City Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, let's call this meeting to order. Skip, would you mind doing the pledge for us?

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.

We'll have invocation by Pastor Keith Capizzi of Club Zion.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We bless you, and we are beyond privileged to be able to come before you and seek your direction, your wisdom, and your guidance in this meeting. I pray that, Lord, all things be done decently in order. I pray for our city leaders. Father, you give them wisdom tonight, discernment and insight in all their decisions, that there be a calm and a peace in this meeting tonight. And I pray for all those who are present, Father, that we all be an example to one another of how to conduct business in this city. And I thank you and I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. City Clerk, roll call.

Commissioner Jackson.

Here.

Commissioner Hutchison. Here. Commissioner Tumalti.

Here.

Vice Mayor Williams.

Here.

Mayor Capizzi.

Here. I want to make a motion for the agenda.

Agenda is published.

Motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Any public comments about items that are not on the agenda? Go ahead, Rick.

Hi, everybody. Rick Anderson, 1800 Minutemen Causeway. And I'm lucky enough, I just came back from a two-week trip over in Europe. Unfortunately, I missed the 250, which was not planned. I figured that out after we booked the trip. And I was in Brussels, Belgium, the night that Belgium was playing in the World Cup, and it was the greatest party I ever crashed. But the point of what I'm about to say is I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and And the Netherlands, half of the country, lives between two and four meters below sea level. And they've been living this way for centuries in the windmills and so forth. And after a breach of the dikes in, I believe, 1958, they embarked on a 30-year project to protect themselves in the event of like a 5,000 or 10,000-year storm. I'm thinking sitting here in Cocoa Beach as we're sitting here debating the issues of the day that we're one wave away from catastrophe. And I really would like to think that maybe at some point some kind of a conversation can be opened up and maybe draw on the knowledge from other places that might be able to help us mitigate or prevent a catastrophe like that. Thanks.

Thank you, Rick. Any other public comments about items that are not on the agenda? All right, this closes public comment. Staff reports.

Good evening, Mayor and Commission. Brooks, can you come up, please? I would like to introduce to the community and the Commission our new Public Works Director, Brooks Webb. Mr. Webb brings more than 30 years of progressively responsible experience in public works, infrastructure management, and municipal operations. He served as the public works director for the city of Laramie, Wyoming, where he led a multidisciplinary department of 85 employees responsible for engineering, streets, fleet, stormwater, GIS, solid waste, and wastewater utilities. He also oversaw the city's public works capital improvement program and successfully managed major infrastructure projects from planning through construction.

Brooks Webb, everybody.

What's up?

Brooks, welcome. Brooks, welcome. Excited to have you.

Thank you all. Mayor, Commission, as Wes said, I come from the lands of Wyoming, where my normal day of work, I would maybe see an elk or a buffalo and not a dolphin or a manatee. So it's been pretty cool. Anyway, I'm super happy to be here. In the two, two and a half weeks I've been here, I've met a couple of you, but I've been watching your meetings for months, so I feel like I've met you all. In that two, two and a half weeks that I've been here, I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of the city staff and observing the way they work. And it's amazing. The team that we have here on city staff is just amazing. And they work really hard every day to improve the quality of life for the residents of Cocoa Beach. And so I'm happy to be a part of that now. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Brooks. I look forward to meeting you.

more in depth. Okay, Chief Kuehn, can you come front and center please? So the Florida Police Chiefs Association recently announced Cocoa Beach Police Chief Chris Kuehn as the recipient of the Guardian and Warrior Executive Director Award at the summer conference of the Florida Police Chiefs Association held in Orlando, Florida. The Guardian and Warrior Executive Director Award was established by the FPCA to recognize those public servants who have made special contributions and shown a steadfast commitment to protecting law and order and upholding our constitutional liberties, or as an emerging leader who has shown dedication to the values the FPCA holds dear, values such as commitment to service, professionalism, integrity, and accountability. This year, Chief Kuen was recognized for his enduring commitment to officer safety and employee wellness. We are extremely, extremely proud of him for this accomplishment. My understanding was that he also received a standing ovation at the conference as well. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Okay.

Can we hug him? Can we hug him?

I'm sorry if we raise him right. You know we've got the best. It's nice when other people recognize it, too. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Chief. I hear nothing but good about you all the time. The city loves you, so thank you for your hard work.

City Manager, Commissioner.

Thanks. Okay. Lastly, we are excited to announce that in this year's state budget, the city was awarded state appropriations for the following projects. a gravity-fed sewer rehabilitation project, a 50% match to $500,000 that will be in FY27, and a $4 million grant, no match required, for Fire Station 50. City staff will work with the state on the grant agreements and will bring to the commission for acceptance once received by the granting agency. We are extremely grateful to those legislators who were involved in this process. And are especially grateful to our lobbyist, Jason Steele, for his tireless efforts this past session. And that's all I have for tonight.

Question, City Manager. That $500,000 on the gravity sewer, that's in the budget, correct? As we've talked about so far? Yes. Cool.

And that's all for tonight.

City Manager, just to be clear, those were things that were actually out, and due to the efforts of our team, those were brought back into the budget and successfully landed for the city. They were out a couple times, yes. Yeah. That's incredible work from the team, and I think Jason Steele was one of the key actors there, right? Yes, sir. So well worth the thanks to him, and he's earning his keep. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. All right.

City Attorney.

Nothing tonight.

All right. City Commission.

Nothing?

Yeah, I've got something. Okay, go ahead.

Back on the appropriations or the grants that we got from the state, Tyler Soroy was also involved in that as well. Great point. And we appreciate his actions in making that happen. And Jason is doing an outstanding job for us, Jason Steele. We're going to continue with that. And that leads me into Bicentennial Park, which we just did a ribbon cutting last week. I know Commissioner Williams was there. And unfortunately, I know you were out of town. You couldn't be there, Mr. Mayor. But it was a long time coming. Bicentennial Park obviously has been around a long time. It was never actually named. I don't know where the name came from. It just happened. Several years back quite a few years back I guess but when I was on the leisure board We were approached by Billy Bosch it was a kite order out there and You know he said hey this place is flooding all the time and and and You know, you all saw it. Every time it just got damp out there, it would flood. You couldn't even launch a jet.

It was terrible.

Yeah, you couldn't launch anything. It was terrible. So we created a committee to, I think, were you on that committee?

I was one of the original ones with Orson to bring it up, yeah. Yeah. And Greg, too. And Greg, yeah. Yep. Yeah.

And so we put a committee together. And that was seven or eight years ago. And finally, it happened. So we did the ribbon cutting last week. We got grants. It was funded by the state and FINE. And it's a great, great project. And we look forward for other projects working with FINE and the state. So that was a win-win for everybody, I think so. I think our next meeting, when's our next meeting? Is it August 6th or 7th, something like that? School starts soon. I go back to school on the 3rd. We don't have students until the 10th, but we have a muster on the 6th where all the parents come in to register. So get ready for traffic to start picking up. Roosevelt has done a remodel of their traffic issue and it's going to snake through their parking lot. If you've been down Minuteman, you've seen a lot of construction near Roosevelt. That's what's going on. So they'll get all that information out as to the traffic pattern. for dropping off kids and picking up kids and so forth at Roosevelt. So I look forward to that. That's all I got. Thanks.

Go ahead.

Yeah, as far as Bicentennial Park, kind of going back to what Mr. Anderson said, one of the goals for that remodel of Bicentennial Park was to raise it up so that mean basically when we had high water levels and the wind was out of the southwest the waves would come up the ramp and flood the parking lot even if we didn't have any rain so so the whole park then raised two feet and it has a foot and a half below it of under under the pavement under the concrete exfiltration for the water to be able to seep into the ground. It has some retention areas and that plays well with what we've been working on and the mayor will be aware of this at Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization for the past 12 years I've been beating the drum that 520 needs to be raised because it is very susceptible to flooding during storms and We've had to drive across that road with water over the road at times. It doesn't last that long, but it's still going to get worse. So it's been moving its way progressively up through the priority system, which is a big deal. They'll have close to 100 items in the county that people want money for. I think we got it up to about number five now. It's in the five-year plan. It's already in the feasibility planning stage so that the next step would be to get the estimate on what it would cost. And it's FDOT property, so hopefully the state will fund it and raise that road. And part of the issue to raise it up in priority was, our hospital is going to move to Merritt Island. And getting an ambulance or anybody that's just going to the ER across that road in a time when the water's high, we really need to have that road raised. So we're glad to have that. And then I just want to give my appreciation to all the city staff and all the residents and everybody that came out for the 250th celebration we had on July 3rd. We had a lot of fun things going on, had a band, and had the drone show, and the weather cooperated, and everything went great. And I just appreciate all the effort behind the scenes to make that happen. That's all I have.

Sure.

Let me go with Josh. Go ahead. Just echoing Commissioner Williams' statement, I think Carrie Lombardo was probably a key anchor in making sure that our 250th celebration was everything it could be. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, well done across the board. Staff worked tirelessly the entire day. Very warm day, but what a fantastic celebration. Thank you to Carrie. Just excellent job. Thanks.

Appreciation for Marcus. I appreciate the reports you send consistently every Friday. I've used those several times for residents just directly forwarding that, just keeping good tabs on the maintenance. It's the small things that matter, and I think residents really appreciate that, so thank you for that diligence. He sends out weekly reports on Friday of what all his team has accomplished, so thank you for that. Okay.

echo everything that everybody said um you know city staff for for doing that 250 that was a huge event i think you said 15 000 people attended plus or minus somewhere around there that's that's the biggest we've ever had um it's uh jason steel uh tyler saroy absolutely champions for us so i want to recognize them as well uh debbie and uh Thank you for all your work at the school, too. I know that's going to be coming up. So I also want to recognize Don from Canaveral. Thanks for coming out to one of our meetings. And this is going to be one of our more heated meetings probably because of the budget. This is probably the most controversial meeting of the year for us. So you get to see how we work. That's it for me. So let's see. All right. Budget.

