Charter Review Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. It is 04:00. We're gonna call to order the meeting of the city of Edgewater Charter Review Committee, 03/17/2026. It is 04:00. Can we have a roll call, please?

Donna McDavid?

Here.

Patrick Fisher.

Here.

Linda Mosier. Present. Gary Conroy.

I'm here.

City Manager Mahoney.

Here.

City Attorney Sabatini. Here. Interim City Clerk Tupin present.

Thank you, ma'am. At this time, I'd like to open up the meeting with citizen comments. Miss Long, if you'd like to get up there and give us your insights or anything you have, we'd appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Just your

name and address, please?

Kim Long, 3312 Mango Tree. I have a few topics that I'd like to bring up. I think I can do it quickly. Number one, stem walls. I know you've discussed it. I was here when you did. If you required stem walls, it would prevent runoff and conserve water. This from our governor, the state of Florida. Florida officials urge residents to cut back on water use as the drought worsens. The drought has worsened in the past few months, and two thirds of the sunshine state is designated with a extreme drought.

Now how can we alleviate this? The Department of Agriculture and the University of Florida has nine principles of friendly landscape, which you have also discussed. If you put this into a charter amendment, and I'm not gonna read them all, you would reduce stormwater runoff. Florida friendly landscapes seek to retain and use as much of the rainfall and the irrigation water that lands on the home landscapes as possible. Plants and soil capture the water, and it all slows runoff from heavy rains, allowing time for the water to soak into the ground aquifer.

Solves two problems. It solves your flooding problem, and it also solves a problem that we're in a severe drought right now. I think that should be put in the charter. Number four, straight from my heart, once again, I don't know. It's seven years now.

I am asking that you put our public parks in the charter. I've never requested they go in the charter. However, I've been gone going to the city council over and over again, and Vero Beach did it, Saint Pete did it, and Miami did it. I'm requesting charter protection for all parks in the city of Edgewater, Florida. A referendum requirement would be that the most common protections that are put in a charter were any sale or long term lease of public land must be approved by the majority of the voters in a general or special election.

Designated preservation lists, specific parks, or historic sites may be named in the charter. It's been done by all those cities and many more. Example. An example of the city charter that was done by Vero Beach reads thusly, primary purpose of section five point o five is to limit city council's authority to sell, trade, gift, or lease city owned public lands without the authorization of the citizens of Edgewater. In Edgewater, there are six city owned properties that I could find.

There may be a couple more listed. If you list these in the city charter, any sale, lease, trade, or gift of these properties has to be approved by the citizens of Edgewater in a referendum. I'd like to think that the council's gonna go ahead and change that deed back that I have been talking about for all these years, but I don't know. I've put calls into the city manager. I put a call into the attorney that's representing Edgewater over two weeks ago. I've never received a callback. I know it's on the agenda. It was on the agenda for next month, but I don't know that they're gonna pass it. So if you can put it in the charter, it would wouldn't matter if they passed it or not. You could protect all of our parks, not just that one park that I've been trying to get the deed changed for. So thank you. I hope you let the people vote on these topics.

Thank you, ma'am. With nobody else here, we're gonna close some comments. I'd like

to open up to our CEO, our finance director is here.

So if she has some information or a presentation. We don't have

a presentation. I think Ms. Bullard had some questions about the budget.

Mhmm.

Okay. So I guess my

first question would be is and I'm just trying to keep within the scope, I'll try to answer some of miss Bullard's questions. Is the Charter Review Board looking to modify any of the charter pertaining to finance. So really just covers section Three point reserves. Zero Three point zero eight, the limitations of borrowing. And then 4.08, financial and purchasing procedures and regulations. So to keep it on the purview of the Charter Review Board, are you entertaining an amendment pertaining to any of those topics?

I'm sorry. Can you repeat those numbers again?

So it's 3.08 f, which is reserves

Mhmm.

3.08 d, which is limitations on borrowing, and then Section 4.08, financial and purchasing procedures and regulations. And then before you give me an answer for that, just to Ms. Bullard's email, Currently, in our operating 15% reserve, we have $4,614,371.70.

Okay.

So and that reserve is about just under two months of our operating expenses. Okay. So I'm just trying to narrow it down for the charter review portion of it. Now we do have for our budget, it's all on the website. It's all public. We do have our first budget workshop in June, which I do encourage you all to attend. That's where a lot of the intricacies of the budget are spoke about. We have a rate consultants there as well, so they can explain a lot of different sections of our budget, including utility rates.

Ms. Fuller, did you have some questions?

I do. Okay. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. So what we currently have laid out in the charter is a 15% reserve fund. That is laid out in the charter. I looked and could not find any other nearby cities that have that in their charter, and I did not have any issue with the 15% within the charter until I was also I also learned that we additionally have a 10% bond covenant that we hold in reserve as well as an emergency reserve fund that is, I think, two or three months of operating budget.

So that's the that's the 15%?

