that matter after the end of the consent agenda. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. I'm Chris Weiss, 2128 Grafton Ave, Claremont, Florida. Got a question and a concern and hopefully could do something about it. On April 15th of this year, there was an attachment F of city council, or city of Claremont, backing a plan that's going to be on John Lakes Road, a new faith community that's going on that road. We are addressing this also with the county. When they answered the county's information, which I think maybe helped you approve this or not to oppose it, They stated that Hancock Road will be widened this year in 2026. Does anybody know about that? It is not being widened. The only project that was approved by the county was Hartman Road from 27, about a mile and a half down, period. They want to put in a faith community there And we're talking about traffic. Once they open up the Hancock Road down the Wellness Way, instead of the people going over the 27, back up the Harbin March and then down, it's gonna be a shot straight from Wellness Way all the way up to 50, adding more traffic to that road. And talking to Jeff Earhart back in March, he stated that Hancock Road more than likely will not be widened for another 10 to 20 years. If that's the case, if that's the case, we should not allow them to build that faith community there. That road's gonna be packed from one end to the other end at all times. with no widening of the road. I would ask you to look over that attachment F. We are not opposing the construction of this new site down there. I would recommend you stop that project right now before it really becomes a detriment to this community. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Van Wagner, I think that is under the county. What are you referring to on the corner of John Lake Road and Hancock? I think that's up in the county right now. And I know we've always asked county to send everything back down to us and let us take a look at it before they approve everything. So can you make sure they do that? Please let it come to us before they do the final approval on that.

I will make the request. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Even though we, I mean, we can say no to them all we want, but they still have the last authority. And I think it's already a building there that they worship out of anyway, but they want to do more of that. But I know it's up in the county right now. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the council. Paula Hoisington, 564 East DeSoto Street. Seven years, six months, and 24 days. A casual conversation was held at the waterfront park on the closing of a school in Lincoln Park. Our concern was, what are they gonna do with that property? We came to the council to ask for a community center. We went to the school board and explained our vision. We went to the board of county commissioners They supported us and wrote a recognition in support of a community center. We went to the Board of Education. We presented in front of the school board and our plight was the school is closing. Please do not leave this vacant, this property vacant because we didn't want to see up going grass, windows broken. Can we have a vision to do something? And they listened to us seven years, six months and 24 days. On August 14th, the ribbon was cut to open the Lake Tech South Campus. Seven years, six months, and 24 days. We're prepared to go another seven years if necessary to get a community center in the Lincoln Park area. One of the gentlemen that spoke from the Board of Education said he believed in that if you build it, they will come. Within a week or two of the announcing of this South Lake Tech College, every program is full. Not waiting for people to sign up, but every program is full. HVC, culinary, nursing, paramedics, with other workforce designs to come in. The Lake Lincoln Park Education Center was also a part of the vision, a unique opportunity for students who do currently work to go to school at alternate hours to where they can still maintain their jobs and get a high school diploma. The opening of this tech college will now allow them to dual enroll. And when they graduate, graduate with the certification of a livable workforce job. This is the city of champions. The city of champions, that's our slogan. This opportunity will present an opportunity for us to continue to plant seeds so that we can truly grow the city of champions. 120 years ago, people who look like me decided that we needed a high school, a school to educate people of color. 120 years ago, they didn't have the slogan of City of Champions, but they believed if we build it, we can develop champions. We can develop people who can help this city grow. So I'm coming to you again, and I said it before, and I'll just keep coming back until I wear you down, that you find in your heart to have the vision that you find the dollars necessary to build this community center. There was talk from our legislators that were there. There was talk from the Board of Education that was there. It just seems like a perfect spot as we put the community center. We can have students, children, and programs being held and taught while their parents are in the Lake Tech South getting a certification. We have a preschool across the street. There's the Lake Lincoln Park Education Center. I ask you to have the vision, believe in the slogan, the city of champions, and help us develop additional champions. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else? This is a public comment. Anyone in the chamber wish to address anything that's not on the agenda may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone else? Seeing no one else, that closed public comment in the chamber. Do we have anyone online, sir?

We have one waiting online, sir.

All right. Call online, please. Go ahead. Is he still there? I'm working on it. Okay. Caller, go ahead.

You got him, Wayne?

Is he on mute or are we having the trouble?

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you now, yes.

Okay, it flashed a little message on the screen that I was unmuted, but I wasn't. For the city clerk, I'm informed that Carmine is using AI surveillance cameras. Our founding father, Patrick Henry, offers some insight these 250 years later. He says, it is a saying known to all intelligent people that government is a choice of evils. Who must choose the lesser evil? In June of this year, the Supreme Court decided a case named Chantry v. The United States. The court held that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their location history. Police need a warrant before obtaining that data, even when it sits with a private company. Automatic license plate readers like Flock, Vigilant, Axon, and so on create the same continuous location record without a warrant. Between January 25 and July 26, more than 90 jurisdictions canceled, declined, renewed, or deactivated their AI contracts. Cities from Los Angeles to Framingham, Massachusetts, Dane County, Olympia, Washington, and 90 more walked away. Some contracts cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. The cumulative rejection signals a nationwide loss of confidence. Right here in Lake County, commissioners ordered nearly 100 unauthorized flock hammers removed in 2021 and passed an ordinance banning surveillance devices on county property and rights of lake. That local stand matters. Meanwhile, police officers have repeatedly abused this system. At least 50 documented cases show police using AI to stalk romantic partners or family members. Outcomes have included forced resignations, firings, arrests, and criminal charges for misconduct in public office. False stolen vehicle alerts are also common. One Los Angeles audit found 160 incorrect hits in just two months, a 32% error rate. The amount of errors is now so large that the Institute of Justice has created an online searchable database about it. I'm incredulous. When a camera misreads a plate, the result is often a high-risk felony stop at gunpoint. Innocent drivers have been detained, jailed, and lost jobs or their homes. For example, Lindsay Isaacs, a 23-year-old woman, was wrongly arrested after an AI camera misread her plate, linking her vehicle to a triple fatal I-4 hit and run. Florida Highway Patrol impounded her undamaged vehicle, then arrested her six months later. She spent 13 days in jail without bond, faced eight felonies, lost her job, and was fully exonerated. She is now suing Florida. Six figures. Those mistakes violate the Fourth Amendment because they seize free people without reasonable suspicion. AI cameras do not merely catch stolen cars. They secretly map who visits a church, a doctor's office, a gun range, a political meeting, or any place where citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This is not public safety. This is a permanent surveillance state of our private lives. Council members, the choice of evils is clear. Choose liberty. Reject or cancel those LPR cameras here in Claremont. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Carla, before you hang up, I didn't get your name and address.

Hi, my name is Mark Preston, 381 Sky Valley Street, Claremont.

Thank you. You got that, Tracy. Thank you. Next, Carla, go ahead.

Yes, hello, this is Jenny May for 06 to graystone drive. I'm here today just to ask in regards to any status of the joint planning agreement. I was under the understanding based on speaking to a county commissioner that Claremont is currently working or negotiating on the, but we never really hear from the council or from someone in regards to the status of that. Because it's very important that the citizens need to know about the JPA, especially with all this new development and sprawl that's happening around us, especially with the gentleman that came up in reverse to Hancock, the JPA. We should be as part of the JPA, we should be coordinating. Uh, with the county in regards to the new roads and public services that come with all this new development, I'm seeing another development that's happening on Hancock. Which I have not seen any sidewalks or any trails being put in front of it. So, I think that if someone can let us know. what the status is, who on staff is working on it, when do they meet. And being a planning and zoning commissioner, I would like to know as well, because it would be great for us to even know if there's an ability to attend any of these meetings as well. But if anybody can provide us a status report on that, because I understand it's being updated or negotiated. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? That's it, sir. That's it. Since there's no one else on the virtual, we will close virtual public comment and we will close down public comment altogether and bring it back to council. Mr. Van Widener. I can't even remember the last time we had a meeting on JPA with the county. I can't. Is there one scheduled anytime soon that you know of?

We've had some discussions with a vendor that they're using to bridge the gap, if you will. But it wasn't a direct conversation with the county. And it was more of a template that we were going through in the discussion. Mm-hmm. So I would say there needs to be a lot of work done with the JPA, but we did have some conversations initially and need to have some additional conversations with them about it. And there was talk about. us allowing them to have more rights in the green swamp and us having more rights towards wellness way. And we had talked to some of the commissioners about that, but we didn't get an overwhelming sense of support that they were wanting to move forward with that one way or another. so but there was discussion because we we let them know our concerns going on in wellness way that we see it again and again so mr mathis and i talked to them and i have not seen any unless he knows of a meeting i've missed recently when he was in taveras that's the extent of we have not heard from since we had a conversation with them individually yeah we we have not had any direct we we've talked about it in the managers and mayor's meetings and things like that but there's been no

No meetings that I'm aware of, Curt, unless you know of any. They're working through the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council to kind of bridge that gap with the two.

Well, I know we used to have kind of like regular meetings every three to six months or so. We used to have a meeting, but like I said, I can't remember when the last meeting we actually had with all the county commissioners and mayors and city managers and everything. What? three months ago up into very up in leesburg uh it wasn't really about jpa too much okay so about tdrs yeah mostly about tdr so if we can get with the county maybe and see where we stand with jpa i think uh groveland completed theirs and i think um Was it many older, was it in the process? Was it still in the process of trying to work on ours? So if we can find out where we stand with that, if we have to get meetings going again, please, let's get that done. Okay, thank you. That was public comment. So before we go any further, are there any changes to the agenda, Mr. Van Wagner?

Item number 17 was a citizen's request from Ms. Forth. She's asked to be moved to the end of the agenda after item 21.

Okay. Well, do we need to?

I prefer that you do.

A motion? Okay.

I'll move to move item 17 after item 21. Second.

I have a motion and a second to move item number 17 to the end of the agenda after item 21. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Chair vote aye as well. Any other changes, sir?

No other changes.

All right. Okay, the next portion of the meeting is the consent agenda, which contains items that have been determined to be routine and non-controversial. If anyone in the audience wish to address a particular item on the consent agenda, now is the opportunity for you to do so. Additionally, if staff are members of the city, council wish to speak on a consent item, they have the same opportunity. Consent items tonight are items 1 through 12. Are there any items anyone wish to have pulled?

I would like to have item number 7 pulled.

Item number seven. Any others?

If we're pulling item number seven, I'd like to pull item number three.

Item number three. Any others? Well, I want to pull item number 12. Any others? Seeing no other, I'll entertain a motion for item 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11.

So moved.