OK, this is item one. Staff is requesting that the city commission set a proposed millage rate of 6.1644 for the fiscal period 2027. Staff representative, Hannah Juman. Finance director, Wes Mullen. City manager, recommendation approved.

Move to discuss. Second.

Motion and second. That's all.

Hopefully that's no indication for how the budget portion will go. Just our luck. Good evening, commissioners. I plan and prepare for fiscal year 27 budget. There's been many discussions on the current state of our financial health in addition to the potential for revenue loss. contingent on the state amount and the number of ballot. Thank you. The intent of this presentation is to set the maximum millage rate to be used in balancing the fiscal year 27 budget. The presentation is going to include the process involved with setting the millage rate along with the rate options that are available to us and other various comparisons showing the impact on the taxpayers and how the city compares to other municipalities within the county. Sat in the millage. So sat in the millage is a stringent three-step process set forth by Florida statutes for all of the taxing authorities within the state. Each year, beginning on July 1st, there's a process called truth in millage, commonly referred to as the term process. This begins with the property appraiser certifying the taxable values, and then at that point, the city is required to the maximum wage set that's going to be determined within this meeting to the Florida Department of Revenue by August 3rd. Once the rate's set by the commission, it legally cannot be exceeded. The next steps thereafter are adopt the millage rate and the budget together. The first meeting that we're going to hear the tent millage with the budget is going to be on September 3rd. And then the final millage will get adopted at the second hearing on September 17th. The hearing dates that are set are requiring not to conflict with the county and school board dates. Based on the new taxable value, the rollback rate provided was 5.9988. The rollback rate generates the same revenue amount as what was received in fiscal year 26 or current year at the rate of 6.000. The difference in revenue between the current rate and the rollback rate is the difference of 0.02% or just under $4,000. The rating proposed consideration is 6.1644. This is also the rate that was adopted by the commission. The budget's used for fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2025. At this rate, it's 2.76% above the rolled back rate or around a $531,000 increase. The final rate at the bottom shown, the max millage rate, this is the rate provided for the Department of Revenue that's allowed for a 4, 1, or 2 thirds vote. Anything higher than that amount would be a unanimous vote by the commission. This slide, it shows the taxable value has increased by 2.41% from last year. That equates to about 79 million in property value. For the CRA taxable values, the increment value, it's you determine the TIF revenue received. This is shown in the next few slides. Also, I'll show the calculations based off of the three different rates. Okay, the next three slides, they show the effect on the homesteaded taxpayer. This slide, currently it shows the rollback rate of 5.9988. The current rate, 6 even, and the proposed rate, 6.1644. Those are the next two slides. But since the rollback rate and the current rate have the difference of 0.02% or 4,000, you'll notice that on this slide and the next slide, they look really similar because of that. It's broken out by what the monthly impact would be and the annual impact would be at the different taxable value levels So for example at a rate of five point nine nine eight eight and taxable value of three hundred thousand the impact To the taxpayer would be a hundred and fifty a month out of the five point nine nine eight eight millage rate we would receive approximately 1.3 million towards the CRA for the TIF funding and The next slide is at the proposed millage of six. Just as I stated before, this slide is almost identical to the previous rolled back amount because the variance is so minuscule. But you'll see it impacts some set of taxpayer on that slide as well. And then finally, for the proposed rate, of $6.1644. Based on the taxable value of $300,000, annual tax amount will be about $1,849. This will break out to a monthly amount of around $154. With that, the CRA contribution would be around $1.4 million. OK, this shows the difference between the proposed rate and the rollback rate. If the commission chooses to adopt the proposed rate, The impact to the taxpayer would be around $4 a month, or $49 per year, based on the $300,000 taxable value. If there was a taxable value of a $900,000 home, the annual difference would be around $150 a year with this proposed increase. OK. This pie chart, this represents the distribution of taxes levied by property type. As you can see, around 31% of the ad valorem revenue received, it's allocated to residential homesteaded properties. For non-homesteaded properties, it's around 55%. For commercial, around 13%. And then vacant lots, 1%. And this is based off of the data received from the property appraiser's office. Millage comparisons. So this is where we get to compare ourselves and where we are compared to our neighboring municipal governments in Brevard County. For the city shown on the slide, we rank it in ascending order. And right now, we're one of the lowest. We're in the top four lower millage rates. Meanwhile, I want to correlate it to the tourist volume that we receive within the city with more than 2 and 1 half million tourists each year. and a lower population of 11,300-ish. Population-wise, we're most alike to Satellite Beach. They're also, of course, a beachside community. And they currently are operating at a 7.9 millage rate. Most of the comparables that are shown, they're proposing right now to stay at their current rate or dropping slightly. but are remaining well above the rolled back rate. These communities are already operating at higher millage rates, and they're not having to correct for any past financial decisions or situations that they're in when it comes to rebuilding and restoring the reserves. The first line, currently one of the lowest rates, Cape Canaveral, they're actually proposing to increase their millage rate to 10 even for their fiscal year 27 budget. For Cape Canaveral, that would mean a 203% increase. I believe it's on their July 21st meeting.

I thought that was a typo.

No, that is on their agenda for their meeting.

Any insight to like, I mean, clearly that's an outlier. I mean, other than... It would never pass.

It would have to be a unanimous vote for that.

But any insight to what's driving that? Is it a reserve recovery or is they've got some massive capital project or... We don't know.

I'm not sure if this particular focus on ours.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to include it as one of the comparisons, but not sure on specifics. So with the proposed amendment on the November ballot, municipal governments are left with uncertainty of the impacts and what we'll will be faced with ahead. Right now, what we're projecting if the amendment was to pass is an impact to our revenue decreasing on the year one by around 2.3 million. That's after the homestead exemption is increased to $150,000. On year two, when it's increased to $250,000, we're facing a financial impact to the revenue by around $3.1 million.

Is that additional to the one?

No, that's collectively.

Collectively.

Yes. As an example, for our current 2026 budget, right now we're receiving around $19 million in revenue and ad valorem revenue specifically. And of that, $15.7 million is allocated towards public safety services. So if we were to take the amount that we're receiving now, the $19 million, and we were to reduce it by $3.1 million, we would barely be at all the cost of public safety services. We also would have to bear in mind that in the next two years, the cost of those services would increase with any agreements in place because they are associated with union positions and also pension obligations that we would have to comply with to make sure that those are in healthy balances. As we discussed in the June workshop, we've also been dipping into the reserves continuously the past few years and the budget that I hope to present to this commission in the next workshop is one that's balanced and it's a true fiscally responsible budget where it's not based off of operating at a deficit. I feel that the most responsible way to have a budget and what we would like to present to you guys is a budget where our revenues exceed our expenses and the revenues are true revenues. They're not overstated in any way. It's an honest budget and we want to be able to get the city back to a good financial standing with appropriate reserves there for any emergencies. We saw earlier this year just what a 10-minute microburst could do and the damage that could cause and How detrimental something could be and we know with FEMA or any federal assistance funding if there are hurricanes Whatever it may be it takes a lot of time for those reimbursements to come in So I just want to make sure the city if there was something to happen we were able to sustain Does the Commission have any questions I Do on the last point that you made about FEMA I

several years ago got hit by Matthew. And we didn't get refunded by FEMA for like five or six years. So the reserves, it's very important that we have the reserves. And just want to make that point that FEMA doesn't just come in and say, hey, here's, oh, you're down $5 million and you can't operate your city and you have no revenue. So here's $5 million. They don't do that. They are like an insurance company. And you've all dealt with insurance companies where they push you and push you and push you and say, oh, we'll give you this. And you have to go somewhere else and get a private adjuster and come in. We don't do it that way. Um, it just takes forever. It seems like it seems like it takes forever. So, um, the reserves are very important and thank you for recognizing that.

Absolutely. There are audits or audits provide the actual figures to us and for general fund that we have the ordinance 1681 in place for, um, based on fiscal year 2024, the audit provided that we had around 18 million in reserves for the fiscal year 2025 audit. It was then reduced to about 12.6 million. So that just shows the pattern of what has happened in the past and the action necessary to restore those reserves.

And I know the valuations are changing as dynamic, but is there a ballpark number? So when we pass the order in 1681, it adds an extra 1% every year to those reserves. We are accumulating reserves this year over last year. What is the value of that 1%? $100,000, $300,000?

Yeah, around $100,000. So it's $19 million that's allocated towards non-committed reserves. And right now in this budget, it's 4% allocated to committed reserves. And that increases by 1% up until fiscal year 2029.

So every year it's going to be 200-ish automatically growing the reserves?

It'll continue to increase, but the percentage, it's based off of the expenses in that budget year. So it's your personnel, your operating, your debt obligation. It does not include capital, but it's that percentage of that total. So it's kind of a moving target, and it fluctuates based upon the total budget amount that's being requested.

Okay. And I know you've done a lot of work to prepare the budget as well as to fix some of the things that we've found that were before your time. With and the 6.14, I just want to make sure I understand them correctly. Both of them have you presenting a budget or you're looking to present a budget where we are adhering with our goals and goals for the reserves. The 6% should get us there and have us in a position where we are. The difference there between the 6 and this 0.14, 6.14, as all the puts and takes continue to evolve and as Commissioner Hutcherson was saying, is dynamic. The 6.14 is a confident position that puts us in living within our means and spending less than we're taking in. Okay.