So that all falls. The 10% bond covenant as well falls in the 15% too. So this is like one I guess what I'm asking is do we have two accounts, one that is a 10% bond covenants held for our from our lender, and then an 15 separate. And did I did call the lender to find out if that 10% needs to be separate. They did not answer my question. They said, you guys can answer my question. So I said, okay. Cool. So but, yeah, a 10% bond covenant, a two to three month budget, and then a 15%. Does that two to three months and the 10% bond covenant, is it all within that 15%? Or is it an additional 10%?

It's an additional.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is that required by the lender, by the bond covenant?

Well, I'll have the finance director speak on the that topic. It's where it gets a little more detailed. Right. Okay. But we would not want to go less than 15% in our reserve. You know, this is something like you got to think about catastrophe, okay?

Right.

So let's say that we had like a hurricane, and God bless, I hope this doesn't happen. But let's say we had a hurricane that took that did destruction to a large vast number of structures. Right? So then you we, the city, would have less ad valorem taxes coming in because the properties no longer exist or would be uninhabitable. And then also, it could knock out our utility infrastructure, then we have no utility revenue coming in either. We need to have those reserves available.

I just don't know if they need to go in the charter because I keep hearing a lot of this doesn't belong in the charter from a lot of things that I pushed forward. But I looked in about 14 different city charters and could not find where a reserve fund was listed in the charter. And I have no problem with it being there if we don't have additional funds also. Just from my small amount of knowledge, it just seems like we have a lot sitting in reserve that we should could possibly use for capital projects. If that's not the case, I'm happy to hear that.

But I just wonder how much is sitting, how much we could use elsewhere. I mean, honestly, my biggest concern is just that what percentage of I guess, just for you. Yeah.

Good afternoon. Bridget Vasier, Finance Director for the City of Edgewater. Just for a little bit more clarification, so absolutely, we've got the 15% charter. We have investment, so all of our money is citywide. And we show that through our general ledger system as reserved for or restricted for certain amounts or legally restricted.

Certain amounts are designated by mayor and council, and therefore can be moved around by mayor and council, right? So the 15% charter reserve, even that we can utilize in the case of the true major catastrophe as needed, but we would have to then replenish it within the five year time frame. The amounts that are above and beyond that are at the discretion of mayor and council as far as reviewing during the budget process. We review all of those amounts during the budget workshops with you. As far as the bond, right, so there's a couple of requirements for bonds, right?

We have multiple bonds outstanding. And so we have bond covenants, which require us to maintain certain amounts for the upcoming year's payments. And then there's bond coverage, which I believe maybe that's what you're referring to. I'm not sure where you're coming up with the 10%. So we actually have, like, one hundred and eighty days is the standard recommended debt service coverage ratios and so forth.

The rate consultants help us go through that process every year during the rate reviews and budget process. And then the debt coverage portion or the debt service requirements in the covenants is anywhere between onesix and sixsix of next year's loan payments. So that can be upwards of around $1,200,000 That is legally restricted, and we are required to have that maintained within our cash funds available.

How does the 15% that is listed in the charter, where does that

come from? Is it utility bills? Is it taxes? So we are required to maintain the 15% based on operating funds. So we maintain that for our general fund, water, sewer, storm water, and refuse funds. And so depending on which fund that is so within the general fund, we have the primary revenue source of the general fund is taxes, ad form taxes. But it's also sales tax, franchise fees. There's all sorts of other revenue. For each of the utility funds, again, proprietary funds are self maintaining. We use water and sewer for water and sewer expenditures. So those would be those rates that are making up that 15%.

Great. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Did anybody else have questions while I'm here?

Thank you so much.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Before we delve into these documents here, Mr. Ronn provided with us. I'll just go down. You have any suggestions or comments? Mr.

Conroy, can I, let Ms? Bessier or redone the finance question for Yeah. The And we're not going to take any action on the other items I mentioned, the three items? Okay. Just want to be sure. No. And I really do encourage each of to attend the budget workshop. You will learn a lot about how we operate.

Thank you for your attendance. We appreciate. Good information to give us every time.

Thank you.

Ms. Fuller, do you have any other comments, suggestions on anything we're going to talk about today before we get into the documents?

I okay. I did wanna talk about putting the parks, protecting the parks within our charter. I sent a a list to you guys. I this was something that I really wanted your input specifically on was the

You flock sent this list?

Yeah. I sent it in an email to everybody. It was like at right after we left last So but I was curious about the flock cameras.

Yeah. Okay. Maui.

Yeah. So and this is not I don't have a lot of input on that. These are just things that I have had people talk to me about. So a lot of this stuff, I'm not super well versed in. I did look it up after I was spoken to. So I just wanted to bring it up and see what everyone else thought, if this is something that you guys feel is important. I am for putting it in the charter because I've had residents reach out and ask me to do so. So I am happy to do that.

Why are you against them?

Flock cameras. I just think collecting data and I'm not totally against flock cameras, because I do kind of feel that being able to solve crimes or missing children, that that's a great thing, if we can do that any faster. But also, it's a privacy concern for many people. So I'm not really for it or against it. I'm for what the residents want and what their

requests So you're

a resident. Yeah.

