City Council - Regular Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, we're about ready to get started with our 5 o'clock City Council workshop meeting. If you would join me with Pledge of Allegiance. with liberty and justice for all. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to offer an opening prayer? Anyone? Yes. Welcome. Please. Thank you.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together as a city to have this meeting, this workshop. Lord, we ask for good attitudes, open minds, and we just ask that it would be productive. In your holy name, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Madam Clerk.

Mayor Green.

Here.

Vice Mayor Hanchar. Here. Councilman Inskey. Here. Councilman Lehman. Here. Sean McLean, Finance Officer. Here. Chad Ward, Public Works Manager. Here. Michelle Leonard, Assistant Clerk. Here. And we have Ryan Knight, City Attorney, attending via Teams. The agenda for this meeting was published on the city's website and the City Hall Bulletin Board on Monday, August 14, 2026.

Mandy, do we have anyone signed up to speak?

Michelle's getting the sign-in sheet now.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, before we accept public comments, I've got a question. And Ryan, this would really be a question of you. Is it legally required when people come up to the podium to say anything for them to give their name and address?

Yeah, so they do have to give their name and their address.

Okay, gotcha. The reason I'm bringing this up is a person that I went to see on Saturday that brought up an issue at the podium here in front of us. was concerned about her safety. This person gave their name and address up here. And then somebody on Facebook was bullying her on Facebook. And this person is now naturally concerned that her name and her address is all out there. And with the nutcases that we have running around in this day and age, she has a right to be concerned. If somebody wants to go on Facebook and bully anybody, naturally they can do it. But again, I was looking to see if maybe... If this wasn't legal, that we had to do it, then maybe we could ask people if they would like to do it. And if they would not like to do it, that would be understandable.

Sure, and let me clarify that as well, because you as members are allowed to make reasonable rules. So if you all would want to make a reasonable rule that would require somebody just to give their name, and not their address, that's something that you could certainly do moving forward. Thank you, Ryan.

Okay. Thank you, Tim. We'll move on to item number one, public comment. We have no one signed up prior to the beginning of the meeting. If you would like to speak at this point in time, you may do so. Is there anyone who would like to address the council before we get started?

Do you guys mind if I don't say my address? I've got the same.

Wait a minute, Danny. Does council have any objection?

I think that's a great idea, personally, not saying the address unless there's a reason why we need it. Maybe say Dunellan resident or non-resident, that would be about the only, if we have big crowds. But other than that, I'm good to go.

I agree with her.

Tim, you're pretty clear on your point. Yes, sir. Mandy, do we have to take actions in a council meeting to change this policy?

I'm not sure that it's written into your code of conduct, but I'll have to double check. But if it's a consensus of the council tonight to give the audience members the option, I don't see that there's a problem with that.

Would that be the recommendation of legal counsel?

Yes, as long as you don't have a formal vote on it, you can just essentially act as consensus and just require the person to state their name.

Okay, thank you. And I think that pretty well makes it clear to everyone. The council's in agreement to it. The city clerk says it won't be a problem. The attorney says, of course, we're in a workshop phase now. We're not in a regular council meeting, so there will be no voting taking place tonight anyway. So, with council's... Approval, we will not require anything more than maybe your name. That would be fine. Danny, if you'd like to start. You already covered my name. I got your name down.

Danny Hart. I'm helping to put on the Christmas parade, and I would like to really urge you guys to serve the people of Dunellin and the people that come to the but enjoy the Christmas parade to partner with us like we did last year and make it more streamlined and not just to partner with us. I've been saying it, but I would like you guys to officially partner with us. It's an invitation.

Like last year, we paid half of the expenses. Am I not correct?

Yeah, you're right.

Thank you.

And some of those expenses, 135 of it were signs that we can use again this year. Like that was an investment. That was like in front of Blue Cove to tell the residents a week before. It would be really nice if you would let us put it out for longer. Two weeks probably would be good.

but you know just please partner with us you know we don't necessarily want the city to do it all for us but just make it easier and partner with us before we would of course say yes or no to that a proposed budget would be really a great thing to have and again the amount that we've already spent We've all shared. That would be amazing. So if you could come back to us with that.

Absolutely.

I would entertain looking at it with information.

Okay. I mean, it's not that much. I know. Especially for the parade.

It's still the best way to inform everyone.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like numbers are numbers. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Rex, do you have anything? Tim, do you have a comment? No, sir.

Anything else, Danny? No, that's it. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate your time.

Shane Stevens.

This is a workshop. events? Like for the praise and all that stuff. I think that all the information needs to be given out before y'all get going on that. And then the other thing I do have to comment about, I know it's not on the agenda today, but I know on Facebook, we're talking about Facebook, comedians. I know that was a big ordeal and people were complaining and stuff like that. I totally understand that it's the state's responsibility, Highway 41, they have it, they got it. But as a business owner that's in the business of People on the venue. So if I let somebody and I rent my venue out and their decorations or they don't have staff properly, I have to step up and do it. I don't have to, but I do because it's my business. Because the other hundred people that are at the venue for these people's wedding or birthday party or whatever it may be, they say, wow, they're really understaffed or whatever. They don't have the decorations look really crappy or not put together well. Who does it fall back on? It falls back on me as a business owner because they don't know that them people just paid me just to do what they're doing. Like I have a DIY where you come in, you decorate, you set up, you do the whole nine yards to try to save money. Well, the people that are coming as their guests don't know that. You know, so it looks bad on me. So what do I have to do? My wife has to do it. Our staff has to do. We have to step up and we have to make sure it looks good. Whether we got paid for it or not. So in that census, I know that the state's supposed to take care of it. But at the same time, this is our town. And it looks bad on us. Everybody on Facebook and... Walter, you actually put out there on there, like, it's the state's responsibility. They don't know that. They don't know it's the state's responsibility. Most people, most citizens don't know that it's the state's because it's inside the city of the number. So it makes us look bad no matter what, as far as that. And if... The city don't want to do it. I'm sure if the city put a little effort out there and said, hey, we don't have the budget to do it or it's not our responsibility, but we would love for donations or this, that. At the Little League, I get donations all the time. I get thousands and thousands of dollars for free because I put it out there because it's a necessity it needs. There's a lot of people that love this town. And would probably step up and say, hey, I'll come weed eat, I'll mow, I'll do this. And you can probably get professional lawn people to do it at a decent time. I'm just saying it looks bad on us. No matter what, it falls back on the city of Dunham and the residents of Dunham. And yes, it does look like crap. You know, when you drive through there, it looks bad. So that's pretty much the only thing I was going to say about that is... i know it's not our responsibility as a city but at the same time it does look bad on us and on the other side of that is you know the city takes credit for a lot of things too not saying they'll take credit for it but like christmas parade this is not that's actually the chamber that does that that's not really the city i know the city helps in some things but people always think oh the city of donald did this for us the city of donald you know did the christmas parade did boomtown did this when it's really not it's The Chamber just doing it. So we all got to work together is what I'm saying. And that's the only thing on my mind.

Thank you. Thank you, Shane. I'll make a comment on this. When the state has responsibility for it, we're going to contact the state and we're going to ask them the same question. You requested to take charge of this, and you have gained responsibility for it, and it has been recorded. There was an email sent to me, and that email was forwarded to our city staff, and I assure you that that question is being asked. That email was sent immediately just as soon as I received it. So there's a way to address the state on this issue. And we are doing that. But I understand your point that it is a reflection on the city. Things that we have done in this city for many, many years is exactly that we have taken care of those mediums ever since they put him in within the eighties when the early eighties nineties nineties times line by but i do understand that and it is reflection or city in this as well as we spoke about earlier in the earlier meeting we talked we had a discussion concerning the businesses in this town and investments they've made in our community and how important that was So it is a reflection on them and it's a reflection on the residents, so we do take it seriously. And we are going to do something about it. I don't know where we're going to be with it, but we're going to get a better understanding from the state about how this is going to take place. So it is on the burner. It's not sitting on the sideline.

Mr. Mayor, if I'm not mistaken, I know Chad was going to ask, weren't you going to ask Tim to bring that up at the TPO meeting that you had?

No, we brought up something else.

That was the turn lane that we brought up. Oh, I thought you were looking at... I have talked to FDOT. FDOT contracts OASIS to maintain the medians, and OASIS is on a schedule, but their thing was, they said with the last rains and everything they had, it set them back on their schedule. That's the only thing they gave me, but they said they are on a schedule to take care of it.

Well, all I know is that When I was on TPO back in the day, Marion County had an issue with FDOT and the medians and even at the interstate exchanges and such and so forth. And I thought that's why you were going to talk to Tim. and find out about if he could bring the subject up at the next TPO meeting. Because once we brought that subject up about the medians not being cared for in Marion County, it was amazing how fast medians were taken care of. So I think it's something that needs to be brought up, even if they have a schedule with OASIS.

Okay. So here's where we're at with this. The next TPO meeting... If something's not resolved, I don't have to wait until a TPO meeting. I can get a hold of FDOT. I know exactly where to get a hold of them. Now, if there is nothing, I will definitely bring it out in public. And something, like you said, they're very reactive. They get on it right away. We're not there yet. Chad has reached out to FDOT. You heard what he just said there. The other thing that I think is going on that has not been vocalized is because I noticed on the, you know, Oasis also does the median or the side right-of-ways on 41 too. Is that correct, Chad?

Yeah.

Okay. You don't see those growing up. So here's what I believe happened. It's a transition. Fluke, that kind of stuff happens. And so I look at it as a transition fluke. I think that they're saying, oh, the rain's got us because they don't want to say we messed up with the transition, and we'll stay in FDOT's pocket and make sure that they react because this would have been one of their first cuttings. So, again, I just think it's a transition glitch, and we will stay with them. We will actually get a date on when they're going to go out there and take care of this issue. So it's not sitting on the back burner.

No, no, no. I knew Chad was working on it.

And I'm hoping that we can resolve without going the whole TPO route and all that. So we're trying to deal with it at the lowest level possible and just get the medians taken care of. Once they're in the swing of things, it won't get missed, right, because they keep the right-of-ways on 41 very nice. So when I see the right-of-ways looking nice, the medians, it's their first time, it's like, okay, this is a transition glitch. We can get this fixed, and then it'll be done as it should.

And just for the public's notice also, we can't just have volunteers go out into the medians for DOT safety issues. That's a whole ball of wax that even I don't want us to get in trouble with. Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane. Well, that's because my daddy would have beaten you. You can't talk from out there, babe. Sorry. Sorry, Shane. Give me a call.

But that's a great idea. Let me ask this. Can I ask the council, since this is a workshop, discretion to allow Shane Stevens to speak again. Would anybody have a problem with that? For a quick minute, that's fine. Shane, come up and speak from the podium.

Go to the podium.

And so we have a record up. Hey, awesome. Shane Stevens. There you go. Go ahead.

