City Commission - Regular Meeting

Resolution 2026-01 of the Downtown Cocoa Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, Cocoa Beach, Florida, adopting a budget for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027. Staff Representative Devin Talley, Deputy Finance Director C.R.A. Hannah Juman, Finance Director Wes Mullen, City Manager, recommendation adopt.

Move to adopt. Second.

Motion to second. Any public comment? Any commission comment? All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0. All right.

Any other comments about CRA items?

All right. We are adjourned until 6 o'clock for our regular commission meeting. Let's call this meeting to order now that we've got the fantabulous four and so on on the phone. Josh, would you mind doing the pledge for us?

Please rise and face the flag.

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.

Mark Watka is going to be doing the invocation.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We want to dedicate it to this community being a place of health and stability. And Heavenly Father, we just want to ask that you would bless this community and that you would just make every aspect of this community to be one of people having a sense of community. Pray, Father, for the schools that you would bless them and help them, Lord, just to be places of safety and learning. Pray, Father, for the medical in this community, Lord, that you would help it to be of excellence. We pray, Father, for our first responders that you would give them wisdom and safety and help them to do their jobs well. Pray, Father, for the religious community here that they would be a link to the sacred. We pray father for our government here that you would give them wisdom and help them father to be able to have the ability to provide oversight for safety and and protection and for economic growth and pray for favor for the businesses here that you would help them to make good decisions and that they would be able to thrive and be healthy. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this time. And I pray that you would just make it a time of finding unity and the ability to move forward and to make wise decisions. And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. Roll call.

Commissioner Jackson.

Here.

Commissioner Hutchison.

Here.

Commissioner Tumulty.

Here.

Vice Mayor Williams. Here. Mayor Capizzi.

Here. City, let's see. Anybody wanna make an approval for the agenda? Or request?

Make an approval to approve the agenda as written.

Second. The motion is second. All in favor? Aye. All right, motion passes 5-0. Let's do our budget hearing.

Okay, item one is approve the final millage rate of 5.9988 mils for fiscal year 2027. The taxing authority is the city of Florida Beach. The rollback rate is 5.9988 mils. The final millage rate is 5.9988 mils, which represents 0.009% increase of the rollback rate. is scheduled for September 17, 2026. Staff Representative Hannah Juman, Finance Director Wes Mullen, City Manager, recommendation approved.

Move to approve as read. Second.

Motion and a second. Any public comment? Go ahead, Janice.

Janice Scott, Cocoa Beach. Hello, everybody. This is a historic moment. We have not rolled back the millage in so long we mostly forgot what it meant. I think it's a great move because I added up this millage with what I expect everyone else in the county to all the other taxing authorities, and it comes up to over 15 mills. Thank you.

Thank you, Janice. Any other public comment? All right. Any commission comment?

i want to stall for time for debbie mayfield oh there she is okay oh no comments okay oh go ahead tim yeah um you know if if we were to continue to to roll back um i just just feel that it's just not in the best interest of our community of our residents everybody's feeling inflation our residents feel inflation our city feels inflation the employees of the city feel inflation Everything's going up yet. We're gonna continue to or this year we do a rollback which is unprecedented I know that the the former mayor would have liked to done rollback for the last 25 years Which would put us, you know generating somewhere around four or five million dollars instead of you know 13 so I Just think it's not in the best interest of the city uh we've got a lot of things coming coming down the pike with uh some legislation that the state is is putting up and um that could be hurting us next year so i'm not i'm not for the rollback as you know and that's really all i have to say you know where i stand on this thank you any other commission comment

All right. Let's do roll call.

Commissioner Jackson.

Aye.

Commissioner Hutcherson.

Aye.

Commissioner Tumulty.

Nay.

Vice Mayor Williams. Aye. Mayor Capizzi.

Aye. All right. Number two.

Okay, item to adopt resolution number 2026-07, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Cocoa Beach Brevard County, Florida, adopting the final budget for the fiscal year 2027 of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, providing for an effective date. Resolution number 2026-07 adopts the budget for fiscal year 2027. Staff Representative Hannah Juman, Finance Director Wes Mullins, City Manager, recommendation adopt.

Move to adopt as read. Second.

All right, I've got a motion and a second. Any public comment? Any commission comment?