I don't have a feeling Take

a position.

Either they Yes

or no.

Mean, I would go no, privacy I over everything, in my can see why it would be beneficial, but I think we have a lot of things that are beneficial. I just think people are upset that no one was asked, and they already exist in Edgewater. And I don't know what they're used for. These are questions for you. If you know anything about it, or maybe

Well, think it's just I'll give you for instance. Some guys working across the street, some tree guys. They're in the backyard. A bunch of their equipment gets stolen. So those locker cameras

These are they tag readers.

Yeah. So if they had a description of a vehicle, call the police. They could easily go, hey. It was a red Ford pickup between this time and this time. Am I correct? And they could go in there and go look for a red Ford pickup, get the license plate, and the police could be knocking on that person's door that evening, say, let's get the equipment back or charge them. Solves a lot of crimes, I would think. Or if a child is abducted walking home from Medellin River, that person's gonna go through a flock or camera. Right?

Maybe. I don't know.

No. Yes. They're gonna they're gonna drive past one. So any

I mean, those are these are really great positive things, but I've also seen where someone stalked a a cop actually stalked his ex girlfriend watching tag So there there's a there are

a of can say. That's been going on for every, you know He was charged. He was charged.

I mean, yeah, of course, he was charged. I don't think it's It

still is law enforcement access. Right? So our law enforcement officers can access your personal data

Right.

For lawful purposes. So they can see, you know, your social security number

Mhmm.

Your address, the vehicle's registered to you, many things. Right?

Right.

So the automatic license plate readers are just another law enforcement tool. They're throughout the state of Florida and throughout the country. But I can give you an example. Like, of America got robbed a couple years ago. Right? The armed robbery. We knew what type of vehicle it was. I think it was a white Suburban, if memory serves me correct. And then we searched our database of automatic license plate readers for a white Suburban SUV or Cadillac, wherever it may be. And then we were able to track that Cadillac throughout the state of Florida all the way to Georgia, where the Georgia State Patrol pulled it over and arrested the individual that robbed our bank that same evening.

So it's a great tool, but it's restricted to law enforcement access. There are always going to be some bad actors with information. It could be as simple as a teacher that would release child information or a banker releasing some personal account information, and you do have law enforcers that make mistakes too and release information they shouldn't or utilize it in a manner they shouldn't. And then there's accountability check checkpoints in place for the police department if that were to occur

and Which is internal investigations, right?

It's not really. Well, kind of. Yeah, an internal investigation, but when it's a criminal investigation, it would go to the state attorney's office or the sheriff's office, or if the agency is large enough, they could conduct it themselves. But they're that's all public. The best thing about Edgewater is we're in the state of Florida because everything's open to the sunshine. So those investigations can be critiqued and nitpicked to the umpteenth degree.

Can you use a foyer request for camera footage?

I have to defer to Mr. Sabatini. I don't There's a statute to it. When

these cameras became more popular, telecasting.

The top. Slide it to the left. Yes.

So there's a statutory exemption. Because when these cameras became popular, Tallahassee passed bills about when and if you can get access to them. I don't have the exact specifics. I can pull it up in the next few minutes. But there's an exemption. The average person can't just pull all the data whenever they want. I think in fact, I think the exemption is for all of it, other than without a court unless you have a court order. But, yeah. So

Okay.

You know, I'm sorry. We closed the citizen comments. If you wanna wait, I'll open them up again. Mister Fisher?

Nothing at this time. I think we've got enough to

go through this. Ma'am? Okay. Ms. Mosier?

I don't know anything new, but I did just want to chime in that I do understand what Mandy is concerned about. And certainly, the privacy issue is key. And then it's only fair to say that, yes, it's lawful use right now, but the definition of lawful could change. The definition there are boundaries that may shift going forward. So it's not unwise to try and control that early on

Oh, sure.

Before bad actors get in there. And then, yes, bad things start to happen.

The Fourth Amendment of The US constitution allows you freedom of movement. Simple. We said. Right? Nobody that gets to track here. You don't have to get stopped and give me your papers for no reason. Mhmm. That's the Fourth Amendment, freedom of movement in

the country. Which is yet. Which

you still have.

And yet.

So let's dive into these documents. Let's do this one here, Charter Renewments with Ballot Language 2026. This is the document from earlier, I believe, right? No. Think it's the Yes. This is the one we went through. And we talked about, we voted on these things.

It has a couple of editions at the

flag. We

They're noted.

Whether we pass these or not, move forward. I think the second document is the one today. It's where it says City of Edgewater Charter Preamble, the top page, we voted on and it passed.

And

then the six point three point zero one, the composition, when it hits that standard of 37,000, we're going to create two additional voting districts. And then under 3.2 districts, five year redistricting.

And

then the petitions, which was a two two vote. It failed. We didn't have miss Mueller. She had left early. And the appointment of the city clerk and the three year ban of holding office, I don't think that passed, did it?