Is there a second? A second. I have a motion and a second for approval of consent agenda item 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11 as presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And the chair will rise as well. Motion carries 5-0. Item number three. Yes, ma'am.

Mr. Mayor, I move to hear item number three after item number seven since item number three incorporates or assumes approval of item number seven.

Okay. Item number seven. Was that you, Mr. Peterson?

That's me. I mean, we've had discussions about the flock cameras. I'm not prepared to call this system an invasion of privacy based solely on the information that's in this agenda pack. However, I'm equally unprepared to tell our residents that their movements are protected. The packet did not clearly explain whether the underlying GPS and vehicle telemetric information is fully autonomized, how the data is aggregated, how long it is retained, or whether the individual trips could ever be construed or linked to a particular vehicle or driver. If the city receives only anonymous aggregated roadway statistics, this system is less intrusive than a license plate reader. But an individual vehicle identifier, precise GPS points and timestamps, trip histories, remain accessible, then this creates a serious privacy problem. Before approving this contract, counsel should require written answers explaining where the data comes from, whether the motor is consented to its use, or whether any person or vehicle can be identified, and what contractual protections prevent this data from being retained, shared, sold, or used for another purpose. Until these protections are clearly written into this contract, I cannot support this proposal.

Okay, thank you. Yes, sir.

Deputy Chief McMaster, Mayor, Council Members, I want to take a minute and give you some information to hopefully alleviate your concerns, sir. I also have, when I'm done, if you'll allow the two representatives for the company, I think once they speak, you'll have a very good understanding, and it's going to alleviate those fears that you have. Currently, we rely on temporary monitoring equipment and limited historical data to evaluate our traffic conditions. These methods only provide a snapshot of roadway activity at a specified location and time. This product provides continuous jurisdiction-wide traffic data without the need for additional hardware deployments. What that means is I don't have to have people go out and hang up a box. I don't have to go out and put up one of our traffic trailers that would record this information normally. The platform can support traffic enforcement planning, traffic engineering analysis, roadway safety initiatives, infrastructure planning, and response to citizen complaints through a common data source shared across the departments, our department as well as Public Works. The police department will assist with identifying speeding hotspots, prioritize enforcement efforts, and measure the effectiveness of traffic safety initiatives for traffic safety initiatives. Now for public works, the platform can support traffic calming evaluations, infrastructure prioritization, roadway design decisions, and identification of high-risk corridors. The product will assist in targeted traffic enforcement efficiency by reducing blind deployment of personnel, increasing productivity, enhancing our grant reporting, through the FDOT grant that we do this year. We're in our fifth year right now. We've been averaging $20,000 of what they provided each year so far. We will also be able to provide a quicker response to traffic complaints read by citizens. Our report provides speed percentile reporting, historical speed trend analysis, and citizen-ready PDF reports that we could give to somebody if we so chose. It would also assist with event impact monitoring, such as tracking congestion, blocked emergency lanes and roadway closures before, during, or after events. So it's a historical software that we can go in. If you remember two meetings ago, there was a gentleman that came up and expressed concern about Lakeshore Road or Lakeshore Drive and speeding on Lakeshore Drive. With this program, we could go to anything that was hooked up to the internet, one of our two operators can log in and they can pull up on a street X, Lakeshore Drive from this block to this block, hit enter, and it's going to spit out for whatever that time period that we wanted, if we wanted it for the last two weeks, if we wanted it for the last month. That's it. It doesn't tell us the car. It doesn't tell us who it was, anything of that nature. I'm going to stop there before I get in over my head, and I'd like to, if you will, allow the two representatives from the company to explain more, sir.

Thank you, council members, for giving us the time this afternoon. So as Deputy Chief McMaster stated, you know, traditionally, I think a lot of agencies have been performing traffic studies through manual counts or temporary equipment deployments like setting out a speed trailer. That obviously provides very limited historical data sets. And as he outlined, those methods are very time consuming and labor intensive, and they're only giving a snapshot of traffic conditions at a single location. This is where a lot of agencies have been partnering with Urban SDK to provide access to consistent citywide traffic data. So we have a handout in the folders that we just passed along that outlines some of the 50 plus agencies throughout the state of Florida that are partnering with us today. But across the country, we work with more than 350 agencies in 40 states to provide them with 24-7, 365 visibilities into their roadways through vehicle telematics. So not things like flock cameras. We don't actually have personally identifiable information on the platform. But we are able to provide the agency with a clear perspective over the roadway network with data on speeds, volumes, congestion, and roadway characteristics that is anonymous aggregated data. And basically, agencies across Florida are using our platform to speed up their response time to citizen complaints. Perform more targeted enforcement, essentially ensuring that they're deploying resources and officers to the right place at the right time. Reduce speeding, serious collisions, address roadway safety issues proactively. And really, it allows agencies, I think, to get ahead of the problem instead of waiting until a public complaint arrives. And agencies have also been able to use our platform to really start to reduce their reliance on this physical equipment that they use for data collection and just get faster information on their roadways, ultimately make more data-driven decisions. And then last but certainly not least, this has helped a lot of our law enforcement partners throughout Florida to really streamline their reporting to city council and improve transparency when responding to constituent concerns on a particular roadway.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and there is a handout as well in those folders that talks through the data privacy concerns, as well as how the platform just leverages anonymous traffic data. Okay.

Given that there were a series of questions asked, I move that we go through our questions round while the presenter is here and then address our statements afterwards.

Well, I would love to open it up for public comment first, and then we come back for a question round. Sure. Your partner back there, he's saying anything?

Just here to help with questions. Okay, okay.

Just have a question. In that case, I'm going to go ahead and open up for public comment. Anyone in the public wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone in the chamber wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Seeing no one in the chamber. Anyone online, sir? If no one online, we're going to close public comment and bring it back. Yes, ma'am, Ms. Strange.

Just point of order, are we following our rules by rotating who goes first?

Yeah, I got to go first last time.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be sickler, but I'm just trying to make sure we get into the groove of it so that we can provide for our meeting efficiency that we all agreed to try to implement. Do I support that, or what do I do? So I don't know who's speaking first tonight, what the rotation is.

Go ahead, Mr. Bain.

I'm happy to, thank you. I just wanna clarify, this data collected is anonymous and is not tied to a specific vehicle, license plate, driver, driver's license, make, model, color of a vehicle.

That's exactly correct. So there's no personally identifiable information on the platform whatsoever. It is all broadly aggregated anonymous traffic data.

Okay. Question for our CPD staff, please. The data we collect currently from those boxes or the trailers that go out? Yes, sir. Is that anonymous?

Yes.

Does that get tied to a specific make, model, or vehicle of a car, a person, a driver's license, any other identifiable information? No, sir. And the benefit, if I heard correctly from you, is that by utilizing this system, if we got a complaint at this meeting, if we had this in place, whoever you have identified, one of those two people could go in and say, give me the data for XYZ Road for the last month. one week, two week, two months, and we would have it instantaneously as opposed to deploying the box or the trailer tomorrow and collecting it for one week, two week, two months, whatever. Okay. Thank you very much.

Ms. Myers.

You have already taken what my question was about the data, which was said in the agenda review. So again, as you said, it helps with congestion and it helps with tracking the information of cars speeding through here, but not, oh, this belongs to Johnny, this belongs to Susie. None of that is on there. So I'm fine with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Peterson. So basically you're taking a snapshot of a whole, let's say, all of Claremont from space. Is this where it is? Is it a satellite-based system?

Essentially from vehicle telematics. Yeah, GPS and navigation systems.

So basically like all the cellular towers then? So you're getting a position from that? Is that what it is?

We don't use cell phone or Bluetooth data. We find that you can get false positives if you have multiple phones within a car or a pedestrian on a motorized. So we really just rely strictly on the vehicle telematics, but it's all anonymous traffic data.

Okay, so I mean basically this is the same thing as when we had the two wires across the road and you were doing a speed test.

Exactly, we give them that same readout but at a much faster pace so that they're not having to wait multiple weeks to be able to get an answer on a roadway.

So the advantage of this is if we had a complaint on Lakeshore Road and 12th, let's just say, then you could give that instant data as opposed to we'd have to have somebody come out there and set the wires with some kind of a machine, whatever that might be. So it would be a week later. But I mean, other than that, there would be no other advantages, correct?

That's correct. It's really just a time savings and efficiency for the agency.

And it's time saving. I guess that's what's achieved.

There's that. But then, as I mentioned, if Public Works is going to redo a road or if we're getting a complaint or Public Works is getting a complaint about a specific intersection and there needing to be traffic control of some nature there, we can pull up that intersection through this program and we'll be able to tell Public Works, hey, yes, through this intersection yesterday from – If the complaint is saying from 10 to 2, there's a whole lot of traffic there, we would be able to pull it up to verify that and say, yes, you experienced at this intersection 300 cars in that three-hour timeframe or vice versa. We had 15 cars come through in that intersection. So it's beneficial to not only us, but to other departments within the city.

The only thing I think of is, is this an opening then for a future type of invasion on people's information? Obviously, this is not. This is autonomous. We don't know the cars, but it is, you know, if we go with this, then are we saying, okay, let's open a door to this, and then we're allowing the next thing to come in. So then this data is all stored, I imagine. So you must have, if you, you can go back a week, a month and get data. Is that correct?

We provide the agency with 13 months of historical data so they can go back a year to the past.

Obviously, you're storing a lot. It's a concern I have because people come to me and they feel it's an invasion of their privacy. And I understand the good parts about it, too. But it's almost like we just... doing this instead of running their two wires across the road. But I understand what the chief said. It could do multiple things. Public works could find out information about how many people cross this road, et cetera, et cetera. So I understand both parts of it, but it still gives me a little concern. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Steinich.

Thank you. I may look down, but my ears are open to you. I just have a lot of notes. Can you tell me what is vehicle telematics?

It is essentially a chip within vehicles that transmits data up to satellite without any personally identifiable information. So we can get anonymous data like the total number of vehicles that were on a roadway and how fast those vehicles were going. But beyond that, we couldn't tell you the plate number, the VIN number, or any information about a particular driver.

Okay, so there's a picture on page 198 of our packet, page 7 of 12 of your presentation that shows streets with colors on them. They appear to range from yellow to pink to purple. Is this what your reports look like?

It's just a visualization that's helping show you kind of the heat map that we provide. So when an agency is looking over like the city of Claremont, for example, you can tell just via color coding if there is a speeding issue on a particular roadway.

So with vehicle telematics, how accurate to the foot is the signal to the satellite?

Yeah. So we're generally, uh, within a 90 to 95% range of accuracy compared to physical ground truth counts. Um, and that's something that actually, I think captain Draper went out and compared, uh, three or four different roads to the readouts that he had with his physical equipment, to the numbers on our platform. And he said it was spot on for those roadways.