The only thing I was going to say, I agree that you probably can't have volunteers because it is a nightmare. It would be a nightmare. I understand that. But all I'm saying is transparency. You were saying that you can get an exact date. When you get the exact date, put it out there. Put it on Facebook. Put it on the website. Not only when people, they know that you're doing something. Because right now it just looks like you're just passing the buck. Oh, well, it's a safe response. I'm not saying you are. I'm just saying presence, that's what it appears to look like. So let's stay on top of that, too. Hey, we're contacting. This is the email we sent. And put the email on there. And when they give you a date that it's going to be done, hey, the meetings will be addressed on this day. If it's not done at this date, I will be sending another email, this or that. And that just looks like, as a council, that you all are doing, and don't take this wrong, that you're doing your job. You know, that you're looking out for it this night. I don't think it's a huge big deal. I'm just saying I get tired of reading Facebook and seeing things get thrown at the city. I mean, I really do. It makes me feel bad because being a member of the city and living here for so long, I don't want to see that, especially from somebody that may have just moved here a year or two ago. They don't know the history that's behind this town. So it embarrasses me and it upsets me at the same time. So that's why I'm just trying to say we all need to work together and put it out there and just transparency. Thank you.

Thank you, Shannon.

And I can believe Daddy made you pull weeds out there.

My apologies. We have to run our city government in a democratic fashion, what we're really trying to do. respond to anything more than I did on that Facebook. And I did respond. And as I said, it was immediately forwarded for our administration to get a hold on it. But until the council has a chance to digest it and the staff has a chance to figure out what we need to do and how it has to be addressed to the council, that takes time. And I can't speak for the council on issues like that unless the council has heard the issue. You see what I mean? So what I was trying to get the point across was I just laid the facts out there, what exactly the situation was. And now we'll be able to respond, and we will, I promise you that. But you can see we're all concerned about it. And there is action underway, but I just can't match Facebook. They're too quick for me.

And I agree with you on that.

I know, and they say a lot of things on Facebook, and I try to respond where I can where it's positive, and I try to furnish a factual account of where we are all the time. I don't want to stretch it out. I don't want to add things that somebody would get inflamed about or somebody would be proud of until the issue is firmed up so we know some facts. I don't want to put anything in there that's not true. I mean, some of the things in there definitely lack... A level of something other than the truth, let's put it that way. But we're going to do the very best we can to get this resolved, I promise.

Okay.

Anyone else have anything else to say? Yes, Jan, welcome.

Before I give the report, I have a question. The new turn lanes at 484 and 41, there are three new turn lanes that DOT put in. Not turn lanes, but three new lanes. The center lane does not have an arrow going in, going straight, going left, in any direction. I've personally seen accidents almost happen because people are using those two lanes to turn left. Is that center lane supposed to be used for a left-hand turn as well as going straight? It is a straightforward lane. Is there any way to get DOT to paint an arrow? We've asked them before.

You see this is being handled right now as you speak. It's a great suggestion, Jan.

Okay, because I've seen people almost get crunched.

Well, those lanes are so narrow now, it makes me nervous to be in a southbound turn lane with those people around that corner. But so far, so good, I haven't been hit yet. I'm lucky, I guess. We all are. Anything else, Jan? You're going to do the report later? Okay. All right. We'll get to you in just a moment. Anybody else wish to speak? Okay, all right, we'll move on then, and it just happens to be the board reports, and we will recognize Ms. Jan Smith once again.

I'm sorry, I forgot to give my name with that last comment. Jan Smith, I'm here to do the Dunellan Chamber of Business Association monthly report for August 31st. We have a great August at the Dunellan Chamber. We started the month off with a wonderful visit from Congresswoman Kat Panik for an informative roundtable discussion. We had a fantastic business after hours at Rainbow Springs Real Estate with personal mini storage co-hosting. And finally, we had a great dinner mixer at the Dunellan Grill with career source Citrus Lee B. Marion as our speakers. We're very excited to have our second annual DCBA golf tournament coming up on September 12th, and we still have space for a few more teams. So if you're interested, please reach out to the Dunellan Chamber as soon as possible. New members from the last report in July, Extreme Decals, Padilla Family Practice, Acro Pest Control, Ink Club Gallery, Haney Sanitation Services, LLC, Terry Lattner, Platinum Air Solutions, and Cub Scout Pack 574. Several upcoming chamber and member events. On the 12th of September, the annual DCBA Golf Tournament is at Juliet Falls. On the 16th, the Business After Hours, hosted by Daniella Marshall Arts and Fitness, and that's at 5.30 p.m. On the 22nd, the Dinner Excerpt at Boomtown Cafe with Danielle from Stevens Labs, who will be speaking about search engine optimization, and that's at 5.30 p.m. And December 5th is the Christmas parade at 6 p.m. And we are always looking for volunteers for in-office and the events. And we encourage anyone who is interested in volunteering and making a difference to contact us.

Any questions for Jan?

Yep. Beautifully well done.

Rex?

Tim?

No, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Jan. Thank you. We'll move on now, ladies and gentlemen. to item number four, council agenda items. And the first one on the list there is for me. It's Arts and Health Ocala Metro. Council, what this is, it's a letter of recommendation and compliment this group. They have been recognized by Marion County commissioners and also the city of Ocala. They're making a major effort in their organization, and it would be nice if we could send them a recommendation for their work. Does anyone have an objection? Mandy, you need anything else on that?

Put it on the agenda. What they provided me with was a draft of a proclamation. So I could take that sort of that same language and put it in the form of a letter, like a letter of commendation, letter of support, something like that, if you would prefer it to be in that format, not a proclamation. Either way.

Can we get a copy of that, that we can just read it? Or did we get a copy?

Did I not see it? No, I haven't put it out there because it wasn't formatted. I mean, I haven't done anything with it.

No, I just didn't know if I could see what it was. I mean, I just think it's a, you just want a letter of a comment, not a proclamation. Yeah, I would recommend, because they're not, yeah.

We would try to have something to publish along with the agenda on Wednesday when we publish the council meeting agenda for next week.

Okay, yeah. If I can just read. Anything, Rex, on that? Do you have any comment on it? Tim, do you have any? Sure. I think that, is that okay, Valerie? No, that's fine. I just. I think that's a good idea. I mean, you guys got a consensus.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, we'll move on to item 4B, Councilman Enkeep. That's all yours, Tim.

All right, first one is a special of inordinance. We discussed that at the last meeting. Council meeting Mandy put out a letter An email to the parties that typically hold the events and ask them to also send it out to anybody else that They thought might be interested in What we asked for was technical You know for people to go through the ordinance even compare it to the last ordinance there's not been that many changes most of the stuff people are bringing issues up with are already in the existing ordinance. So, you know, with that, we've got a round table. We've had several different meetings. And so there's been numerous opportunities for technical feedback. And we received none until 2 o'clock today, which I think the deadline was the 28th. But that's fine. I've gone through them and highlighted in the ordinance. So what this workshop on this topic is supposed to be is... We've had a first reading before. That's off the table now. This has been through the attorney approval. It's been through the staff approval. Mandy, correct me if I'm wrong, the staff recommends the ordinance as it stands now, which everybody has viewed. And that, the way the ordinance is now, it has the changes in it that were asked for when we had the roundtable. And so now it's time to get this ordinance moving forward again. And that's pretty much where we're at.

Valerie? I did go, and I'm sorry, I did mean to do some stuff this weekend when I was out of town, but I left my laptop at home, which is always a nice thing on occasions. But Did we address the electricity since we are getting it amended at the Ernie Mills Park?

There was an issue about... We addressed that after the last draft that Will and I worked on.

I think it's line 197-205. My computer back I don't I guess I've taken the ordinance out of my computer back must be fine my bed So that might need to be

I'm not sure, I mean, with the upgrade, I'm still not sure how much that can power. If there was some sort of special event there, especially a large event, if you have sound systems, lighting, and if you have food vendors that they're hooking to our Do you have food trucks hooking up to our electrical service? I don't think that it's going to be sufficient to power those types of things. And it says food vendors and other electrical equipment. So as it stands right now, if they're going to have... to electrical power to power food trucks, lighting, sound systems, and all that. It's up to them to provide their own electrical power.

Well, the sound system at the bandstand should be good now. That's why I'm saying that shouldn't have to be there any longer. Now, the food trucks, yeah, absolutely. That's just common sense that we can't do 15 food trucks or anything on our power grid. That's just common sense.

Did you have anything else, Valerie?

I thought we had discussed also about the days, like for a celebration of life, for instance, not having to have a 120-day deadline. I thought we had discussed making that. with a little bit more manageable because you don't always know you have three months for somebody who's no longer with us to plan their event.

That was one of the comments. Actually, those are two of the comments that I did receive from Julie Mancini.

Right, but I know we had discussed that earlier, and I thought we had gone ahead and made the decision to lower that down because I had brought up the instance where there's a young lady that's planning her an addiction walk due to the fact that her sister sadly passed from addiction.

If everyone agrees with that, I think I do remember us talking about the difference between large events and small events.

Yes.

And small events, 50 people or less, we did not make a change to that. Let's see. know that we were going but i i did not disagree with that um that recommendation i'm not quite sure why that didn't get in there um so if what's what would be the council's recommendation 60 days for a small event 120 for a large event mandy i would think it'd be a staff recommendation because you all are the ones that have to react yeah i don't have a problem with 60 days if y'all are okay with that

I thought we had decided on, like, 45 days last time we discussed it.

I don't remember 45, but I could, by memory, there's a lot going on.

No, I totally, and I apologize. I'm trying to pull it all up on my.

I have to go back to our notes from that meeting, too.

I understand if someone is planning an event, and there are different stages of timing with events. But just like Valerie mentioned, someone's having a memorial service. or something of that nature. You're going to tell them a set date off, you know, when they're trying to plan on their family members coming into town and if they wanted to have a picnic there or they wanted to have some small gathering. And I say a small gathering. It could be on up 50, 60 people. Around here it could be a lot more than that. I would like to see a net mechanism where our city administration has discretion when it comes to particular items such as that. so that, Vandy, you can look at the situation and say, well, let me tell you what we can do to work with you. And I have the discretion and the council's approval to do that under certain circumstances. And I think what that does is make the part more reasonable and acceptable to the citizens.

There is, in this paragraph, the last sentence, it states, Applications that are not submitted in a timely manner may be denied unless the applicant demonstrates to the city clerk that compliance with the deadline was impractical or impossible.

Well, we want to relay that to the citizens. We say all that, and it's more instructive than it is assistant. In other words, we want an open feeling to our citizens if something like this comes up, and we have somebody here in town says, you know, my uncle died, and we'll have all these people in town. Wouldn't it be great if we could have it at Ernie Mills Park in two weeks? And I'm not talking about 500 people. I'm talking about if somebody wants to. And they tell you, I think it's going to be 50, 60, maybe 80 people. The citizens understand that that's not a set thing. The clerk can look at this. Our city clerk can look at it and say, let's see if we can't work together with you. In other words, show that open hand. Show the understanding that that is a public park, and we want our public to have access to it. It's not like a business. It's a public park. That's what I want more of a relationship if instances come up like this versus we got these deadlines and you don't fall into deadlines and all of this stuff. And they can't under certain circumstances. And that's the point of having a small town public park. If this was Tampa or Orlando, I understand they do all that and they plan things way ahead. And they got all the venues in the world to have places to do things in these big cities. We don't have that many here in Dunn-Allen. And that's one place it could happen, right there at Herney Mills Park. That's how I feel about it.

