City Council Regular Meeting - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for being here at this uh regular meeting of the city council of Fort Walton Beach. If you have an electronic device with you, if you could please make sure that it's muted and if you will please join us um for an invocation and please stay standing for the pledge of allegiance. Pastor Jonathan Watson with Beachside Church is here. Thank you, Pastor. Let's pray. God, we thank you for today and uh we thank you for um this Tuesday that we're here together to gather, to meet, to discuss. And God, we're thankful for fall. We're thankful for football. We're thankful for cooler weather here um in uh in the panhandle. And uh God, we just pray that you'd be with us today that you'd give us wisdom um as we learn and as we chat and uh as we grow. We thank you for these people who are here to serve and to serve our community. And uh God, it means a lot. means a lot to me as a pastor in this community and I'm sure it means a lot to all these people as well. And so God, we pray that you'd help us to lead with kindness and wisdom and uh and humility today. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] [Applause] Hey, thank you pastor as well for the football shout out. You got it. That was great. I love to hear that. All right, council. We need approval of the agenda. So move. Motion made by Councilman Jeter and seconded by Councilman Merrill to approve tonight's agenda. Any uh additional comments?

Council, please vote. The agenda is approved unanimously with our thoughts and prayers added for Councilman Schmidt and his uh Achilles surgery today. That brings us to item number five, which is employee recognitions and our city manager, Mr. Jason Davis. [Applause]

Thank you. All right, first one up is Moren Han, police department communications officer, 30 years. [Applause] Yeah, we can do that again. All right, [Applause] he's not here. We're supposed to have a picture. Got to get a picture. Have a stand in one.

Thank you. Next victim, Kyle Oler, storm water and street supervisor. [Applause] All right. Ready? One, two. Good angle. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, sir. That brings us to tonight's consent agenda. Council, we need a motion. So moved. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter and seconded by Councilman Merrill to approve tonight's consent agenda. Any additional comments? Second. Council, please vote. The consent agenda passes unanimously, which brings us to mayor and council comments. We start with Councilman Browning. Yes, sir. Councilwoman Deberry.

Uh, yes. Um, uh, September is National Senior Center Month and Friday, this coming Friday, free ice cream from 12 until 2. And next uh Friday the 19th uh lubia and spring roll cook off. You have to make spring rolls in the lubia and then we cook them. Then you can eat them at the rec center. Okay. And it's all free. Fantastic. Thank you, ma'am. Councilman Jeter. Uh save for the end. Thank you, sir. Councilman Merrill, same for me. Uh Councilwoman Riley, I'll save it to the end. Thank you. And Councilman Walker, I know you have something you'd like to present. Is that correct?

Right. and and with me having shared it and and Kim sharing it as part of the agenda package. I know you guys have already seen the development of a property owner of rights. It was a request um that we uh discuss and direct staff to develop such of a a bill of rights as the afternoon today. I also sent a and I'd call it a supplement to this a guide for homeowners and again it's just for first review by staff, Miss Cobb, Mr. turns to look at it and say yay or nay what parts of it would go. So I'd like to just get a nod to staff if we could instead of making a motion. Okay. So you're all good? Yep.

Okay. Well, fantastic. Uh just a couple things here real very briefly before we get to public comments. I did want to mention this early in the meeting that uh the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of the Emerald Coast kickoff celebration and Survivor T is going to be uh this Saturday, the 13th from 1 to 4:00 p.m. at the Twisted Grape Wine Bar and Cafe. That's not a plug for the business. It is just a plug for the charity. I'm sure the business is great as well, but uh they are a great organization that raises a lot of money for breast cancer awareness here on the Emerald Coast. And that event, which kind of really goes all the way through October um culminating with the the walk um at the college, kicks off this Saturday from 1 to 4. So, if you can stop by and check that out, that moves us on to public comments. Anyone from the public wishing to make some comments on anything that's not on the agenda this evening? I know we have many, so whoever would like to be first. Yes, sir. Sir,

just please state your uh name and address when you get up here to the microphone. Okay. All right. Um, my name is Thomas Watkins. I live at 223 Del Road, Port Walton Beach, Florida. I've been here, I've been a resident since 1995. I got a letter and the day uh for the council meeting got moved from, I guess, 6:00 to 4:00, you know. So, here I am. Um, may I ask a question, please? Sure, absolutely. Uh, what happened to Seab Breeze Park? because I tried to look up the information and I couldn't find out what what the city planned on doing with that property. So, you're referring to Seabbze Park as the park there on Memorial. Yes, sir.

So, that property was sold to the Montasauri school um which is currently right across the street there on 98 from Waterburgger in the church. Um they are expanding their operations um due to overcrowding of students. So, they're very excited to purchase that property. They are now going to clean up and clear that property, fence around it, and then obviously start construction of a new school. So that's like a Catholic school or No, it's a Montasuri. It's a Montasauri school.

Okay. Uh well, the main reason I came up here was I uh in the letter it said that the water and sewage rates are going up. And you know, I live on a limited income and you know, it would be nice if it didn't go up. it was another way to allocate funds maybe from another department or whatever, you know, it would be great. It would help me out. I don't know about other people. I'm sure it would help a lot of people out. And I just wanted to put that forth, you know, and just let you know, you know, it'd be nice if the rates didn't go up. I already have a high water bill like $90 to close to $100 a month now. And with everything else going up with the economy the way it is, it's just it makes it rough on people on limited income. I just turned 74 and I just would like like you to know how I feel about things and thank you for letting me talk to you guys.

