City Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's call this meeting to order.

Jeremy, would you mind doing the pledge? I would not mind.

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

All right. Mark Wodka, would you mind doing the invocation?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you for this opportunity to meet, and I pray, Father, for wisdom. I pray for clarity. I pray for unity, and I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would just bless this community. Pray, Father, for our first responders, that you would help them to do their jobs well, that you would protect them. I pray for our all of our educators, Lord. And Lord, I pray for the families of this community that you would help them to thrive and to be healthy. Lord, thank you for the businesses that are here. And I pray that you would help them to do well. And I just ask Father for favor for this community in light of its position in our state and our nation. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would bring a blessing here. Pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. City Clerk, roll call.

Commissioner Jackson.

Here.

Commissioner Hutcherson. Here. Commissioner Smulty. Here. Vice Mayor Williams.

Yes, I'm here.

Mayor Capizzi.

Here. Can I get a motion for the agenda?

Move to approve the agenda as published. Second.

Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Any public comment? Go ahead, Janice.

Items that are not on the agenda.

Items that are not on the agenda.

Good evening, early evening.

I wanted to mention after the tax meeting the other night, two nights ago, that in January, Florida CFO Ngoglio, whose name is not as easy to pronounce as the mayor's Italian name, but he was going to investigate the school boards and identify wasteful spending of tax dollars. He emphasized the need for accountability and said the school board should not be given a free pass for their excessive and wasteful spending tax dollars. So he set out to investigate some counties around the state. I'm really sorry he hasn't got to Brevard County yet, but he's running for re-election. Yay for that. So he was able to get past a $114.5 billion budget. For education, they got over $30 billion dedicated to kindergarten through 12th grade in public schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for $1.5 billion for teacher pay raises. So also he investigated Osceola County for $165 million wasteful spending. So this brings me to Cocoa Beach. Why does Cocoa Beach continue to abuse its taxpayers here? You just mentioned the word kids, and everybody runs for cover and votes for whatever's there. On our county ad valorem tax bill, there are four line items that list specifically Brevard County schools. And then we pay the RSO officer called collaborative spending. That sounds really nice too. So that's five line items of taxes we pay. The sixth tax is on the half a cent sales tax they want to pass in November, which if they get all that money from the state, maybe they don't need to put that on the ballot again. And the seventh are the undisclosed Indirect taxes from Cocoa Beach. I'm all for recreation, but I think it should be pay as you go. I speak to this all the time. We have these ancient agreements for the ballparks and the golf course, the swimming pool, track, et cetera, and student priority on many of our recreation facilities. I just wanted to say we have the free skate park. We're paying $2,000 or $3,000 a year for the lights there. Who's using these facilities? I hope you all pass a motion to get some more data on who the users are. Thank you.

Thank you, Janice. Any other public comment? All right. Public comment's closed. Staff reports?

None tonight, Mayor.

City Attorney?

Nothing tonight, thank you.

City Commission? Consent agenda. I'll say two things real quick.

Happy birthday, America. So Ryan, we don't have commission next week, or two weeks. Hopefully you'll join us at the Green on the 3rd of July. But it's a historic event. It's an experiment that has lasted 250 years. So I hope we can celebrate it. And then to your point, Janice, a comment on the waste management contract. We down selected and we have a solution there. And you'll actually see tax relief or rate relief on your waste management bill. So good news there. And it's evidence if you competitively bid stuff, you can get good pricing.

Consent agenda. Consent agenda.

Okay, this is the consent agenda. Item 1, approve the June 4th, 2026 Commission Meeting Minute, Staff Representative, City Clerk Department. Item 2, adopt Resolution 2026-05, calling for an election, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, calling for the November 3rd, 2026 election, and authorizing the City Clerk to proceed with all phases of the election process. Staff Representative Karen Groom, City Clerk, recommendation adopt. Item three, approve the renewal of the Microsoft Enterprise three-year licensing agreement for our suite of Microsoft services, including email servers and desktops, laptops. This is a projected budget expense starting in fiscal year 27, $128,802 per year. Staff Representative Kevin Perez, IT Director, recommendation approved.

Move to approve as read. Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. New business.

Okay, this is item one of new business. Approve state revolving fund amendment number one to loan agreement WW050640, providing additional time to complete planning, design, and construction in revising certain provisions of the agreement. Staff representative Brad Kalza, public works water rec director. Recommendation approved.

Motion to approve is read. Second. Motion is second. Any public comment? Any commission comment?

I had a question, Brad, on this. Is there a risk if we push this out that the grant won't match if it's higher rates, like the labor rates are higher? We're still going to get the same grant that will match what we spend? Correct. It will be the same.

Okay.

I'm good.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, Item 2, adopt Ordinance 1716 on first reading, an ordinance of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, amending provision related to the Special Magistrate, amending Section 30-17 to include requirements for the release, reduction of liens, providing for conflict severability, providing for inclusion in the code, and providing for an effective date. Staff Representative Brian Palmer, Deputy Director, Development Services, recommendation to adopt on first reading.

Approve I-2 as read. Second. Second. City Manager, would you mind if somebody could just briefly let the residents know what this means?