Doesn't that line item cover exactly what you're asking for? Well, it... This is an ordinance, remember.

I know that, but once again, I want it to be as welcoming as it can.

Because it does say, it demonstrates... that compliance with the deadline was impractical or impossible. Or the clerk determines that the delayed application will not impair the city's ability to accomplish the purposes of this chapter. So, I mean, I don't want to get in a situation where You know, people are saying, oh, well, it's okay if I don't get my application in on time. Mandy will just kind of let it go. It'll be okay. I don't want to get in a precedent with that.

And I'm not suggesting that, Mandy. What I'm talking about is I want the people of the community to feel that that park is there for them. And I know when it's a long range issue where it's months off and people are planning a special event and they have a set date and this, that, and the other, We just seem to be so – it seems so cold. It's a cold approach to me that everything is kind of set up like we're in Orlando or Tampa or something. And I know you, and I know you would have discretion and you would understand, but that's the side of this city government I want the citizens to see.

And, Mr. Mayor – to piggyback on your sentiment, and I understand the business side of it and the liability issue side of it, but the Mandy Roberts and – That's not my name anymore. Oh, gosh. Sorry. The Mandy Roberts Odom, the Mandy Odom. Sorry about that. I've known you too long. Apologies. But we won't always be sitting up here and – Mrs. Odom will maybe not be sitting there, so we have to have it clear for that. Ten years from now, someone sitting in any of these positions will understand what the thought process was for why we put that in that verbiage. And if it needs to, maybe it's that the verbiage isn't, and I don't want it to be too soft. I don't want it to be, you know, fuzzy rabbits and such and unicorns. but it needs to state something to the effect that, just like Mr. Stevens out there said, even though we budgeted for this, we still have to do this to make it go off well, but we have a good opinion of ourselves with the liability issues always in mind. So maybe the verbiage could be tweaked some to be a, and I don't want to use softer, but a more, they understand that if it's a small gathering, it's an emergency, it's something they weren't planning because of a family situation, an 85th birthday, and Joan is going to be in town for the 85th birthday, that they can come to us and talk to us about how can we be, even though we need to say no, how can we be more positive in saying yes? How can we work to saying yes together and how we can make it a little bit better?

It's very clear. I mean, I don't know how it could be any more clear what it says. And, again, this is not a marketing tool. It's an ordinance. It has to be very clear, very specific. It gives exactly Walter you're asking for. If somebody comes in here, you'll see it's a memorial service. Who can plan out 120 days a loved one's going to die? That don't happen. uh... so somebody wants to do that uh... they would come in here and uh... like we've always seen mandy and company will jump through themselves and make everything happen that it can and this particular

part of the ordinance allows it doesn't restrict the staff it allows the staff to do absolutely that and work with uh work with the people i would like to make a suggestion though because like valerie said you know i'm not always going to be here whoever's in community development is always going to be here i think that it would be helpful to whoever is responsible for enforcing this ordinance that you do break it out into small and large events. Because otherwise, what if I have Boomtown walk in here 30 days before Boomtown? I don't want to be put in a position to have to say no. And so, no, you can't do it because you didn't meet the deadline. Now, I know they would never do that, you know, but if they come in here 116 days in advance, that's one thing. You know, that's, yeah, you missed it by four days, whatever, let's just get the ball rolling. But I also don't want to be put in a position where somebody just chooses, to wait until the last minute and then I have to tell people no. So I think it would be in the city's best interest and whoever is responsible for enforcing this ordinance to split it out into large events and small events. And a large event is 120 days. A small event, 50 people or less, let's do 30 days. Because I don't think that if somebody is going to do a celebration of life or a birthday party or something like that, that you're probably not going to have more than 50 people there. If there's a few stragglers, it's not a big deal. But I think that that gives us the ability to say, okay, well, you come in here 25 days before, but your family member passed, or like you said, your examples are perfect, then we would have the ability to say, we've got plenty of time. Like Tim said, we need to be able to draw the line at where... How long was it gonna take us to see this? Cuz we got fire review, is there law enforcement gonna be involved? So it has to be reviewed by several different departments. So I would think that even at two weeks, if somebody came in here with a last minute request and they were desperate and it was a small 25 people event, that we could not accomplish that in a couple of weeks. But I would feel more comfortable. if we broke it out so that I'm never put in a position where I've got somebody coming in here two months with a huge event and I'm having to tell them no.

I agree. I totally agree with what you're talking about, Mandy. You need to have the time in order to fulfill the obligations. And having a yardstick that demonstrates the size and the difficulty of it, in other words, the steps that have to go through to qualify for the event, I understand that. We need time to do that, and that should be in it. I just, I hear constantly from many, many members of the public that don't feel that the city is being responsible to the members of the public and they're more like being talked to rather than listened to. And I want our citizens to feel welcome in their parks. I don't want them to feel like every time they want to do something, there's always a dozen roadblocks in front of them, and they've got to jump through 25 hoops to get there. Now, I understand the big events. Absolutely. That's the way it has to be. But on the small events and things, we need to work as much as we can with our local community to make them feel welcome, make them feel welcome to come into the city hall and come up with an idea that they want to try to do. We really don't want to turn this town into Gainesville or Orlando or any of these other places. We've always been able to have things, and we want that park used. We're going to spend some money on it. We're going to renovate it. I don't want it just sitting over there like a show place. I want it used. I want people, families in there, I want people using it, utilizing it. We're paying for it. That's how I feel about it.

Walter, I just thought of a, a 1960s good living room with the vinyl on the good couches that you couldn't sit on. So that's exactly what we don't want over at our park. We don't want to fix it up so that nobody can sit in it and play. That's exactly it.

Well, Rex, you've come up with some good ideas about trying to renovate the playground equipment and make it more viable for our citizens. That's a great goal. I don't want a magazine park. I want a park that's used. That's used.

Well, if you recall in the ordinance, Looking back. And the small event involves 26 or more. And so it's 26 to 50 for a small net. So if it's less than 26 people, they don't even have to get a permit. Right. They can just go do what they want to do at the park.

Well, the public needs to know that.

Yeah.

They need to feel comfortable. That's what it's there for. It's not just for a show place of we spent the money there, but nobody goes there. We don't want that. I don't.

So, Mandy, you're thinking terminology small event? Are you thinking of putting, which would be the 50 to 26?

26 to 50 persons would be considered a small event.

And 30 days for?

30 days for application. And leave the 120 for large events.

I think that's a good suggestion, Mandy.

And still give you the, or your position and such.

Yeah, leave the rest of the language in there.

The ability to work with people if it's, like you said, 116 days versus 120 days because they were out with the flu.

Yeah.

You know, whatever.

Rex, you have anything on this? Yes.

Well, I actually followed Councilman Inskeep's advice. And I went and got the, I know you run for cover. And I've got the original ordinance. And I went and compared two ordinances to see what the difference was. And I just want to bring up some things that I feel needed to be addressed. And that, like Councilman Inskeep said, a lot of it's the same ordinance. We've just put in things that... Delineate classes of events, but there are some things that I felt that we really need to address and a lot of it is in section 4 on Just so if you want to be 11 for special events criteria Where it says okay a parking plan I can understand that but then when you get farther down into it I'm going to read this to you property owner if you want to if you if the event is large and you need to park in somebody's yard or you're going to park on the swale the property owner authorization form must be obtained on the city's private property parking authorization form it must include the legal description and address of the property specific dates hours parked authorized number of vehicles authorized Acknowledgement that the property owner has adequate insurance liability and contact information for the property owner. Now I'm sitting here looking at this thinking that the parade, where everybody shows up from all over the city, parks where they can, pretty much off the street. So now, does this mean the DCBA has to go out to every home in Dunn-Allen, since this is a large event, and go through this? To me, this is totally excessive. If we haven't had a problem before, and there probably There might be an issue somewhere, but I found that excessive. So it's in here a couple of times.

Rex, can we touch on each one back and forth instead of just moving on and we forget? Okay. Thank you. With that one, okay, the – I'll use the old bingo hall, okay? You know, that's private property at that point, okay? And we don't want to have an ordinance that says or that lets Anybody go park on their property. The other example I'm going to use is back when I had pictures ready to go, but I won't bore you with those. With the Boomtown Days event, I went down there and I took a look and I went down every single road on Riverview and all that. You could not even get an emergency vehicle through. Okay, they're parked all up in people's yards. The guy at one point, because I backed off into the apartments, a truck with a boat was coming through. Another truck was going this way. All right, and then there's not enough room for both of them because everybody's not off. because there was not a single street over there where it was not everybody's right-of-ways and yards were totally filled up with vehicles. So imagine your own house and every piece of property that you have going along each of the two roads that you sit on be full of cars. And then let's say they trip on something on your property. You're getting sued. The attorneys are going after everybody. They're going to go after your homeowner's insurance and all that. So that's kind of what is driving this, is there actually is an issue with the parking. Now, also with the parking, that issue is getting ready. The bingo hall, my understanding is, always gave the DCBA permission to use it. It's not there anymore. So this parking issue is getting ready to become, to me, the parking thing is more critical than it was before since we lost

I'm just saying that the overall process appears to be excessive and I don't know if what you're going to do is going to solve that problem and that we may have to look at the enforcement side or to do something in that way because you can get all this authorization but people will still park where they're going to park. You and I both know that. They're going to do what they're going to do. So I think that this, to me personally, this is just the reason people hate government. And what people have talked about tonight, and Walter said it, is that they don't think that Allen does anything for them. And then we put this in. I'm just going to say, I think we have to find a better way. Which part did you read, Bryce? That will be 11.4D. 11 for parking plan requirements. It's there, and then it's on the next page on D. Oh, she's right. It's D, and it's paragraph 2. And then it's got some more criteria. So anyway, that was just one thing to bring up.

May I just make a comment just real quick before we go off of that? You hit it on the nail. No matter what we do, people are going to park where people are going to park. That's just a given. And I don't know why I'd never thought of this until about five seconds ago, but the lady who does all of the parades... in ocala i've gone blank on her name too and i just had it um i'm gonna give her a call i have her name and number i'll find it and i'll remember it but she'll be able to because i mean she does the huge parades the christmas parades ever over in um ocala she did the 250 parades this came from her This came from her.

Yeah, I know, because I'm the one who reached out, got the ordinance, okay, and I went down, compared them, you know.

She doesn't work for the city.

Say what?

She doesn't work for a city.

Lieutenant Micah is the one that gave me the lady that does the special events in Ocala. If I can speak to this. Absolutely. You guys are kind of going in circles. Right. Micah, the other thing if you'd like to address is without this ordinance saying about the private property, we keep laying more and more on law enforcement.