Does your technology make it possible to track the chip?

So really just in terms of the anonymous data, we can tell you speeds, volumes, but nothing about the individual driver movements. So we can't break out any individual driver, if that makes sense.

It doesn't make sense. It seems like if you can track a chip that's in a vehicle that's moving and you can track the speed of the vehicle, then if you were so inclined, for example, to not saying you would, I'm talking about the spirit of cane that Mr. Peterson is referring to that in time, it would be possible. Seems like it's not a far stretch to say, I want to track this car that's currently stopped at this address and see where it goes. Are you telling me that's not possible?

That's not possible with our platform today. Um, all the information that we see we receive is like aggregated information. So not individual drivers, but rather kind of broken out into buckets, like your average speeds, 85th, 95th percentile, but we couldn't tell you what a single driver was doing.

Your company is not capable or the technology doesn't exist.

Um, I'm not sure if the technology exists, but I know that our company is not capable today.

Or is your company licensed under any sort of federal or state agency? Is there a license that exists for tracking this data?

I'm not sure on a specific license for the data itself, but I know that we are being leveraged by more than 50 other agencies within the state of Florida. And the Florida Department of Transportation also leverages this data as well. So many FDOT districts we partner with.

My question is rooted in How does one, in your case, your company, but let's say, you know, let's say Mr. Kramer was so inclined to pull this data from the sky. Like how does one get access to these satellites and the data for the vehicle telematics?

So there are, I guess, data aggregators that we partner with to pull from a variety of different sources together. But by the time it reaches them, it is anonymous data, essentially. So it's all been scrubbed from individual vehicle manufacturers before it's ever to that point.

It's fascinating. Very interesting world we're living in. So the data to answer Mr. Peterson's first question comes from vehicle telematics associated with the chip in a vehicle that goes to satellites in the sky and then goes through some third party that wipes the data and you don't have the personal information in your organization, but likely it exists somewhere.

Right. I believe it's going to be scrubbed before it reaches that data aggregator. But yes, by the time it reaches our organization, we don't have any personally identifiable information.

To your knowledge, Mr. Peterson, second question was, do the people providing or when I buy a vehicle, am I somehow giving consent for my vehicle chip to be transmitted to these satellites?

Yeah, I believe that is something that's buried in the terms and conditions for most vehicles today. If you're using any kind of navigation system in the vehicle within that built-in infotainment system, it's just information that's being shared anonymously from that point.

So interesting. And you've said you don't have access to the personal verification, but there are specific chips that is a chip that can distinguish one chip from another chip.

Right.

And do you share, well, this is aggregated. So the information is already shared. I think Mr. Peterson, before it gets to us, um, how long have you been with the company?

myself for about seven months now, but our company has been around for about six, seven years.

And in that six or seven years, to your knowledge, has the information that's provided to your 50 different agencies in Florida become more specific during that time?

No, only the data latency has has been improved. Like when our company first started off, we could only provide up to date information like a month or two in the past. And now it's gotten much more up to date with how fast we can provide the information to the agency. But otherwise, it's remained the same anonymous speed volume data, nothing personally identifiable about the drivers.

Thank you. I think I'm finished with you, sir. But Deputy Chief, my understanding from the packet is that this funding is being reimbursed from a grant that we have received?

This is from our seizure funds. So we have gentlemen there, gentlemen that are assigned to DEA task force. So this is drug funds.

What is the funding for the four-year contract will be provided by the Federal Justice Fund's grant?

That is the seizure account. That's the official title for it. Oh.

I'm learning all sorts of new things today. Okay, great. My final question is for Mr. Peterson. Do you feel that your questions have been all satisfactorily answered, or do you still have concerns?

I mean, one of the things that was just addressed is that the chip does identify the car. So when it gets up and then it gets scrubbed, so you don't know the car. But somebody knows the car that's moving, right? So that's what I'm saying. So are we opening this up? I mean, now that you don't know it, but somebody is tracking that car then right now. We don't even know who it is. So you're getting this data from a secondary system? And you're like buying that data from them and they're scrubbing that they're just giving you the basic information. It's a vehicle, it's a motorcycle, it's whatever. And it's going X amount of miles per hour over a certain geographic place. Is that what I understand?

Yeah. And I believe it would be from the vehicle manufacturers as well. Right. So when you sign off on those terms and conditions, or you're using the navigation system in your vehicle, that the consumer has already consented now for that manufacturer to share that.

Sure. We gave up our rights. After 9-11, we've given up a lot of our rights. But it's the manufacturers that would make sure that it is anonymous.

Well, you led me to another question. It's for our attorney. Am I getting accurate, legally accurate responses from the company? Or is there anything you think I should know, knowing me the way you do?

I don't know. I mean, I have no reason to disbelieve the information that's been given. I've identified no legal issues with the information we've been given. I think it's analogous to all kinds of information transmission that we have and relationships we have. I mean, if I hear a conversation about a breakup and my wife asks me the questions about what happened, it's going to be scrubbed from interesting information and I won't remember anything. So it happens... But really, when you think about it, there's a lot of information transmission like this, and I'm very comfortable with it with the city. There are some issues with the contract, but we can talk about that.

Okay, I want to pin that one. I think the last question I had is you said, as I understand it, that the chip is related to the navigation system. And so my fear would be if people are driving vehicles without navigation systems, are we going to get incomplete information by relying on this if the vehicles on the road don't have those systems? Or does every chip built since like 1980 have, every vehicle have this system?

Yeah. So it's, it's around for the last 22 years, around 2004 to 2006 timeframe is when this technology became a lot more ubiquitous. But what we do see frequently is that even vehicles that are individuals that have a vehicle from the nineties, for example, they will typically perform some kind of upgrade on that vehicle or replace the radio or infotainment system. And at that point, they more than likely end up with a telematic chip. So we do see pretty broad coverage from our sample size. And then again, when we've done data validations or we compare our numbers to an actual physical study or within that 90 to 95% accuracy range for them to be able to make decisions on the information.

And motorcycles came up a couple of times. Do motorcycles also have this or scooters? Like, are there, is this only cars or motorcycles and scooters?

Yeah, I would say only cars, primarily, yeah. All right.

Those are all my questions.

Okay, thank you. Thank you all. Gee, these cameras, I... They're not cameras. Well, how easy are they to move around from place to place?

The ones we have right now?

Well, I know the ones we have right now. We go out and we put them up. Yeah, you have to find them. But these will be permanently installed in place?

There's no hardware that we have to deal with.

Right.

This is literally, we'll sign into our log-in. to the system, we'll type in our password, et cetera. We're going to type in this location to this location, these dates and hit enter and it's going to spit it up.

Yeah.

So if this is removing us having to go out and put out the boxes or the trailer or the trailers, and you know, they're one thing that if we go out and we put up a box of the trailer, we're looking at perfect world three weeks.

Yeah.

because we're gonna put it out for two weeks so we get an accurate representation. And then by the time we go out, We recover the information, we come back in, we crunch it, we put it into a format that can be handed out to be able to understand. We're two and a half to three weeks, and that's if there's no issues with that hardware during that two-week span while it's recording the information.

Well, I guess what I'm really trying to figure out, will all the streets in Clemont be covered?

Yes.

Okay. So we don't have to go out and do nothing or move anything? No, sir. Okay. That'll save us a whole lot of time because, you know, I work with you all quite a bit on the other boxes. Yes, sir. Unidentified, incognito boxes, all those. So that's my main concern. As long as we don't have to worry about going out and doing all that, that'll save us a lot of man hours and everything else because I know how many man hours is involved in going out and setting up the box and then trying to retrieve them and all. Yeah. And I think it would be a great asset to us because now we can go back. We now get all these complaints about speeding through neighborhoods. We can easily go back and look at data now a lot quicker than going back and having to wait two or three weeks to try to set up a box and then retrieve it and all.

Yes, sir.

So I can support it. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Any other questions?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, there are just two things I want the council to consider when perhaps preparing a motion on this. The first is what you have before you is a general proposal, and then it links to the terms and conditions. And I've reviewed them, and by and large, they're fine. But there is one thing missing that most of our contracts need to have. We do this with our vendors through procurement, is a public records provision. So... Our vendors are subject to the public records law. To the extent that they have those records, we need to be able to have access to them. And there is a general term that we have that we use on our contracts and that comes straight from the statute. So it's just something we have to have in there. Right now, it broadly speaks about confidentiality. We really don't. and won't be able to follow confidentiality to the extent that the public records law applies. That's number one. Number two, there is a provision that limits the liability on both sides to the value of the contract, which in this case I think is fine. However, there's also an indemnification provision. So I would ask that we ensure clarity that their indemnification obligations are not limited by the liability cap, if that makes sense.

So can you work with them to make sure all these things are in the contract? Yes.

What's the out provision?

What's the out provision?

Termination.

Well, in the termination clause, it's essentially for cause. I mean, if there's a breach of the agreement, then 30 days notice. Otherwise, it's four years.

Okay. Extend it out.

No standard out. So it's a four-year contract with no standard out.

Well, we've got outcalls in there, right?

There is if there's a breach. And honestly, the services provided are fairly simple. And on a lot of our contracts, we do push back on that kind of provision. But here, it's essentially software. Yeah. And it's covered. The cost is covered. So we're not worried about that. Okay. Any other questions?

I have a question, sir. Mr. City Attorney, if we are going to move this, would moving it with the following two statements suffice what you brought forward? One, two. MOVE APPROVAL WITH THE CONDITIONS THAT THE PUBLIC RECORDS PROVISION TERMS GETS INCLUDED AND TO LIMITS ADDRESSES THE LIMITS OF LIABILITY AND THE INDEMNIFICATION PROVISIONS THAT YOU BROUGHT FORWARD IT WOULD SATISFY ME OKAY BEFORE I ASK FOR A MOTION MR.

STRANGE YOU SAID ITEM NUMBER THREE WAS DO YOU WANT TO GO AHEAD AND VOTE DO A MOTION ON THIS ONE AND BEFORE WE GO TO THREE OR

Yes, I do need to know the outcome of this one so I can determine my vote on three, but we still need our comments.

Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Begg.

Thank you. My only comment would just be that I recognize the privacy concerns associated with conversations relative to technology and recording devices. I think this one doesn't necessarily fall into that same category. This is collecting the same data and the same information, just in a different way that the ropes across the road or the little box on the speed limit sign or the big trailer that gets put out at a location in terms of what we get back from that is the same data. And so the provisions that I like about moving forward with this, if we can include the language that the city attorney brought forward, is that it would allow us, as a resident comes forward at a council meeting, to literally that night or the very next day have the data that we need, and if need be, address that item at the next council meeting rather than waiting a month or two to get to that point to be able to do something. I also appreciate the fact that it could have public services, public works effects as well in terms of being able to understand traffic and what to do for planning for our roadways. So I think with those provisions, I'm comfortable moving forward at this time.