Thank you for coming down here tonight and voicing your opinion. We do appreciate it, Mr. Watkins. Okay. All right. You'll have a good day. I don't know you cuz I was going somewhere else and thank you for letting me be able to talk first and you'll have a good day.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question. Yes, sir. Mr. Walker, thank you for Yeah. Thank you for letting me hear that. Do you by chance know how many gallons you're build for a month? Have you looked at that lately? quite a bit. I try to cut back. Um I lost my wife, you know, like seven going on eight years ago. I have a girlfriend. She likes she's obsessed with cleaning and running the water a lot. I try to get her to kick back, you know, but it's hard to do, you know, and I know that would help. Okay. But I do try to cut corners to make ends meet, you know. I I work on my own home. I try to take care of things, you know. And

do you know how many gallons? It's over it's over it's a little bit over the limit to where because of the sewage is double the price. So it's a little bit over you know that limit to where it increases on the bill. Like I said I'm trying to get her to come back. It's not easy. Well, thank you. The reason I ask is because going over the 2,000 gallons minimum for two of you seems like it's being a lot and it might Yes, sir. I agree. It might be possible that you have a leak. And just today, the the kind staff here at city uh notified me due to a neighbor's leak across the street. There's a way that you can do that. So, um

yeah, I've tried some stuff. I've tried the, you know, the little stuff you put in the tank, you know, and it tells you whether you have a leak or not with your commode, and I don't know of any other leaks. I try to keep on top of it, you know. Well, this one, I mean, picks up on the drop. So, if I could, can I give you my phone number and let me pass on this person's email that they sent to me? Yes, sir. I'll give it to you real quick. Okay. Thank you. Don't call him after 10 in the morning. Walker. All right, sir. Yes, sir. It was a great email that you sent me and I'll forward it on to you just so you can monitor it closely. All right. Thank you, sir. Just if you've got a leak. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Watkins, and thank you, Mr. Walker, for sharing that as well. Anyone else from the public wishes to speak tonight? Yes, sir. Thank you. Please just tell us your name and your address, please.

All right. My name is Walter Franklin Robinson Jr. I resided at 15 Avenue Southeast Fort Long Beach, Florida. I resided there 61 12 years. That was my primary address. My father came there in 1941. My family bought that in 1931 and that all changed in the month of July 2025 at the time my house was raided by the authorities. Everyone including myself were arrested while Oak County Jail. While I was there, I had no contact with anyone from the outside because when I was detained, I did not have ID or a phone or nothing. And until uh for Beach Council seat one, Jared Jeter, who I never met or spoke to in any capacity ever in my life, never had breathed in the same air. During my incarceration, 41 Beach Council Jared Jeter opened an account and that he paid for for the purpose of communicating for the sole purpose of purchasing my primary residence. This is happening while I was under duress and in shock from the raid. 20 some odd um them bombs that blow up. Well, they I don't know what they call them, but they're they're very loud and they freak you out. Um but anyhow from from the raid Mr. Jeter was persistent about contacting me. It took about 14 days for me to to contact him back and he told me that my house is condemned with the police tape and no one is allowed back on the property. He said that he wanted to buy the house.

So I thought about it, thought about it, thought about it. Also, he said if you want to get out of jail, he would bail me out once all the documents and everything that needed to transfer the title until that was done completely. I was not getting bailed out. I want to say that I had never met the title company or Mr. Jeter. This is the first time I've ever breathed the same air with the gentleman. During my incarceration, I requested to read the documents when a notary republic came there four times and she came in there and she said, "We don't have time. We got to get this done. We got to get this done." And would not let me read the documents or leave me copies of the documents. And the notaries said I would receive the copies after I signed everything and then get bailed out and still had to go to the title company to receive the rest of my documents weeks later. And as soon as I was released, I had some some of the documents. So I see seek out a friend of mine who's an authority on these types of situations. And after reviewing the documents, when I realized that how screwed I was due to the unscrupulous business tactics of Mr. Jeter, u we immediately noticed sent emails and told them to title company Jeter and everything to stop what they were doing. And since he says that he's done nothing wrong, I dis disagree wholeheartedly. So I've been in contact with local, state, federal, and government agencies.

I will not leave this alone. [Music] These agencies are to are investigating and will investigate to the entire entirety. And I'm not going to stop until this my residence is back. I appreciate the fact that y'all let me speak here and put me on record. And thank you everybody. I love Fort Walton. It's been my family three generations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Anyone else from the public wish to speak tonight? Am I allowed to respond? If you'd like to. Yes, sir.

But let's not get into any back and forth. You had an opportunity to speak. Let's give you one as well and then let's move on.

There is a proper setting for the back and forth. We have met before. You sold cars in this town. I've owned two properties on that street before in the past. We have had previous discussions. Everything was 100% legal, ethical, and moral. I'm a builder. I've been buying properties in this neighborhood. I've owned multiple properties on that street in the last 10 years. I've been buying, selling property in this community for 20 years. I am a builder. I've been a builder for a long time. I want to be a builder for many years after this. While I don't want to get into the back and forth hearsay, Mr. Robinson stated his price. Mr. Robinson asked me to bail him out. And Mr. Robinson told me that he was moving to Alabama and I was willing to help him do that. I was going to help him move and relocate. And somehow after closing, uh, many, many third parties have gotten involved and the story has now gone completely sideways. But I would just like to uh assure all of city staff and all of council up here. This transaction was 100% performed as a builder, which I continue to be in this community and 0% as a council member. A lot of times there's two sides every story. It looks like this one there might be three, four or five sides to the story, but I I look forward to the truth coming out in the proper setting should that ever occur.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else from the public wish to comment? Yes, ma'am. [Applause] Thank you. My name is Terry Moore. I live at 13 Wayne El Circle, Southeast, Fort Walton. Um my question to you is I didn't see on the agenda and I'm I'm looking for the date for the workshop for the Hollywood Boulevard um project that is supposed to take place. Um I haven't been able to find it on the website. So, I was wondering if you guys had any information on that when the meeting is for that. Yes, ma'am. Um, anybody on that? Is Daniel here?