Well, real quick, here's the thing. Your ordinance where it talks about having the parking requirement and they say that you've got to have 50 spots or something like that. Say it's like Boomtown. You say this is how many people I'm going to have and this is what I need this many spots based on your plan. With the ordinance that you guys have now, what it's saying is go get permission from a church and say, hey, we're allowed to use your church. And then we put that out to the public that this is the designated parking for Boontown. That's what the permission of that is. So that's the board, the business, the chamber basically saying, these are the people that we talked to who said you can park there. When it comes to people's personal residences, It has nothing to do with us, because it's private property. So if I own a home, say, on River Road, and I want to charge somebody $10 to park in my yard to go to Boontown, I can. If I don't want to charge somebody, and I don't want anybody in my yard, and they pull in my yard, I can call a tow truck, and I can have them towed. So what the ordinance is asking when it comes to the parking plan, it's asking the people that are getting the special events to say, this is how many cars you need. I've talked to this business, or I've talked to this church, or I've talked to this place that has this space, and they've agreed to allow us to let people park there for our event. And so because of that, they would broadcast that to the public of this is where our designated parking is. So we don't, for the parade, for example, you don't need to go down and get everybody's permission from it. You know what I mean? Just like if a business wanted to set up on the side road, one of the businesses says, I got a little parking lot here, and I'm going to charge $5 a car to come in to watch the parade. That's their prerogative. You see what I'm getting at?

No, no, I know.

So the parking stuff that's in there and the way it's written now is more so to designate for the event of telling the people, this is where we have designated the parking to be. When it comes to private property, you don't need to go get all their permission because that person can either tow the vehicle, they can charge the vehicle, or they can let them have it for free. It's up to the person that owns the property.

If I could ask a question, how about parking on the right-of-way where... Now I've got this situation unexplained. Two vehicles can't get through.

I can tell you right now from a law enforcement perspective, when we have our two main events, which is Boomtown and the Dunellan Parade, I'm hoping that they're going to park on the right-of-way. We're probably going to have one wheel on, one wheel off. We're not messing with them. That's an hour, two-hour event, three-hour event, right? My guys are not going to do ticketing or any of that stuff, and the reason being is because it's a community event that we're out there to enjoy. That's really what it comes down to, to be honest with you.

Okay. Then I'm going to make a suggestion that on the previous page where it says on number B5, for any private property proposed for parking, is that we clarify that it's not individual houses.

Right. That's speaking more towards, and I think it was Boomtown with a church, I think it was, where we asked them, hey, can we park all the people here and this is where we designate it? That's what it's referring to. Going to that church, getting that stuff signed. That way they know when they look at the, when they're going through and agreeing, they go, oh, okay, they went to this business. They got this designated parking. They can fill 40 cars. That was the purpose of that.

And anyway, to me, when I read this, this is what I saw. Right. So that's why I'm bringing it up.

Yep. So before we keep moving, so how can we fix the wording for Roman No.

5? In designated parking areas and designated private parking areas.

Okay.

I don't know about that. So it's like you said, the church. It's a designated private parking area.

And I'm sure the chamber would agree that when they post their stuff, they would tell people this is where the designated areas are. And any good event does.

I'm just trying to figure out a way to delineate from the department. Do you understand the way somebody could read this?

Absolutely. I'm with you.

I don't disagree at all.

So that would be a question for our attorney, I think, who's listening from above.

Is he there?

And I think that probably one thing we could do is we could work with the chamber and find these areas out and put out, you know, Boomtown parking, designated parking in the areas where, because like you said, I came from Miami and around the Orange Bowl when the U of M and the Dolphins played there. The entire Cuban community lived off the proceeds from those football games.

Yeah, and I would, too. If I owned a house here in the city of Dunellan, I'd charge $10 to park in my front yard.

Back then, they were charging $40, you know, so, yes. But anyway, this is the point I wanted to bring up.

And that would be a – and that's not the city's – I mean, I would highly recommend the city, of course, always posting on our website, hey, designate – you know, we're having our Boomtown days. This chamber has designated these locations for parking. But then, of course, and I apologize if I pick on DCBA, but for this event, DCBA would be the ones responsible for putting up the sign stating public parking, you know, and an arrow. So that would not be the city responsible.

Yeah, but once we have these things designated, I believe the city should be posting it on their website.

Oh, absolutely.

Because, like the gentleman was saying, me personally, you know, like I said, I came to Dunellin in 2007. However, everything I look at is y'all's website and, of course, word of mouth and all that stuff. There's not really much I didn't know to look at the Chamber's website.

to be honest with you and and i that's why when you guys post stuff if you guys were to post stuff like i'm talking about boomtown and the parade that helps us as the citizens too absolutely rex you didn't want that in the ordinance though right because it's going to be event specific any parking area can be different according to certain events well i'm assuming that that

Pretty much when we're done, we're going to have Boomtown and the parade from two parking. And maybe when Ernie Mills Park is done, to designate parking over there. But then if somebody's got a special event, that's outside of that, then we can tell them, hey. But with that, I don't think we can designate that.

I think the party hosting that has to get the permission for that company, so each event would have to have... Oh, yeah.

But also don't forget Little Lake Baseball.

Yeah.

Well, I think he was talking more about the personal parking and not specifically putting in Dunham Presbyterian Church, correct? We're not putting that in our ordinance.

No, no, no. A designated parking area. A designated private parking area.

I think I have a suggestion. And we're looking at B5. We can reword that so that it's clear that private property being utilized to meet the parking plan requirements will require written authorization from the property owner. So for example, if they put the Publix parking lot on there, they've got to get permission from Publix to put that on their plan and designate that. So I think if we reword that in both sections to say parking on private property designated parking to meet the parking plan requirement would then require written authorization so that it's clear it's not just any private property, it's whatever they put on their map that identifies their designated parking area to meet the requirements.

Or as Lieutenant Mike has said, it doesn't apply to houses.

Right.

So in parking other than personal private property,

And that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So if they take a church, a store, the parking lot at Gruss, and so the only time we would require written authorization, and that's how I'm trying to sort of think out loud how to resolve this language, is to say if it's part of their plan, if it's designated on their map as part of the plan, and it's private property, that's when the written authorization happens. And that, I think, would clarify. It doesn't apply to everybody that lives on River Drive.

It's not going to be anybody's residential home.

Unless they have a big lot and they harass. Right.

Of course, they would do it. Right. That alleviates the big concern of having only 50 houses. Yeah.

OK. To accomplish what you're trying to clarify. Right. I think it just needs to be clarified.

I agree, Mandy. OK. So we're going to change that language.

That in B5 and in, what was it, D2? Where was the follow-up record?

Yeah. She's asking where was that follow-up. What was the second place it was noticed?

Oh, it was D2.

It was B4, B5.

And then in the one with two I's farther down, it was a whole section, one with two I's, the three, the four, and the five.

Amanda, do you have any way to put that up on the screen? I'm trying to read it off my cell phone, and it's very minute.

So D, private property must be used. Oh, thank you. God bless you. Private property may be used for event parking with express written permission from the property owner. I don't see that we need to change that. The property owner authorization must be submitted on the city's private property parking authorization form and must include legal description or address of the property, specific dates, maximum number of vehicles authorized, and acknowledgment that the property owner has adequate liability insurance. I don't think that there needs to be a change to that.

Yeah, but if you read D up there, it says use of private property for parking. And if somebody reads that, my house is private property.

Yeah.

So what it's basically saying is if somebody's going to park at my house, I've got to get all those forms.

But in, no, because we're going to address that up here in B5, where we're going to clarify that, the private property that is designated as part of the parking plan. And maybe we could use that same language down under D as well. But I think it just needs to be clarified that private property that is identified by the event holder as part of their parking plan, this is the requirement. It's not just any private property.

Right.

And is there any verbiage we could put, and I see where you're coming from, any way we could say does not have to be I guess the staff will just have to make sure that they realize it doesn't have to be Valerie's house, Rex's house, everybody's house.

Individual private property. Cars may be parked on individual private property with the owners.

I know. You don't want to put that in your minutes.

No. That's what you don't want.

Oh, okay, okay.

No.

Right.

Because that's pretty much telling everybody you can go park at Rex's yard because he said it's okay.

Oh, okay, okay. Anyway. So, Mandy, are we going to make a change under D? B and D. B and D. And where are we making the change at under D?

Under B.

D, Delta.

Oh, D. Well, D, first of all, I'm going to change the... Instead of use of private property, it'll have to say something about designated...

Designated private property.

How about instead of the word private... Designated... Property.

Just property. The same kind of language that you were going to use before, per plan. Yeah. And then add words that...

When I have a little bit more time to sit down and think about it, I can come up with something and make it very clear. It's not just anyone's private property. It's only what's designated as part of their parking plan.

I think Valerie got it private or just property designated to be used for the event parking.

You'll figure it out. Okay. I think that we're private.

We understand. I'll work up something and get it out to y'all. Rex, did you have anything else that you wanted to review? Yeah. Okay. Bye. I just wondered if we could come to a consensus on this. Okay.

Do we have a consensus?

Yes.

She's making the changes as we go, Rex. So if we're agreeing to the changes. Right. That's why I want to make sure that we get it done.

I fully agree.

Okay. We discussed the park, and that was one of the things I brought, is that we're spending money to upgrade the park, to put the electrical in. Generally, food trucks have their own generators because there's no generators out there, but could we make them give us an electrical plan of their proposed electric so that we can decide if they're going to overload it? And by that, could we look and see if there's some kind of mechanism that we can put on the breaker that if the breaker trips, it'll tell us how many times it's tripped, and then we could charge them for overloads on the breaker. Because if we have an electrical plan that says, you've agreed to this, we have this service, and then they overdo it, then we may have to make repairs, and then we would have a way to hold them accountable.

That's getting pretty convoluted right now. Yeah, okay, anyway. I know I'm with you.

I had just made a note when we talked about this a few minutes ago. Could we... Set some sort of limit on the amperage. If we know what the load, what it can take.

Yeah.

If we can establish some sort of limit.

Five crockpots in one icebox.

Well, that's why I was saying an electrical plan where they're going to have to say, we're going to put in three generators, we're going to put this, where we will have a chance to review it.

I think really the only thing we need is two things. I don't think the taxpayers should be paying for the electric, so we need to get that captured. Not in this ordinance, but in the menu that we have for everything, for special events charges. The... But I think the only thing we need to know electric-wise, and I'm with, let's put something in there that says, you know, maximum amount of amperage is X, okay, because there's one, and then...

Chad, where are you at? I just, you just don't have the outlets there. No matter what you put in there. Right, and that's what I'm saying. You've got four outlets and then the concession stand. Right. You have the inside concession stand. So it don't matter if I bring a hundred. Food trailers, there's nowhere to plug them into.

However, going to 100 house fires where we could always tell where the fire started, where they plugged in the extension cord after the extension cord after the extension cord.

And that was my thought. You know how we get the...

Absolutely, yeah, sure, we've all done that.

How you can only plug in three electric cords to do your Christmas lights. Is there something that we...

Here's... Okay, we have four outlets. Each outlet is good. They're either going to be 15 amp or 20 amp. Do we put 20s in? Okay, so we got four 20 amp outlets. So the restriction is going to be 20 amps on each outlet. It's not 80 amps total because you don't want people doing what you're talking. It's going to be 20 amps per outlet.