Sure. Brian?

Mayor, commissioners, what this actually does, it's followed all the municipalities in the area do the same thing. What this does is it just establishes a formal process for individuals to come in and to ask for a reduction or a release of the code enforcement lien. And what that actually does is it helps us fix dilapidated properties. We have some dilapidated properties that have liens on them, and people don't want to come in and purchase properties because they don't want to pay the liens. What this does is it promotes them to come in, purchase these properties, and it gives them a way, if they bring the properties in compliance right away, because there are stipulations that you have to do, or meet, I should say, before you request these releases of lien or reductions. And it promotes them coming in, purchasing the property, immediately bringing them to compliance, and then they have the ability to go in front of the special magistrate and ask for that release or that reduction. normally we always get staff cost out of it so we're still getting something back for the city but it does help kind of when you have an exuberant amount on a lien it kind of helps ease that a little bit so we can get these properties brought up into compliance so what did

By reading through it, it sounds like we're giving the special magistrate some leeway in how he adjudicates cases that come before him based on extenuating circumstances.

Exactly. Right now, the code just says that the special magistrate has the ability to reduce a lien. It doesn't give any guidance on how to do that. Right. It doesn't bring in anything on what the property owner has done to come into compliance, basically.

Okay. Thank you.

Janice, go ahead.

Janice Scott, Cocoa Beach. There has been some conversation about why the magistrate is reducing these liens. Because is it to the delinquent or whatever property owner? Or it was just described to me the way I understood it, that it gives a buyer a break. If you have a lien on your property, you sell it for, say, $250,000, then you take the lien out of your proceeds and pay it. I just think there are too many times in recent couple of years where the liens have been forgiven. I mean, we go to a lot of expenses in code enforcement to, you know, bring properties into compliance and so forth. So I don't know. I'd like you all to take a look at the devils and the details on that and make sure that Cocoa Beach is, can be, I mean, we should be reimbursed for the code cost. Thank you.

Thank you, Janice. Let me just, a real quick example. I know a guy that he had a, he had a lien on his property for some steps that weren't coming into compliance. And this has nothing to do with that. But his, his fine for, for the steps over time turned out to be over like 90 something thousand dollars just for a, you know, not, not having the permit done And the day over day accrued, and it was ridiculous. So this kind of makes sense to me. Any other public comment? Yeah, go ahead.

Rick Anderson, . Yeah, I have a couple of concerns that Janice has. What standards and guidelines are going to be applied to who gets this forgiveness and how and how much? Who determines it? I mean, is this coming from... Because I've unfortunately been involved with a couple of magistrate meetings, and the understanding I have was the special magistrate can only determine, can only rule whether the city's case is up or down. Um, so if the city's looking for $10,000, the special magistrate can't reduce it. I'm a little bit concerned putting this extra layer in there. I don't know what his qualifications are and what not qualification, but how does he know the ins and outs of the particular case? And even if the city is reducing it, what, who within the city is, is creating the guidelines and, and under, under what conditions? So I, uh, I agree in principle, I think it's great to refurbish dilapidated properties and allow them forgiveness. I think that's wonderful in principle. I'm just a little bit concerned that it just doesn't seem to be detailed enough.

Thank you. City Attorney, would you mind kind of going a little bit further into detail?

Yes, okay. Well, actually, there are 15 standards that factors which are considered. And they're all laid out here. And then there are directions as to how those standards should be applied. So this is really quite well written. And it wasn't written by me. It was written by Brian, I believe. But it was very well done. And this is quite an improvement over what we have right now, which basically doesn't give me any standards.

So what we had before was a gray area, and now we have it in black. Well, it's red and white here in our papers. And just like any other ordinance that passed in the city of Cocoa Beach, after the second reading, when it becomes effective, if we go through a few special magistrate meetings and things go off course, We can either revise it or rescind it, either one. So I'm in favor.

Thank you. I agree. Any other public comment real quick?

OK. OK. All right. It's basically a process now where there wasn't before. And it's written, you know, it's right there in front of them. So it makes it a lot clearer and consistent throughout rather than, like you're saying, it's just arbitrary.

Before, it was at our discretion, and there were no rules, really. So now we have rules. All right. Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Number three.

Okay, item three, adopt ordinance 1722 on first reading, an ordinance of the city of Cocoa Beach, Florida, amending the city code of ordinances, chapter nine, fire prevention section 9-6 penalties to add a reference to notice of violation, NOV, as a method of enforcement and update a code enforcement chapter reference. Amending section 9-14, classes of violations and associated civil penalties in accordance with chapter 31 of the city code, to correct the chapter reference to Chapter 30 and to add a Class III violation for failure to comply with written notices, orders, or directives issued by the fire official, including nonpayment of lawfully imposed fire inspection fees after notice and opportunity to cure, providing for codification conflicts, severability, and for an effective date. Staff Representative Justin Grimes, Fire Chief Recommendation, adopt.

Move to adopt Ordinance 1722 on first reading. Motion and a second. Any public comment?

All right. All in favor?

All right.

Oh, commission comment?

I'm good.

All in favor? Aye. All right.