She's asking when the when there'll be any kind of action to vote on it this week. You don't have a date. Okay. We don't have all the data from the meeting yet. Okay. Yeah, I went to that meeting. Okay. I remember speaking to you at that. Yes. Um, my question to you is, am I allowed to say anything about that pot because it's not on the meeting? Absolutely, if you'd like to.

Um, I'm opposed to it. I've been here since 2012. My husband's been in his house since 1959. Um, and on that house, um, I don't live on the main street, but I don't know who came up with this idea, but it's not a very good one. If you live there, you know what's going on. So, you have your trash, you have your your garbage men, um the postmen, the fire trucks, the fire um you know, all of the different organizations that come there, the um the lawn people, where are they going to park their cars? You can't park on people's lawns. So, if you cut us down from four lanes to two lanes, then we have there's nothing there. Um I know they want to make the medium take the palm trees out and make it for golf carts, which is great. So, you're going to have a pathway for people the different um samples that they had three different ways to go with it. And and if you put people in the middle of one row of traffic going east and one going west and you have your dogs and your people and your golf carts in the middle, somebody's going to get hit. Um my son last July 4th was riding his four-wheeler, which he was not supposed to be doing in the median, and somebody came out the side street, I think was off Magnolia, and hit him. He did not have his lights on the guy. He total the bike and he heard my son, but the people were that were watching in the fireworks um were able to call the police and say, "Hey, you know, we didn't see the guy because he it was dark and he was coming out." And and this is all the time because we have all the side streets. The other thing is when we have season here and you have a sign still up saying don't go through the neighborhoods to get to Dest, those streets are backed up all the way to Hollywood. So when they did their survey, I don't know if they know, but those streets are all backed up. So then we won't even be able to get into our homes. Right now, we can't even go to the public shopping center because that bridge project has everything shut down. And so you're going to make it even far harder and harder for us to get

out of our neighborhoods if you cut it down to two lanes. And so that's my spiel about that. And it was nice meeting you at that meeting, but I am looking to see when you're going to have the meeting cuz there's a whole bunch of us that want to come and be against it. Just pave our road and we'll be happy. Thank you. We pay our taxes and such. And we will definitely make sure the city puts out plenty of notice on when that discussion is going to take place. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I know you wanted to speak as well.

Yes. Uh my name is Paula Smith. I reside at one chalk to Hatchee Road Northeast. Um, I have a couple of things. I'll probably only get to one, but I'm u pretty upset with uh Mr. Jeter's behavior. Um, I don't know this homeowner. Uh, but I'm very concerned about the obvious conflict of interest. Um, as a an assistant public defender, I represented a lot of criminal defendants and while they were incarcerated, they were particularly vulnerable to being prayed upon um by people that uh had other interests in mind, for example, like purchasing their property so that they could get out of jail. I was away on vacation. I came back. I read all the stories. I read some of the transcripts. Um, and I sent council as well as the city manager um, and the mayor an email. Now, I've kind of condensed some of it, but I want to read it because I think it's important that um, that this get discussed and I believe it's an appropriate form because I think that the right thing for you to do is resign your position as city council. Um, so for those that don't know what happened, um, there's a home on 15 Elm Street that a city council member, Mr. Jeter, uh, via his corporation solicited to purchase from this homeowner here while he was incarcerated. Um, he was incarcerated as a result of a of a a raid of sorts on his home and he was charged and arrested and incarcerated for maintaining a public nuisance. The property was quickly condemned, I believe, the next day by the building ex

inspector and so it was still within the purview of the city code enforcement office for condemnation proceedings. Um the owner was not allowed to uh return. It was declared uninhabitable until it was uh repaired and cleaned up. Of course, he was incarcerated, so he couldn't he couldn't make his 3500 cash or bond either. Um so to say that I'm appalled by this transaction would be an understatement. This transaction reeks of impropriy. Full stop. I'm not aware of any Florida State Commission on Ethics advisory opinion sought in this matter or of any advanced disclosure to the full council regarding the seemingly obvious conflict of interest. The subject property was and remains under the purview of code enforcement proceedings. Uh it was condemned immediately thereafter. Um, city council is in a position that it approves or disproves disapproves of code enforcement post administrative proceeding activity. For example, if leans are imposed um and the city decides that it wants to code wants to foreclose against that property, it must get or it does get permission from city council. So, city council is like the upper echelon that controls what happens to these properties often in situations like this in particular. Sadly, the situation exemplifies the need to remind you all that you are elected public officials, and as such, you are trustees and servants of the people you serve. You are entrusted with city property and are legally obligated to manage that property for the benefit of the people. The city property over which you control is not your own. You are subject to every limitation generally imposed by various laws upon trustees. You have a fiduciary responsibility which demands you to carry out your duties with the sole intent and purpose of benefiting the

citizens of the city. You owe an obligation of loyalty to the public as you perform your council duties. You're required to exercise your discretion and judgment free from the taint of self-interest, bias, and undisclosed conflicts of interest. There is a state of Florida code of ethics and other applicable Florida laws that you must abide by, including repercussions for failing to uphold the trust of the citizens. Elected public officials are necessarily and appropriately held to a higher standard than their unelected constituents. To argue that an elected public official took his council member hat off and operated like an unelected constituent simply doesn't and shouldn't cut it here. In my opinion, the code of ethics and various Florida statutes were written to stave off or remedy as the case may be abuse of office conflicts of interest, unethical behavior, and selfdealing. It's my hope that this elm transaction will not be dismissed as inconsequential by the powers that be, swept under the rug by council andor relevant city employees, personnel, or be allowed to stand as a bonafide armslength transaction. I find it particularly astounding that this transaction was engaged in by one of you who delivered a lengthy diet tribe at city council meeting about how vagrancy is the number one blight on the city yet just personally contributed to the city's vagrancy population. Um this transaction reminds me of ambulance chasing attorneys who prey upon vulnerable hospital patients post car accident. That behavior is now illegal because it was society adjudged and legally adjudged to be wrong. But this situation seems very similar. Is this behavior by elected public public officials something we collectively want as citizens of the city? I don't believe that it is. Alter,