Yeah, hey, this is... Go ahead.

We'll let Jeremy go first. Go ahead, Jeremy.

Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know how well that is going to come through, but Karen, if you could put up that chart, I just wanted to give some highlights of the metrics in this last budget and how it demonstrates an actual low risk position from last year. I don't know if the graphic came through. If not, I can verbally describe it. Basically, we have $4.5 million more in reserves than we did last year. We've got $3 million lower debt. We've included a cold adjustment for the employees. We have $2.5 million in provisions to mitigate Amendment 3, if that does pass, which is the homestead exemption. And then we've got $2 million in provision to pave roads. So if you look at it at the holistic level, this is a significantly lower risk plan to operate the city than what was approved last year, so I support it.

Thank you, Jeremy. Any other commission comment?

I just continue to believe it's fiscally irresponsible for us to do a rollback.

OK. I share Jeremy's sentiments. Again, we've paid down the debt from $44 million down to maybe $28 million this year, so in four years. We are at $13 million in our reserves, which we're only required to have nine, so we're doing well there. And I believe that we're doing good for the residents by not taking more than we need this year for our budget. So I appreciate you guys doing all that hard work and making it happen.

I really have to interject. Yeah. I don't know how we've gone from $48 million in debt to $30 million in debt. $44. $34? $44.

From $44 to $30 million in debt?

$28. $28? Yeah. Oh. So $16 million of debt we paid off somehow? which is amazing to me how you could possibly do that. Where did we find the funds to come up with $16 million to pay off our debt? It's a number that is just imaginary.

It's in our books.

All right. It's an imaginary accounting number then. Because there's no way we came up with $16 million to pay off $16 million in debt in two years. It's just not a real thing. I just believe this is fiscally irresponsible. It'll actually be five years. And if we were to, you know, we see it happening just north of us, a situation, and we are potentially putting ourselves in the same situation. So this is what you have all decided to do. I see where the vote's going to be. It's going to be 4-1, and there's nothing I can do about it except voice my opinion and give you, you know, basically some common sense.

So there you have it. Yeah, I'll just say as far as the numbers go, we have a professional audit every year. We have always passed our audits with what they call no opinion, which means that we did good. And we'll be audited again next year. And we'll let Commissioner Tumulty will still be here when that audit comes through. So we'll see how that plays out. All right. Thank you for your comments. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Let's see. We've got a first and a second. So all in favor?

We're going to do a roll call.

Oh, this one's a roll call. Okay. Yes.

All right. Commissioner Jackson?

Aye.

Commissioner Hutcherson?

Aye.

Commissioner Tumulty?

Nay.

Vice Mayor Williams? Aye. Mayor Capizzi?

Aye. Motion passes 4-1. All right, next one.

Okay, item three, adopt resolution number 2026-08, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, adopting a five-year capital improvements program to include fiscal year 2027 capital improvements budget and adopting a proposed capital improvements program for the next four fiscal years, 2028 through 2031, which may be revised and extended each year with regard to capital improvements.

Staff representative Hannah Juman finance director West Mullen city manager recommendation adopt Motion in a second any public comment and a commission comment all in favor Well, you don't have them on here I'll get it Thanks Commissioner Jackson.

All right, Commissioner Hutcherson. Oh Commissioner Tumulty? Aye. Vice Mayor Williams? Aye. Mayor Capizzi?

Aye.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so now we're up to our special presentation. We've got Senator Debbie Mayfield here. She's here to present a check.

Let me have a minute of privilege, please.

Sure.

Thank you very much. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jason Steele, and I'm your lobbyist. And when I first got on board here, the first thing that came out of the mouths of the city managers, we want a fire station. Every time I talk to anybody in Tallahassee about Cocoa Beach getting a fire station, they'd say, you're out of your mind. We went on, and we went on, and we went on. And I wanted to introduce Debbie myself, because I want to tell you, without Senator Debbie Mayfield, we would not have a fire station. The amount of work that she put into this came really right at the last minute. Where these monies come from, where the silos come from, is a very complicated procedure in Tallahassee. But I can tell you that this happened at the very last. And one of the ways it happens is because the senator went to the president of the Senate and said, this is the number one thing I want you to put on my list for the agenda. And guess what that was? It's a Cocoa Beach fire station. Without Debbie Mayfield, we would be right back out trying to fix, trying to gather some money for anything else. So I just wanted to know how much I appreciate her and how much you all should appreciate her. And she's offered to help us in the future here in the next couple of years. And I also wanted to recognize Christian Chestnut, her senior aide, who's handled all of the budget requests. And I drove him completely nuts. And he'll tell you that's true. So anyway, I just wanted to say Debbie Mayfield rocks. I do want to give a little bit of credit to Tyler Soroy for the majority house on the House side. But with that, I'd like to present Senator Debbie Mayfield. Senator?