And that's back at the pavilion. So you've got food trucks in the back, which means the bands are out.

Well, no, no, no, no. We're not letting food trucks hook up to our...

They don't even have to delineate who does what. It is 20 amps per outlet, and they can plug that in to wherever. I mean, this is my opinion. They can plug it in to whatever they want to plug it in to. 20 amps, because that's all the receptacles are rated for.

Well, you have 10 vendors that come there, and they say you have 15 amp services, but you've only got... Who gets to plug in and who don't get to plug in?

We're not going to be able to regulate. Again, it's going to be the special event holder that's going to have to do it. And if they blow a breaker, we're not coming out because they overloaded it and reset a breaker. I agree, because it'll be going off in 10 minutes again. Now, Chad, are you sure that the out, and I just want to clarify, the outlets, I know we may have a 20 amp, well, no, if we've got a 20 amp breaker, we have to have a 20 amp outlet, right? Sorry. Brain movement. Okay.

Okay, Rex, is there something else? I've got a couple more here. Hang on, let's make a change.

Okay, we'll be right back here again. So,

Do we... See, but that's where we're... We specifically are getting everything fixed up out there so that we could do sound systems or... We have four 20 amp things.

It doesn't matter what anybody wants to hook into it.

Well, then I guess this is saying that you can't, no matter if you're 20 amps or not. I'm with you. We've got to reword this, right. So that's what I'm doing right now.

We're rewording this whole thing.

My amperage wasn't connecting yet.

Provide their own electrical power generation in excess of 20 amps per receptacle.

Wouldn't that be them bringing a generator?

I'm just saying, all large events shall provide their own electrical power generation in excess. Somehow we've got to get that in excess.

In excess of available outlets. So there's four outlets?

Available 20 outlets.

So, and I don't know... Let me ask you all this. Are you good behind the scenes? We reword? Well, we're not voting this tonight anyway, so... Right, right. But we want to bring it back to the council meeting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So between now and the council meeting, if we got the gist of it... We got the gist of it. Right.

May I just... one one thought on that process too tim is that when you go to and i don't do this so if somebody else smarter than me on this knows but like when you go to an rv you can only park your a big rv that will only take 30 you got 50 or you got 30s right oh okay so i was almost right so i mean we kind of have that i mean that's kind of in their policies as well or their rules so there has to be something that we could the plugs don't fit so you can't oh well

I was trying. We can reword this thing. We understand what needs to be done so we can spell out the different receptacles.

I'll look at some things.

What do you have next, buddy?

There wasn't anything. I think that pretty much wraps it up. I wanted to make some comments. I've talked to the DCBA and one of their concerns is traffic plans. I was wondering... Before I say this, before I say that, I would like Walter, like you, I would like Ernie Mills Park to become a very nice park that every time we go by it on the weekend, there's people in there. And that hopefully doing that, we will get more events and more usage and that it will encourage more special events. So what I'm going to ask is that if we could look at working with the Marion County Sheriff's Office to developing traffic plans that are standard for each of them, you know, for each of the venues so that we, and if Marion County wants to charge us for doing that, then we could prorate it over everybody who uses the event rather than charging everybody to reinvent the wheel for every special event.

Marion County doesn't do the MOTs. The sheriff's office doesn't do the MOTs. Yeah, you don't do them?

No, sir. Okay, so we could find, we might be able to find somebody, a vendor who would be willing to do them instead of, okay. Barricade contractors and placements, we really only have three employees and to expect them to put out barricades and take them up is quite a challenge. I would suggest that we look at barricade contractors and who are familiar with doing it because if we put them in the wrong place, we could be liable for a suit. And that's what we're trying to avoid is getting sued. And just in the long term, I want to streamline this so that anybody, not just the DCBA, anybody who comes in has a pretty straightforward program that they can say, okay, here's what you need for barricades. Contact them.

Rich, we have nothing to do with barricades. We're out of the barricade business. We don't have anything to do with it. Okay, we haven't got any? No, we have them, but ours are for shutting down roads, sinkholes, and that kind of thing. The liability, okay, so we're not, other than for city use, we're not putting out barricades anymore.

Okay, I'm just trying to... Right, no, I'm just, as you go through, that's why I said, yeah, I don't want to lose any of your items. No, that was it. I've just listened to the DCBA, I've listened to what their complaints are, and I'm just trying to find ways to address it to where we all uniformly share it and we all understand... what each of us is responsible for. Right. So that's it. Okay.

So just real quick, regarding the barricades, very quickly, sir, I know that we're not trying to get into the business of using our barricades and such and so forth. However, it might be a... For small, like the small events, are we going to require barricades for anything?

The MOT plans decide that.

For the 50 and under people?

It depends on the event. Then the MOT plans. If they're going to close a road. If they're going to close a road.

Okay, okay, okay. So, but again, I'd like for us to try and still figure out how to do the MOTs. And I know the city can no longer do them.

we're not choosing to do them we're not choosing to do them we don't want to be responsible for the mot's okay and that is something that we have learned from the other cities um et cetera, et cetera, that have had problems. And I'll tell you, from doing six special events, all right, the MOTs have been violated in the past.

And they always will. Even if somebody else does it, they're still going to always be violated.

Right, so we don't want to carry that responsibility. I agree with you, Valerie, that they probably always will.

Because just like he says, they're going to be half parked on the sidewalk and half parked on the road.

We don't want our taxpayers carrying the risk of the lawsuit. And that's what's going on.

Would you clarify what MLT means for people who may be listening? MLT?

Maintenance of Traffic.

Oh, MLT.

Right, yeah. It's actually called TTC. M-O-T is the old one. That's Maintenance.

Maintenance of Traffic. And now they call it a TTC, which is Temporary Traffic Control.

Okay. Just so people out there listening can understand what we're talking about.

Okay, anything else? No, I'm done. All right, let's move on then. Blue Run Park documents. Thanks for that. I'm serious.

Tim?

I'm sorry?

Yeah, your item number would be Blue Run Park documents.

Okay, before we get off of this one, Manny is going to make the changes we just talked about.

Yes, and I'm also going to look at the feedback that I got today in an email and see if there's some changes that I may be able to make there to satisfy those concerns.

And is that from the Julie email? Yes. Okay, now the ones that I've seen... We've covered a few of them.

Right. We haven't really looked at the other ones closely yet.

The...

The one that I don't think we discussed is revocation. The revocation of parking can be done at any time of revocation. Oh, my gosh. Revoking.

Revocation.

Revocation. Thank you. Gosh. Of the parking can be done with 48 hours from the event. And I agree, if you've been planning something for six months, and because Dunham Presbyterian Church sold to McDonald's and they're no longer allowing public parking and it closed two days before, I can't imagine us saying, oops, sorry, you can't have the Boomtown Days Parade. I mean, so I kind of understand that process. Yeah, but I'll tell you right now, If somebody cancels something because of a business no longer being able to provide something they promised six months ago and 48 hours and the city's not going to tell you to close down the boomtown days, there will be so many lawsuits coming at us for business loss from all those vendors that have been already coming into town and made hotel rooms and spent money on products. Talk about a liability.

So that's 1.9147.

Well, 145, 148.

Reputable authorization may be revoked at any time up to 48 hours before the event. A vacation. In which case, the applicant must immediately provide an alternative parking arrangement satisfied with the scene. A permit may revoke.

This one here, it's almost like we're authorizing somebody That they can stop, that they can renege at 48 hours.

No, I don't think anybody's going to do that.

That's planned an event for six months. Yes, we shouldn't use a name. Absolutely. That happened with the music festival a couple times ago. It absolutely happens. The art festival. There were signs out there, and then the art festival was canceled. Gotcha. The music festival was originally going to happen at Rainbow Springs. Yeah. Right. And they had to fit, and then the property owner said, okay, these people are having to fit, so you can't hold it, and that's what happened. But it wasn't within 20, 48 hours. Is this...

I don't know. I'm kind of confused by that because I'm not sure. They don't have a problem striking it. We don't have any control over the property owner revoking their authorization.

Oh, see, now I'm reading it that we're going to revoke their permit to have.

Well, what this is saying is, yeah, they've got to redo a parking plan or their permit is no longer good.

That's where I'm having an issue.

I'm good with striking five altogether, unless anybody's got an issue with that.

I have no issue.

Roll the number five on me.

We're talking line 145? Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. I didn't see it up there behind me. Yeah. Yes.

Because that puts a... Yeah, because that to me reads that if the property owner revokes their authorization, it says... in which case the applicant must immediately provide alternative parking arrangements satisfactory to the city or the permit may be revoked. So I guess for an example, if you had a part of your event plan was you had one of the churches offer to... And then they said, no, we're not going to... Two days before the event. I don't see the city...

We're not even going to have time.

Shutting down their operation.

Well, that's what I mean. I just can't imagine us doing that. So that's why I think if we can strike it, I'm good with us striking it.

Yeah, I'm good with that.

Okay.

Took care of that one. What was the other? I was going to say, if that happens, then if you strike that, it's essentially just a private matter for them to resolve. And the city gets to stay out of it.

Yes, sir.

What did he say?

He said it's because of the private matter between the event holder and the property owner. Gotcha. It keeps us out of it. Cool.

We already did her complying with 120 days for the events.

And the other stuff is just adding these documentations to the ordinance.

So I think we've covered all of that. Cool.

We took care of the electric. And I think we were going to look at it. And did we ever get the private property parking authorization form to them to look at? I think that one probably has fallen through the cracks.

I'll have to go back and look.

Okay. Thank you.

But I have a gentle reminder right here in this email.

So, man, you're going to make these changes, get them out to us in time to look at, and we can bring it up in a council meeting.

Sure. I'll try to have everything out by the end of the week so you have the weekend. Cool.

Now, can I suggest again we get on the blue line part? Sorry, sir.

Thank you.

I want to get things done. I understand. All right, Blue Run Park documents. Okay, create an Excel file sent to Mandy. I believe it's Rex's comments I also seen. I'm not going to go to Rex. I've just seen the two people that responded. Just by the wording, I was guessing it was you, Rex. I won't speak to your stuff again. But short and sweet. WITH MY POSITION IS HAVE THE COUNTY TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MANAGEMENT PLAN, YOU KNOW, WHICH WOULD BASICALLY BE EVERYWHERE WHERE IT SAYS DUNN-ELLEN, MAKE IT MARION COUNTY. THERE HAS TO BE FCT APPROVAL, YOU KNOW, ONCE THE LANGUAGE IS, ONCE EVERYTHING IS WORKED OUT WITH MARION COUNTY, THERE HAS TO BE FCT APPROVAL. of the management plan but we're not really changing any of the requirements just who's responsible for what then all the documents that refer to the management plan don't need revised and i know there's been concerns about you know the county doing this and doing that that some folks may not like it's not an issue because the fct grant and the deed are the FCT grant requirements and the deed is what keeps any entity from doing whatever they want. Nobody can get outside of that, of those requirements, without applying to the FCT. And in a nutshell, that's where I'm at that we should approach the county with. I'll tell you, just to add, we were talking about I know a lot of people didn't like this, but to give the deed to the county, okay, is not in anybody's best interest, not even the county. The hoops that have to be jumped through, the cost to change that deed over, the different governmental agencies that would have to approve that are – are incredible, and there's really no need for it. It's not like that property can ever get sold. I mean, I know it's got a value attached to like any property, but it's not a piece of property that can get sold for any amount of money. So I don't see any reason that the deed needs to be changed over. And that's it for me.