Thank you, Ms. Marsh.

I echo what Council Member Bain said. I'm comfortable moving for it since it does not have identifying marks on it, and it does help other agencies that are in our city.

Thank you, Mr. Peach. I think, you know, I'm still concerned about the future of this, especially when you did say that the chip then does give the vehicle, it gets scrubbed by you, but then what about that go-between person that has that data? You know, I mean, right now it's not available, but you know software, it's constantly changing and it's constantly mutating. And just like you had mentioned, if you want to track somebody's friend, In the future, this is a possibility. With your company, it's not. But it's not, like you said, it's not now, which is the thing that's concerning, which means it could be. And that's all I'm concerned with right now. You know, is it foolproof? And then the other thing is, why would we even need liability if it is foolproof? You know, who's going to sue over autonomous information? There's no real person to sue, right? It's not like you tracked my car and you said I was going 50, but I was only going 20. You know what I'm saying? And that's what I'm concerned with at this point in time.

I appreciate our attorney looking out for us. It raised some concerns that I have, and I wouldn't mind even tabling this to give the attorney time to look at it. I appreciate the value of this to the police department entirely. And so my comments are as follows. One, we're working on a software audit. And having a four-year contract that we enter while we're working on a software audit is something that concerns me. So I would not, can you stop my clock? The chief wants to interrupt.

This will replace my two other softwares that do the same information.

Are we saving money? Because item number three is a budget amendment.

the, the, the amounts that I pay would pay next year in the, in, you know, software, no support for those other two, obviously would come off. I can't tell you off the top of my head what those two different programs. So that might go to, it is, it is going, I'm, it's not like I'm stacking, I'm going, going to remove two and replace with this one.

It's helpful to know. Um, Okay, I'm going to put my clock back on. Because we have contractual concerns and because in light of the information that was just shared, I may see if there's a temperature to table this so that our attorney and our finance office and the police department have time to give us a complete picture on the contractual issues. Because one of the things I would not want to do, every other contract the city enters into has a 30-day, 90-day out, and this one does not. And even though we can't imagine why we wouldn't want that, when we do want it, we won't have it, and that's important. So I think maybe having time to negotiate those terms of the contract would be helpful to all of the parties. I think to your point, Mr. Peterson, the way I'm receiving your concerns is that collection of data that already exists today, it seems like, well, it's already out there, but we are paying for this data. And when you pay for a product, what it does is it encourages the continued development of that product. So if we don't want the government tracking us with satellites, then we should not be paying for the information that the satellites provide us. So, I think that that, you know, which leads me to Joel Salatin's comment, never underestimate the collective power of individual choice. This might be the move that every other city and state in the nation is doing, but individually, if we say, you know, we want to draw a line at this, we think small is beautiful. We don't want to give extra work to the police department, but we do want our police department to have that personal relationship and be local rather than relying on technology to supervise our people. So primarily because of the contractual concerns that I have, given what has come up tonight, I would ask that we consider tabling this, but I continue to have reservations with the big picture. If we want to vote tonight, I'm going to vote no because of the contractual concerns. If we want to table it or we think we have a majority, however the rest of you want to handle it, but given what I've heard tonight, I'm going to be voting no on this one.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, I have no problem with it. I think it'll be a big asset to us. You know, I can't help but sit here and wonder about it. We're worried about being invaded, our privacy being invaded and everything else. And still, we carry something around. Every one of us carries something around with us more invasive than anything we've ever seen. Call these cell phones, okay? And we have no control of who gets the data and everything else. This has no way of tracking anyone. So I have no problem. We've been using somewhat this technology for years. It's just been more of a manual type thing we've been doing with our boxes and everything. So if it can make the thing, make our job a little bit, well, the police department job a little bit easier and be able to give us data a lot quicker, I'm still going to support it. As long as the motion includes the statements that Mr. Bang mentioned as well as conveying what the attorney was afraid of, I can support it, okay?

Mr. Mayor, I do have a question to kind of get to Council Member Strange's comment about tabling, and this is for the city attorney. If we make the motion with those two provisions, are there any other contractual concerns that would need to be addressed if we make the approval contingent upon those two things being included in the final version?

Well, technically, you know, under the statutes, there's one thing missing, which is the human trafficking part. In other words, in all our contracts, we have to have vendors certified. They don't use human trafficking, but we're going to do that anyways, regardless. I don't have any other concerns. I would only say that in response to Council Member Strange, it is also possible to move for a... non-cause termination provision as well as part of the motion for 90 days or something reasonable if you wanted. I don't know if they'd accept it, but that's something that you could do.

Okay. But those, the two items you brought up and potentially the, the, would you say non-cause provision? Uh, would it, if those three things were talked about in the motion, you're not aware of any other contractual concerns that, that would necessarily require us to table it for the future?

Yes. Correct.

Okay.

Okay. There are no other questions or concerns. I entertain a motion. No motion?

Based off of what the city attorney is mentioning, I think we might be able to address this without having to table it by essentially moving, so I'll move, to approve with the public records provision term inclusion, the limits of liability and indemnification information inclusion, and remind me again what the final term is? the non-cause termination of 90 days to be included in the final product for approval. I second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second to approve item number seven with the stated provisions, three provisions I think it was, okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Nay. And the chair vote aye as well. I think I heard you say aye, Ms. Strange.

I said aye.

Okay, motion passes four to one. Thank you. Thank you. Item three.

Yeah, I pulled item three because item seven was included in it. That was it.

Okay.

I would vote for it at this point.

Anybody? Mr. Bain? Ms. Myers? Ms. Peterson? Is this a public hearing? Anybody in the public want to hear? Anybody in the public wish to address item number three on the consent agenda may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anybody in the chamber wish to address this item? Seeing no one, I close the chamber comment. Anyone online? No one online. So bring it back to Mr. Bain.

I have nothing.

Ms. Myers. I have nothing. Mr. Peterson. I have nothing. Ms. Strange.

I move to approve item number three.

Second. Okay.

I like that. Easy.

So I don't get a comment. That's good.

You're certainly welcome to comment. I just figured I'd put it out there. No, I didn't have no comment anyway. Okay.

I'm just saying that you got the procedures. Okay. Did I have a second? I have a motion to second approve item number three as presented. Any further discussion?

No, sir.

All in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Chair vote aye as well. Motion carries 5-0. I pull item number 12. I'm a little concerned with this item. This item, this is about selling a piece of property, a city piece of property, of course, as I've always said. I look at this. I know some of it should be sold, but I still don't understand why we carve out this one little piece of property out of a whole stretch of property running along that corridor there to surplus it. Okay, that I understand. But the main thing I'm concerned with, Mr. Wall, when I went back and looked through this package over and over and over again last night, I did not see an appraisal. So how can we be selling a piece of property without an appraisal?

The city ultimately, there's no requirement that a city has to have an appraisal before selling property.

Well, I can remember the comment you made to me once before when it came up about selling property that we have to make sure when we sell a piece of property, we don't set it less than appraisal value.

As a best practice, you should try to maximize the value that you get.

So if we don't have appraisal, how do we know what value that is?

You know, when I researched this issue, basically what they say is under home rule, you have discretion over your procedures and what you'll accept for the sale of real property. And the bidding process is acceptable as long as it's properly noticed. So the issue with this property is really that it's in the – I think it's in the development area, 163.380. So it has to go out in an ad.

It's not in development area.

Oh, then we don't even have to follow that procedure. You're – well, I don't know. Did we put it out in the newspaper? Yes. Yeah. So we did follow the procedure and an abundance of caution. Look, I mean, ultimately it's your discretion as to whether you think this is acceptable or not. If the price is acceptable, if the procedure was acceptable, but from a legal perspective, it's under your discretion.

Well, that's what I'm saying. How can I determine if the price is acceptable when I don't know the value of the property?

Some people believe that you establish the fair market value of a property by putting out for bid or auction, so to speak, and you have one bid in front of you. But from a, look, all I can really say is legally I don't have an objection.

So that's saying basically if I decided I wanted you to put a building across the street, for example, I come in and give you a bid of $100,000 basic, I don't want a bid, I get to build it, even though it may be of much value other than that.

If you vote to approve that, it would be legal. Whether it's a good idea or not, whether it's proper stewardship is another question. Sorry.

Well, that is what I'm trying to present ourselves, from opening ourselves up to people just walking around here just throwing out bids for a piece of property, what they think the property is worth, okay? I truly feel like we need to go back and get an appraisal on this. Even the bidder maybe, I don't know who need to, but to know what the fair market value of this is before we decide to sell this, take the first thing that will come to me. Suppose the bidder had just offered a dollar.

You know, in real estate, it's like in... It's like corporations. When you have a corporation that's owned by like 10 people and one of 10 people wants to sell their ownership interest, even though the company might make a lot of money, that one-tenth ownership interest isn't one-tenth of the company because you still have to deal with nine other – and so it's called a closed interest discount when you value it. It's the same thing kind of with real estate. If I own a quarter acre and I was going to sell 0.05 of my quarter acre – it wouldn't be one-fifth of the value of my property because who's going to buy that little garden square on my yard? I'm not trying to argue. I mean, it's just I think from a legal perspective, this is why it's not objectionable legally. Whether it's a good idea or not is for you to decide.

We're not talking about acres. We're talking about something 10 feet maybe by... hundred feet and this this way the city has to maintain this property now so we're giving it to somebody that will maintain it as part of their property right and then the city has how does the city even have access to this property do they have access

The city we own, the city pretty much have access. And that's the other problem why I don't understand why we carved this out is because if I'm not mistaken, we got utilities as an easement for the city. And we still have to have access to that easement. So why are we selling a piece of property that we have easement on? and need access to it, and we're just carving out this one little piece of property, and then we want to sell it without any appraised value. I have never sold or bought anything in my life without knowing what the value of it is, and I cannot support this if I don't know what the value of the piece of property is. I don't care how small it is or how big it is. I still feel like we need to go back and get an appraisal on it and figure out what it's all about.

Any... Public comment first.

I'm a... Yes.

Mr. Bain, you had anything?

Okay. This is a public hearing. Anybody in public wish to address this item, you come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Vincent Nemec, Regency Hills. Uh, I hate to say this, but I do agree with you, Your Honor. How do you sell something without knowing what the value is? And that's what I want to say because we're sitting back there and we're listening to this and we're all shaking our heads. How do you sell a piece of property because it's not in procedure, not knowing what it's worth? Because if you ask me, that's not a good answer. Thank you.

Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody in the chamber with their addresses, I may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Is this about that little strip in front of my place? Yes, sir. Address name, please. 1166 short street, 100 feet from your poopers.

Okay.

That little strip. And you're talking about land. Not only did they, uh, try to take 13 feet of my property. But they took all the way down through the trail. And you didn't say a word about that. And you let Pendler put poopers five foot on the trail. But you don't want me to have that piece of property to fix it up to recover from this. That's gonna buy you a lot of trouble. That's what I said. I asked you to come down twice. I asked the rest of you. do this let me tear out the rock and the concrete and fix it up mow it and take care of it if you don't it's a bad idea and you treated pendler better than you treated me thank you thank you this is the public forum anyone in the council which chamber would like to address this item may come to microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes

ANYONE ELSE ANYONE ELSE SEEING NO ONE ELSE A CLOSED CHAMBER PUBLIC COMMENT PORTION ANYONE ONLINE NO ONE ONLINE I BRING IT BACK TO COUNCIL YES SIR THANK YOU MR MAYOR CAN I HAVE SOMEONE FROM CITY STAFF WHO CAN SPEAK TO THIS I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S MR VAN WAGNER OR UM BUT I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ON IF THEY CAN PUT UP THE PICTURE OF THE SURPLUS PROPERTY LOCATION

All right, yeah. So just for reference, location-wise. Sorry. Kurt Hensel, Development Services Director. Before you is the red area here represents the parcel in question. So you have the trail just to the north of it. This is Mr. Hess that just spoke. This is his location here. He now currently owns this parcel as well to the south of it. Right. If you're looking for more specifics, this is more of the specifics.

Actually, the other one is. The other one? Okay. Yep. So what my question was going to be, because I want to make sure I keep this questions and not make a statement on it, is just the triangle that's underneath this proposed surplus property, the red strip. Previously, this council voted to approve a surplus sale to Mr. Hess that included that triangle, correct? That is correct. And it's my understanding that this strip was an inadvertent mistake or it was inadvertently left out of what was supposed to be conveyed when we voted to convey the triangle that's underneath the red strip. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yeah, it sits between two fences, between the lift station fence and Mr. Hess's current fence.

Okay. What we're doing here, I guess for lack of a better phrase, is this a cleanup from what we previously did in terms of adding this strip into what staff had intended to include in the surplus sale? That is correct, yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's the questions I have so far. Thank you.

Ms. Marsh.

um kurt do you have a picture where you could like a better picture you can actually see i think you had showed me at one time of what it actually looks like instead of just the drawing for people to have a better um view of it not actual view other than the survey yeah other than the survey like an actual picture i thought we had an actual picture of it i don't recall then we have actually like from the trail view yeah on the trail view yeah

Possibly.

Oh, you have it. Okay. Is there a way they can get that? Can we have that blown up? See, that's really small.

I want that for them to see.

Is there any way for them to see that on there? Yeah. Because I would like everyone to see what this actually looks like, because a little drawing doesn't help. I mean, an actual picture, I think, would give better reference to this and where it sits at and location. I went out there and saw it. It's literally a strip, but you can't do anything with it. So I think the value is based upon the person who wants to purchase it. Because there's nothing you can do with that. But I want the public to be able to see what it actually looks like instead of just a drawing, if that's possible.

Yeah, we're going to try to pull it up real quick.

Okay, thank you.

We'll just take a second. I'll see if I can move that up.

Well, I just want the public to see that to give them better reference.

Um, if you want bill to go all right, Mr Peterson, we'll come back to miss Myers.

Yes, I think I think what Curtis said is, this is just completion of what our initial. you know, give, you know, give to Mr. Hess. This isn't like additional, we're making an additional purchase, but it was part of the initial agreement. And that's what we're just giving to him. And I know like everything has value, like one of our citizens had said, but you know, certain things like, like our city attorney said, you know, maybe it doesn't have any value if it's this tiny, if you're selling somebody a sidewalk, how much value does it has to the person that has the house right next to it? Because then you don't want to have that little piece. But nobody else in the world would want to have that piece. And I think we've all looked at the property.

Point of order, is there questions? This is our questioning piece, not our statement piece.

Okay, so going back to Kurt, is this an additional sale or is this part of the original that was left out?

Well, this is an additional sale, but it was left out of the original concept that we were talking about. Passing along.

That was my question. Thank you.

I have no questions, but would like the opportunity to comment when the time comes.

Okay. Thank you. Kirk. Yes, sir. To the east and west of that, of the red piece. Who owns that?

To the west, Mr. Hess does.

No, the east and west. Well, okay, so... You go to the trail.

Right. The west side over here? Yeah. Mr. Hess owns this section right up here.

Well, his property line, the black line that's going there along where the red is at, isn't that the end of his property line?

That's correct. His property line is right here. Well, I'm sorry. He currently owns this as well now.

Yeah, he's on all that to the north, to the south. Okay.

But the property line actually goes from here, goes to the north, and then along the trail for Mr. Hess. Okay. It is. Like, if you took this, if you took the north black line here and continued it on, that would be Mr. Hess's property. It does not jog down and then go up. It actually is on the north side. It literally sits between his property and the lift station.

Is that what you're looking for, Kurt?

I believe so. Councilor Myers, is this the one you were referring to?

Yes.

Can you zoom? Yeah, can you zoom?

Yeah, what you see here, this represents the parcel right here between the lift station in the background and Mr. Hess property would be towards you as you view that picture. Okay.

And, Kurt, with the bidding, was there only one person that bid on this piece of property? That's correct. There's one bid. Okay. Thank you. The next part I have is common, so I'll just wait.

Okay. Again, that's still city property, right? Today it is city property. And we do have easements going through there. Okay.

We would maintain an easement, yes.

We would maintain the easement.

I'm sorry, we would make sure we have an easement. Yes, there is a water line that runs through that area.

Water line runs, and that's why I guess I'm still confused. When we know we got easement and utilities running through there, why we would access it and try to sell it, which can create some problem for us in the future. The piece to the east of that. That's stripped to the east along the black line there. The red line, you got the red box. Let's go east.

Right in this area?

Right. Who's on that then?

That's the city.

That's still the city? Yes. So why aren't we selling that?

That's part of the lift station. That piece is actually part of the lift station itself. There will be a fence around that section.

Yeah, we're fencing that all in. Okay. Right. Okay. I still disagree with it. I'm done. Go ahead, Mr. Bang.

Thank you, Mayor. With regard to this parcel, I actually... I hadn't thought about the appraisal requirement. And I think it's actually a pretty good idea to include, to have something on the books for the city to say to require an appraisal. But I don't think we should apply that retroactively to a situation that really, this is not a new surplus item. This was intended to be included. And so I don't view this... or I guess I view this differently than a brand new surplus item coming before us that we maybe have never talked about before. I think in my agenda review with staff, I asked, is this finally going to conclude this transaction, if you will? Because I feel like we have at multiple times had to bring this forward and then bring forward some cleanup items of it. It sounds like this might be the last item to clean up all of the conversation that we've had relative to this strip of space. And I have been out there, I have visited, I have seen it. I supported the original surplus sale. I'll support this surplus sale because it really honestly was to be included in that. But I would encourage us as a council and for staff to consider and for us to consider instructing staff to bring forward a resolution that would require appraisals for any future surplus sales. So we know what the value is and we know what kind of situation we're doing so that we can not only justify the sale, but also maybe justify the price of the sale. But I don't think it's something that we should do to put this on Mr. Hess at this point in time in this transaction. And I encourage approval of this item before us so that we can close this chapter.

Ms. Myers.

I was going to say something similar about can we make a motion to approve this? That's where I'm at.

Mr. Peterson.

I mean, I'm in concurrence. I think we've given Mr. Hess a lot of, there's a Jewish word, soros, about this all this time. You know that word? I mean, because he's been very faithful in dealing with not only us, but the surroundings about him. And I think since this was part of the original agreement that we kind of messed up on, I don't know why we're even saying anything. But as Mr. Banda said, maybe for future use, whenever we're going to surplus a piece of property, maybe we should come up with an assessed value from someone to get. So you don't have to just throw in a number out in the blue. As a matter of fact, I think this number probably we shouldn't even charge anything because why are we even charging $500? Just give it to them. I don't think the city's going to make or break anything over a $500 sale. Other than that, up to you.

Well, I'm happy to take the money. So I think that that... I love it. I am. I guess in that way, I should be serving on government, right? I'm just kidding. It's the wrong. Sorry, too soon. So I fully support having appraisals for the future. I don't want, for purposes of staff's notes, I don't want it to be a minimum or to require us to accept that because I think there are other conditions. But I do think that one of the boxes we should check is getting an appraisal on any property. I might be more creative than others, but I'm not of the opinion that nothing could be done with this property. I think that something could be done with this property. What I like, because I didn't love this to start with, I like that staff went through the process of getting with the consultants and finding out what they could see as part of our comprehensive plan, our downtown master plan. And the consultant said, nah, it doesn't really have value to the city. They don't see something that would fit in alignment with the master vision. So I'm okay with that. I don't need to be right on that issue. I think that where there may be tension on this is that the real issue comes around some heated emotions around the Lumberyard project and that perhaps we are projecting some of that onto Mr. Hess. And that's not just for us to do that. We really do need to look at this as this particular property, this particular transaction. And our duty is to the people, our duty is to the businesses of Claremont, but our duty is also to the land. And when you have a piece of property that creates a... almost like a flag lot where you have this like weird spike of land that's owned by one entity. In this case, the city that is weird. It's not appropriate for property to do that. We have laws against that in Florida. And so I'm perfectly happy to entertain an easement for the same reason. I'm happy to take the money. I mean, if, if Mr. Hess is willing to pay and he's willing to maintain the land and we still have an easement and public right to it, That sounds great to me. So I think whatever the saga that might be behind this, I agree with Mr. Bain, it's time to put it to an end. This did go through the public bid process. Anybody else who wanted it or had a creative idea had their chance to participate in this process, whether it was at the last hearing or in the bid, and they chose not to. So I'm happy to put this to rest. I'm not the last one, so I won't make the motion, although I'll have a question on that later. So I'm done, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Question, well, I hear everybody keep saying this was a part of the original land deal. So if that's the case, one of the questions I have is the fact that why didn't we – Why did we bring it back as a surplus land sale instead of just bringing it back as a correction in the last deal? Okay. This was not a part to mean the original portion of land that we sold him didn't include this portion. Okay. This is a whole new portion. All right. I'm sorry, but I remember sitting on this dais a few months ago, and we talked about selling a piece of property, and somebody came in and made an offer for the piece of property, and our legal advice was the fact that we need to get appraised value at least. We cannot sell city property for less than what the appraised value is. So how can we sit here and sell this property again without having appraised value? We even had one resident come in here and actually went out and got a second appraisal on a piece of property and made an offer to us after that. Of course, we didn't sell the piece of property, but still, because of that comment, they went and got a second appraisal on a piece of property on this same county. Mr. Bain, you wasn't here. I don't think you were sitting on the council, but the rest of us was, okay, at that time. So now we're switching gears in the middle of the road. See? All right. And I've been involved with this long before the law started, and it has always been city-owned. That was never, as far as I'm concerned, that was never part of the original contract. to give land to, which I oppose that as well, okay? And I'm still going to oppose this. I agree with surplus in this because I still think we're going to find ourselves down the road in a little bit of problem by selling this piece of property when we have an easement there. We've got utility running through there. Something happened. It goes back to what Mr. Wall was saying earlier. liability and responsibility, who's gonna be there? Are we gonna put something in the clause that say, hey, we can't be liable for any damage to another property if we have to go in there and do something with the utility we have there? And that's all I have to say. I will not support it, period. Entertain a motion?