Describe some of the options we have if we get into a pinch and need to rebalance or re amend the budget. We could use unused capital budget. Say a hurricane hits. If we have not consumed any capital budget, we could amend the budget and shift that money and use it for the emergency, correct?

It's kind of situational, so it would be dependent on where those projects are. If they are in process, if they aren't in process, it would just be dependent on what exactly is budgeted, what that project is, and if they're at a point where they can halt That project altogether, I feel like it could be an option, but it's kind of a risky option if it's already something that's been mobilized and processed. It may end up long-term costing more than what you...

If you've already started it. Correct.

Go ahead. It's just there's so many different variables that kind of tie to that.

So your question is basically can we dip back into our... funds our capital for money that's been set aside for capital funds we are just down there which is exactly what we did with the City Hall And we're not going to do that again.

As far as I, I will never vote for that. Well, we never, none of us voted for that. Yeah.

Well, I'm talking right now. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, but if you'd like to say, well, but, but that's exactly what happened. Um, approximately $6 million was taken out of reserves for this building rather than getting a bond. So, um, Our responsibility, from my perspective, is safety, security of the residents of Cocoa Beach and also the infrastructure of Cocoa Beach. We've pushed back and kicked down the road, the roads, basically. We have done no road repair for I'm not sure how many years, four or five years. I think it's about five. Five years. If we continue down that path, we're going to be back to where we were when this city was incorporated, where we had dirt roads. And we don't want that. I don't want that. I don't know about the other commissioners. I don't. But if we do continue to use our reserves and use our capital expenditures for For those reserves, that's what's going to happen. I do have one question for you, Anna. On slide proposed millage rate for fiscal year 2027, you have the rollback rate, the current, or the 6.0, 6.164. I believe it's slide four. Under each of those you have requires a particular vote. On the rollback, you have a majority vote. Is that correct? It only requires 3-2 vote for a rollback.

Correct. Yeah, it's a 3-2 vote for the rollback and then 4-1 for all of the other rates that are listed underneath. Any rate implemented beyond 6.5, it's unanimous.

Okay. Thank you. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think actually Commissioner Hutcherson, you were saying the exact opposite of what Commissioner Tumulty just said. You were saying that if we needed money and didn't have it in the reserve, we could de-obligate from existing projects and potentially resource that as covering a disaster. Opposite of what Commissioner Tumulty was referencing of using reserves to cover projects. Correct? I just want to make sure. That's not what I said. You referred to us using what was, instead of having reserves, we spent that on a project, correct?

No, I'm saying he said that we have capital money set aside for expenditures And we could use that for reserves. That is what he said. That's what I asked he said.

De-obligate the capital expenditure. Right. That's what he said. To meet the emergency. Right.

Instead of actually having reserves, instead of actually having reserves there. I think Josh is talking right now. Go ahead, Josh. I was just saying that I think it's pointed that it's a difference that to plan projects and execute projects with money that should have been in reserves is different than if we had a disaster and to use money that if our reserves are insufficient to try to recover from this. I thought that that was a salient difference. Tim, would you like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So... If we don't have reserves and we have a disaster, then we're going to have to use that money for capital expenditure that we had set aside to redo our roads or sewer plants or whatever else capital expenditures we have, whether it's City Hall or a police station, fire station, which we have had in the past. So basically, You're setting aside capital expenditures as a backup for reserves.

No, no. Well, number one, I didn't vote to fund this with cash. I was the only one that didn't. That was approved in 25. Make that clear. I did not vote to burn $6 million in cash.

I was the one vote. I don't think any of us did, actually.

No, that was in the 2025 budget, that there was no debt proceeds for City Hall. And I voted no. So we've got this shortage of reserves. You can debate whether it's short, right? We did the right thing. We said, hey, let's step these up 1% a year, which is the diligent thing to do. I asked Hannah the question today is, to build reserves, I get it. I'm the most fiscally concerned one up here. Would we prefer to just have discretionary? reserves set aside in this case where we're growing them, or do we want to obligate them with a 1%, make that a 2% growth every year so it's obligated, has to be reserved? Because what happened with City Hall, we had the reserves, but they were accessible to burn as cash, and that's exactly what happened.

They weren't supposed to be.

I didn't approve the 2025 budget. You guys can look at the page. It was burned as cash.

Go ahead, Skip. Well, that has nothing to do with burning the cash. Go ahead, Skip.

Anna, what's our current credit rating for the city?

We haven't went out to debt since construction of this building, so it would have to get with our financial advisor, seek debt proceeds to get that estimate.

Well, it was A plus or triple A. I would say it's the same currently. I would imagine it's the same. So instead of going down this road where we have to find capital money that hasn't been far enough along in the project phase to have burnt money that we don't want to stop, because now it's going to cost us that upfront money. And if you already obligated the money to a contractor to do the work, then you're really in trouble if you try to back out a contract. It's going to cost you more than finishing the project. I'm a professional project manager. I know how that goes. But an option versus cutting the capital projects, especially for a disaster where we currently have contractors, well, we should after this meeting, on board to help with cleanup, which includes FEMA inspectors that follow along the truck and figure out how much cubic foot stuff they got and that's went to the landfill and all that. Okay, it takes five years, but You could, if you're running short on reserves, you could go for a bond. And if you did a 10-year bond, then you're only paying part of it in that year coming up. You don't have to eat the whole thing. You don't have all your projects coming ahead. You put out the bond. And then when you get the money back from FEMA, you pay off the bond.

Sure. My only concern with that would be under an emergency situation to get the bond agreement executed. It would be a lengthier amount of time than what we would need. The other consideration is from what I'm seeing from Florida League of Cities, if the referendum was to pass in the November ballot, one of the things that we'll see changing in a local government is the bonds that are available to us because the rates are going to increase because of the debt worthiness for local governments. The way that lenders are starting to view local governments is that they have uncertain revenue streams because ad valorems support most of the municipal governments throughout Florida. So they're saying that if it passes, there would be different impacts when it comes to any future debt obligations that we seek.

But it could be an option and it would be banking on FEMA's going to do what they always did, which is actually reimburses. So for bond rationale, that could help smooth having to take a big hit in the near term. And I just want to show that as an option.

So the $9 million, we have 23% saved in reserves. Ballpark, how long is that operating? Is that nine months, a year?

I would say about three. It depends on what was happening within that month because some of the considerations, if there was like an emergency, we don't know if that's the same time frame of when our debt service payments are due. So there's a few different parameters in place, but I would say on average about three months.

Would a bond be a lower rate than an actual loan for a capital project?

Most of the loans that we have are for, if it's a water-related project, they're SRF loans. Otherwise, they're bonds, municipal bonds. So the rates are all a little bit different when it comes to local governments. What I'm seeing right now is around like 4.5% is the average municipal bond.

Speaking of the state revolving fund, they would be, I would think, amenable to know that we're going to get our money back from FEMA. They can lend us money a little quicker. And then we could, you know, we have to pay them back while we're waiting on FEMA. But it wouldn't be like the big chunk all at one time where we have to cancel all our unobligated cap projects.

Those loans for the state revolving fund wouldn't be available to us because they're specific for water quality and infrastructure projects. So they under those...

If we got... Limbs down all over the city and we can't afford a contractor that's going to affect the water quality the city So so anyway, I just and if this referendum does pass That state revolving fund it's going to realize that they you know Laid the rotten egg and they may have to change their rules to keep some cities afloat especially the ones that take big hits from any future disasters and

Clearly, they don't care about the cities. So that's where we are.

Are we ready for public comment?

Just a quick question.

Go ahead. No, I was going to say if anybody else on the council wants to talk.

I think Commissioner Williams has an interesting thought. Does it cost us money? Were we to realize some type of incident and need cash relatively quickly and ask the cost we're accruing, does it cost us anything to pursue a bond? Where we could hold our reserves, pursue the bond if we were able to get it in time. Not spend reserves, spend the bond. But just in terms of a protocol that the city could consider, does it cost a thing to pursue the bond other than the time it takes?

Not that I'm aware of.

So not a bad idea to at least try if we find ourselves in that situation.

That's in the future.

Are cities able to get?

line of credits basically as residents are able to get lines of credits based on their assets?

No.

OK. Any other comment on commission? OK. We're going to take public comment now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hannah. Any public comment about this item? Anybody? OK. Go ahead, Caroline.

Carolyn Willis from daily on Road I Wanted to discuss how we should strongly consider setting the millage rate to the highest proposed value of six point one six four four for the following reasons and some some of them you you already said but Right now at this meeting the Commission is just picking a millage value to set the cap the actual millage rate is not set in stone until September and So this gives the Cocoa Beach Financial Department the ability to explore all possible millage rate options fiscal year 27 while developing the budget. Second, at the end of fiscal year 2025, and you guys already kind of brought this up, there was a negative fund balance of $6.9 million in the 310 fund, the Capital Improvements Project Fund, because it was voted not to put out for debt the higher costs of the new city hall. This caused the closure of the The 310 fund, which in turn caused a negative 6.9 million balance to be absorbed by the general fund, decreasing the city general fund reserve balance by $6 million in FY25. So because of this, staff has already deferred more than $5 million in capital improvement projects from fiscal year 27 to later years. And one of these projects is paving roads. Deferring capital improvement projects could help us out this year, but it's not necessarily a sign of a healthy city financial climate. Staying on top of important capital improvement projects such as paving roads is a sign of a healthy city financial climate, which plans in place to execute them in an efficient manner. Another issue, like we were talking about the reserve, the city ordinance 1681 that we put in place when I was in the commission dictates the reserve requirements for emergency purposes. The city must comply. with these requirements every year, and the reserves to be at 19% of the general fund. Setting the cap to the proposed millage rate of 6.1644 would give the city an additional $527,000 to put towards the reserves. We're rolling it back to the millage rate of 5.998, or keeping it at 6.0, only providing an additional $4,000. Keeping the millage rate the same or rolling it back would be irresponsible budgeting for our city. In our current state, we need to make it a priority to grow our reserves, not only because of Ordinance 1681, but also for the unseen emergencies and disasters, which Tim even mentioned. When I was on the commission, we had the hurricanes, and it takes FEMA years to reimburse the cities, and we're thankful to have the reserves for these emergency situations. hurricanes and floodings and pop-up tornadoes. And another reason to raise the millage rate is due to the state amendment that will most likely be passed in November that will increase the homestead exemption for residential properties and that would restrict city usage of ad valorem revenue. The first year that this would be in place is projected to impact the city by losing 2.3 million dollars in revenue and by year two 3.3 million in revenue. Just got one more.