Okay, how about animal control?

The next one will do his.

Yeah, I'll be short. I'll just read this for people. This is the multicolored article, the one that you were, yeah. So we have a copy of this. It's the blue run of Dunn-Allen Park compliance audit that was done back in 17, so it's about nine years old. But they basically go through who owns what, who's responsible for what. and it says the distinction is important because it states that donellen makes no money from the services as it is in fact limited to what it can do to get income from the park the concessions also need attention and according to the auditors kp hole could not exist without the park in donellen And what they do say in here is that there's a 10-year plan that is coming up for review in May of next year, 2027. And I think that it's important that this is brought up, that we could start looking at now what we want to do with that 10-year plan that's coming up to set the agenda for the next 10 years. One of my suggestions is we do use a safe parking system that reads license plates. is maybe we could look and see what they would be interested in setting up a system out there where they can read the license plates, not to charge anybody, but just simply to get an idea of who is using the park in the hours and the daily flow.

I don't know how to word it. I'm not very articulate. I'm just going to say it like I think. Why do we care?

Because then if we looked and saw that most of the people who were using the park were from outside Dunn-Allen, then maybe we may have some leverage to get them to do the repair, to help us with the restrooms and the things like that that you brought up that we're paying for. Because we just basically spent, how much did we spend? $20,000 on the fence? um,

Did we repair that or Barron County repair that?

I think we did. We voted on it. What's that? The fence that we put up where we were discussing whether we should put the posts in or they should. The post to keep the people from going underneath the bridge.

We put that fence up, the big white fence. I think you ought to check with Micah because I don't think... Oh, the one on the bridge. I'm with you.

That didn't really have anything. to do with the park as much as it had to do what that had to do with was pedestrians right okay going down the sidewalk going down in that area okay and the same thing the kayakers canoers and boaters okay stopping in that area would be um but what it was supposed what it the purpose of that is all the pedestrians that were coming down and going down to that area Those are the folks with homeless people getting down there. Those are the folks that were putting the campfires up under the bridge. Those are the people putting the hammocks up off the water piping. Those are the folks that are going down there.

But those are things that can deteriorate the river and that we may have to put money in to eventually fix it in the bridge or do something because that was one of the things. No, that particular bridge is not ours. Okay.

That bridge belongs to the county, and they take care of it.

Can I speak to his point about the LPR things on there? That's public property, not private. There's absolutely no way you're going to be able to put cameras there to capture information to figure out where they live. That's going to be completely illegal.

Okay, I was just trying to find a way to get information.

The only way you're going to be able to do that is when you're trying to do, like, a citation. So when you have public places here where you're going to write a ticket for it, that's when Rhea's Law Enforcement Board and people that have the contracts can go in, but not for data point purposes as you can.

And for all practical purposes, we presently do not spend hardly anything on that park. Marion County does the management. Marion County does the expenditure stuff that has to happen inside the park. Marion County parking racks pays for the sheriff's office during the season periods with the high traffic and all that. Marion County pays for all of that. What we want to do is... Since the money does come from KP Hall, we just want to get relief from that management plan and turn the management plan over to Marion County. The management plan can't change without FCT approval. What I'm talking about is do this item or don't do this item. Nobody can change that without getting FCT approval for that. We just simply want to put the onus with all the expenditures and everything where to the entity that's getting the million some dollars all right and then to me that's the cleanest way we still have the property things can't get changed because of the fct requirements and that we don't have to worry about all the future expenses i appreciate you clearing that up because you know but that's why i wrote it up so that we could get a better understanding

Okay, I think, oh, the last thing is, too, is just long-term vision, is that they're going to have the penny for parks. In the audit report, they were discussing lands on the, the city was to research the possibility of purchasing parcels for recreation facilities, hiking trails with the abandoned CXX Rail Corridor adjacent to the river. We may want to look at that if the penny for parks goes through as a way to expand the park and to make improvements too.

Okay. This particular audit, if it's the same one that I'm thinking of, there were two audits done. Okay. One of them was after the property was purchased, there was an FCT requirement that there be an audit a year later, some other period later. And I believe that's the audit that you're looking at. Yeah. And since that time, the bike trail has been put in on the railroad tracks. The trail that leads from Blue Run Park going to the bike trail, that's all been done. Oh, okay. So that would be after this year.

All right, that's all I've got.

Okay, anything else? We'll go on to item animal control agreement.

This agreement auto-renews at the end of September. I was surprised when I read that, so I spoke to Mandy about it. Because anything where we have agreements that are going to terminate or auto-renew, we should know many months in advance so that we can take a look at the agreement and see if we want to auto-renew it. Or if it's going to terminate, You know, we need so many months to come up with another agreement. And so what Mandy explained to me is for stuff that terminates, they have something in the computer calendar that auto pops up many months in advance to give us the opportunity to, you know, how long it takes to get another contract or an agreement. So we've got the time to research and figure all that out. We did not have anything in there for renewals, okay, which are just as important. We don't want to renew an agreement that we don't like. So she was going to get with Shelby and have Shelby do the same thing with auto renews. So, you know, we discovered a problem. That problem is going to get fixed. What's happening right now, when I went in and researched all the documentation, We Donellan property owners are paying for animal control. I thought it was two ways, but actually three ways. We're paying for animal control through the county millage rate. It's the same 3.09 millage rate that Everybody that lives in the county pays. Doesn't matter if you live in an incorporated area or not, it's the same millage rate. Animal control comes out of that millage rate. The other place animal control comes out of is the 1% sales tax. We all pay sales tax, that 1% sales tax also. The five incorporated areas, at some point the county came up with this, actually I think where we had 26, I think it was in 22 is when this was given to us, and the other municipalities. So if you live in a municipality, you're paying a third way, and that's through these agreements. And the agreement, and the way it's the same, they're using the same formula that gives us back sales tax. So we know we're hurt by that because we have such a low census population, but we have a huge traffic account or traffic in everything that comes through here, which gives us wear and tear. So I don't want to say somehow this slipped through. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention back in 22. It just doesn't seem right that non-incorporated areas have to pay a third time. But if you live in an unincorporated area, Rainbow Springs, Rainbow Lake Estates, Romeo, you name any one of those, OK, they don't have an agreement. When they go buy whatever they buy, pay their 1% sales tax, it comes out of that. When they pay their county general millage, it comes out of that. And so for some reason, the five municipals are getting hit up with this third way of having to pay. My position is to notify the county, start a conversation with the county, notify them that based on this, we don't want to renew the agreement and we should still have animal control because we're already paying for it in the two ways that I mentioned, the same as everybody else that lives in the county. And that's that.

Okay. Okay. Any questions or concerns? All right. We'll move on now to item number five, staff agenda item, fire department building repairs. Mandy.

I've got the two quotes for the fire department to have the east side wall of the building repaired. Two quotes are the scope of work is about the same. There's a list there of everything that's going to be done. Price, pretty good price difference between our two contractors. I DON'T KNOW BOTH CONTRACTORS. BOTH CONTRACTORS ARE LICENSED AND SURE AND EVERYTHING ELSE. I DIDN'T HAVE A REAL RECOMMENDATION ON THEM IN CASE THEY DID PRICE-WISE. YOU KNOW, WE HAVE A.L. MILTON, BUT SOMETIMES PRICES AND EVERYTHING ALSO.

WHERE WERE THE CONTRACTORS FROM?

A.L. MILTON'S FROM OCALA.

I DON'T THINK PRE...

THEY'RE BOTH LOCAL. THEY BOTH USE THEIR LOCAL CONTRACTORS. THEY DO A LOT OF WORK IN DENON OR SEMI-LOCAL, I'D SAY. THE PREVIOUS GIVES DIFFERENT OPTIONS FOR THE RATES.

WHAT YOU GOT BIDDED ON, DOES THIS... Give us the satisfaction that the building will be in good shape once it's completed, or is this just a patch? Or as Rex had mentioned, with spending money, we may need to go back and spend more later. Does this solve the issue?

It'll solve all the issues. They've walked through the whole building. They've looked all around. They checked for rot. They checked for mold. It's just the east side of the building that's getting beat by the sun and the weather. When that was built, it should have had a hardy board put up there, some concrete instead of wood. That's taken all the... The weather, and that's what's rotting out right there.

So the other sides will not, in your opinion and the opinion of the inspection.

The contractor's opinion said that there's nothing needed done to the other sides at that time.

That's what I want to hear.

That's exactly what we need to hear.

Just the east side. We want to put the building in good shape and be done with it.

Like, say, the Creek Construction, they give us different options of each upgrade they want to do. AL Milton, they give us the same scope of work, but they are doing the party board in their quote versus an upgrade.

What's your opinion of what they recommended to you?

Both of them are good. Both of them have pretty much the exact same scope of work. They have the same plan. I like that A.L. Milton was already just added in their work that they were going to put the hardy board in versus the other contractor uses that upgrade at a higher price. A.L. Milton to me seemed like he was just going to do the work. the right work the first time, not as upgrades or recommendations. He was just going to do what needed to fix it right. Valerie?

So, question. I see that they're going to caulk and paint new siding. Will we need to paint the whole building to make it all, I mean, the

They're going to match what's there. They're even looking at the hardy board to match what the wood siding is on the back side so it doesn't stand out.

And they don't think that the wood siding on the other sides do need to be replaced or will need to be replaced? No.

It's built a little bit different from the east side. It doesn't have the overhanging. And the weather seems to all come and just beat that side and the sun beats the side and stays shaded. That's not catching the weather. Everything they checked on that we went through, I mean, it's a wood staple test, and they probably didn't find anything. It was concerning to them. The biggest issue was the east side, and that's where the fire department's entry doors are. There's two entry doors on that side to the bunk room to the kitchen. Both windows are there on the outside. They have water lines out there just on the outside of the building that was added on some type of piece.

Anything else, Carmen? Yes, sir. Rex? Tim, do you have any suggestions, concerns? No, sir. Sounds good to me. What do we need to move forward with then, Mandy?

Well, we need to pick a contractor, and if we want to award it to the low bidder, A.L. Milton, we can put this on the agenda for next week. to award the quote to that contractor. And we need to figure where this is coming from, where we're pulling the money from.

What's your suggestions? That's Shawna.

That's Shawna. Ask your moneylender.

What's your suggestion, Shawna? I could let you know before the vote. Like I explained during the budget meeting, I am reviewing the reserves so I can know exactly how much is in each one.

Okay. So we'll have something to consider at the next meeting on the 9th? Yes. Does everybody understand that? Absolutely. Does that work for you, Maggie? Yes. Chad, does that work for you? Yes. Okay. Any other questions, concerns on that? No, sir. All right. Well, let's move on then. How about item number six, resolutions? 6A resolution, RES 2026-25, building department fees back up to be provided. Who wants that?