I'd like to make a motion to accept item number 12, the surplus property sale on Carroll Street.

I second.

Can I ask that the motion include the conditions that are in the staff report, namely that certain development cannot occur on the property and also that the city retain an easement?

Okay, I'll make that amendment. I want to accept that with the additional amendment that we can have easement rights on the property and they can't develop any properties on that property.

I still second that.

I have a motion and second for approval of item number 12, sale of a surplus property at Carroll Street with the attic stipulation as presented in the package. Any further discussion? Not all in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Chair vote nay. Motion carries four to one. All right. Unfinished business, ordinance number two.

Excuse me, Mayor, I think we're, are we doing Hartwood Marsh and Hancock before? Yes. Is that where we put the Hartwood Marsh? Yes. We did. I'm sorry, yes. No, that's okay. I would have only, I only remember because I made the note. Can we maybe take a five-minute or ten-minute recess before we start into the additional items?

9-5-19, we want to start back at 5-13. That good?

What time? 5.30? 10 minutes? 5.30?

That's fine. 5.30.

Thank you.

you Thank you. Thank you.

Take their seats.

No, I didn't.

All right, if I can get everybody to take the seats.

That includes you too, Ms. Cousins.

I think at this point we're going to be going over Hartwood Marsh Road. Mr. Van Wagner, I'm going to turn it over to you, please, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm gonna turn it over to our Chief Ezell. He just had some conversations that I think will be very important information to find out.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. David Ezell, Fire Chief. This was brought to my attention yesterday around five o'clock by Mr. Nemec. I had no knowledge that there was any planned closures of the secondary access into, I believe the one is Heartwood Landings and Regency Hills. So I asked my fire marshal to start looking into it. He's been making some inquiries throughout the day. Planning and public services didn't know anything about it, so it was kind of unknown to the city. What I have found out in like the last 90 minutes, I had a chance to speak with a lane register over at Lenar. When I first talked with him, he had no knowledge of it. He made a call, got back with me after a few minutes, and it turns out, that one of his subcontractors has been working with Lake County, and that's where the planning was being done for the closure. And I guess they put signs out today that starting on September 7th, they were going to be doing a three-month closure of both of those entrances into the community. Three months. So... I explained to Lane that that is our secondary means of access into both of those communities. I've shared with him that we had a situation a couple of weeks ago. We had a water main break along Hartwood Marsh that fouled the entrance going into Regency Hills. And we were reliant on that secondary access off of Hancock Road. And it was a, you know, utmost importance that we maintained some sort of stabilized access for emergency vehicles to be able to get in through those entrances. So Lane has put a stop to the project until we can sit down with the city's team and his team and come up with a plan that everyone's going to be in agreement with. So as of right now, it's not happening and we'll start having conversations and we will map out how we were going to maintain a secondary means of access into both of these communities during the construction.

So... So, Chief, what was the purpose of closing that at that point?

I would assume that it's tied in with the final construction of extending Hancock down to Wellness Way.

But I thought Hancock extension down to Wellness Way was already a complete pass up until that secondary entry from Regency.

I think this is the last piece there that's just south of the church property, which is involving where those entrances into those communities. The one going into Regency Hills is gated. The one on the other side of the road is not. But that is the only other way that we can get into both of those communities if there's a problem with the primary entrance off Harwood Marsh.

Yeah, but we don't know what type of work they were going to take three months, what type of work they were going to be doing there.

Not a clue, Mayor. They had no conversation with anyone at the city.

So even in the future when they get ready to do that work, well, we have to come up with some other means within the next, well, few months anyway when they get ready to do that work because it sounds like they're going to have to close it eventually anyway.

Well, that's the bigger problem. Okay. They need to get me to a yes. Okay.

Well, get me to a yes. I don't know what they're doing because, like I said, I thought that road was complete all the way up just past the secondary entrance to Regency Hill.

Can we use cardinal directions? Yes. They wanted to close south of the western entrance to Regency Hills? Is that what I understand?

I'm not even completely sure what the entire closure was going to be, just that it was going to impact both of those secondary entrances into those communities.

Okay, but I still don't know.

Well, yeah.

The reason why I'm asking is because I have an idea for how we can help at Imagine Charter, which is item number two. I'm out of turn. I'm not sure how we should handle this. Because we own the property south of the Baptist Church, and potentially that could be a staging area for families that are going to Imagine Charter. Just a concept, an idea. Yeah. And my question is, if Hancock was to be closed, would we no longer have access to that property, or does that property remain available? Because there's two issues, closing Hancock and accessing Imagine Charter.

And without knowing the scope of what the closure that they were planning, I can't give you an answer on that.

Okay. I guess I'm just really trying to figure out exactly where they were going to close Hancock at and everything, so.

Can we find out where the sign was? Because there was a sign posted somewhere.

Well, I think the sign was posted up to the north of Hartwood Marsh Road.

And that's what I'm asking, if it was posted to the north.

Come on. Yeah, please. Come here, if you have a photograph of exactly where he was going close.

And the reason why, and thank you, Council, for your support, I asked to do this today is because if it's closing on September 7th, we're not meeting until after that happens.

Okay. This is Hancock. This is Hartwood Marsh. This is where they're closing it, right here. Okay? At the intersection. We met with Chris, the guy from Lenore. All right? He met with my HOA. The contractor, the subcontractor, blurted out, well... We're going to close Hancock Road. That's what opened our eyes.

Can you put this north, south, east, west for me?

This is south. This is west, east, and north. The church is right here. That's what I want to bring up. You close that road, the church has no way to get in and out. The only way to have it in and out is a one lane. One lane on Hartwood Marsh. And those poor parishioners, they have to come out. And guess what they're going to do? They're going to go east. And they're going to go in everybody's community to make a U-turn. This is nothing but a headache. And this is what subcontractors do. Remember what happened at Wilderness Way when they broke those lines. Okay. This is the picture, once again. That was put up on Monday, early Monday. That is right by Hartwood Landing, right on the outside of Hartwood Landing. All right, the new community. Just as you get past the entrance, it's right there.

Okay.

And this is pretty much what Councilwoman Strange asked, which was, where's the gates? This is our egress gate. That's the egress gate. This road is already, it's only a matter of, I don't know, 100 feet, and they just have to pave that. This is another road that's going through. So this is why they want to close it. Either way, they're going to be closing two egress gates. One at a time. I'm sorry.

Well, now that you show me they're closing up at the intersection, that's why I don't understand what they're doing because I thought the road would put the last picture back up. No, the other one. This one? Right there past where the construction area, right past Regency of Interest is there. I thought the road with Hancock was complete there, so why was the need to close that intersection?

Because they're doing the hybrid Like we mentioned four years ago, they're doing two lanes going westbound and two lanes going eastbound.

So, like I asked two years ago when they started this project, why didn't they put four lanes in to begin with? They're doing the four lanes now.

They're taking your advice and they're doing the four lanes. Okay. To save money.

I'm sorry. That's what's going on. Okay. Now I understand why they felt.

I don't. What road are we looking at in that picture?

This is Hancock. This is Hancock. Mm-hmm. This is our egress from Regency Hills. This is Hartwood Landing. So technically, I'm going to show you because I'll email you better pictures.

Is this Secret Way in Kingston Ridge?

That's Secret Way right there, yes.

Can you turn it so it's north-south?

Keep turning, keep turning. There you go, north-south.

No, I don't think so. South is over here.

Hancock is north-south.

Okay, can you flip it another 180 degrees?

Okay.

No, that was 90. Keep going. I feel like I'm on my phone doing that like phone edit thing. Oh, you had it. Go back. Keep going.

What you want to edit North?

Keep going. Okay. So is that North Hancock there at the top of the screen?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

Okay, but there's two roads going in there, all right? This is one road, and they're just about finished with this road. You see all this construction? That's two lanes. So there's going to be two lanes on this side, two lanes on this side. That's why it's going to take three months, three months without any egress. That ain't happening. Three months without the First Baptist Church to be able to get in and out. You're going to fill this room up with people complaining about that. And this is because the second vendor, subcontractor, okay, said he wants to do it. Well, like I said- Now that's not our problem because that's a county problem.

No, well, it's still somewhat our problem because- Put the picture back up here again, please, for me, the last one. Like you say, with that new construction there, the new road, and I thought- When they did this road, and I questioned that, why didn't they do four lanes to begin with and get away from this headache later? They was telling me, I thought they told us that the way they designed everything, they'll be able to add another lane without having to shut the road down. Same thing with Wellness Way. Correct. Okay. And Schofield Road. All that's supposed to be designed with four lanes. capabilities and when they do get ready to do them the way they designed them and put them in they're not supposed to be able to shut them down so now why are they coming back shutting them down so i don't know mr i guess we need to but we need to get with county and try to figure out what's going on with this well we have an agreement as of today not to move forward without staff being in agreement that's what lanes told us according to chief correct

So we will do that. Top priority.

And I was, I was still, when you're talking to the County, I was still trying to convince them to do the four lane, all of it four lane right now, rather than waiting another year down the road, because it's, it's going to be a few months before they have to four lane. Okay.

Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Can I ask a question with, with regard to the entrances and egresses? I understand Hancock road is a County road. However, those. Secondary. egresses and ingresses to Regency Hills and Heartwood Landing are private within the city. Correct. Do we have jurisdictional ability as in the fire department being able to say what happens on a county road when it affects entrance or exit to communities that are in the city of Claremont? And if we can't answer that question legally right now, can we get that answer please?