Oh, Jason.

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight to do this. you know jason's jason's too kind um i will tell you you probably have one of the best lobbyists up there and he really worked hard for you uh nothing happens with an eye it all happens with a t which is a team and jason probably is one of the best lobbyists i can have on my team to make sure that our people in bavard county are taken care of of the ones that he represents so um jason i want to thank you for your support and for all your hard work too Because it does take more than one person to get work done up in Tallahassee, as you guys know. But it is my honor to be able to present you guys with a check tonight for your fire station. And it's greatly needed. When Jason shared with me what the need was, and that's what we look at. We look at, well, what is the need of the community? And then can they do it without our help? Or can they do it with our help, with matching dollars coming in? How can we make this happen? Obviously, you guys were very, very gracious in your matching, which made it somewhat easier for us to get the money put in there. You are very physical. You watch your money. You watch the budget. So I want to thank you guys. It kind of helps my job be a little bit easier whenever you're doing stuff like that, too. So thank you very much. And with that, I want to present you guys the check. And I guess I'm going to do it with Keith and Wes and the fire chief. Senator.

Where are we going? Are you coming?

I have a picture.

Oh, you've got to take the picture.

Thank you.

I know this is hard to deposit, but everyone knows how to apply to the committee, I'm sure.

Thank you.

thank you senator yeah i think you're gonna have to actually go in the bank with that you can't go through the drive-thru right all right here's here's where the uh that's twice in one week i saw you yeah i know here's where the real fun begins public comment doesn't want to stay for public comment.

We're not letting you speak tonight, Janice.

I want to announce that on Saturday, October 3rd at 10 o'clock at the Cocoa Beach Library, there is a citizens political forum open to the public for all the candidates, all six of them. I don't know if you want to see this somehow or other. It's a draft because the email addresses are not correct on here. I picked up the wrong paper. But in any event, I hope you all will come. Nothing about the sunshine going on there. It's going to be fun. And it's always been a very successful event. Number two, I understand that the schools need more money. I've mentioned before how many line items they have. So with the sales tax and so on and so forth, I just wanted to comment that I was reading about the current standing of states as far as the schools are concerned. And Mississippi has pulled into number four from 30th. They're ahead of Massachusetts. Their kids are doing really well in fourth grade and reading and math. And they spend about $12,000 a year per student versus Massachusetts probably pays double that. I don't know what Florida pays, but I'm sure someone would be able to tell you that. Thank you.

Thank you, Janice. What do we got next? Is it Rick? Or Rick Anderson, come on up.

And then we'll get you next, Art. Rick Anderson, 1800 Minutemen Causeway. I'm sure everybody in here up there knows all of the provisions that are in the property tax proposal, amendment proposal. But I was just reading up on it yesterday in depth, and one of the things that really disturbed me is apparently things like libraries, parks, and recreation are going to become fee-based if that amendment passes. Now, correct me if I'm wrong on that. It would appear that that amendment would prevent the city of Cocoa Beach from spending ad valorem taxes on these items, even if we have the money to do so. Am I wrong on that?

I can give a general answer to that. It's kind of at our discretion at that point. Should it pass, it would be a city discretion where that money would come from. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Rick. Art, come on down.