No, it

did not pass. So that should be there. And the native plants, passed, stem walls. Did we vote on that?

Yes.

We voted on it and it was a no.

It was a no. And the toilets was a no. Annex property? What was that?

The toilets fixtures was voted as a yes

according to I my don't

know why he's got the fixtures.

Oh, because we're going to change that from toilets to Right. Oh, was it yes?

It was a yes. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. He put

was a yes.

He put

the language in their fixtures. Annexation?

Was a yes.

It was a what? Yes. Sale of City Park property? It

was not on our list.

Yeah, that was

not It says Meade's vote right there. Is that it?

GREGORY We didn't have a vote

bring back to Yeah. You.

So let's read that right now. Section 1.01, paragraph I, sale of city park property. One, voter approval required. Real property owned by the City of Edgewater and designated as a public park, recreational open space or conservation area shall not be sold, transferred or otherwise conveyed unless the sale is first approved by a majority vote of the qualified electors of the City Of Edgewater at a referendum held during a regular or special municipal election. Does anybody have any conversation about that? Or anybody wants to make a motion that we forward this to the city council to open up for any conversation or a motion?

I'm down to talk about it. I think we should talk.

You have the floor.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we should do this. I think we should, especially considering we have residents saying they have can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. That they have spoken to counsel, requested it. Ms. Long said seven years. That's more than one counsel that has not done it that has been requested. And I can't see why we would leave it out of the charter. Anybody else? Agree.

Anybody else? If not, I'll entertain a motion to go forward with this.

I make a motion for section 1.01 I, sale of city park property, to require voter approval.

Second.

There's a motion? There's a second?

Donna McDavid? Yes. Mandy Bullard? Yes. Patrick Fisher?

Yes.

Linda Mosier?

Yes. Gary Conroy?

Yes. Okay. Did we speak about did we vote on the community engagement and public information?

No. That was brought back also.

That was brought back also. Thank you for reminding me. So let me just read it as published. Section 1.01 ks, community engagement and public information. One, the the City Council shall adopt and maintain an ordinance establishing a community engagement and public information program to provide residents meaningful opportunities to prevent issues, concerns and priorities to city officials and to participate in the development of city policies, ordinance, programs and actions.

The city may expand public funds for community engagement activity and for informing and educating the public regarding municipal issues, policies, programs and services and such expenditures as are declared to serve a valid municipal and public purpose. Ms. Moshe, I think this was your baby, right? So would you like to speak on that?

I'm fine with the way this shaped up after it was all rewritten. So I think you got a good grasp of what it was I was looking for. Did anybody else have anything to add in terms of what that might end up looking like?

Didn't you mention something about the HOA society? Is that something that you would like to make specific in here so that that is specifically make sure that people receive that information?

I think the overall community engagement is an umbrella thing in that I have lobbied for using the HOA network and then just a community network, not necessarily HOAs, but to try and develop that a little bit further. It seems like it would be included in there or implied through this without necessarily specifying the usage of HOAs, but using those community contacts to try and make this work. Thank you, though.

Does anybody else have any comments?

Is there any gonna be any discussion on fund amount of funds or where that would come from? Or I mean, it's in here, but that doesn't city already how spends

much money ballpark money do you spend already doing legal advertisements and what the city does now?

Mean, just legal advertise thousands alone was around 30,000. But you wouldn't want in the charter to narrow down what percent of budget allocation because you never know how the operating budget is going to be for that fiscal year. But really the guidance just says, hey, you want a more robust engagement system with our community. So and then from there, counsel can narrow it down.

In your office The ordinance and trust. There's a lot of legal advertisements, right?

Yeah. We do. And I believe Sandy in Grant also does some legal advertisements, but most of the general

So we don't have, like, figure that you could throw out of this?

Well, said last year was 33.

Yeah, we're just approximately 30,000. That's pretty close, though, give or take a couple

All right. My position is the city does everything, not just legally. They go above and beyond that. But it just seems to me that some people feel a little hurt when they all of a sudden, there's a project that is starting to excavate land in front of their properties and things. You know, people need to be more attentive to the city website. Everything's on there. Legal advertisements are in the paper. The city does everything they can. What do you think, Ms. Moser, what the city could do differently That would make a difference where everybody would be, do you think of mailings?

I mean, we do adjacent property owners now. But what do you think above and beyond what they do now, what they could do differently?

And my thought around just this is not necessarily print ads or newspaper or anything, but I see this as being more inside the communications department, the public relations department, the way of helping the city have better relationships with their information delivery. So

you don't have any specific they could do this

or There's no way that do works that I was talking about where you would identify those people within the communities that would be able to help you get the word out. So rather than just putting it out and checking a box, we'd actively be saying, make sure so and so got this information and that it was available to be shared and they understood it fully, and then they passed it along within their communities. So it's more of an internal way of trying to, again, engage more people to understand what's going on, when, where, and how, and then share that among themselves. Beyond a certain point, it's not really even a city purpose. It's simply to help the city do that base level information delivery a little quicker and better.