alternatively, the transaction should be scrutinized based upon the fact that the property was and remained under the purview of the city code enforcement department. Would it have been appropriate for Josh Stevens, Bert Rhodess, Ed Moore, Rich Taylor, or Lieutenant Troy Williamson to go to the jail and solicit to buy this property under the same scenario? Good people can and do make mistakes. It's better people own their mistakes and make appropriate amends and take remedial action. To say that it hasn't cost the city or residents anything belies the reality of true arms length transaction by unelected constituents. The uh assessed preliminary assessed value of the property alone was $91,93 almost 92,000. You paid 65,000 in a neighborhood that um has extremely high values. There's not a single comparable uh at 65,000. Um and it's well known that assessed values do not equate with fair market value. Fair market value is usually substantially more. Um quite frankly, the fact of this transaction being done by a city council member is more offensive to me than the existence of a home assess to be a public nuisance in my neighborhood. And I asked that city advise me what if anything is currently being done to remedy this andor prevent this type of situation from reoccurring and that would restore the faith of the city council members to residents like myself and the other other members of uh the city that find this behavior particularly offensive and I do believe that you should resign your seat over this. Thank you.

Thank you Mrs. SM.

Yes sir. Uh, I do not intend to resign from my seat. Again, this was a builder transaction. This was nothing to do as a city council member. As a builder, I have purchased many lots in that neighborhood and I have come right there to that podium while properties were under code enforcement violations and I have worked with the city to remedy properties. As a builder, I have done this many, many times in our community. So, my goal is to clean properties up and make our community better. Okay. Secondly, there's been an attempt for title remedy here and the title company said there is nothing here. There was a willing seller, a willing buyer, a completed transaction and the c the check has already been cash and the funds have already been dispersed. So where all this came about afterwards is just baffling to me. Thirdly, on the value, if that's where we're going to hung and get stuck with, the taxable value of the lot was $67,000. The future could be 91, but that's not approved yet. The tax value of the lot was $67,000. I paid 65. Okay. It's four four five thousands of dollars in dumpster fees to clean the property up. There's abandoned cars on the property that cost money where you have to file abandoned title on the cars. It could 10 $15,000 to demolish the property. Does anyone here know what the lot depth is? The lot depth is only 70 feet. Do you know what your R1 setbacks rear and front are? 25 and 25. So that leaves you a 20ft deep house. The average garage is 26t deep. So this this inflated value of what this lot is, I think we should leave the lot purchases to the builders that know exactly what they're purchasing and what they're getting into and what the costs really truly are going to be. But again, I look forward to this truthfully coming out in the right setting.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else from uh the public wish to come? You guys, you guys going together? Yes, sir. I reside at 220 Flip Avenue. I'm Sean Dit, uh 49 Sellers Place, Fort Wal Beach, Florida.

I am the president of Shalomar Little League over in Shalomar. Sean from your recreational department approached us a couple weeks ago discussing possibly getting little league over here in the city for you guys. I can't give you little league for your own unfortunately, but I did make an offer to Shawn to absorb your baseball and softball recreational division into Shalomar Little League and utilize both facilities and get a bigger, stronger baseball and softball group together to start going to some of these state tournaments and and doing better in these sports.

Yeah. And so when I approached him, I just saw the best with our last baseball season. It was amazing and we have growth. I know there is a lot of division between Shalomar and Fort Walton for whatever reason the case may be in the communities, but I feel like we can come together and for the best of the the young players to ex expand and grow to more competitive play and hopefully um just go places. All right.

And I know we did have a meeting with Mr. Davis as well. um details were discussed as much as we could without you know obviously talking to you guys but um we did talk a lot of that stuff so if you have any questions at some information or myself as far as how this could work thank you sir sir questions for these two gentlemen uh Mr. Uh I uh are are you looking for a place to practice or play uh ball or

It'll be proposed. We have our own facility in Shalomar. We have two new turf fields going in. They're turfing two more fields before the spring and then next year they'll be turfing our final two fields. So we have a six field facility at the time we use, but it would be nice to have seven more fields and to grow our league that much bigger to have that many more kids play baseball and softball. And do we have those those facilities here in our area? So yes, just yes,

broaden our gaze here a little bit. Back up several council meetings. There was discussion with the 850 baseball program and looking into how we're going to schedule it. So some of the comments related to we want to get our own little league. We want to or if we can't do that, we're going the Cal Ripken route or whatever flavor there is. Um so we did meet with the Shalomar group and they were amendable to enveloping. I did specifically say I will get punched in the throat if we call it Shalomar little league forever. So they have there's some paperwork that has to go through Pennsylvania. That it's not not a quick and easy. So uh but that being said, we now have the ability to host Liza Jackson as requested the little league program and then any of the other flavors. So Wendy has built out the scheduling platform. I guess right now alls I'm looking for really is do we want to charge the teams to use the fields or what I'm more accustomed to is let the kids you know I want the kids out there so there's no charge for practices and we build out a lottery system and then you would charge for tournaments and that sort of thing because you're bringing in people from out of town right so whatever the flavor is that we pick we can extrapolate that to the the footballs and the rugies and whatever uh Some council have said if they're city residents, we're not going to charge if they live outside the city. So, we have a means to do all that sort of thing. So, even if you want to charge somebody that lives in Crest View that wants to come use our cool fields, whatever, we have we have the ability. So, that's kind of where we're at. But, uh, you know, thank you to the Shalomar team for sitting down and saying, "Hey, we have a path now. So, now here we are." Got you. Councilman Jeter,

what would what stake would we have on the little league board? Yeah, we did discuss that. As far as Ed would allow myself and probably Wendy to be on the board for I would have to get you into general members right now. We've already had our our members meeting and we've already established our board for this spring season moving forward. I can't change that at this point in time. That'll be at the general me members meeting next summer before we go into fall. It would be incorporating him and Wendy. I just make them a general member right now. But I can't kick somebody off of my board in order to fill a place for for those two to come on. But at the general members meeting next year, I'd love for him and Wendy to actually be full on board members.