Art Hitch, Esther Drive. My wife and I picked Esther Drive for a lot of different reasons. Number one, it was a nice, peaceful, quiet neighborhood until, and it really still is, but Airbnbs are ruining our neighborhood. Number two, we're beach people. We love going to the beach and to walk across the street to Laurie Wilson Park with a guarded beach is just an extra bonus for us. Keith knows we are avid boaters and we picked that canal because it has deep water, it's a wider dock that we have because at one point we had four boats and it was easy access out the 200 channel to the ICW if we were heading north or south on our 42 footer. The bonus we didn't know until we bought the house. We are one of the maybe three canals in Cocoa Beach where we own to the center of our canal on our side only. The other big plus for us was there's a small boat ramp at the end of our street. which is in my deed as a community boat dock or not boat dock excuse me boat ramp we have a small 19 foot carolina skiff that i've been able to put in that boat ramp for 18 years and granted we had a lot of problems with the old boat ramp because it wasn't level and there was a slight drop off One of the previous city managers brought in a load of crush and run or something like that to level the ramp for us temporarily until it was redone. We were really excited when it was being redone. They did a fantastic job. Other than the fact, my wife and I got back about a month ago from visiting our grandchildren up north. I went to put our Carolina skiff in, back down the ramp as far as I could, The stern was in the water an inch and a half. Granted, the canal was very low at the time. I even got up in the boat, tried to power it off. I couldn't budge it. I took it around the Centennial. Great ramp there. I got back. I took my skiff up with my dipstick and measured the water at the ramp at the time. It was about a foot at the bottom. Then I measured the drop-off. The drop off at the end of the ramp is 8 to 12 inches. Somebody needs to do something about that because somebody is going to slide off that ramp, borrow a tire, break an axle, or break a spring. because I chop my vehicle when I back down that ramp. A lot of people don't. I know people have gone off it. We need to have something done, whether you put a stop at the end of the ramp or get crush and run or something to stop that drop off. We love that the ramp was redone. They did a fantastic job in a short period. That ramp is at least six to eight feet too short. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I see the city manager taking notes on that. So I'm sure he'll look into it.

Yep.

All right. Uh, any other public comment? Okay. He will conclude public comments.

Staff reports. Thank you, mayor commission. Uh, Brad, can you come up please? Brad's going to give us an update on, uh, two projects that are ongoing.

all right good evening mayor and commissioners i guess i'll start off with four street south over the past two weeks since we last met the contractors have installed the new dewatering equipment and the new sewer bypass equipment the dewatering equipment that they have put in has been proven successful They have been able to dig down to the required depth to make repairs on the existing pipe and to start putting in the new manhole. The new sewer bypass system hasn't gone as well as the new dewatering equipment. Fast forward into last night, we had a few issues and concerns last night. One of our concerns last night was the roadway itself. The pipe that needed to be repaired was actually broken outside of the current trench box. So the contractors had to do extra digging outside of that trench box on the roadside. So that started to undermine the roadway a little bit and it caused a little bit of panic in me. that we were going to lose the entire roadway. But fortunately, that the water table is low enough, they were able to get down into the hole, repair that pipe, and start backfilling it. So the road became stabilized by the end of the night. So that was positive. The pipe repair went positive. The other concern that we had is the bypass pumps last night for some reason quit working. which means the entire sewer collection started to surcharge. And when we got notified of the surcharge, we went outside, surveyed it, and the water levels were getting a little too high for comfort. And the city manager and I made the decision to put out a limit water usage notice to the residents over there. We just wanted to limit them to flush the toilets, use the showers, dishwashers, laundry, stuff of that nature to help stop that surcharge. In addition to that, notice the contractors were also working very hard. They coordinated a trucking company to come up here. They brought three pump trucks up last night and two vac trucks to help pump that surcharge down while we could diagnose what was going on with the bypass pumps. that proved to be successful the pump trucks were able to keep up with the flow we caused no environmental impacts last night I want to make that clear we caught the issue in time and the contractors worked with us and and it went well the bypass pumps one of them did die so they swapped it out the company brought a new pump out last night and they swapped it out and they got both pumps up and running by 2 a.m. And at that point, we let the trucking companies go home. While all that was going on, the contractors were also working in the pit. And they were able to get the bottom layer of the manhole installed, which was the hardest part of the project, in my opinion. So even though we had two hiccups last night, it was a very positive result. It was a long night, don't get me wrong. but we are making progress and i think the notice our last meeting they talked a lot about communication and the notice did make it out a lot of the residents did come out when they got the notification asking for updates how they could help what's going on so i got to meet a lot of new residents and let them know about the project so that was helpful any questions on fourth street

Brad, I don't know how you're awake right now, but thank you for your dedicated, focused work.