Go ahead.

The city is currently in a critical position now due to the general fund absorbing $6.9 million balance, as well as a property tax reform amendment. Revenue impacts remain difficult to forecast, especially in these times, and we have to allow ourselves the greatest ability to acquire revenue in these uncertain conditions. Some of you guys already talked about some of these things, but thank you for your time.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Go ahead, Greg.

Greg Lund, 411 Barilla Lane. I think what burns me the most about this whole situation with the $6 million is the fact that we've had to postpone projects that could add millions of dollars of revenues to the city because we have to pay that money back. I mean, I'll give you an example. The driving range enhancement project had the potential now for the next three years to bring in probably $2 or $3 million in revenue to the city, and it's been kicked down the road, and it probably isn't going to happen until 2028, 29. We have to start looking at other ways to raise revenue in the city instead of finding ways to cut back and kick projects down the road. And I think that's what's got me so upset and wanting to run for a commission seat because I just don't think that We're looking in the right direction. We should be the most profitable city in Cocoa Beach. We have the resources to do it. We have the infrastructure to do it. We have a port with 20 million passengers going through it. We've got a space center with billions and billions of dollars. And we have to find a way to tap into that revenue source. And it's just irritating that we're losing revenue instead of making money. Thank you, Greg.

Let me just correct you on a couple of those points right there. While I got him in my mind, because I'll forget, that $6 million was never voted on us. That fund was only to be allowed to be used by the commission under a commission vote. It was not used properly. So I just want to throw it out there. We did not vote to fund. We voted to only go out to $3.9 million, and we're supposed to have the money for the rest. The golf course thing was not proposed until this year. I tried to bring that in when I first got on. Nobody was really interested. We didn't miss revenue on that because it was never proposed until just recently. I just want to put that out there. You want to say something?

Yeah, we have to say something. So, okay, so the issue is did we burn cash in 2025, which, again, I didn't vote for. The previous speaker did. And the debt payment on that would have been about $400,000. And now we're saying let's spend another $570,000 to recover those reserves. So I did not vote for that to spend cash. I want to make that crystal clear. So I don't know what the disconnect was thinking it was going to be debt finance. But I didn't vote for it. The commission was up here, did, four to one. And now instead of financing the city hall, which would have cost us $400,000 a year at that interest rate, we're now saying, hey, let's recover that with a tax hike that's going to cost residents $575,000. So that's not a good trade.

This commission did not vote on that.

No, 25.

It was budget 25. It was 24. 24, 25. All right, 24, I was not on the commission. Peace.

I didn't vote for it.

Let's put it that way on either one of those budgets. I understand. Okay. And I earn cash if I can. So say that this money was just there available. You knew where the money was coming. You knew it was $12 million for this building. You got a grant for approximately $4 million or $5 million. There were two different grants, I believe. And then there was just this money there available. It was just available, and that's what we spent because we didn't want to go into debt because that's what you ran on. We don't want to go into debt. We don't want to have any more debt. Bottom line, no debt was the bottom line for a couple of folks' campaigns, and that is not how municipalities work. They don't work the same. Budgets don't work the same as a personal budget, and If we want to go into that, I'll give a presentation on personal budgets versus municipal budgets. And they are two different animals. Basically, by financing it, or by not financing it, everyone that lives in Cocoa Beach right now paid for City Hall. Everybody just paid for City Hall. If you finance it, it's pushed out for whatever the term of it is, 20-, 30-year term. And so your kids, grandkids will be paying for this building because they're going to be using it down the road. That's the purpose of financing and getting bonds to pay for capital expenditures. That's why they do it. That's why typically 90-plus percent of municipalities get a bond or loan to pay for large capital expenditures. And it is paid for throughout. You know, the term of that loan. Just like when you buy a house, you can't just afford to buy a house. I mean, if you're financially just got all kinds of money, you can just go buy a house, I guess, when you're 20 years old. But typically, you work, you get good credit, you get a loan, and you pay for it for the next 20 to 30 years. And if you can pay it off quicker, great. But not necessarily if that interest rate is low enough that the money you have in reserves is earning more money than the interest rate that you're paying on that particular loan. You have good credit, you have bad credit. So that's all I got to say about that. At this point, I know there's going to be more conversation in this meeting. I'm pushing to, as former Commissioner Wallace stated, we need to set the millage rate. At 6.1644, we can adjust it. But if we set it today at 6.0, there's no adjusting. It is what it is. It's a done deal as of today. So there you have it. And that's all I got to say about it at this point. Go ahead.

My experience is whatever gets set as the maximum is what gets adopted. We don't cut for the next six weeks. So I would say what we vote tonight is what's going to be the final.

It's rare that you would ever accept less than what you're able to take. I will agree with you on that. Any other public comment? Go ahead, Caroline. Usually it's one time, but go ahead.

I just wanted to address that what the commission voted for in 24 was to not put the debt out for City Hall and I didn't vote for that. I said, no, I want to put it out for debt. And the fact that it was not put out for debt created this problem. So that was not what happened. So I just want to clarify that.

There's more moving pieces, but yes. Not really. All right. Any other public comment? All right. We're going to close public comment, and then we'll go back to commission comment. I want to say something. The 6.1644, obviously, if we accept that, then we can guarantee that that entirety of the additional income would go towards reserves. That would make me amicable to voting for this, knowing that the increase that we'd be increasing is 100% going towards funding our reserves. I would like to add onto that, I would also like to I'm sorry, Skip, but I would like to not pursue with the ADA park at this time and put that towards reserves as well, knowing that that park will absolutely never produce revenue for us. It's just not a good time. It's better to be in reserves or to go towards roads or stuff like that.

Are you going to close the pool? It doesn't make any money for us. Are you going to close the golf course?

After November, who knows what's going to happen. But they do. It's an amenity that's already existing.

Okay, I'll just jump in as far as the ADA part goes. We made a commitment, and we spent money on the design phase to solidify the federal government to go ahead and deed us that property. I don't want to send a message to them that we're not going to go forward on that project and lose the property. So I want to leave it in. And it's in there. And I choose to leave it in there. And when it comes to the next phase, once we have the property deeded to us, if we need to stretch it out a little bit, then we can stretch it out. And plus, there's other revenue sources that can make up that. you know, estimate that the city came up with of what it would cost. There's grants to be had from ADA. I think I will take it upon myself, be on the commission or not on the commission, to work every angle to bring in money for that. But if we don't keep it going and get the deed, then we're never going to have it. It's an amenity. You know, in my time in this seat, in this this DS over the years I've had so many people that are disabled that want a place where they can get to the beach and go out and have a little place to go and overlook to be able to you know spend time at the beach and they'll be able to do that at that park in the current way that it's phased I guess while I'm up here I'm a little Little of a strategic long-term thinker. You guys know I've been here a long time. If you go to the last slide, please, Karen. All right. You can see the names of all those cities. Those are just the cities in Brevard County that would be affected by this referendum. that's going to be put out in November for a 60% vote to approve to increase the property tax exemptions over the next few years until they eventually eliminate. And I'd like to send a message to all these cities by going to the rollback rate, which is 4% less than what we're making now, and show our residents that we're willing to be more efficient as a city with the tax dollars we get from the ad valorem. And then hopefully these other cities will follow our lead and lower their ad valorem taxes, and maybe that'll change the sentiment of voters to not vote for that 60%, because sooner or later they're going to figure out that all the services that they're used to having are no longer going to be available to them. You put in a billing permit, it's not going to be three days or a day and a half or two days to get a billing permit. It may be two weeks, you know, and time is money, especially for contractors and businesses that are trying to do things that are get contracts with people and say, okay, I'll get the billing permit. I'll be starting in like a week. I got to wait for the billing permit. By that time, the whole deal could fall apart. So we send that message, go to the rollback rate, $4,000 reduction from this year, run a little more efficiently, get the message out that if this referendum passes, that we will not be able to provide the services that currently are enjoyed by our residents and our businesses in the city of Cocoa Beach. And hopefully that message will spread beyond these cities in Brevard County and go into the rest of the state. And if everybody else I know is a long shot, it shows that they're going to be more frugal with their funding, and there's a chance that they won't get that 60% threshold on the votes as long as they know what it's going to cost them in services that they currently enjoy. So I'd like to move to set the proposed millage rate to the rollback rate of... 5.9988%, and I'm looking for a second.

And that's with keeping your park in there? It was a million dollars for that park, right?

We're voting on the rollback rate. I didn't get a second. Can I get a second?

I'll second, just to have a discussion.

So you want to take away the extra $531,000 and you also want to still spend another million on top of that? It's either or. I would maybe go with you on a $5.988 if you weren't spending a million dollars on a park that's a nicety, not a necessity.

Look, we don't know what it's going to cost until we finish the design phase and we don't know what money's are available for us to fund that beyond it coming out of the city coffers.