You know, it may be more than that, but I'd love to hear all the details. I definitely love growing the sport. I think you may be aware of my brother's involvement over there in Shalomar over the years past. So, I love growing you sports. I love collaborating. I just know we just in the last year have grown our baseball here and kind of teamed up with Cresu and and are trying to build things up. So, let's just I would I'd even take this a little bit bigger and maybe let's get with Brady up in Crescue because at one point in time he was debating on little league or maybe Cal Ripken like we were. Let's just make sure we're collaborating as a community as a whole and doing what's best for everybody.

And I talked to Brady before the last season and I almost did the Cal Ripken, but um the timing just wasn't right. But Brady and I definitely had numerous conversations, so I was planning on reaching out to him and if we can make it grow through the whole county, it would be amazing. So, and I just don't want to see us go head over heels for some awesome partnership and then three or four years from now the board vote all of the our city members off and then we're just giving free fields to a little league board that you know and I know they're all volunteers. I'd like there to be some kind of year agreement that's that's for an extended period, not not one or two. I'd like like a 5year agreement with the city. You know, hey, we're going to make this partnership, but let's let's do it over a 5year period to start and then move on from there.

I'd love to see it happen. a lot more details to get worked out, but I think I think it's be great to see all the details. Uh, yeah, I'm sorry. Um, so you had mentioned sharing league. Uh, how many the field the turf that you're putting in two turf fields? Is it is it the space that's there in the center? It's the center of Shalomar. Correct. You got football fields own that. There will be no more football fields over there. There'll be where the football fields were out there, right? They're building two brand new turf fields. Okay. And then they're turfing the T-ball and softball field next. And then the following fiscal year, they'll turf our final two fields. The county is doing that,

correct? The county owns that facility. Yes. That from the county. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Go ahead. Um sir, I just um wanted to ask um you mentioned a break out of the crest area. So, would you be looking or are you all looking at um something maybe like an interlocking agreement within the area cities? So, right now partnership with the city of

I'm looking for a partnership with the city of four wall. I can't go to Crest View because Niceville is in between them. Niceville owns a little league. Crest View is up there, but Baker would have to give them the little league franchise because right now Crest View is in Baker's boundary maps for Little League. So, in order for Crestview to have a little league, Baker would have to give them that or Baker would have to absorb Crest View, kind of like I'm trying to do with the city. I can't give them little league because I'll lose 3/4 of my players that I have right now to the 570 I already have. Okay. All right. I just wanted to be a little bit more clear.

There's there's boundary map with little league. So, you have to stay within your boundary map. Right now, I'm from just south of Val Pe all the way to 87 to your first bridge. I was watching one day. Just real quick for me as well, you know, we mentioned um changing the name, correct? From Shalomar Little League to what? Shallomar 41 Beach Little League. Okay. So, just combining the two names, not necessarily some kind of generic like Emerald Coast thing or anything. We could look into that. You know, that's something we can discuss in the future. Absolutely. whatever we want the name to be, but I'd really not like to drop Shalomar off of it. Got you. It's been plenty of time to to hold. Understand.

You actually took one of my questions was about the name, but yeah, and that's what I was saying earlier. I want to get into this cuz I know that's some issues we ran into last year with Chris and having Baker involved. So, there's a lot more people that got to come to the table to really get all the details worked out, but I would love to see it happen. But, let's just make sure we're including everybody at the table so that we all win. I don't want to leave, you know, our brother Chrisu out who was working with us in years past and and he said he already knew that answer about Baker and all that kind of stuff. You're aware of it. Let's see if we can work out all the details. Mr. Jones,

I thought I saw something that Little League is looking at potentially looking at the reworking the boundaries of sorts. couple years from now, they're talking about possibly in four years not having B boundary maps to where myself wouldn't have to sign a waiver for a kid to go play in Dustin or I wouldn't have to sign a waiver for somebody to go out of my boundary to go play in nice. So, a lot of moving parts with an endgame, but we have a path now. Councilman Walker.

Yeah. So, you had mentioned the counties coming in to improve that property. I mean, my kids played over there back in the day, and it was my understanding. I was not involved with the board, but that was a community provided um facility. It was all funded by the players, the parents, donors, supporters, and and all fences and and everything. Is that was that true or has the county always subsidizes supported it? I can't answer in the past. I can tell you at this present current time, the county owns the whole facility. They maintain the whole park. They're in charge of everything. We rent the facility from them. Oh, gotcha. And how long have you been there?

I've been there. I played there as a kid growing up, but I've been on the board now for 3 years. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. I just took over presidency this year. Great. Thank you. Mr. Davis, uh, do you want any kind of action from this council on [Applause]

in terms of what does the council feel about, you know, it's going to be a paradigm shift if we go to a free model then charge for tournaments with a lot ofUS with the school for example and you know I don't I have no interest in charging the school to use the field. I have no interest in charging these teams for practice at the field but it's different than what we do now. So there's going to be some budget impact, but it's something that we would course correct over the course of the year, but uh the you know, unfortunately Mr. Schmidt's not here, but some of his comments have historically been if you don't live within the city, you have to pay. So I guess labor of the day, you know, what what's the will of the board? Councilman G,

I would say the will would be to explore all options and get all the details back. And and what I mean by that is can we Can Crescu do what we're trying to do too? If they can't, I think maybe we stick with Cresue and not cut Shalomar out. But I think we need to really see are we are we leasing fields and what's our long term with our people on the board before we do something two or three years from now that really hurts all of us instead of helps all of us like we're trying to do. So I guess my exploration would be uh really the layout of the board and what cres can or can't do and then what our options are on lease in the field. So, I don't want to

not not sure I follow. I'm not being specific to baseball and using all sports in general because I have a football team that wants field space. So, we were going to pitch this lottery approach uh just for the practices. Uh I have a meeting with a rugby dude tomorrow. Uh he wants the same thing, I'm sure. I don't know. He does. I had a meeting with him as well.