I think right now they notify 500 feet radius. Maybe that needs to be expanded.

Can you explain that to me? What did you say?

Well, so there's a development on the corner here. So the residents 500 within 500 feet get a mailing. Okay. And there you know, there's the sign in the in the front of the property with the notice. Maybe they need to expand the the mailing. Mhmm. A larger surge you know, larger larger radius. So off off the

cuff, believe it's just we're required by law to to notify the adjacent property owners. So the city goes above and beyond by saying, hey, we're going to send out 500 feet beyond that request. Nothing to do with the charter, but we do have a new PIO starting soon. You know, my belief in the past is I think the city could have been more robust in some of our messaging. So I think you'll start to see some of that.

But obviously, that's something I'm doing operationally. But I think the language written was was decent because it's gonna give guidance that the citizens want the city to be more communicative communicative with the citizens on general topics, not just land, correct? Or are you talking about just land?

Yeah, no, no, just all around. And functionally, to your point about the cards, is that that's of a that's what I'm talking about, a checkbox within the development department. So that is something where in order to satisfy that legal requirement for notice, they have to do that 500 yard.

Well, what could have helped in the situation you faced was if within that 500 foot radius, there's a home or two that are in a development, maybe that pulls that entire development in.

Yeah. That's the argument that we had was that, yes, HOA, the Majestic Oaks, the sign, that address was within. Then there was another technical problem about that delivery of that postcard. But yes, you know that you're dealing with an established neighborhood that has an HOA, then that HOA needs to be involved, not just those neighbors within that radius.

And it's less expensive to send one more notification to an HOA than the entire subdivision.

It could also help you stay kind of in budget, know, send in to one and have her but I do I don't think that they're not going above and beyond what is legally required. I think that they're checking boxes, but communication 101 is it is on the it is the responsibility of the speaker to be heard and to be understood. It's not your job to dissect what I'm trying to say to understand me. It's my job to make it clear. And if people are saying it's not clear, they had no idea, then the boxes have to change. It's not that the boxes weren't checked. It's just not that's my opinion.

And I respect it and I appreciate it. But I got to tell you, from my experience, no matter what you do, there's always going to be somebody going to say, I didn't know. How come I wasn't told? You have a responsibility as citizen. You live in the city. Get on the website once a month to see what's going on.

You don't gotta tell us. We're all here.

People are still people are still asking what's But happening inside

but you're so right.

Yeah.

But there are you're right.

Okay. City will increase engagement.

Yeah. I think it benefits

It absolutely does. Mean, creates better discussion.

I mean, again, thank you, Ms. Long, for being here. We have one person in the audience, you know? That's tough. And you can believe, when this is all over and said and done, I didn't know about these matters.

I wouldn't be here if I wasn't here. I'd be at county right now. So I think a lot of people are also, yeah, at county. She probably doesn't want to be here either. There's a big County meeting going

on So that starts at 04:00 today.

Right. Yeah. And that's been kind of happening. Our every other Tuesday is also their meeting as well.

Well, we didn't think of that.

It's Okay.

We decided. We're doing good work here. Doing a lot of work, very positive stuff. So I will entertain to anybody who wants to make a motion.

I make a motion to how do we say this correctly? To add section 1.01 k, community engagement and public information. Second.

Is that mismeasure?

Yes.

Please.

Donna McDavid? Yes. Mandy Bullard? Yes. Patrick Fisher?

Yes.

Linda Mosier? Yes. Gary Conrad?

No. Let's go to the next page. I think the we've already acted upon the acting city manager written communication. We passed that. We'll be getting that done and ready for the city council, put it in whatever language it is.

The last one here is Section 3.13 initiative and referendum. I think we we voted on that, didn't we? And that passed, correct?

It failed.

It failed? Okay.

I thought that didn't that pass? What failed was the reduction in the number of petitions. Didn't we have two?

It

failed. There was a motion and no second. Four. For changing three to Was

it I got four yeses and one no.

That's why had to. Were the

only one.

Question 16 passed.

You're right.

Was the Of the two.

Back all jobs specifically here. No, Donna.

That passed. What didn't was the reduction in the number of petitions required. If I could find it.

I was not here.

Yeah. We we agreed to reduce it from five to three, right? The persons that can do the qualified vote is to commence an initiative or referendum proceedings by filing an affidavit forming a petitioner's committee responsible for circulating final petition. So we agreed.

I found it. What were It was question eight, reduce the petition signature requirement to 5%. It was two to two and it failed. That was reducing the number of signatures required for initiative and referendum petitions from 10% to 5% of the total number of qualified voters registered to vote in the last city election.

Yeah. Well, thank you. So we have gone through all the questions. We going forward with the preamble, the population, changing it to more districts, city clerk appointed, the landscape requirement, we just did the sale of city park and property, the annexation, acting city manager, and the initiative referendum. Does anybody else have anything else they want to talk about?