What was in the draft budget, the full million, was in the budget we had at workshop one, right? It's one and a half million. The full amount was in there.

But it's over two years.

Got it.

But we're not going to be spending that money right at the beginning of this year, OK? So we can leave it in. And then the next commission can do what they want. But let's get the property. Let's have the vision, and give me a chance to go out and solicit funding and grants.

I will vote for that if you pull back the park. That's the only way that I can justify it.

So roll back and drop the park and reserves?

I'll go roll back if you drop the park, because we can't afford to do both. We can't do the park and rollback.

Why don't you trust me to go out and work to get that funding? I know a lot of people. You can still do the park. Don't pull the funding from the budget. Otherwise, you're sending a message to the State Department of Parks and Recs or the Federal Department of Parks and Recs that we're not serious about making that an ADA park. And they could not follow through with the deed.

which is this close to being done. We could pull the funding, and you could still go after the funding for your ADA stuff, and then you'll get your vote. But I can't in good conscience, when we've got a deficit in our reserves, to do the park and go to rollback.

It's either one or the other thing. Here's how it works, and I've been doing this a long time on these budgets. Hannah and her staff They don't want it put together. We put it at 6.1644, and they have to bring us a budget at that, because it could be that. Then they've got to bring us a budget at 6, because it might be that. And then they've got to bring us a budget at 5.99, because it could be that. So they're working three different budgets. They're working three times. They're probably twice as hard, because two of them are stuck together. But I'd just like to give them something right now that we're going to stick with, so we can build a budget around that. We have time. We're not voting on the final budget right now. So between now and when she works on the budget some more, after we give her this number, if that part comes into being a problematic thing, then we'll deal with it then. And all you need is three votes to get rid of it.

Okay. Anybody else? Go ahead if you want to say something or Josh.

I don't even know what to say at this point.

We may be thinking some of the same things. Just I'll lay out my thoughts and open to further discussion for sure. But the 5.988, a $4,000 difference to the 6%. Principally, I love rollback, right? It's almost a token vote.

It's kind of Well, if you're gonna do this Well, so in a message or not willing to be more efficient a Message that we don't care about our residents and don't care about the roads and and infrastructure Cocoa Beach That's the message you're sending we're five million dollars behind we've kicked the can down the road on taking care of streets and because of the deficit, because of the $6.9 million that we took out of reserves. And now we're in a mess. And you're considering, first of all, bringing up that we're going to do rollback, a second for rollback, and then a discussion like, well, if you do this for me, we'll do rollback. Okay. So maybe I pave my own street. Is that what I need to do? How's that going to help a resident, right?

Tim.

No. Skip, I don't know about your street, but my street is a mess. Just tell me when you're finished. I'm about to be finished because this is absolutely ridiculous. I don't know if I want to be part of this. I mean, it's ludicrous what you guys are talking about.

Are you done? I'm done, Skip. So the math... He's talking about a problem next year if we go with the rollback rate. If the referendum passes, the hell that's going to break loose on this city in the following two years after that with the reduction in property taxes, the reduction in services and all that is going to make this cutback a mute point. I want to send the message that we're willing to cut back and be efficient with our monies And hopefully the rest of these cities will get some press and it'll go across the state. And when those people go to vote yes or no on that 60%, they'll be informed voters and they'll know what they're going to lose by voting for it. And we'll do our part by being more efficient.

The problem is that we're not going to send a message because nobody watches these meetings.

Well, how come everybody knows I said to shoot them in the foot?

I don't think we mean it that way, but I think it's a token vote, and I think we've got to be a little bit more serious than that. The six, Hannah has done, has sharpened the pencil, and I think that the, The six, and to include the $4,000 difference, I think is plausible in terms of us being able to meet our obligations, to spend less than we're making, however. We don't hold the cards, and Commissioner Williams is what you're saying. Right now, and I think, Don, what we heard was it's polling at about 65%, right, the change. And that's where the high watermark is. And generally speaking, that doesn't bode well for a resolution of this type. But this isn't a normal resolution. This is offering to every taxpayer money back in their pocket. And I think that plays different.

Loss of services.

I 100% understand what you're saying, but what I'm saying is how people vote and what decisions they make, I don't think that that's going to be affected by decisions we make on four grand here. I suspect that if the messaging is pay your fair share or get money back in your accounts, Get money back in your accounts appeals to the individual in a strong way. Regardless of whether it's the right idea, if it's a good idea, I think it has a decent chance of passing. And I don't think we as a commission have control of that. So that means that's a variable we've got to take seriously in terms of the budget we're voting on now. principally when I when we as a city hold the cards, I am a big fan of of challenges of taking challenges and and Having ourselves to be more fiscally conservative and drive ourselves into a position where you know, let's take the challenge Let's see if we can hit the rollback. Let's see if we can hit the That's not the situation we have we have a situation where we're looking at two and then three million dollar worth of cuts We have a city manager and we have a finance director who are already working to figure that out. I don't think the city of Cocoa Beach goes into some apocalyptic hell. We won't. They're going to figure it out. They're excellent at what they do. But I don't think it's an ideal situation. And I think the cuts that they're looking at are real. And they are painful. We will survive as a city. We will thrive as a city. However... the six point six four and adding one from an assurance perspective that we are going to spend less than we bring in and two with the variable of this vote principally i would i would tend toward the six in context of this situation i tend toward the six point one six four four so let me chime in on that uh... josh i think you're absolutely right uh... as much as i

Like I said, I anticipated to try to go to roll back. I was totally with you, Jeremy, on that. We have a different situation going on than what we would normally have. So we have a different obligation to the residents, I think, than what we want to. We have to do what we need to do. We're not going to be able... Once this, if this passes, we're not going to be able to lower the millage rate. That's, I mean, it's going to be stuck. So we need to be responsible on this.

We can go down, we can't go up. You just can't go up.

Well, that's what I mean. We're not, sorry, I said the opposite. We won't be able to go up. We won't be able to recover that. We won't be able to go up if we have to. So in that context and understanding, this would be the max ever. You could not raise it again.

For this budget. For this year. I have a question for you.

Yeah, go.

Well, I shouldn't even ask this question. If we did put in a rollback and we said, oh, we changed our mind, would it be a 5-0 vote or does it have to be a referendum or something like that?

No, you couldn't at this time. For this meeting, it would have to be the maximum. And whatever's set tonight, you can't exceed that amount. Absolutely. If you were to commit to a lower amount, you wouldn't be able to later change that number and go to a higher amount. It's one of the numbers that we have to file by August 3rd to the Department of Revenue through the term process, and that's one of their requirements set forth in the term process, that once we set this rate as the commissioning needs vote, you can't increase beyond that after that time.

And from what I understand, in the future years, we also will not be able to increase. They put something in place so that we couldn't recoup what we think we're going to lose. Is that correct?

If the referendum passes.

If the referendum passes. At least that's what I thought that I heard. Go ahead.

There are rumors out there that the legislature is going to do something like that. That's not set in stone now. Who knows what's going to happen?

It won't be on the ballot. There's a couple other items. There's certain things, and we've talked about it, city manager. that the implementation bill could add additional restrictions to the cities in terms of different assessment studies and things like that. So we do need to be smart. And if that passes and if they put additional constraints, we need to be prudent and think through any of this stuff we would want to do and we need to do now. But then there's also The following year is going to be, I think it's a 20-year cycle, where the Florida legislature puts together a group and reassesses all of the taxes that the state of Florida has and whether they're working as a system and a strategy. I don't know what they're going to do there. I don't know what they're going to look at there. But that's something we can't play our cards now, knowing that there's other challenges we may see coming out of that as well. Don't know what they are. But that just, this one's a variable, that's a variable. We need to at least consider that we don't hold the cards on those. And because of that, it's wise to be prudent.

Considering our political climate, what's possible in the future to be voted on, I can't in good conscience vote for a rollback at this point. Did we do public comment on this yet? We did. If he'll withdraw a second.

I'll withdraw my motion. And I'll change. Did you withdraw it?

Yeah, I withdraw the second for rollback.

And I'll withdraw my main, and I'll change it to the 6.0. Same as I did last year. 6.0. Look for a second.

I suspect it's going to. I'll second to vote it. I would second it.

We just talked about it. It's the same thing.

It's the same. It's $4,000. It's not a difference. Any public comment on this?

The vote goes down to we have a balanced budget in six. If we want to add reserves up to the 6.1644, we've got commitments that all of that excess will go to reserves.

Have you actually looked at the numbers we're talking about? So how much of an increase... In annual taxes, would that be for a resident?

Roll back a couple charts. But I don't budget off of what people can afford. I budget off what we need. So that metric is almost irrelevant.

Well, we need a lot more than $500,000.

Agreed.

So we are paying back. So you agree. All right. So we're talking $16 per year for $100,000 assessed value. That comes out to... Nobody has a $100,000 house.

Yeah, for the $100,000 house. Right.

That's per says value. Well, you're right. They don't have $100,000. We have several of them. So how much is it?

So what's the difference? So you're talking about $150,000 to $250,000 a year? $100,000 to $150,000 a year, I mean, per household probably. No. It's an increase...

You're absolutely wrong.

So the one other data point, I think Josh will get that.

That's how much it is a month. It's $150 a month.

A year increase. I got it. I got it.

It's $50 for a $300,000 home assessed value. It's $50. A year. A year. For $600,000, it'd be $100 a year. All right. I'm willing to pay a couple hundred dollars a year to have good roads in Cocoa Beach. You don't have to have homestead exemption. You can decline that. I guess I could. I guess I could spend my $6,000 annual salary and put that back in the city, which I'm considering doing, which you should, as a non-conservative, maybe should consider doing as well. Because you're the most conservative one here.