The answer is yes, but it depends on what kind of jurisdiction. So for example, I could envision a scenario where if the county closed and deprived us of access to these roads, then I could seek perhaps an emergency temporary injunction if we needed to maintain the status quo for the city to get accommodated. Okay.

I asked that question because I want to make sure we have all means available to us and we know what those means are. Should we need to implement one of them? But it sounds like for the time being, nothing's happening until we get, come back to the table.

Yeah. Functionally we have it right now. Okay.

Thank you.

And as Mr. Van Wagner say, they've agreed not to do anything until they can sit down and work it all out. But I tell you, and I, and I'm sorry, uh, And Mr. Verwagen, maybe emphasize with the county, when they're doing things like that, they need to let it know. Because like I said, I never heard anything about it. You tell them you didn't hear anything about it. They come in and make all these things, and we left out hanging. So we need better communication with the county.

Lenar was equally surprised. Huh? I said Lenar was equally surprised as well.

And Lenar is building the road. Correct. And they didn't know nothing about it? They did not. Okay. Okay, thank you. Everybody okay? Wow. Okay, with that done, we'll move in item number 13. Before I go to 13, I know we have voted to move item number 17 down to after 21, but I saw Ms. Forth come in. I don't have no problem if it's okay with council. Can we go ahead and go ahead and take her so she can get out if it's okay with council?

I move to move item number 17 to after item number 12 or before 13. Okay. I second.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and look at item number 17, Ms. Forth. Citizen request. Please. I had this afternoon's request and I thought Yes, but I... At the very end of the meeting tonight. Well, we were going to... You want to stay there at the end? Yes, sir. Okay, well, we'll leave you at the end. Okay, well, I saw you here and we were just going to try to move you up so we can get you out of here. That's okay. We'll go ahead to item number 13, ordinance number 2026-029.

an ordinance of the city council of the city of claremont lake county florida amending chapter one zero one article two division three section one zero one one zero four granting of variances to establish procedures for the review and approval of administrative adjustments to allow minor adjustments or modifications from certain dimensional or development standards of the land development code providing for conflict, severability, codification, administrative correction of scrivener's error, publication, and effective date.

Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members, and guests. John Cruz, Development Services. This is agenda item number 13. At the direction of the City Manager's Office, staff is proposing an amendment to the Land Development Code in order to establish procedures for administrative adjustments within the city limits. Section 101-104, the Land Development Code, currently governs the granting of variances and includes provisions for administrative variances. However, these apply only to minor deviations associated with already approved developments. The code also provides limited minor variance in specific situations. Despite these existing tools, the code does not offer a broader mechanism for minor dimensional or development standard modifications that do not warrant a full variance review. The proposed amendment repeals and amends Section 101-104B to establish a new administrative adjustment process authorizing staff, particularly the Development Services Director, to review and approve minor deviations from certain development standards through a clear, consistent, and streamlined procedure. By establishing administrative adjustments, citizens will have a more efficient path for resolving small, site-specific issues without requiring a full public hearing before the City Council. In addition, this improves customer service through a time and money savings, while ensuring all modifications remain consistent with the intent of the Land Development Code. This type of procedure is used in other municipalities, such as Seminole County, City of Maitland, Miami-Dade County, and occurring in many more jurisdictions. The ordinance establishes criteria, submittal requirements and parameters for allowable administrative adjustments, ensuring the flexibility provided remains predictable, fair and consistent. Adjustments would be limited in scale and may only be approved where they do not create adverse impacts, do not substantially alter the character of development, and are in harmony with the intent of city regulations. Six review standards are incorporated into the process in which all six must be satisfied with the substantial evidence. Failure to meet any one of these standards will result in a decision of denial. The applicant could then proceed with the standard variance process before city council. On the screen is just some examples how the proposed administrative adjustment framework will operate. For example, the rear yard setback, if the standard is 25 feet, administrative adjustment could be requested up to 25%, which would then be roughly 6.25 feet. So the adjusted rear yard setback would be 18.75 feet. And again, it shows the side yard setback and then also the maximum retaining wall height. And that percentage is a little higher. The reason why is a 35% administrative adjustment could increase allowable height by 2.1 feet, which gets you to roughly over eight feet. And that seems like a pretty familiar request before council. These examples demonstrate practical flexibility for applicants while maintaining reasonable limits and ensuring the modifications remain consistent with the development pattern safety standards of the city. The proposed amendment is consistent with the city's ongoing effort to strengthen and modernize the land development code by providing a clear and efficient method for addressing minor dimensional challenges without requiring formal variance proceeding. This administrative adjustment process enhances flexibility for applicants while preserving staff oversight and maintaining adherence to established planning principles. An aggrieved or adversely affected party to the decision made by staff may appeal the decision to city council in writing within 30 days of the decision. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval five to zero as presented. Staff recommends approval of ordinance 2026-029. That concludes staff's presentation.

Thank you, sir. This is a public hearing. Anyone in the chamber wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Before the time starts, who was it that asked for this?

Council.

The council asked for this to be done? Y'all had it at a workshop? He's going no.

Yeah. Council asked for it. We had several items coming before us that seemed like they could have been addressed at the staff level. So we had conversations publicly on at least two occasions.

Is that who asked for this to change this where these minor things you don't have to go before the council and it can be done? Right. And that was done in a workshop? It was done in a public hearing. Up here? Okay. So I lived this 20 years ago. Tim may remember this. And this was the good old boys, the developers. And that's all real nice and good if it's some of y'all that are decent and nice and honest. If you're not, that's exactly what the state of Florida didn't want and wanted its citizens to have it to go before the council. Now you got to go for an appeal. Now, you got to put the neighbor through that. They don't like it about a setback. It is so anti-rights of the public that it isn't funny. This is what they do. I mean, you may have been, I don't know who started it, whose idea it was, may have been well-intended, but that can go very bad wrong. And I mean very bad wrong. And we stopped it 20 years ago. I know I was on a panel when we had the dream team up here. So it's something you better think about because you don't need to take people's rights away to be, yeah, I know some of you don't like to be down here. You don't like to be here two and three hours or whatever. I've been here for 25 years and it didn't bother me. So everybody needs to get over it, I guess. But this can be problems. And I was just looking, and I stepped back there. Something stuck out to me, too. This six foot can go to eight and ten foot. You don't do that automatically. A lot of places, and law enforcement doesn't do that. Because if there's two guys running, one can hoist. I know Tim's going, because they can hoist them up over the thing. That's why we have a six foot limit on people's fences and things like that. So see, all of this is... just so subjective. It's really, really bad. But I know you remember this, Jim. It's the good old boys, and the developers love this, just absolutely love it. You think they're minor, but what you guys think is subjective, what's minor? You're a lawyer, so you know subjective is never good in the law world. That's whoever sees it. So I hope you turn it down. I know it looks like everything's just going through But the people have a right. Y'all really need to think hard about this. This is not good. That's why we stopped it. And, you know, I heard that, that what you say may lend this and that. We're back to that. I'll be talking later tonight. I don't care. Who cares who the other people are? We're different. We've always prided ourselves to be different and protect the citizens.

So anyway, it's a very deadly danger.

Thank you. Anyone else?

I'm Chris Weiss, 2128 Grafton Ave, Claremont, Florida, in Kings Ridge. A year ago, we came in front of the council, and thank you very much. We had a parking lot that has over 250 parking stalls in, and in that area, the trees were in a area which was about nine foot apart, oak trees. They were dying. We brought in, came in front of you, and asked for a variance. We paid our $750, we came in and presented, and thank you very much for approving it. We did not have the money to do all of our parking slots last year, and so I've been working down here to try to get the permit done, and I think this is one of the things that may let us do the other parking lots without having to spend another $750 to come back in front of you. We have 13 trees left to do. I'm sorry, 20 trees left to do. 13 at the North Spa and about seven down at East Wing down there. The area for the trees in the parking lot is nine foot across. The drip edge goes out to about 20 feet out underneath the asphalt. They can't get the nutrients they have. The water doesn't come in the drip edge because it's underneath the asphalt. It was an era back in the way back when the city was created and Perry, not this city, but other cities as well. They put canopy trees into the parking lot down the center and all the islands in it when it should have been understory trees because the trees, drip edge for understory trees go out about 10 feet. So it's right at the edge of that nine feet islands we have that was approved back in 1997, I believe it was. So I've been working, coming down here, checking to see if the variance has been approved. for the last probably three or four months. And they thought they were going to do some changes to it. So when people like myself that been come in here, paid the $750, come back and say, can we have a variance for the other parking lots so we can finish it? We did not have the money last year to do all of them. This year we have the additional money to do it. We're coming back now. I've been waiting and hoping that this might help us get that without having to pay another $750 back to you all for another variance. That's what I'm hoping to get out of this. So thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else? This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber which the address is, I may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone else? Seeing no one else in the chamber, I close the chamber. Public comment, bring it back. Anybody online? Nobody online, so I close public comment and bring it back to council. What say you, Mr. Bain?

Thank you, Mayor. I believe the only question I have, and I'll have some comments and something for my colleagues to entertain, is we have the chart of the allowable adjustments Can anything other than what's in this chart be included in this process?

The way the ordinance is written, that's one of the six review criteria. And if you look on page 308, Under letter D1, it says the proposed administrative adjustment is permitted by that table. So if it's not in the table, then to answer your question, then it would not be considered as an administrative adjustment.

So we're only talking about lot width, front yard, setback, rear setback, height, et cetera, et cetera. Correct. Okay. Because I was a little kind of confused by what the previous speaker was talking about in terms of sounding like trees. And it doesn't sound like a number of trees would be included in this administrative adjustment.

And that is something that, of course, if council wants to add that, that's something that could be added. Right. When we reviewed this at the staff level, we looked at some of these other jurisdictions. We looked at some of the previous variances that were granted. Right. Again, that's how we came up with the 35% for that one particular item because we didn't want to 25% and not get to the point where the variances would still be presented before you. Right. But that is something that could be added in terms of if it was a certain percentage.

But as of right now, this is what staff is recommending for the administrative process for now.

For now. And that's something that didn't cross our minds in terms of the landscaping, to be honest with you. Okay.

All right. I just want to make sure. All right. Thank you. That's the only question. I'll have comments later.

Council Member Myers.

I don't have any questions at this moment.