Fair. So I I just I'm trying to put something together that's fair and equable for everybody, but at the same time depending on which which route we go, it could be an impact of sorts. I don't know how soon you would get Crest View to even be if they have to go through these boundaries and you have to skip over Niceville. I don't I don't know the workings behind that. So that could be 10 years down the road is is just a thought. Well, you just have to get the board's approval. So for us to do it, we just have to get Shalomar's board approval to allow us to have Little League. Chris, you would just have to get Baker to say yes. I can tell you, but that would take half their players or

top which is in charge of little league. He is our southeast, our district guy, our president. Baker is not willing to give Cresview a little league. It's the same situation that we're kind of in with you guys. Is Brady doing Gallipin next year? Most likely. Yes. I think when they team up with Cresian. That was our deal two years ago. Not that I don't love Shamar and Portal Beach being together, but we kind of already went down a road with, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Well, I mean, if anyone on the council wants to make a motion regarding the specific little league situation, we could certainly do that. Uh, yeah, I'm indifferent whether it's Cal Ripken, Little League, uh, US Trip, whatever. Don't care. I'm just looking for the business model on the back end of that. So I don't I don't know enough about it. I probably have to do a little bit more research because I'm kind of I baffled that uh Baker with the presiding press or county seat, you know. I'm a little shocked on on that one.

You know, being a baker is a little bit more more ruled, but I I didn't know that. So, you know, I'm a little dumbfounded on that part of it, you know. So, I'd like to have a little bit more information. Sir, I love sports. I'm a sport fanatic. So anything that was for I'm all for it. I just want a little bit more information on you know how the thing works. Sure. And just that's more of the he who files first gets the little league situation. I mean no disrespect to Shalomar but for Walton Shamar different size. Council me question. This partnership it would have kids from Fort Walton playing in Shalomar and kids from Shalomar playing for Walton which it already we have that as it is. My kids played in both leagues last year

and I know and I wasn't here when you guys were pursuing deals with Cres you said not to step on those toes but I would like to hear from the parents. I think that's the next step because if I wasn't up here and I was and my kid was in little league and they're like we partner with pressure you have games there I might be like how do we Michelle just for the drive for the distance it's convenient so but if the parents are like we want to do ke for me I don't have skin in the game I'd like to I think the next step is hearing from what do what do people here in Fort W do they want to be teamed up with little league and shamar do they want to team up and start kicking in and crest and I would Happy to go with the will of the people on that.

I'm good with all that. Do you have a sense of urgency where we have to make a decision by a certain date? Um hopefully by October 1. That's when our fiscal year starts. Two weeks. That's why I asked. I mean, I knew the answer. Very good. If I could just say something cuz I I've heard two different people, maybe even three, say kind of the or hint at kind of the same thing and it was explained earlier, but it maybe not in a way that everybody got it. If your kid lives in the city of Fort Walden Beach right now and they want to play baseball, you either go to Shalomar Little League, which is a big old long season, right? Starts in March. March. Yeah. Opening days like practice starts in February,

right? Practice starts in February. opening days like March and then the first games are like a week or two after that. Or you can sign up and play Wreck League baseball which the city just made a longer season but not anywhere close to the length of time. Yeah. Little has to play 12 games a season. So it's

and so if those are your choices right now as it is and obviously you could join travel teams and we have our thing and and all that stuff. I'm just saying like basic baseball these are your choices. If your son or daughter lives in the city of Fort Walton Beach, you can't go to Crest View and play in Baker's Little League. You have to play in Shallomar Little League. What they're asking to do is combine these two so that if your kid lives in Fort Walden Beach, now you're playing little league baseball at the rec center that the city owns versus you're playing little league baseball only in Shalomar at those fields that the county owns. Okay.

So, I think that's what Mr. Davis was kind of looking to see if we wanted to take action because obviously they have a a cut off date of October 1st. If not, certainly that's the council's will. I don't get a vote, but you know, any additional questions if that's spurred anything on in your brains. Mr. Davis, is this seem to be the route that you've been directed? I mean, is this since we don't have time for what I I wouldn't say necessarily directed. There was interest in Little League. So, we were probably at the 11th hour with Cal Ripken and then this presented itself. So, we were able to pivot and go towards the little league route. But again, I personally I don't care. I've I've done them all and I dig them all.

That being said, exactly what mayor said, this is this is kind of your window if you want to do little league. Councilman, we have to October 1st. We have a meeting at the end of this month. So, I'd like to make a motion to put this on the next agenda for action, direction, discussion. So that gives people two weeks like Miss Rally and Mr. Merrill said, it's out there. It's in the open. People from Shalomar and Fort Walton can come speak. We can hear from all of them right here. And I think we can take some action at the next meeting. I I'd feel much more comfortable making a motion at the next meeting. If we have that in our town. Second. Okay. Motion made by Councilman Jer, seconded by Councilman Merrill to put this on what's the day of that meeting? 23rd.

The 23rd of September, regular city council meeting. Uh so that we can have further discussion on it. Any additional comments? Council, please go. [Applause] So, just to wrap that up, is there anything that you would like staff to present at that meeting in addition to what we've discussed? I mean, I think we've kind of discussed all the yous, but if there's anything specific you'd like them to to drill down on. I I think that one thing that's important that maybe didn't get brought up in this exact discussion that you also kind of spoke about was those additional sports uh football team, rugby, etc. Like what you were trying to say I believe is right now we have a model that requires anyone that rents a field for any purpose to be charged I think $35 an hour no lights $50 an hour lights. Sure. So no matter if you're a a charity, a school, whomever, that's that's your fee. So you're you're asking does council want to change that model?