Part of my concern is we've raised rates consistently every single year since 27, and we didn't have this issue. So why were we raising rates then if we weren't having the discipline to balance them?

Well, because what we did.

Every single year from 2017 to 24, the rate. Not the housing value, but the rate increased. And we're still in this predicament.

We built a lot of stuff. Police station, fire station, city hall, parking garage. All this stuff needed to be paid for, and this is all stuff that's happened within the last, what, about 10 years? That's why our debt has gone up. That's why our millage rate's gone up, because we have to pay for all these amenities that we had put. But this last time, what we did is we... We had a debacle, and we need to catch up for it. So we can't go to roll back, because we have to pay off what we've screwed up.

Call the vote.

So all right. All in favor of the motion?

6.

All in favor of the 6?

It's a roll call.

Sorry. OK. Roll call for the 6.0.

Commissioner Jackson?

No.

Commissioner Hutchison? No. Commissioner Tumulty?

No.

Vice Mayor Williams?

Yes.

Mayor Capizzi?

No. I want to make a proposal that we go to the proposed millage rate of 6.1644%. I'll second. Motion to second. Any public comment on that?

If you have the opportunity to lower this, why wouldn't you set it at the highest rate in the first meeting? It just doesn't make sense because at least you can go back down after further discussion.

That's what I would do. Thanks, Greg. That is the highest rate. That was what was proposed by the finance director.

That's the highest rate proposed by the finance director. In Jeremy's defense, he is correct. Nobody ever goes lower than what they can take. So I understand your reasoning behind that. All right. Any other commissioners comment? Go ahead, Orson.

Orson Tiber 178 June Drive. I just want to mention you guys have brought up the amendment a couple times. It is polling at 65%. There's some additional articles coming out that the resistance is mounting. There's a well-organized campaign against it now. A combination of city officials, bipartisan in nature. And there's also, I believe there's also a lawsuit currently about the amendment. You probably know about the amendments validity. So I'm only offering that because I know 65% does sound very favorable, but I think you guys are going to see this change pretty quickly. I mean, there's just so much information about the impact coming out and articles being written, and it just seems like the headwinds are really building. So just saying to consider, even in light of the polling being very high, which I'm sure is an accurate number, but I think you're going to see things change pretty quickly.

Thanks. Thank you, Orson. Again, I was right there with you, Jeremy. I hate having to do this, but this is something We have to just put our big boy pants on and do it, in my opinion. Roll call.

Commissioner Jackson?

Aye.

Commissioner Hutcherson? Aye. Commissioner Tumulty?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Williams?

Support.

Mayor Capizzi?

Yes. All right. Motion passes 5-0. All right.

Good discussion.

Thank you, guys.

It is a good discussion, and it's nice to know how you guys are all thinking, so I appreciate your discussion on all that. Number two. Number two.

Okay, item two, confirm times and dates to set the tentative and final millage and adopt the budget for fiscal year 2027. September 3rd, 2026, 6 p.m., first public hearing and vote to approve tentative millage and budget. September 17, 2026, 6 p.m., second public hearing and vote to approve final millage and budget. Both meetings will be held at City Hall, 2 South Orlando Avenue, Cocoa Beach. Staff Representative Hannah Juman, Finance Director Wes Mullen, City Manager, recommendation approved.

I move to approve the dates and times for the final millage. Second. Motion is second.

Any public comment? Any commission comment? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. All right, next.

Next is a special presentation and proclamation. World Drowning Prevention Day, July 25, 2026. Representative Connie Harvey, American Red Cross, and Alex Wallace, Pinch a Penny Pool Company, both members of the Water Smart Task Force commissioned by Governor DeSantis. Added July 14, 2026.

All right. Sorry you had to go through the whole spiel. So I'm going to read this proclamation for you, and then you can come up and grab it. So whereas drowning is one of the top 10 leading causes of unintentional injury-related death globally, claiming an estimated 236,000 lives each year, with children and adolescents disproportionately affected. And whereas in April 2021, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution declaring July 25th of each year as World Drowning Prevention Day to raise awareness and bring an end to these entirely preventable tragedies, And whereas everyone has a role to play in keeping our communities safe around water through proven, low-cost intervention, and whereas local solutions such as installing barriers to control access to water, providing safe places for children away from water, teaching basic swimming and water safety skills, and training bystanders, and safe rescue and resuscitation can save countless lives. And whereas on this day, we unite to honor the memories of those lost to drowning and encourage all citizens, governments, and organizations to turn awareness into action by practicing active supervision wearing life jackets and learning CPR. Now, therefore, I, Keith Capizzi, mayor of Cocoa Beach, do hereby proclaim July 25th, 2026 as World Drowning Prevention Day in the city of Cocoa Beach and encourage all residents to educate themselves on water safety to prevent future tragedies. Thank you, sir.

Okay, next is the Consent Agenda. Item 1, approve the June 16th City Commission Budget Workshop in June 18th Commission Meeting Minute. Staff Representative, City Clerk Department. Item 2, approve the Fourth Amendment to the City of Cocoa Beach's contract with the United States Tennis Association Florida, USTA. This amendment will defer the City of Cocoa Beach's obligation to replace the north side fence until fiscal year 2027 through 2028 staff representative andy sagara leisure services director recommendation approve item three adopt the updated emergency pay policy for city employees during declared states of emergency this is an existing policy that requires an annual review and update according to federal state and local emergency management guidance staff representative justin grimes fire chief recommendation adopt item four ratify the following wage re-opener for the period of October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027 between the City of Cocoa Beach and the Florida State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police, Inc., FOP. Staff Representative Cindy DiPina, Human Resources Director, recommendation approved. Item 5, ratify the following wage re-opener for the period of October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027 between the City of Cocoa Beach and Laborers International Union of North America. L-I-U-N-A, Local 630, Staff Representative Cindy DiPina, Human Resources Director. Recommendation approved.

I'm going to approve the consent agenda as read. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Unfinished business.

Okay, this is item one. Adopt ordinance 1716 on second 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 adopt on second reading.

Approve K-1 as read.

Second.

Motion and second. Any public comment?

All right. We already went through what this was on the first reading, so I'm not going to have anybody come up and explain it. Roll call.

Commissioner Jackson.

Aye.

Commissioner Hutcherson. Aye. Commissioner Tumulty.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Williams.

Aye.

Mayor Capizzi.

Aye.

Okay, item two, adopt ordinance 1722 on second reading, an ordinance of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, amending the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 9, Fire Prevention, Section 9-6, Penalties, to add a reference to Notice of Violation, NOV, as a method of enforcement, and to 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 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, conflict, severability, and for an effective date. Staff Representative Justin Grimes, Fire Chief, recommendation to adopt on second reading.

I would approve K-2 as read.

Second. Motion is second. Any public comment? All right. Again, this is something that we'd already gone over, so I'm not going to have it re-explained. Roll call.

Commissioner Jackson. Aye. Commissioner Hutcherson. Aye. Commissioner Tumulty. Aye. Vice Mayor Williams.

Aye.

Mayor Capizzi.

Aye. Motion passes 5-0. New business.

Okay, item one, approve the review committee's recommendation and authorized staff to negotiate a contract with Waste Management under RFPCB 26-008, residential and commercial solid waste services. Direct staff to proceed with either option one, separate residential and four-cost municipal, or option two, all-inclusive residential and no-cost municipal cost structure. Staff Representative Taylor Mottola, project manager, recommendation approved.

Move to approve L1 option one as read. And option one is segregating city costs to the general fund instead of residential bills.

Move to approve option two. Looking for a second.

Do we have two motions?

The first one didn't seem to get a second.

They didn't have a lot of time. Okay.

I'll second option one. I'm interested in the discussion. Which one? Option one.

I would like to hear the discussion. We've got a second for option one. Move to discuss on the option one. Any public comment on that? Go ahead, Orson.

Just real quick, you guys want Taylor to talk through the process and why this came to an option one or two?

Would you like her to speak before you speak? Yeah, I think it's important for you guys to hear.

Because I think, aside from Commissioner Hutcherson, who served on the committee with me, I'm not sure how much the rest of you guys are up to speed. So I'm happy to wait.

Why don't you have a seat, and then we'll hear her, and then you come back up. Thank you.

Good evening. So tonight the staff is requesting approval of the review committee's recommendation to authorize negotiations with waste management for residential and commercial solid waste services, as well as direction on the preferred pricing structure, option one or option two. The two Cocoa Beach residents on the review committee prefer option one. The three city staff members on the review committee prefer option two. Representatives from waste management are also here this evening to answer any questions about their operations or their proposals, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have otherwise.

So option one and option two, you've gone through that as well. What are your thoughts on that?

Staff approved option two, three votes, and then option one got two votes from the committee.

Right, okay, so all staff was in unison that wanted the option two.

Yes.

OK. Could you talk through a little bit about why?

Absolutely. So the services on both options are identical. Option one, single family and multi-family residents using carts save $22.44, so $22.44 a year. And the city will pay approximately $63,000 for their services per year. Option two, single family and multifamily residents using carts save $2.28 a year, and the city pays $0 for their normal collection. There is no cost difference between the options for any other type of customer. Multifamily residents using mechanical roll-offs will save $7.56 a year, and commercial customers have a slight increase in their costs.

Is there any benefit as far as budgeting to separating the city's portion compared to all in one?

If we do separate the services, then the city will lose about $63,000 of revenue each year.

But what I was asking is you couldn't put it into another fund to pay for it. It all comes out in the wash anyways. But you couldn't get, like, a grant for, let's just say, beach garbage pickup, stuff like that?