I'll take this one. This is something that Ron. building department fees. It kind of breaks it down to, I guess the simplest way to say it is you can only charge for what the cost is. So before we charged, our fees were based on square footage of the construction. And this has to, we already, we already adopted a resolution back in August that fixed some of it. But I did identify some problems with it and asked Ron to dig a little bit deeper into House Bill 803 and to update the resolution. I did send it to Andrew and Ryan to have them take a look at the resolution, the way it's been rewritten. And we also have a new requirement to reduce the amount of our fees if the applicant is using a private provider for construction projects or for commercial projects. So in cases where they're using a private provider for just inspection services, there has to be at least a 25% reduction in whatever our established fee is. And if they're using their product provider for both plans review and inspections. So one or the other, it's a 25% reduction. If they're using their product provider for both, it's a minimum of 50% reduction in the fees. So Ron came up with a spreadsheet that calculates that reduction based on the rates that are established that are based on actual personnel costs now. So it's very, very, very convoluted.

And that brings us into compliance with state statute?

Yes.

Well, that's going to have to be our target.

We didn't receive that, though, right?

No, I just had a chance to look at this today. Okay, I just didn't see it in my file. It's not in there. I'll send it out to you all. Ryan did review it. Ryan, do you have any comments on what I sent over to you? I know you responded to me and said that you really didn't have anything, but you might be able to elaborate a little bit more on that.

No, like you said, it is convoluted. I do love the spreadsheet. I think it's really going to simplify things. My only comment for the spreadsheet was just to make sure that the staff and everybody knows that those reductions are for commercial projects. So we don't have a situation where it's a residential project. reduced by 25 or 50%. There is sort of a separate requirement under HB 803 for the residential portion, and that's just that the permit fees must be based on the actual cost incurred by the city, which you did mention earlier. But other than that, Like you said, we can no longer have these inspection fees based upon the value of the construction or anything like that. It does have to be essentially based on the actual cost that's incurred to the town or to the city.

Thank you, Ron.

Okay. Any questions? Everybody understand that?

I understand it, but to his point about it being cost now based on how many hours versus how much the house would have been to build, do we have any projections of will that increase our funds or will that decrease the funds coming into that department?

So what it does is the point of it is you're not supposed to be making money. You're supposed to only be covering your costs. And you shouldn't be charging anything over and above what your actual cost is. So essentially what we're going to have to do is every year revisit this, look at... what is our cost for safe build? What is our cost for the community development manager, the permitting tech? They use the public works manager for some things to go out and do silt fence inspections when there's new construction. So we've had to incorporate all these different salaries and create sort of a table to say, you know, with salary and benefits or if it's just a safe build flat rate and do an estimate Okay, so a simple residential plan review, we're estimating it's going to take an hour of this person, a half hour of this person. And so we're having to, and the challenge is going to be is keeping up with that and making sure that if we say it's only going to take an hour and it takes two hours, then we go back and we collect that other, the additional portion that the customer would owe us for that whatever work was done.

Now, didn't we just see an example of this at some point in time? I mean, when it got changed, there was an example of this, and where I'm leading to is, you know, we had an hour for this, two hours for that. Right, I remember that. But all we said was that those were just examples. That was not what the actual cost is. But just to show the math, if this takes an hour, you know, then it's times this rate for everything you just mentioned, and then there's the number. But the hour was not cast in stone.

Right. It was just the hourly rates, and you're probably remembering that from the ordinance that – I'm sorry, the resolution that we adopted in August. But the more I dug into that House bill, the more I realized that that resolution wasn't up to par. Right. I'm with you. And it had to be – there had to be a lot of changes to it to really bring us into compliance.

Okay. I've got one more question. Finance-wise – Were those typically escrow-type items, which basically means they were passed through?

No.

Oh, no.

No. Not like we do with site plan review.

Right, right, right. That's where I was leading to.

No. So for site – now, this is completely different. This is just building permits. So the schedule that we have for site plan review for – A rezone, a special exception, a variance. It doesn't affect any of that. So we can still collect that escrow for those type things. And the money that we spend on those comes out of there. But once they get to the building permit, that's not a pass-through. Okay.

Randy, what's the timeline for this? When is the state telling us that we need to step in line? July 1.

Yeah, July 1.

Well, I know this is another demand on you. You've got your plate full to start with. Do you think you'll have something for us by the 9th?

I think we have a pretty good resolution. But like I said, I was... Ron worked on this last week, and I was out Monday, Tuesday on vacation. I got back Thursday, Friday to 185 unread emails, and I did not get a chance to look until today. I didn't want to send it out to you until I had good eyes on it.

Well, that's what I was, you know, if it's imperative, we could call a special meeting on this issue later.

No, we can go on this next week. Listen, there are some cities out there that haven't even gotten this far.

All right. Well, I guess what I want to do is I want to give you an opportunity to get in compliance so that you'll be comfortable with what you're trying to achieve. I don't want to put you in a situation.

It's fine. We can put it on the regular agenda for next week. And then we'll have some challenges because we've also got to figure out how this is going to be. We might end up having to spend a little bit of money with BS&A because all of our schedules were set up in there with the implementation. And now this is so convoluted, I don't know if they've had experience with other cities. in setting these types of fees up. Because right now, like when you go in, your permit fee is based on you put in a square footage and the cost of the project, and it calculates all that for you internally. And because this is a little bit different, we're gonna have to look and see what's gonna be required to get our BS&A system updated with these rates and how we're going to keep that updated as they change.

Well, you've got the discretion to call them in, don't you, to do what you need?

That's another project that I have Ron working on is reaching out to them and finding out what it's going to take to get our financial system updated with the new rates.

Okay. And this has messed up the county as well. I mean, it's... It's totally everybody in the state.

Mandy, I know it's a work in progress, but at least I'd like to have it. Could I get the spreadsheet that we're looking at right now?

Sure. I'm going to send the resolution and the summary that Ron prepared and the spreadsheet out to all of you. Cool. So you'll have it well in advance of next week.

Cool. Okay. All right. Any other questions on this? Randy, anything else?

No, sir.

All right. We'll move on to item number seven, proclamations. Proclamation PRO-2026-05, Constitution Week.

This is a proclamation that we have that comes in annually. This was the, Michelle? Daughters of the American Revolution. Thank you. It's the same, pretty much lower plate. I don't, I didn't speak with them. Michelle, do they plan to come in and be presented with it at the meeting? Yes. Okay, so that will be, we'll approve that on the consent agenda and then there will be a short presentation.

Okay, any questions? That's the DAR. Okay. We'll move on into item number eight, council comments.

I enjoyed the meeting. Thank you.

Rex? No. Tim? Actually, I have two questions for you, Ryan, since you're playing our attorney today. We've had this compounded truck for an incredible amount of time. Where are we at with that?

Compounded truck?

Yes, ma'am. Impounded, thank you.

Oh, impounded, thank you.

Somebody that knows English, thank you, sir.

Yes, so I finally heard back from opposing counsel and they would like to enter into an agreement in order to essentially settle the case. The problem was the defendant in that matter and the owner of the truck was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. So he was not able to consent to anything as of last month. He has been released from that. So she is now able to get consent from them for the agreement. So at this point, I'm just waiting on opposing counsel to give me her revisions to the agreement in order to get this thing resolved and get it off the city's property.

Okay, cool. Would you be the squeaky wheel and not just wait on her, but maybe reach out to her? several emails so I am on top of it okay thank you the next second question is this third Street property is there a short version of where we're at with that yeah so so where we're at with that we've received a

search to see if there were any errors to the property. We have not found any errors. So at this point really all it's on me to get the motion for summary judgment filed and to get a hearing date for that. So I'm about 50% out of trial from last week I'll be able to get you all and send over to Mandy a copy of the filing but it is on my calendar and I will get it done this week for y'all awesome thank you Ryan no problem Ryan you're next on the comment section here I don't have any particularly interesting comments if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them

Valerie?

No, sir. Thank you for being here tonight. Rick?

Absolutely.

Tim?

Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. We'll now have public comment. Does anyone in the public wish to speak?

Yes.

I'm Kalila.

I live in Dinellan Incorporated. I have two questions about the special events ordinance. The last I read in our city budget, there's a line item with about $1,000 for special events. I believe that's what I read. Are the community events still funded in the current proposed budget? And the reason I'm asking is because part of what makes our Den Ellen is our traditions, which is our parades, which is the Little League parade, which is Boomtown, which is the two rivers. All of those things is what makes our town homey. And so with this ordinance, as I'm reading it and as we've gone over, it seems like it's pushing the financial burden onto the planning or the organizers who are planning these events. So are we going to as a city increase our budget for these special events that make our town our town to help offset the costs that are now being pushed over to the citizens who plan the events?

Just to let you know, the events have for decades, for probably two decades now, been at the expense of the citizens or the residents planning them. I'm in agreement that we need to start looking at being more of a community-driven helping with, like having the Boomtown Day get out of jail thingamabob that was always outside. I think that's going to be the challenge this year is to look how we can start becoming more part of the city of Dunellan

Yes, but the- With a limited staff as well. But specifically regarding the ordinance, as the fees seem to be increasing for the event planners who are the citizens. Right. So does that mean we're going to step up as our city budget to allocate more funds to help offset those costs for specific events that are key to our city like- Boomtown days or the Christmas parade or the Little League. Yes. To help offset that because this is a bigger portion that I'm understanding now is that it's going to the citizens. It's not correct. Okay. So how does that look? Because my understanding as I'm reading it, it does seem like it would be more costly to hold these events.

First of all, the special events are not held by citizens. They're held by nonprofit groups and their fundraisers. So the purpose that they do this is to raise funds for whatever their particular thing is. as far as this ordinance this ordinance doesn't change anything as far as we don't have any cost the only cost that we have that the city not cost the only thing that special events folks pay the city for is whatever the permit fee is and it's it's Not really changed. I mean, maybe a tiny percent, but not this ordinance. This ordinance doesn't change that. The fees are set up in a resolution, okay? And again, the only fee is for the city is a permanent fee like any place has. You know, so again, these are fundraisers, okay?

I don't think it matters where the funds come from, but is the city able to help more to make it more beneficial for the tradition?

Who is the city to you?

The budget. Who's setting the budget for the city? So who's paying for the barricades? Exactly. It comes from the taxpayers. So budget is allocated, yes, by the city. So when we're allocating our budget, can we allocate more? That is my question. Help offset for special traditions that our city holds that makes our city our city. I understand. And it's a fair question.

And it is a fair question, and I understand your question. But I don't want to get into a debate about it. It's okay for a council member to request a comment, period. But we're not going to debate it, okay? Fair enough. Okay. Now, Tim, do you want to comment? Rex, do you have anything? Thank you very much for being here.

I had another question. Absolutely. Go ahead.

We've got time.