Mr. Peterson. I think the question that was brought up is that If we change, let's say, a setback from 25 to 18, then why don't we just make it 18? I mean, why do we have the rules for if it can... So what you're just trying to say is you don't have to bring it to council anymore. You can take care of it yourself. So you have like a 25% leeway that you can do. Like in the event, let's say that they put this property and they said, okay, we're going to do an 18 or a five foot separation between houses. Planning and zoning, you could approve it then. Is that correct?

It really depends on if it's within that percentage on the setback. And if it's not in that percentage, then they come before you for authorization. Right. So in terms of the example that was given in there, if it's 7 1⁄2 feet, they can ask for administrative adjustment, and it would bring it to roughly a little over 5 1⁄2 feet.

So basically you're changing the setback rules then?

well there there there's more it's thinking well you're you're thinking correctly but there are in this ordinance there are six criteria that they would have to meet it's not just they ask staff and staff says yeah that sounds good they have six specific criteria they have to meet in part of the application process they have to work with the immediately adjacent properties that this affects and get letters of no opposition from them so if they don't meet those six criteria and they don't get support from the neighbors, then it's highly likely it's not going to be approved by staff. But either way, whether we approve it or deny it, there's an appeal process that any adverse person, whether it's the applicant itself or the neighbors that feel that that it wasn't it wasn't fair to them they can appeal to council but the six criteria are are things like they have to have a good reason they can't just say well because i want it it's got to be because you know we there's this shed that we have to put here and it can only fit here or else we have to take down these great trees and so it can only fit here things like that would be the reasons that staff would say okay this makes sense in this situation but it's not it's not a one-size-fits-all

But basically, you're taking it away from council to staff. Because in the past, I remember somebody had wanted to put up a shed in the back because he had a 40-foot boat and he couldn't fit it in. And staff denied it. He came to us. And then, you know, if we have guidelines, then what's the purpose of guidelines if we're not, if we just say whatever it is, you know, if it's a good reason, you know, then we could just do it. 200 square foot sign, but if the store is big enough, then we'll allow a bigger one. But that came to council at least, then we had to approve it. But now they're just, is it just one person on staff that can approve it?

It's the development services director that approves it. And again, it has to meet those six criteria. So, and that's within this threshold. If it's outside the threshold, they can still come to council for traditional variance.

Okay.

You good? Mr. Peterson? Yeah. Ms. Strange?

yes my question is directed to our attorney please advise me if these proposed changes are going to trigger an issue number one if we were to strike through the retaining wall height and not make that something that staff can do does that cause a problem with us passing this tonight no if we add regulation of trees does that cause a problem for tonight If we add trees to the list? Sorry.

I mean, so the answers to these questions depends on whether or not it's considered material. This is the final, isn't it? Yeah. So what I'm thinking about and normally what the law requires is that, bless you, if it's the nature of a change that it changes the character. So I don't think it does if you add that, but that's closer.

How about signs, signage?

If you add it? Yeah. Yes, I do think that would be material. Because that's substantially regulated by a whole other chapter.

My next question is on the issue of approval. If the property is in an HOA, is it a material change to require that the HOA recommend support? In other words, we require a support letter from the HOA. One of the issues that came before us several times was people were building access walkways to their properties that had five foot setbacks. And we approved them every time the neighbor said that they supported it and they were unique. They would have met all the six criteria. But under this, that would not be allowed because it only allows 25% on a side yard setback. So my question is, if we were to add on the side yard setback, that for purposes of ingress and egress, that staff could go up to 100% on one of the sides.

I don't think that's a material requirement.

Okay. And then is there an issue? I didn't see it in here for us to apply this authority only to single parcels that do not exceed one half acre.

That you would limit the applicability of this to a subset of properties. No, I don't think that's material.

And then, um, or for example, the homeowners association, if there was an owner, uh, for after a turnover, an HOA post turnover, if the HOA applied for an exception, HOA wants to do something in their clubhouse. I mean, I don't see us fighting that if the HOA is coming in and asking.

I don't think it's material. And I'll just explain why, because now we're getting into a lot of different things. So it's like how many immaterial things then make it material. But the thing is, is it's still all within the scope. So if you limit the scope, if that's what you're doing.

Yeah.

You know, if the universe of possibilities from here is smaller than what came to you tonight, I think that's probably okay.

And then is it acceptable? I did not notice it in here. Okay. So where it says the city manager or the city manager's designee, would it be appropriate or prohibitive for us to say that it must be signed off by the city manager?

I recommend against it. Legally, you can do it.

Why do you recommend against it?

Because we have all kinds of situations where the city manager might not be available or might want to delegate the general operations. In other words, we have a lot of codes. We have a lot of ordinances in our city code that allow the city manager's designee You passed one recently about residential recovery centers where the city managers designee. And that's because sometimes also we want one department to handle it, and then maybe we decide another department would better be able to handle it later. So that gives them the flexibility to do that.

So the reason why I'm asking these questions is because my concern is for the example that Ms. Forth brought up, that a developer comes in and they're doing a whole new association. If someone on staff can say, well, we're going to modify this by 25%, that could apply across an entire parcel, 250 homes. And I think that would be abusing the intent of this, which is to help My understanding is the intent of this is to help property owners enjoy their property, maybe small business owners to not have to go through a cumbersome process over little things. So that's number one, but number two is, so help me come to a good conclusion here. The city manager reports to this council If we say, okay, the city manager designates someone else, then no disrespect to anybody in the dais or in the room, but it allows for finger pointing versus accountability.

The city manager is responsible for your city operation. And on behalf of the department heads, when Captain Kirk stood trial in Star Trek VI, he said he's responsible for the actions of the crew under his command. And I mean, I think that's inherent to your city structure.

I mean, that's fair. But in real life, there's... I don't disagree with you.

That's the history of the future, if anyone cares. But, yeah.

Okay, that... Let me make sure. Those were the questions. I have a reserve comment.

Okay. Um... I'm going to just, basically, I can't, I can't, I'm going to just say the wall, we're going to eight foot walls. Um, I have a hard time just giving the basic, easy agreement, uh, Turning that over for anyone to do because, like I said, as you know, I'm not a big fan of walls and fences, okay, especially when they're targeting over six feet because, as Ms. Forth said, because of some history in law enforcement when they're out there chasing the bad guy. You know, they can go over the wall real easy, but our officers have trouble trying to get over these big walls and everything, especially with all the equipment. And having been out there a lot of times with my brother on canine, that was canine officer, trying to lift a dog up, a 100-pound dog, and throw him over a wall is pretty tough. So I'm a little skeptical about the wall. While I see benefits in it.

Point of order, sir. We're in the question period of...

Under the wall, if we go there, you're saying from 6 feet and it can go all the way from 8 to 10 feet. Under the wall, why is it we're doing from 25 to 6 or 7 percent?

If you look at the asterisks under the table, that's for inward facing walls that address significant topography changes, which mean 50 foot of fall within the site and are features that help minimize tree removal on the site. And again, that was staff's internal discussion. If they're inward facing, you wouldn't see it from the public right away. If you had a property that had quite a bit of fall, That would assist with the development with the rise and run with the six foot walls or eight foot walls. If you have an eight and a seven, that's a 15 foot difference with two walls. But if you went back to the six, you would need three walls. So that does. expand the horizontal distance in terms of when you build walls. So that's why staff was looking at, and that's where the 50-foot topography change came in. But we're open to any idea or removal. We just wanted to get this for you before you to get direction.

On the wall, how would that, with this measurement, how would that interact with an ordinance that says you can only do 10% grade? So if they were to come in and want to put a wall in there, will that create less need for grading?

It does soften the grade because they can take up more grade by the wall height instead of running horizontally because when you build these walls, you have to leave separation between the walls. So if you can get your grade change in two walls instead of three, it gives you more room to compress some of that horizontal changes.

Okay. Mr. Mayor, if I can add to that, this portion of it came about because a couple of months, I guess a couple of meetings ago, maybe there was a wall variance in front of you. And I think it was, they were asking for 15 feet and council denied the 15, but would accept it at 10 foot. This was in that industrial park area where the hook street extension was going to go. We heard from the county that that they cannot do that hook street extension. They cannot pave it unless that wall is there at that height, because they can't make it work without having that retaining wall there at that situation. So that's why we added this one caveat about the 67% in certain circumstances, because in this case. It they're, they're going to actually be having to come back to you for another variance because either that, or we're going to have to decide whether we don't want the hook street extension moving forward. So in certain cases, we see it. It's something that is, is, you know, these aren't the, these are the one offs. These aren't the every day. Someone's going to get a 67% increase on their wall height.

Well, that's a lot of variance there from 25 to 67, and everything else said at 25. Okay, that's a big caveat, and especially on walls. So that's why, like I say, I'm not a real fan of these tall walls and everything else, but I'm also not a big fan of grading our hills down either. So if it can help, that's fine, but I just think that's too much variance there on the walls. and I just reserve everything else. That's the only real question I had about it. Okay. So, um, yes, sir.

Thank you, mayor.

Um, I do appreciate the fact that there is an appeal process for any aggrieved party, whether it's the applicant or a neighbor. I think that we have to have that if we're going to implement this. One of the suggestions I was going to make, if we are going to implement this, is to consider it like we did with the original golf cart ordinance, where we put in a one-year ordinance, and we And in this case, I was going to also suggest if we do this to have it sunset in a year and also require quarterly reports to the council during that year to find out, is this working? Is it not working? How many times is it occurring? What kinds of variations are being done that are not coming before us? And if we like what we see. we potentially continue it. If we don't like what we see, we put a stop to it right there and we bring it back to where we have it now. It does sound like there are some concerns relative to what's included in the chart. I share some of those concerns. I think that... rather than Frankensteining the ordinance. And I mean that, honestly, with no disrespect by anybody, because I just, I think Council Member- Dr. Frankenstein was brilliant. Yeah, I think Council Member Strange has some areas where she might want to see some modifications. I, too, might want to make some modifications to this based off tonight's conversation. Perhaps we're not quite ready to approve anything yet, and that's where I'll leave that as a statement for now, just to make sure that we can all get on board whether we want this or not. The other thing, too, is there are some communities that have a board of review or a board of adjustments that handle these things that are citizen-led. Um, that's, that's like a, uh, you know, code enforcement does code. Well, this, this board hears these types of variances, there's criteria for that and it's engaging the citizens, uh, and it removes it from staff and it puts it in the hands of the citizens to make decisions for the citizens. That's something we could implement if we wanted to create this board. Um, I'm not saying we have to do that right now, but it might also alleviate some of the concerns we have relative to this coming out of the public domain. and going into a staff domain. Thank you.

Ms. Myers.

Brian, you're giving me a lot to think about. You made some good points about having a committee. I'm thinking maybe we should table it.

Mr. Peterson.