Thank you, Brad. And thank you, Wes. Wes and Dave were also there with me, supporting me last night. And I know he was briefing you guys as he was on site. So I do appreciate his constant support of us. And then Commissioner Williams was also on site with us a couple of times. So thank you. Thank you, Brad. The other project that we got going on is at North Banana. Within the last two weeks, the contractors were able to install the new infrastructure at that site. We inspected the new infrastructure after it got installed and there were two deficiencies noted. They were able to complete those deficiencies this past Tuesday. And then today they were on site and they did a lot of cleanup effort. They got a lot of the dirt off of the road on Columbia. They got a lot of the rock pile off the road on Banana and just did a cleanup. The next phase of that project is asphalt and curbing. The rain in the past couple days hasn't helped out because it did flood out the excavation site. They were planning on putting base rock in the site today, but there was too much water and it wouldn't be wise of them to put the base rock in right now. I don't know what kind of weather we're going to get this weekend, but it is going to be rainy. So we're hoping for next week that it will be dry enough to put the base rock in there and get an asphalt company in here to start paving that road. So they do know that I gave them a hard deadline of September 30th to get that road open because I want to get it completed within this budget year. They're aware of that. We do have a progress meeting with the contractors tomorrow. So we're very hopeful either next week or the following week we can get that road open because it has been a burden to the residents on the north end as well. Any questions about that project?

No. Thank you, Brad. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Brad.

OK, to continue on the topic of communication, the city is partnering with Brevard County to utilize their emergency and community texting alert system to bring critical real time updates directly to our residents, to their cell phones. Stay tuned to our social media and our CBNN in the next few days to learn how residents can sign up for that as well. It's essentially like a mass communication system. that residents will be able to get real-time updates on their cell phones, okay?

With regard to... That is optional.

That is correct. They have to sign up for it, so we'll have those sign-up options sent out, Commissioner.

Anybody who might be listening, you sign up for it, and something happens at 3 in the morning, and you have your cell phone on charge next to your bed, you're going to hear it.

Correct. I believe once they actually sign up, they can select... what area they want to be alerted for as well, so.

Hopefully they can get to select what time frame.

Okay.

What difference does it make if it's an emergency? I mean, you want to be informed, I mean, obviously. You'd have to understand what they consider an emergency. I mean, a water break on 520 isn't an emergency to me until the next day. Well, that's why there's geofencing. That's what that's all about.

All right. I think that's an excellent response to what we heard from the residents at the last commission meeting. Thank you for taking that action. You're welcome.

Great reaction to that. And it's been done in two weeks. Actually, quicker than that. It was done within the last two weeks. We had a good staff and a good team for that. Thank you. Thanks.

Hopefully, almost intelligence will help with that.

right okay so moving on to leisure services as of this afternoon the 19th hole is fully operational after the storms on tuesday night with regards to our development services department we have a new night and weekends code enforcement officer his name is tom wilkinson and he's got 20 plus years in code enforcement we're very happy to have tom on our team i do want to take a point of privilege here just to recognize hannah devon and their finance team for all of their efforts in this year's budget Coming from my previous position, I had no idea what was required of them and how often their numbers change. And it's not an easy process. And I learn more and more every day from them. And I'm thankful that they're part of our team. So I just really appreciate them very much. And that's all I have tonight. All right.

Commission comments. Oh, no. City Attorney.

Nothing tonight. Thank you.

Commission. Yeah, I had something there. Go ahead. You got the floor.

Real quick, back on the budget, I want to echo again the same thing about Hannah. She's been fantastic. We've got a super majority of the commission that believes in the numbers that are being presented and it's not reckless. I personally take defense to that, that it's an actor. I have full faith and confidence in Hannah and her team, and I know we're on the right track. We're doing the right thing for the residents, giving them their money back. So I appreciate it, Hannah and your team. Keep up the good work.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Just excited for this Friday night. It's homecoming for our high school. So be aware. Be out at the football game. It's going to be an exciting time and excited for the students to get to enjoy that. Bring your umbrella.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, homecoming tomorrow. I was going to mention that. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you, Hannah. I appreciate what you've done as well. I don't think what you've done is irresponsible. I think what the commission is doing is irresponsible. They're voting on this. They have options. You've given us options. And we appreciate that. Unfortunately, this is where we are. So thank you.