If not, I'd like you to open up to citizen comments again for you, Ms. Long. Thank you for waiting.

Well, thank you for hearing me. Kim Long, 3312 Magnetree. The flock cameras, I didn't know that that was gonna be discussed tonight. I have just recently been reading about them, and it's a slippery slope. The problems that people are complaining about, and I'm not talking about Edgewater just in general, is they're not able to pull them even putting in a, you know, whatever kind of request that is called. Who's the corporation that's provided them? How much did the city of Edgewater spend on it? I was able to pull up a map that shows where they are. But, I mean, it the reason there's a big pushback against this is it seems like it was all done in secret. And where is the information stored?

Who is privy to that information? From what I understand, some cities are giving this information to huge corporations. The same corporations that have our Social Security, the Doge people that broke in and and got all their information on Medicare, they have everything. Flock cameras are just one more thing. I understand they can be used for good, but all of a sudden they appeared in our town. I didn't see any articles. I didn't hear any discussion on it. Nothing. And there they are. I And think that's what people are worried about is that we're being spied on, literally.

And what's next? So I just want that's that's the word that's out there. That's what I'm reading. And there are things happening in other places that may not be happening here. But where is the information stored? And who has privy to it besides the police department? Thank you.

Thank you. Mister Mahoney, was that discussed at city council level?

Yes. The FLAC cameras and license plate readers are in the operating budget for the police department and for Parks and Recs, I believe. And it was discussed during budget times and when the budget was approved the past several years. Because for prior FLAC, it was a different company and it was the name escapes me, but it was a different tag reader company that we utilized. And then the majority of police departments in the county went to FLAC a few years ago.

They're leased and they're approximately $3,500 per location. I think they're a pretty valuable tool for law enforcement. Criminals are getting more advanced. There could be bad actors in anything, but just like we all carry smartphones, there's a lot of technology and a lot of information in those phones that, you know, through a warrant or a court order, can be obtained by law enforcement. And it's important to solve, you know, crime in 2026.

And there's there's agreements between the state of Florida, which operates their database for driver's license and tag information with these corporations they partner with. So I don't know where it goes into the cloud or exactly where it's stored. Just know that it's managed via the state of Florida's databases. So I'm sure and I would hope that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state have our best interest when it comes to our information.

You would hope.

But it's like everything else. Same with your driver's license information, your Social Security, your birth certificate. These are all in the state system. So it's scary because it's 2026. There's so much advancement in technology, but where else do you put it? And how do you combat the criminals that are very advanced too.

I wanted to jump in and make a comment that I do recall being at the council meeting whenever it was brought up on budget. It was very open and that's part of the community engagement is to be at the meetings. I mean, if you're not there or you're not looking at the agendas, you risk not knowing what's going on, what's being passed. So but they were definitely on there. I definitely remember them.

Okay.

Well, thank you for your information. So, we're at a crossroads here. We're really whittling down. Mr. Sabatini, do you have anything for us today?

No, I think I've been following some of the meetings, I've watched some of the meetings, I think the conversation is very good. Obviously, today, there's some very big issues about privacy and security and everything coming up. No, I think it's good. I like what you're doing. I think this is a healthy set of recommendations that the council will go through, and then of course the people of the city. If you have any specific questions, ask me. But I think this is, in my experience, a good you guys are working as a good organization. That's all I have to say.

Thank you, sir. So does anybody have anything else today?

I'd like to make a motion to put forbidding plot cameras on the charter. I think it would be good for the people to get to vote on it. That's anytime I hear things from people, I want to end up with the opportunity

You've do do made a motion.

Okay.

We can have discussion after, if we get a second.

Do you want oh, have discussion after. Okay, sure.

All right. I'll second it for the discussion.

Okay. For discussion, we have a second. So

I just can't see an issue in putting it for the people to vote on. That's my biggest. Anything that even if especially if in these five people we have disagreements, then there's going to be people other residents that also disagree. And having them the opinion giving them the opportunity to vote on that opinion, to me, is really important. And I don't think that we give people enough opportunity to make their own choices or to vote on what's happening.

So while I may have missed the meeting, I think that anyone else that missed the meeting should get to vote on it. I don't think a lot of people know what they are or what they mean or what they can do with them or where it's stored or how long it will be stored in this manner, if it will be sold at a different time. And I think, again, I just think people should get to vote on it. So that's my

Well, I think you have to have some trust in law.

We don't, though. I don't, certainly.

You don't have trust in law enforcement or the city council members that are to do the right thing?

No. Oh, well, I would love to. But

Sorry for that, but I do.

Can I

Being a retired law enforcement officer, I I have a lot of trust that they're gonna do the right thing? Are there gonna be humans that get involved in it and and maybe do nefarious things? Absolutely. Because people are human. Right?

I don't think If

I'm a bad guy let me just say, if I'm a bad guy and I wanna commit a crime, I'm just gonna steal a license tag out of a mall parking lot and then commit my crime, and the license plate reader is not gonna do any good. Right?