So my next question revolves around Blue Run Park. At this point, it's my understanding the county pretty much plays, I think it's what, $36,000 annually for management of the park. If we're still retaining ownership of it through the deed, and that's something we want to maintain, is that an asset that the city can use to tap for more funds? I understand that we say we're not supposed to have commercial activities, but there's no way to Blue Run Park charges for things, which if we end up giving this asset to the county you know they're going to tap it for more funds too which potentially could bring in more people payment for parking all of that i mean we don't even benefit from blue run or i'm sorry from the kp hole who uses our access point to get out so i mean i feel like that is an attacked an untapped asset for our city that we really should be looking at ways that we could

The FCT is what restricts what can and can't be done with that.

Right, that's the grant that we provided that purchased it for us, right? I'm sorry? That's the grant where we purchased it through? The FTC, that's what you're talking about? Correct. So within that route, there's nothing that can be done with that? Because I hear no, but I feel like there are ways that we could.

It is very, very limited. So it's not like the county is going to come in here and start doing this or start doing that. They simply can't. Again, to do any changes have to go through the FCT. The requirements are very easy to understand.

So they can't, but yet they did it with Blue Run when they took it over? I mean, we can't tube our own river.

Blue Run or KP Hole.

Sorry, thank you, KP Hole.

I mean, we can't even tube it anymore. Right, that's a whole different animal.

That's actually part of the management plan initially.

Why is it? Well, your questions relate to an issue that has been ongoing for many, many years. And it was set up purposefully to be a free public park. So there's not going to be any allocation of funding out of that park. The only thing that can happen is you've got an operation in KP Hole that is tied in to Blue Run Park. That particular application is in there. But as far as any fundraising, any gathering of funding to the city or the county from the operation of that park, that's not going to be allowed. I'm just telling you that simply. I'm trying to make it as simple as I can. That can't happen.

Fair enough. Just for understanding, how long will the FTC have governance over it for giving us a grant for the park? Perpetual.

Perpetuity. Yeah, it's locked in.

It's locked in. OK, and there's no way for us to buy that back?

We are giving the grant money back. If you look at the agreement, the city is obligated under some expenses And those involve water and sewer. And they could be a great deal of money. We're obligated in that agreement. So we want to be careful about what we're getting into.

Fair enough.

Because this could be an opening in expenses to the city. And then we don't want that.

Fair enough. And the last question I had was, is it my understanding that FDOT controls the bridge? Yes. So if we want to get a sidewalk on that bridge, we need to go through the county?

That's the county.

So we would need to go through the county to get a sidewalk out of the bridge.

That is fixed to start.

That project is right on the verge. They're putting the signs out now. Last week they started putting up signs, barrels, and all that kind of stuff. It's not going to be a sidewalk. What it's going to be is what you see existing. They're going to put the concrete barriers up, like you see in road construction on the highways. That's what's going to go over the bridge. Then when they get to the east side of the bridge, they're going to put a gravity wall up, and there's going to be a takeoff. From that, they're going to put a path right so pedestrians and bikes can get down into Blue Run.

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

And that's happening right now.

That's awesome.

And that also, I'll add this to it, there will also be crosswalks involved with this design. There will be one down near Reed's Bank. Crosswalk there. They will not be like we have on 41 with the traffic signals, but they will be designated crosswalks. And there will be another one near the west end of the Rainbow River Bridge so that people can cross there also. So that's wrapped into that same plan.

That's awesome. And just one thing, Mr. Mayor, and just for clarification, because I want to make sure everybody hears that might be listening, that all of the parades are not for profit. Or to try and, or not fundraisers, i.e. the Little League is just representing all of the great kids and parents that are going out there and hitting the balls as hard as they can. So I just wanted to make sure I made that clarification for everyone.

Yeah, I don't think it matters where the funds come from for those events. Oh, I know.

I was just making sure that it's not about fundraising.

But when we're talking about ordinances, who's paying for them? It would be great if the city could line item a budget into that to help offset it. I understand. Thank you.

Anyone else wanna make a public comment? Yes.

One of those. Today. Shane Stevens. As far as Ernie Mills, the verbiage that y'all were talking about, what if the city puts something like emergency circumstances is at the city's discretion as far as like the time? When you were talking about the 120 days and 30 days, don't put anything, I was just saying, like emergency circumstances or, you know, is at the city's discretion. That way, no matter who's here, it's still up to the city for like a celebration of life or something like that. I know Tim was saying that the city's not going to pay for people using electricity out there.

Who as a contractor is going to be doing the work out there? Putting the electric in? Yeah. Duke Energy will be one.

to get a meter reader out there. That way someone can go out there and read before and after. I know that it's a 20 amp circuit, but it's not a 20 amp receptacles. No, they're not. All these are 20 amp circuits. These are all 15 amp receptacles. So I would put a... I would put an amendment in there, word bar none, and say, hey, make sure you use the 20 amp receptacles and not the standard 15 amp receptacles. It's not. My dad owns a bar none. I'm a German electrician. I worked for Progress Energy for eight years as a lineman and a little bit of a... So how do you...

The breaker...

The breaker protects the wires. If I put 10 cords onto that receptacle, and that receptacle is only rated for 15 amps, I can burn that receptacle up before that breaker ever trips. That's my point, right. So that's what I'm saying. Make sure you have 20-amp receptacles.

They're 15-amp receptacles.

Are they 20-amp GFIs?

No, I think the breakers are 20-amp.

I'm saying I would personally make sure that they use 20 amp receptacles so you know that it don't do that. So it's not going to burn up the receptacle and come back onto the city, which we talked about lawsuits and stuff, and that could be something. Because they'll know the receptacle is what I'm saying before the breaker ever trips.

Chad, is that something that we could check on with them, and if there's a change in the contract?

I believe that's the way it's set up, because they got the GFI as a trip before.

It's a very good suggestion, and if you work with that contractor, and if there is an adjustment, then we certainly want to do it.

You can buy either, or there's a little bit more money. We're doing the job we want to do. I know that every contractor out there, just like I said, these are 20-amp breakers, but that's a 15-amp receptacle. So you can't overload the receptacle without the breaker tripping. That's all I'm saying. So I would just verify with them. You may have to do an amendment or a dingle because I'm sure they didn't put that in the bed, but it's not that much more. Well, Chad can take care of that.

He has some discretion. His staff has some discretion on things like this. They can do that.

As far as the barricades, I understand that the city don't want to get involved with that. They don't want to do barricades. I get that. But talking about trying to bring the community and the city together, when people apply for the special permits, I think it would be great, and I know it takes manpower, but I think it would be great if the city reached out to barricade companies and said, hey, if I give you all the work or if we have the Christmas parade, this, this, this, what kind of deal will you give us? And that way not saying that the city uses it. But the city could give that information to whoever's getting the pamphlet to fill out everything to do their special requests, like the chamber, and say, hey, call Ernie Jackson Barricade because they said they're going to give us a really good deal. They're good. You know, to kind of help them out. So, you know what I'm saying? I want the city to try to help the community as much as possible. So if we can give whoever's asking for the paper, the pamphlet to fill out to do all this stuff, if we can give them as much information as possible, that would be great. It would be helpful. And that's all I'm saying about that. I think we should do the barricades, but that's a whole other story. City level vote. Pretty much it. Oh, and as far as the... I don't want him to get in trouble. The fire department fixing it, nothing's forever. So when you're asking him, are we ever gonna have to go back and fix the wood? You know, yes, we are. Some time. It may not be 10 years down the road, but I don't think it's forever. So I don't want anything to happen in a year down the road or two years down the road. Well, I thought we just had, you know, I hope everybody knows.

Well, that's why we wanted quality work. You know, we could do the best we could do. As Chad said, you realize that when you see the design of that, and you know it gets that sun every morning. It's beating it. The other side doesn't get that. It's hitting it, and that's what's caused most of the trouble, and that's just nature. That's the part that's been weathered the worst.

One question on that. I know the building is the city's, but isn't the fire department in the city get rid of the fire department? It's part of our agreement. It's part of our agreement.

We still own the building, so it's part of our agreement.

That's all I was asking is if we're not getting revenue from the fire department as far as why are we having to take it?

We didn't have to give our citizens an impact fee every year, or not an impact fee, but a fee every year. That would have been like over $400 if we'd kept the fire department. And we could never afford all the new vehicles and such.

Just a question.

Just an answer.

Anyone else want to speak about Danny?

Sorry.

Danny Hart, once again. I've asked and several people have asked for a round table again on the special events ordinance. It's gotten nowhere. People are asking for it. It's not getting anywhere. You guys can change that. Call to have one and then we'll do it. That's how we did the last one. There was a few things addressed but not everything. And we don't know what's all changed. There has been some changes. I need to clarify because there's been some things that have been misspoke and just are not true. The special events are not always for profit. Like I spend money on like the parade. I'm not making money on it. Like, you guys make this much to do this. What you put into it is crazy. You know, this is a full-time job. What I do, you know, is it takes a lot of my time. I'm not making a dollar off of it. I'm a volunteer. Absolutely a volunteer. There's things that the chamber does that doesn't make any money at all. We're doing it for the town because, like me, Julie, all these volunteers that we have are doing it because they love the Nellie. And we want to see this small town stay a small town as much as we can. And we've got to fight for it. We've got to fight for it. You guys have got to fight for it to keep this small town feel and keep the quality of our town. It's growing, but we need to strive to keep that small town feel. Like, for sure. That's not even debatable. Please move for a roundtable again. We've had a bunch of changes. People gone. Positions that haven't been filled. You know, we need to do it. Because this 20 pages, like, there's a lot to unpack. And it, like... The beginning of this, you know, talking about, you know, the administering special events, talking like the city hosts the events. The city doesn't host any events. And that's what people think is the city is doing it. you know, partner with us. But the city doesn't host events. They only see a little bit, just a piece of it, what it takes to put these events on. And as far as the MOT, it's over $2,000 to do it for these events. The cost has gone up, and it's because we're not getting help with the MOT. But then we do the MOT, pay a company to do it, and then Chad has to oversee it. And he made changes to The last one that helped, it would have been Boomtown. You had great advice.

But whoever does the MOT plan, they will receive their plan. Right, right, right.

But you have to approve it. But you know what you're doing. That's one way that the city could help us by just doing MOT. Nobody knows this city better than the city employees that handle this. That's the way you could partner with us. It's $2,000. And then you still have to approve it. You see what I'm saying? You still have to put eyes on it. You still have to evaluate it. We can't police where everybody parks. We can't be park Nazis. Oh, you can't park there. Oh, you can't park there. We can't do it. It's nuts. Like I see part, like a lot of this is limiting what the taxpayer can actually do, and you guys represent the taxpayer. And the majority of you do it in an awesome fashion, and I thank you. But, you know, we don't need to limit what us that live in Dunellin do. It's just, it's just, look.

Go ahead, complete your statement, Danny. I'm letting you run over, but our time's, you know.

Roundtable. Please do a roundtable so we can talk about this. And, you know, if you guys want to push through and do this, it's not for the betterment of anybody, even the city. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it, guys.

Anyone else want to address the council? Micah, do you have anything tonight that you want to bring up?

No, sir.

Okay. Anyone else want to address the council? All right. Seeing no one, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion on the floor to adjourn.

A discussion?

Right, Ryan.

What now? What?

Ryan, you just went ahead. All right. I appreciate it.