Correct. That would translate to all the sports and whether it's the pickle balls or whatever. So yeah, and not not even necessarily related to little league because obviously that would be a partnership and Sure. Right. Okay. Councilman Jeter, I'm sorry. Yeah, I love that data as well. And also would just love the exact we talked about tonight, but the exact wording on the boundary maps and the lines because if Cres gets left out this year, but next year Little League is changing that and Cres you can have it. That would be helpful however that may play out. So exactly what you know what year are these boundary lines going away and what year can we all play together? Okay. And then also just uh want to bring this up and make sure that it gets at least put on the agenda as a as an item. Y

I've been working with Mr. Davis, with Miss Riggs, with Miss Freriedman from Liza Jackson to try to get their home baseball and softball games at our city fields. Um, right now as it stands, they are paying $50 an hour to have the lights on, $35 an hour. It's a school that doesn't have its own baseball field. It used to be a partnership that we had. It's gotten squeezed out. For Miss Riggs, for whomever to to change that, it has to be an action of council. So if that could also be added in for discussion for council.

So on the back end, high five for Wendy. She's built it all out. Liza has all the field space they need for games and practices as does the little league. As does the travel teams. As does So she's got that all built out. So ready to go. Fantastic. I can go and answer your question. Now the boundary map is just a boundary map. Little league's not giving out a new charter. So Cresby won't be able to just get a charter for Little League. Baker will have to release that and give them a charter. Just because the boundary map disappears doesn't mean they're going to come hand out a bunch of new charters. So you could just live in Port Walton and go to Baker and play if you want. If you want to basically absolutely

it's just getting rid of the map. It's not giving out new charters, so to speak. Baker would still have to say Chris, you can have a charter and we would still have to do that for the city over here. And maybe two weeks while you're from Chris, you can then speak on this matter. Baker,

I just wanted to say that if we join little league, we don't have two different divisions like Cal Ripken Little League. We're still segregating ourselves. If we could just be one congratate, it is one instead of each little league has four teams of this age group. We have four, you know, teams of this age group. We actually have eight teams now. And I just think it'll be better if it was bigger. Also, I don't know what the let's say we decide to go cow. You might miss the window to file for that. So, you might be Does that make sense? And little league is the only one with the true World Series.

True. All right. It's the one you watch on TV. Thank you all very much for coming in. Appreciate it. Apologize we didn't get to hear from former major league pitcher Vinnie Chalk was in the room. Thought he might have had something to say, but he must have had him. Uh, anyone else from the public wish to comment on anything that's not on tonight's agenda? Yes, sir. [Applause] Before I get started, a point of clarification. Are you going to open the floor for comments after the proposed uh increase in the utilities are going to be presented by the consultant tonight? Any item that's on the agenda tonight, we will definitely take public comment on.

You will afterwards. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. You got it. Absolutely. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on anything not on the agenda? Seeing none, we will move on to item nine. Ordinance is on first reading. Miss Cop. Thank you, mayor. Ordinance 2191, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, providing for authority, providing for findings of fact, providing for the amendment of code of ordinances, chapter 4, finance and taxation, section 4.0102, purchasing, approving the revised administrative policy number FIN9, purchasing, and providing for an effective date. Thank you, ma'am. Miss Neighbors.

Good evening. Um, as some of you know on council last year, uh, council approved to increase our purchasing threshold that would come to you guys as council from 20,000 to $50,000. And the reason that we had done that is, um, staff was overburdened by having to bring so many items to council. Uh, a lot of which have had already been approved in the budget um, and hopefully move projects along. Uh, it did decrease a little burden on the staff, but as you guys know, over the past year, projects are still not moving forward very quickly. Um so this would allow staff to move stuff a little quicker by increasing um the threshold from 50,000 to 100,000. So what we are requesting is the thresholds as the following. Uh anything uh 100,000 and above would come to you guys at council and be competitive competitively bid. Uh city manager would have um approval up to $99,999. I would have approval up to $49,999,000 and then directors would have approval up to $19,999. That's the only change in the purchasing policy except for on pack at page 25. We had to update a little language due to grant requirements that we had to have in there if we apply for a grant with our policy. And that states that violations of breach of ethical standards and/or conflict of interest policies as stated in sections 3.2 or 3.3 may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. And that's the exact language that they wanted us to put in there. So therefore, staff would respectfully recommend city council adoption of ordinance 2191 amending the code of ordinances chapter 4 finance and taxation section 4.01.02 purchasing and approving the resi revised administrative policy number finance-9 purchasing effective October 1st 2025. If you have any questions um here and so is Mr. Davis.

Thank you ma'am. Questions from the council for Miss Neighbors or Mr. Davis.

Mr. Walker. I was um then I think I remember being up here. It was in my first year of being up here and I do remember going from 20,000 50,000. Now we're going from 50 to 100 and you know I don't I don't know the internal workings there. That sure seemed like a big leap pretty quickly. And I'm I'm sorry it's going to put it would put more on staff, but I'm going to be opposed to giving such um spending limits without council approval. I'll be in opposition to it. So, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Questions, Mr. Neighbors or Mr. D? M Riley, I I don't have any any questions, but honestly, I don't think that's going to make any type of significant, you know, difference there. But I mean, you have we have Mr. Davis as a city manager. So, spending I mean, his uh approval is up to what 999 right under$100,000. And

Presby has a $100,000 limit as well. Um the county does and I'm not sure about some others but we're we're one of the lower ones. I'm sorry. I you know I spoke to that just for some background daytoday you know but you're running the day dayto day and certain things up to 100 I mean really to do things efficiently and effectively when you run the dayto-day office you should have as long as you for some background and the reason that we did this as a department director in South Florida my my as a director I could do 100,000

a Thompson pump is 100 grand by itself a generator is 100 grand by so when I started I kept getting emails saying you got to go in and approve this stuff because we're waiting on you and I'm out getting yelled at by citizens all day. So come back I'm like why is this hung up? What is going on? So Nicole ran a report and it showed where the main cut offs are. So that's that's why we've adjusted them just because it'll we're going to buy the stuff anyway. Wow.