No. Okay. I mean, so the logic, Orson brought this up and thought it was a great idea. The logic is it's moving. Portion of the services on to a greater cost basis folks that pay you, you know folks in town They spend money user fees. It's not just on the residents. So it's splitting out the city's cost. Yes, we'll pay it Through our general fund payments, but non homestead exemptions right now Homestead properties pay more per house into that general than residents do so it's taking a burden off the residents and putting it on the general fund and It's the alternate revenue source that we always want to look for.

Is there a downside?

Accounting is a little more complicated. So the $63,000 comes out of the budget rather than a dollar per resident a month, right?

Right.

Okay, and obviously is it a much bigger headache to separate all that stuff for accounting purposes?

I would have to defer to finance for that.

Not to my college. It would be the $63,000 revenue loss that would be adjusted on the revenue side of the budget.

Okay. But Hannah, that is in the budget from workshop one, correct? No.

So then also if this tax thing comes into play in November then we take that into account that that's just one more thing that we have to pay for with the loss of revenue rather than a user base fee. So in light of that, I think I'm going to go with the user-based fee compared to push on to the general fund. It's just because of the uncertainty. Not to say that I wouldn't be amicable to it in the future years, but this year with the uncertainty, I think it makes more sense to keep it user-based.

I have a question. Jeremy, you were at this meeting. So you said that you want to put the onus on the fund non-residents to pay this. How would you do that?

The fund, that portion is paid out of the general fund, which they- Which is funded by who? Residents and non-residents, right? So user fees, non-homestead exemptions.

We would have to raise some sort of revenue to generate that $63,000 to- Cover you out. We'd have to do something right you would be paying instead of in your water bill again It's it's a it's an option to alternative revenue sources If we if we want I'm asking I say see if you you came up this Houston horse and came up this our horse and came out the idea to split it out, but the $63,000 is Comes out of the general fund, right? That has a large which which Right.

I like the idea in theory.

But it's not accounted for anywhere.

That was my misunderstanding. I thought we had a provision in there from the first budget workshop. So that was not my understanding.

Thank you. I think that's all for you. Thank you. Orson, would you like to come up and talk?

Good evening. We're in Tarver 178 June Drive. So I participated in this committee. So thank you, Wes. And I'm sure someone else pointed me on to this, but thank you for having me on there. First off, you know, Taylor and Brad did an amazing job and Wes supporting them. This is a big, this is a big deal. Like, you know, having these two options, historically the residents have always carried the burden of the city costs in the fees of their on their water bill essentially so i think what's important to know is the option one for cost municipal are all these items on here these are all stub end streets uh you know various things from pool recreational water department You know, all the city trash services. But I think the vast majority, if you look, a lot of them are the stub end streets. And other things related to, I think what's fair to say is a lot of visitors come to Cocoa Beach. I understand the city's argument with option two. If we were a town with very little tourism, it makes sense. You know, residents are using the city services at Stubb End Streets, for example. Yeah, it kind of makes sense. Put it on the residents. But I think it's important to understand that we're a tourism town. We had, let's see, overnight visitors. I did a little research. 2.4 to 2.5 million overnight visitors. Number of day trippers is unknown. I wasn't able to figure that out. So when you look at the parking revenue alone, the CRA had 648,000 in 2024. The total for the parking meter fund in 2024 was $3.3 something million. So we have a lot of revenue coming in from not only parking revenue, but we also have recreational fees. We have sewer and stormwater fees, pool, tennis, golf fees. These trash cans you see in trash services map almost perfectly to these additional revenue sources we have from the fees that people pay on the seven streets. And we all pay in our parking stickers. Residents pay for their parking stickers. That is money going into the parking fees. It's not just people feeding meters. So, you know, you can look at it as, now you kind of look at it as full-time residents. You know, we have about 11,300. Now I know Tim will point out, not all of them are residential trash users, but you know, I can't really break that out. But I think it's important to think that we have, out of the residents, we have about 3,700 that would be classified as full-time retirees in Cocoa Beach. I think it's something to consider is that our retirees have shouldered an amazing financial burden with inflation, fixed incomes, just it's tough. So when you look at the difference between option one and option two, it's about $1.68 a month, yearly $20.16. So I agree, probably you guys, me, 20 bucks, that's probably what it costs for me to take my boat to Mayor Capizzi's house. No big deal. But you know, if you're retired, can I get bonus time? But if you're a retiree, I mean, 20 bucks, you know, I just did using Google, that's potentially two to three refills on their copay, 11 loaves of bread, nine dozen eggs, 4.8 gallons of milk, chicken, 4.8 pounds, Three pounds of ground beef. Regular gas, about five gallons. So 20 bucks can cover any of those fees. And finally, you know, if you go to Jonathan's on happy hour, it's about five beers. Again, I understand we're not talking about... Well, you're right. Tip. So four beers is the tip. So, I mean, I know I'm being a little bit funny here, and I know that $20 to us is not a big deal, but I think any of you all could feel a little, would be, have some pride and be happy to look any retiree in their eyes and just say, hey, by breaking out the services, using fees from all the sources that we have coming from all these other things that tourists and also residents enjoy, I mean, $20 in their pocket could mean something to some of these folks who are financially constrained and who are struggling.

This is really helpful. Let me make sure I'm understanding what you're showing us. And I think I was misunderstanding earlier. So when we were talking about the shift in funding, I thought basically what we were saying is, hey, let's get the tourists to pay for my home's roll-off bin. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool, but I'm not sure that's the right move. This year, especially. What you're telling me, if I'm understanding this correctly, is that our residents are paying for the solid waste removal of our tourists. That's wrong.

Waste has historically been done, and I don't know the history behind this. Historically, our residential fees that you pay on your water today cover all these stubborn streets.

These are not residential costs.

No, not at all.

This should not be covered by our residents. That shouldn't be paid.

That shouldn't come out of my roll-off then.

It's not. It's what Commissioner Hutcherson was saying. I'll just close off real quick.

So I really would appreciate if you guys voted for option one, having the separate residential city services. And again, I think, let me just say, I have a mother who's on a fixed income, not in the city of Cocoa Beach. But look, I'm serious, guys. Like, you know, $20 means something to people, you know. And I think you have an opportunity to do the right thing. And I can imagine if any of you guys run into a retiree in Publix or something, hey, maybe someone will be like, hey, man, thanks. I actually watched that city meeting. I don't know what one really does, but what the heck. So anyways, I hope you guys will vote for it. If not, but thank you for having me on the committee. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you, Orson. And also management folks who do a good job on the potatoes and waste pro as well.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Go ahead. You can finish here.

Thank you. This is exactly the kind of stuff we've been talking about. And I think every time we have the opportunity as a commission to stop students from having to pay for the tourist, we have an obligation to do that. This, from what I'm hearing from finance and from the team, is that this won't drive costs into the city from the switch, the change, right? But this allows, by switching to this option one, allows us to have tourists and the tourist base driving the cost of, at least part of the cost, of what they're causing in terms of city service. That is 100% the right direction.

How does those tourists and all of them actually put money into the city budget? They don't. They do.

Oh my gosh, they do. If you move the $63,000 into the general fund, yeah, they pay in significantly to the general fund. I've done the math. Hannah can talk to you about it. They pay in a significant portion of that general fund.

Here's the thing in this real quick. In this political climate, I just think it's not the time to do this, although I agree with you. I would do this in the future, but I just don't feel like at this point putting more money into what we have to pay for the city budget is helpful at this point. I think if we get caught up on where we need to be, then let's vote on this next year.

That's why I voted for this 6.1499. It puts us into a solvent position. Now, I know that's the limit. I know that's not what we voted on. That's not what we're putting in place. But principally speaking... discipline speaking Municipality speaking residents should not be paying for the tourists to be here. I agree.

I agree with you on that Like in theory, I agree. I just I just don't think this is the time to do it.

I agree 100% that the tourists should pay for All the expenditures that we have to pay now for them We have A police department for the size of a city that has 50,000 people. A fire department, similar.

Yet we're not getting compensated for that. Wastewater, stormwater, roadways?

Well, that's its own enterprise fund, and that gets taken care of. It's demand, but it gets taken care of. That has nothing to do with really our budget. Right, right. So, and I've said this for 15, 20 years that we need to have some sort of way to get compensated for these tourists. Well, adding it to the general fund isn't doing it. That's just a shell game of money. although now it's coming out of our budget with no additional revenue. So if we were getting, say, a million dollars, we'll just throw a simple number, $1 million a year from tourists, well, now we need $1,063,000 because we just added $63,000 to that budget, and we're not getting that extra $63,000 from anywhere. We're not increasing anything.

What is the increase from parking revenue this year? It is what it is. What is the increase from parking revenue this year? My point is we are increasing, we're pursuing that, and we can pursue increases in revenue, and we can pursue ensuring that the revenue is coming from the right places. I think both are important. And I don't disagree with you. Everything you've said is great.

I agree with, I'm saying that we need to adjust those revenue source increments. Yeah. Whoa. Okay, go ahead, Skip.

So from now on, any residents, you know, because now if we pass option one that the tourists were, you know, paying for, but all the trash cans at the end of the seven streets and not all these different places that you visit. So from now on, make sure when you go to the beach, bring a trash bag, pack it into the beach, you know, with all your stuff, fill it up with trash, bring it home and put it in your waste management container. Don't put it in the one at the stub end street. That's for the tourists. Okay. Otherwise, we're charging them for your trash. And I'm sure nobody goes to the beach and leaves trash in the trash cans or the dumpsters that are at the beach that live in the city of Cocoa Beach.

You make a good point, too, Skip. Okay, so any more commission comment on this? This is the vote to separate option one. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Nay. Motion does not pass.

Option two, motion I just make. Second.

Motion and second. Any public comment on this? All right. We already voted on the one that you wanted, though.