Right. So why are

they collecting our data? So I'm just saying there's ways to go around it. But I'm just you have to have trust in your public officials.

I don't think it's about trust. I don't think it's not an accusation about anything or anybody. It's just saying that this particular situation presents a set of problems. It doesn't say that, oh, law enforcement

What are the problems?

No. It doesn't say that law enforcement is going to misuse this or that hacking may occur. There are possibilities. It's problematic for people to have all of that information.

I think a lot of people would be upset if they knew that that was happening. So I think giving them the opportunity to vote is the best course of action.

So do you think it's a privacy issue. Right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

So let me ask you just to survey on here. Who has Alexa in their house? You have Siri, Alexa? Do you have anybody have that in their house? Mhmm. No. You don't think people can tap into that?

You got a Windex card, you got a public card, a smartphone. Got a program anywhere.

Because we're already

more of your data and make more dollars

I'm just making an example.

Well, if there's already all of this stuff that exists, then why do we even need these extra cameras? If there's already all this information out there? Here's my thing. If these were private a private home or a private business wanted to have security cameras, sure, fine, that's your property. But we're putting these on private property to like you said, what is the Fourth Amendment to come and go freely. It's not happening freely. You're being recorded, and you're having tabs kept on you. And I do understand that our phones do that and everything else, but that doesn't mean, oh, it happened once, so let's just why we don't just open our doors at night and sleep with the windows open so people can peek right in? I'm sure they could tap my phone and see my face when I'm laying in bed, but I don't leave my windows open so you can look in, too. Just because we have risk doesn't mean we should open our self up to additional risk.

Okay. And what's the benefit? The benefit of having your phone really outweighs, in my opinion, some of the privacy issues. I don't necessarily feel that the benefit of that would outweigh, mostly because I have very specific situation just here in Edgewater with Edgewater Police Department. And someone, my husband, watching a van come down our road, and it recorded it on his Tesla, we watched this van run over a mailbox, go across the road. We called the police. We showed the video. And they're like, well, we don't know that that was that person driving. They came in. They didn't check the guy's license. We found him. We found the guy that did it two roads over. So we called the police. Guy comes out. Doesn't take the guy's ID.

The car's not registered to him. The car he got it that morning, bought it in cash. So my point being, how often do we use that? How often do we let things go if nobody wants to press charges? But I know a hit and run is a crime. But in my very limited experience with our police department here, they did not feel that it was a crime to at least investigate by even getting the guy's ID. So that's my feeling. I don't know how I mean, we had a video of it happening. It was on our Tesla. We watched it.

Okay. I kind of had a functional question just for city manager. How many are there? And we have and we have a certain amount of degree of investment already. What we're trying to do here would do what? Just put it back in front of the make sure it's more exposed in the budget going forward, that if we need

It's more cameras

definitely exposed. It says flock.

Yeah. Flock.

I mean, that's the exact term.

No, but I mean

So I don't have the exact count of how many we have total, because we do utilize our cameras as well in our park. So the real benefit is so other than the scary privacy things, okay, let's say there was a Amber Alert or let's say a citizen of of Edgewater was a victim of a heinous crime and we knew who was perpetrator and had that had that vehicle information, that would notify any city that's operating the flock cameras. Once that vehicle entered into that jurisdiction, hit that camera, it's gonna send it to their dispatch center saying, hey. The vehicle wanted an Edgewater's murder has just entered our jurisdiction at 10th Street and US 1. It is traveling northbound.

Here's a picture of the car sent into the police officer's computer in real time, and that's how they catch bad guys. So that's the benefit of it. If if somebody were to come off or exit into the city of Edgewater in a stolen vehicle, it's going to hit that, and it's going to alert our dispatch center, which is gonna alert our police officers. So all all the way up from the, you know, stolen vehicle, all the way up to the murders. Right? That that's another advantage. It's not just it's not just tracking information. It's giving real time information. So if there's a a crime that occurred, a shooting, we can start tracking that vehicle and its movements throughout the county and the state. So there's the advantage because we won't put you won't put bad guys and girls in jail, especially for violent crimes.

So that's the benefit to community.

And I I understand all that. What I'm truly asking is, what's our sunk cost at this point? How much does the city have in these flock counters already? And We what is the

lease them for approximately $3,500 per year. I think we have 17.

I was thinking it was 23.

We added more cameras. Cameras are great too. The cameras

are don't need to exact. I'm just saying, and if we're talking about

I'd say somewhere in 20 to 25 total range of of tag readers and cameras, and I could be over under by five or so probably. But they're in our in they're in our parks as well where we can a police officer remotely, the old days of a police officer walking driving a car first, you drive a car in the park with blue lights on it. Right? You're like, oh, there's the police. They act a lot better. Right? So if if the police have the tools to a, proactively take a camera and look around the park and see if there's any riffraff for criminals. Right? Then they can they know what they've already saw without even being seen. So that's an advantage for law enforcement and the community as a whole.