And skip passes. OK.

I am saving everything for my last meeting. Regrets only for the first hour and then a roast for the other two hours.

Oh yeah, we're definitely going to be roasting you.

I think we should start now.

Actually, this is something I was talking with the city manager about, so he's aware. I wanted to kind of get a consensus from you guys before making staff look into it any further. But I had a business ask me about New Year's, playing music for New Year's till midnight or midnight 30, because it is New Year's and our ordinance is 11. i was wanting to see if we could change the ordinance or or amend it to to allow for new year's um that day i think it only makes sense that it's a special day and everybody's up anyways would you guys be amenable to to having the uh staff look into that's very reasonable oh here we go yeah just uh you know it's like back in the day

you had four bands downtown player music in the normal hours they were all competing with each other and it was you know basically an audible nightmare so could there be a way to vet these different businesses and maybe have a permit or something for them to go past that hour. So hopefully we won't have a plethora of bands playing after midnight, which is just going to sound like mush.

It's one night of the year, in my opinion.

We're just looking for a consensus.

Yeah.

Or a dissertation. No, I'm okay with looking into it, but I mean... Oh, okay. Here we go. Why don't we have it... We have a consensus. Why don't we have people bid on using our band shell right here as their venue for their late night band?

They could do that, too.

They absolutely could.

That's part of why we have it out there.

Instead of having... Six, you know, four. Six, seven. Eight, seven.

Sorry, go ahead.

I'll be sleeping, so who cares?

Okay, well, good. I just wanted, I didn't want to waste staff's time, so it sounds like we're good on that.

Okay, cool. I'm going to try to get in before you leave. I'm going to try to do that for you, Skip.

All right, that's it for me. Let's see. All right, consent agenda.

Okay, this is the consent agenda. Item one, approve the September 3rd commission meeting minutes. Staff representative, city clerk, department, recommendation approved. Item two, adopt resolution number 2026-09, a resolution of the city of Cocoa Beach, Brevard County, Florida, amending resolution 2025. Dash 19, affirming updated financial policies and practices, providing for an effective date and providing for adoption. Resolution number 2026-09 adopts amending financial policies and practices. Staff Representative Hannah Juman, Finance Director, recommendation to adopt. Item three, adopt resolution number 2026-10, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, adopting the 2027 through 2031 strategic plan prepared by executive staff which provides an executable managerial tool to succinctly tie the creation and execution of the annual budget. Staff Representative Hannah Juman, Finance Director, recommendation adopt. Item four, approve fiscal year 2027 liquid sodium hypochlorite bulk supply piggyback agreement utilizing Bay County contract 26-37 for Odyssey Manufacturing Company to supply the wastewater treatment plant at a price of $1.75. per gallon. This is a budgeted operating expense for fiscal year 2027. Staff Representative Brad Calzo, Water Reclamation Director, recommendation approved.

Move to approve as read. Second.

Motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Jeremy.

Motion passes 4-0. Aye. 5-0. All right, new business.

Okay, first item was pulled on September 14th, 2026. The second item is adopt ordinance 1724 on first reading an ordinance of the city of cocoa beach florida amending chapter 14 special events of the code of ordinances by creating section 14-29.6 solicitation petition signature activity in active distribution at public special events establishing content neutral designated activity locations distinguishing protective expressive activity from commercial vending preserving oral advocacy and other protected expression amending section 14 dash 21 regarding event site plans and pedestrian traffic access amending section 14 dash 29.5 regarding penalties providing for administration and enforcement providing for conflict severability codification and an effective date staff representative Andy sagara leisure leisure services director recommendation adopt on first reading

I move to approve the ordinance 1724. Second.

Motion and a second. Any public comment? I'm going to, if you want, I'll have staff come up and explain it for you. Andy and Dave, if you're okay with that, city manager. Yes, thank you.

All this ordinance is accommodating solicitors to designated areas at all the special events that we have. So each special event, we require a site plan. Staff would work with the event organizer at each event and accommodate the solicitors to certain areas. They would be visible. And it's interactive soliciting, so passing out business cards, passing out flyers, signing petitions, anything like that.