One more thing. not going back to option one we might it's fine just letting you guys know so fy 2024 recurring revenue was 79 million 697.7 thousand dollars 958 63 000 basically what you guys said is like that 63 000 is 0.079 percent of the budget just so you guys know i mean 20 bucks is not a lot of money, 63,000. I know there's no going back now, but I can assure you that folks in the grocery store will remember if they find out about this that you couldn't cut them just a little bit of slack. But as long as they pack their trash.

Thank you, Orson. We had someone else that wanted to get up and talk. Was that you? Yeah, whoever wants to speak there. Just state your name, address.

Excuse me, good evening. I'm Dean Ulrich. I'm the division manager for Waste Pro here in Brevard, Canada, Cocoa Beach resident. So first off, I want to thank everybody for the opportunity to let us give our proposal. We're disappointed we were not selected. We did not receive the highest score. However, just a couple things I do want to point out. We did receive a slightly higher score on the technical approach, which is how we propose to service the city and all the residents of businesses. So the committee did give us a slightly higher score on that. Also, after all the scores were tabulated and our counterparts were selected, by the committee, that's when the detailed price sheets were distributed. And so we have gone through and analyzed that. And even though we were not scored higher on the rate score, we believe that our rates were indeed lower than what was, and therefore we feel we should have received a higher score on that. I know it was brought up that, I thought I heard that waste management's proposal would be $30 under, this is under option two, $30.51 per home, and ours is coming in at $29.65 per home. And so in addition to that, we feel that the overall cost of the city, because there are some items where we're lower, there are some items where we're not lower. We recognize that, but when you factor in everything, of all the price sheets that were put together. And we believe that under either proposal, option one or option two, that our rates, our overall rates to the city are lower. And so I just encourage you to, I guess before you make a vote, maybe you have a discussion on that or possibly even table it and have additional details, additional discussions that way. So that was my, encouragement to you and Last thing I just want to welcome the opportunity if we want to discuss this in further detail Be glad to and thank you again, and thank you for the opportunity for us to give our proposal.

Thank you for your comment All right Any other public comment? Okay

Good evening. Platt Loftus, Wichita, Florida as well. Thank you for these few moments here to speak before you. I'd like to kind of throw another idea or concept at you, if I may. One of the things, our main goal is to provide a rate that is lower than your current residential rate, which we finally did. When we ran our pro forma, we were like, we don't know if we can do this or not, but our residential rate was lower. And also, we wanted to supply or propose a different service option. Your current service option and your proposed service option with our competitor is ASL, which is an automated sidearm loader. and it's also in conjunction with rear loaders. What we did is we proposed a completely different option, which is a very high level of service, which is a total complete rear load residential option. And what that means is two men, two men on a truck, will be collecting your solid waste, your residential solid waste, recycling and yard waste with each pass. With an ASL, that doesn't happen. That truck can only collect what's in that can. With a rear loader, You can collect what's in the cart or can, as well as what's on the side. And also that man or woman on the back of a truck with a rear loader can collect additional yard waste material. That's one thing that we've noticed here in Cocoa Beach throughout the years. And no knock on the city or staff, but we have seen an accumulation or an abundance of bulk items and yard waste. And we feel like this option would be the best option to collect this material weekly. Also, we propose running a claw truck once a week, every week throughout the city versus having it on call or having it service the city every other week, which is also a better level of service. So at any rate, that was kind of our goal was to produce or propose rather a lower residential rate and a higher level of service. And on that note, that's what we've done in your sister cities here in Brevard County. There are six other cities and towns here that decided to go with us, with WastePro, and we have provided this rear load service much to their happiness. They feel that this level of service is much more affordable and adequate for their residents. So that's really all I have to say. It's kind of a third way. It's a different way. I haven't heard much discussion about it. I believe the evaluation committee did consider it. But at any rate, we just kind of like to highlight our rear load proposal. That's all I have. Thank you, Platt. Thank you.

It wasn't quite on topic, but I appreciate your input and insight. Go ahead, Skip.

Yeah, I'll just say that, you know, we didn't advertise that we were going to receive sales pitches from WastePro and give waste management the same opportunity to re-pitch to us at this point. The realization and the reason you have an RFP is for you all to put all these thoughts that you just came up here and spoke on paper for the review committee to look at and to interview you guys, which they did, I understand, and they did them with your competitor. That was the time for these kind of comments, not to come up here in front of the public and tell us that you're better than waste management after the fact And I think it should feel a little embarrassing to you. Are you done?

Yep. Honestly, I don't mind your comments. I thought they were informative, but they were in the wrong section. They should have been under public comment items that are not on the agenda. But again, thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Commission comment. So we're... On option two.

Option two. So we're on option two now? We're on option two. I would encourage a mayor to reconsider and not allocate costs onto residents that should not be paid by residents.

I would reconsider next year.

They're still paying it.

They're paying a portion of it. This reduces the portion.

Okay. All in favor? Of option two? Of option two. Aye. All opposed? Nay. Motion passes three to two. All right.

Okay. Item two, approve the review committee's recommendation to negotiate contracts with six out of the ten companies who submitted qualifications for CB26-001 to provide sanitary sewer, manhole, mainline, and lateral... rehabilitation services as part of the city's inflow and infiltration abatement program, SRF Loan, WW050640. The aforementioned six companies include Insituform Technologies LLC, Gulf Coast Underground LLC, Inliner Solutions LLC, SAC Construction LLC, BLD Services LLC, and Roland DE LLC. Costs will only be incurred for services rendered. Staff Representative Brad Calzo, Water Reclamation Director. Recommendation approved.

Move to approve as read. Second.

Motion and second. Any public comment? Any commission comment? All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, Item 3, Adopt Resolution 2026-12, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, relating to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, DEP, Clean Water State Revolving Funds, CWSRF, adoption of the City of Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Facility Plan Update, effective this 16th day of July, 2026. These projects are a fiscal year 2027 budget request. Staff Representative Brad Calza, Water Reclamation Director.

recommendation adopt Resolution 2026 12 second motion a second any public comment Would you like to speak bread yes good evening mayor commissioners one of the recommendations or Requirements for through the state revolving fund program is that we do have to present some of the highlights of the facility plan and the projects so this facility plan was presented to you guys and I want to say back late last calendar year, but we only talked about the I&I abatement program project portion of that facility plan. So now we just want to address some of the projects that we want to get additional funding for. And we've been working with Mead & Hunt, our consultants, and Mr. Brad Blaze is here to highlight some of those projects that we're going to go after for funding.

Thank you, Brad. As he stated, this facility plan was presented and it was adopted successfully. This is an update to that plan. And the I&I portions are the portions that you just approved the selection of contractors for, which is the SAFI supplemental appropriation portion, which was a loan that will be entirely principal forgiven on the entire amount of the loan. That was the previous item that you had. This, basically, in the record, we have to read in the other parts of the facility plan that can be funded by the low-interest loan through the state. So the additional projects that are described in the plan and that are intended to be funded at some point, depending on the request for inclusion that is applied for on that particular time, is WRF upgrades, clarifier rehabilitation, grit removal system evaluation and replacement, generator replacements, injection well inspection and replacement, raised ground storage, raised transfer pumps, drum screen replacements, WR valve replacements, disc filter replacements. The other items, the inflow is already addressed previously in the record. The additional collection system improvements that can be funded by the SRF loan, lift station upgrades, A1A sewer crossover, Port Canaveral sewage force main, Patrick Air Force Base sewage force main, reclaimed transmission, automated manual valve replacements, reclaimed water distribution system evaluation. The total of the projects that are included at this time that will be considered in this next hearing date are the Clarify Rehabilitation, List Stations No. 8, 14, and 16 Rehabilitation, Port Canaveral-Forest Main, Air Release Valve Replacements, and Stormwater Pipelining. The total of those projects is $14.975 million, which would be pursued for the State Revolving Fund loan, which would be subject to a repayment at about a 1% interest rate. So that is for the record. Any questions?

Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

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

Okay. Item 4, approve the review committee's recommendation and authorize staff to negotiate a contract with Tetra Tech. who will be primary, and Debritech, who will be a contracted backup under RFP CB26-010. Disaster Debris Monitoring Services. Costs will only be incurred for services rendered. Staff Representative Taylor Mottolo, Project Manager. Recommendation approved.

Moved to approve as read.

Motion to second. Any public comment? Can we get somebody to explain a little bit of this to... Can we get somebody else to explain? Thank you.

I talked about it earlier.

I know, I just wanted more from staff.

So it is standard practice for municipalities to have both a monitoring and a recovery and removal contractor for FEMA reimbursement purposes. So the monitor will Like Skip said earlier, follow the recovery around and ensure that they are in compliance with FEMA reimbursement requirements. They submit all the paperwork and ensure that there's no conflict of interest.

Okay, thank you. I just wanted it for the public to hear. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, item five, approve the review committee's recommendation and authorize staff to negotiate a contract with five of the ten proposers under RFPCB 26-011, disaster debris removal and recovery, DRC, SDR, TRF, Crowder Golf, and Garner. Costs will only be incurred for services rendered. Staff Representative Taylor Mottolo, project manager, recommendation approved.

Move to approve and read.

Second. Second. Any public comment?

Let me explain this one.

I think they pretty much just did a reading. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, item six, authorize staff to negotiate and award a contract with Textron EasyGo LLC for golf cart replacement CB26-014 and execute a four-year lease agreement with PNC Equipment Finance for an amount not to exceed $602,064, including a trade-in value of the existing fleet. Staff Representative Andy Segarra, Leisure Services Director, recommendation approved.

I move to authorize Pat to negotiate this award contract. Second.

Motion to second. Any public comment? All right. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. All right. We are adjourned.