So and then the recorder portion of it is you need crystal clear video. Right? Nowadays, you know, most courtrooms and juries, they don't just take police officers' words for it anymore. They gave these great things called body cameras to law enforcement, which has nothing but helped law enforcement prosecute people. And then the cameras of the park help us address crimes and and and quality of life issues in our parks.

No. Again, that's not I'm

not So the sunk cost exact sunk cost, Paul, I just wanted to give the overall view that we're not just storing data, it's giving real time data to where a real crime occurred and life, you know, a life could be endangered. That's the importance of this. Someone could get kidnapped in the city of Edgewater, and we can track, and we have some little bit of information, even if it's just a type of car. It could be a white Honda. We can start running that data through our crime center. The next thing you know, we're tracking that person down and saving their lives. And that's what we'll be giving up when we talk about doing away with public safety that's cameras. What asking is not what the intent here is

not to do away with what we already So

it's a very and I understand privacy. I'm a very private individual, but there are some things that I would sacrifice my privacy for for the greater good. And I think it's being managed by the state of Florida. It's their database. It's your driver's license database. I don't have to go in the soapbox and go into much more data. I can have a presentation by the police chief. You guys choose to advance it, and he can go a bit more thoroughly. On the sunk cost, I don't know off the top of my head, but it's somewhere around probably about $100,000 per But I'm not sure of the exact number. Don't hold me to that.

That's what I'm trying to clarify is what is the point of what we're trying to do in the charter? We're not talking about taking away what's already there. But maybe if we're going to continue to do that or add more, then maybe that's part of that community engagement part as well. Before any more get placed, we want to make sure that those communities in those areas know that those are coming, rather than, say, forbidding them outright because we've already put down we've already spent X amount of dollars to put those ones in that are functioning right now and doing the good job that you're talking about.

Yeah. And then we do have some private developments that are talking about installing them, you know, at their entrances and exits. Yeah. I mean,

it's it's

a great crime solving tool.

Mhmm.

It's really about the gathering the big picture stuff. You know, the the property crimes are are, you know, they are what they are. The real stuff where someone's life's in danger, that's Yeah.

It's becoming a way of the world. Mhmm.

It is.

You go to Europe, and everywhere you go, you are on camera, literally.

But we're America the free, not even Canada. Big Brother's not supposed to be watching us. Come in there.

Too late.

Yeah, too late. Yeah, because this is our everyone's mindset. Oh, well, oh, well. That's why it's too late, because this is the mindset. But in my opinion, the disagreements that we're having, just five of us, in my opinion means we should let the people of Edgewater vote on this. When we whatever we pick to go on here, it doesn't mean anything if they don't want it. So the idea that we should limit what we let them choose is, in my opinion, a little absurd. There's five of us, and we're already disagreeing pretty

We're having a conversation. I don't think

we're Yeah, but it's a great

It's not

a We're not in a fight, but this is a disagreement. We don't agree with one another, and that's Okay. My whole point being that the city of Edgewater probably doesn't all agree either so we should let them vote. That's the whole purpose

of You have to remember we're foreigners to the city council.

Right.

For their review of what they

want They don't need to to go make the decision what goes on.

And we've relaxed I like to call

for We're working to relax some petition process for them, so it would be easier for them to come and petition against it.

Let's call for a vote. We have a motion by miss Mueller and a second by miss Mosier. We have roll call, please.

Donna McDavid?

No.

Mandy Bullard? Yes. Patrick Fisher?

No.

Linda Mosier? Yes. Gary Conroy?

No. Okay. That was a good healthy back and forth. I think so.

And when I say disagreement, I don't think that's negative. I don't think an argument or a disagreement, I don't think any of that's negative. This is just discourse.

It's just said it's a healthy conversation. Yeah. Is. That five adults are having. What's your view of life is. And that's okay. That's good to have. It's good that we have, you know, the conversations up here. That's what we're supposed to do. If nobody has anything else

My last question would just be, you guys are all fine with this language. Right? I wanna make sure that because this I think scheduled to have one more meeting after this possibly or is

this We have three more.

Okay. You do technically. Yeah.

We have one in two weeks, the thirty first.

So everybody was good with this language? Just I don't need a motion. Just consent.

We just need to remove what's been because it it includes things that we didn't wanna move forward.

Which one specifically? Which one? I mean, there's some language here that says here's what did

3.13 c one petitions on page two at the top, number of signatures.

Yeah. It says failed. If it's if it says failed above that, like if you scroll scroll

Oh, I

see that. Yeah. So anything that says failed is not gonna get in. That's just more for your guys' record keeping, like what passed, what failed. So if everything's fine

on that page failed.

Yeah. So by general consent, then this is gonna be transferred to the city. We'll formalize it in, a set of recommendations with this language, and then they'll tinker with it, and then ultimately, the people will vote on it. So that's all we needed. I don't need a motion.

Okay. If nothing else, I'll call for adjournment at 04:57. Guys. Be back here on the thirty first.

Thank you.