So basically what you're saying is, as part of the special event permit, these people would have to

signify that they're going to be there and be part of the special event permit to be in certain places no they are allowed to just show up we would just ask them to go to that area if they don't comply then law enforcement would be involved

This is a separate thing from that. So someone that comes and has an event, like the art show. This is what this is really about. The art show, Friday Fest, and other events we have, you'll have people that will just show up with petitions whether it's, hey, it's a smart pot petition, or whatever petition for Amendment X for the state, or anything else. It could be a religious petition, or they want to give out materials for this or that. They're not allowed to now. They have a special place that they would have to go, because our group, or whichever group is running that event, didn't invite them there. They're just coming on their own and using it as a platform for themselves. With this ordinance, it designates a location for those people to go where they can be outside of the event and do

whatever they want to do with the keyword outside of the event, which is what they're not going to like.

It's not really outside the event. It's within the event.

It's within a designated area.

Yes, and it won't be around the corner so you can't see them or anything. You'll be able to see them, but they won't be able to intermingle and stop people.

Could you give us an example of a location?

Well, they could walk, as long as they don't interact with people. Like, people can wear expressive t-shirts if they want, and that sort of thing. It's when you interact with people, like ask them to sign a petition, ask them to take a business card. city attorney this this effectively protects their first amendment right yes it does without allowing it to be disruptive to an event right without interfering with the event it provides balance the the actual there there are a ton of cases out there and I've read all of them But the one which is probably still everybody cites is the Hare Krishna. Now, some of you are old enough. I remember them in the, yeah, you're not. But I remember when just about every airport had Hare Krishna, and they were allowed to be there, but they were in a roped off area.

Not at the beginning.

Not at the beginning, no. No, definitely not at the beginning. But that went up to the US Supreme Court. And that's still the seminal case on this.

Thank you. So plus, my initial concern was just to make sure that this was generated by either a resident or a commission. And since it was, I'm OK with this as well.

I think it's a normal thing to be in an ordinance like this, but in Section 4 it says, all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict with this ordinance are repealed to the extent of the conflict.

That's in every ordinance? That's a conflict provision?

I know, but I'm just... know i'm finally caught on but if this is in conflict with any other ordinance and it's going to change another ordinance i think those ordinances that are going to have to be revised need to come back to the city commission for consensus or support versus just carte blanche

And we don't have any that are in conflict, but every ordinance for every city has that.

I understand it's basically a semantics thing.

It is.

But it could be something that could be a gotcha in the future for the city if we pass an ordinance that's in conflict with the land development code, the building codes, or whatever, and now all of a sudden you're not just changing one thing, You're changing multiple things because of that section.

OK. The typical things which are changed, you have these in resolutions and you have them in ordinances. And for instance, when you pass an ordinance that sets fees, this conflicts provision gets rid of the old fees and gives you new fees.

Right. That's a typical way. It's an ordinance that's being passed that supersedes the previous ordinance and would be explained as such.

Yes.

Because when we pass resolutions on parking fees and stuff, we know that that new one supersedes the one before it.

in one of the reasons you have a conflicts provision is if if for instance there is something that could be slightly different from this somewhere else in the ordinance when you're interpreting the ordinances together you interpret the most recent assuming there's a conflicts provision as the controlling one Without that, you wouldn't have that.

I'm just saying, you could actually, without even knowing it, you could pass an ordinance with that clause in it that now all of a sudden is going to have a domino effect to change previous ordinances that weren't part of the intent of that ordinance.

No, I hear what you're saying.

So that's where we... Have you legalized on that to make sure that that's not going to happen? Because otherwise, why do we really need this statement if you've already looked it all up and made sure we're not conflicting? It's legalese.

It would be a mistake not to have it because if they're, I mean, Cocoa Beach has been around for a long time. There might be something somewhere, I don't think there is, something in the code that says don't know you're you're allowed to have petitions at public events I suspect there's not anything like that but if you're right that would six that would supersede that and get rid of that provision thank you so and just for anybody might be listening the good thing about ordinances is

commission if we do pass something that does have a ripple effect and changes things that were unintentional it's an ordinance with the majority vote of the Commission it can be rehearsed absolutely unlike unlike a referendum that's on the ballot yeah charter provisions are different okay does that answer your question all right any other public comment all right we had Commission comment

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. We are adjourned.