So now it's just moving it more efficiently. Um, the reason it's on now, not as when I first presented this 2 or 3 months ago, you know, 2 or 3 weeks ago in the manager report that I send you every weekend, uh, it took Juliana, so you know, 25 high fives for her. She had to go through every single contract to see how it implemented. So that's that's the only reason it took so long to get on this agenda, but it's been ready for weeks as always.

I I totally understand. And again, I like to run stuff with the effective and efficient. and specifically when it comes to the day-to-day ops and so to be able to do that in a smooth manner where the work full of work runs I understand I understand it's going to take more man hours to get it done and if you got s and wait then wait for the council but you know that's trust you to oversee the city staff and um I I think it's a good idea I have no problem but I support that thank you Riley I just want to remind everybody Riley Mr. Walker, everyone else on council, just when we start these these discussions, we're we're looking for questions first and then we're making a motion and then we're all telling everybody how we feel about it. Mr. Merrell, questions.

Just a question. One was kind of the industry standard. You mentioned Crest View has that, the county has that, but um what this might be a tough question. Individual line items that fall under that in in normal everyday cases. I mean, are we in when you look through the budget? Are we looking at dozens of cases, hundreds of cases of that happening at the under the 50 right now?

Well, that's kind of what he was talking about when we're pulling purchase orders. We kind of my purchasing manager pulled the report to kind of see, okay, how many purchase orders are falling under the $5,000 cuz that's what directors are right now. Um, and there were so many that the directors were having to approve at such a small threshold. Um, so that's what took so long and then and doing the report. So there there was many and that's why we made the adjustments. So physically threw the paper away, but she did run the report that shows where the bulk of the purchasing cut up uh snags were. So as we adjusted it, it smoothed all that out. That makes sense. Just break it down one more time. I know you said it. I apologize. You have the city. You want me to I can repeat it one more time. The city manager 99.

So So yeah, council everything 100,000 and above um will go to you guys and it will be competitively bid. The city manager will have 50,000 to 99,999. I will have 20,000 to 49,999 and directors will be up to and also my comproller as well. Um up to 19,999. Thank you. You're welcome. [Applause] Other questions for Miss Neighbors or Yeah, Mr. Yeah. So, um you got a project, you got a bid. Um, you don't know in advance if it's going to be over 100,000, right? If it's a pump, I mean,

well, we get Well, we get quotes, three quotes on all bit on anything above $5,000 up to the hundred, but I mean, I don't I'm not the one that facilitates projects, but I think usually the directors know when it's going to be over 100,000, but the directors can speak. So, you still get three bids? Yeah, we still get quotes. Yeah. But we don't have to come to you if it's under 100,000. Mr. Okay. Can you shed any more light on that if you want to come up? Yeah, he can speak back on that. The the most of the stuff we buy is on is on pre-procured contract. So, we know exactly how much it is. There's not a three quote deal on that. Most of the three quote deal stuff that we deal with is like basically like services uh you know uh contractor for this A, B, or C with some labor on it.

Fixing irrigation. Yeah, fixing whatever. Um, but like pump, we heard pump is probably on I could tell you right now off a sheriff's contract or source well or one of those ones that has a pre-procure price that we have. So we'll know how much that is uh prior to. So there's there's not, you know, any of that. Now we have run before where we've gotten labor maybe one of those quotes is is past 100. So you're like looks like we're on the top end. You got to go to bed. That's how that's how we've handled it before.

And then Mr. Davis, you were talking about the the 5,000. I believe Miss Neighbors was as well. The the 5,000. Are you saying that the the bottleneck was in those or were the bottlenecks at $47,000? Where was the bottleneck? If you were to guess, put in percentages. Percentages, I don't know, but I would give you like a a zigzag line. So, we would snag snag fix it. So, once we ran the data and and then it streamed out, if that makes sense. They should rerun the report. they would only be getting snagged based on this. It's waiting on me to come back and sign something. It's waiting on a a department head to assign it. So, it's just sitting there in

I think the biggest negle coming to council because we have to wait the two weeks that we have to come. It's a threshold that we had to wait. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's what I was gathering. It seemed like there was I mean there was no delay in coming to us. It was in the snagging staging below. So us increase here everybody's number just pushes the decision making down. Is that the theory that it gets done quicker if it's lower made? It's definitely quicker.

Okay, I got you. Thank you. And just because it's not been mentioned yet, I'll ask this question to Mr. Davis or Miss Neighbors. Regardless of whether the threshold is $50,000 or $100,000 or if it were $250,000, all of these transactions are still absolutely logged available for the public to see. in the budget. Yes, sir. And anything under 100 that's not in the budget, we have to bring to you guys anyways. If we did not budget for it and have to pull from fund balance. So, it could be a $10,000 project and we'd have to bring it to you because budget. It's just the limit. It's just the process. Correct.

I just know a lot of times we get into these discussions and I think everyone just assumes that everyone knows everything we're talking about all the time. So, sometimes I just want to clear it up. Uh, Mr. Walker, one more. Right. And so the two years ago, less than two years ago, in the second reading, it was proposed that if we go up to $50,000, it'll help the process. Now we're going to 100,000. Why not go ahead and make it $500,000? I'm good with that. Okay. To be cleaned up, right? I like it. That being said, that's what the data said would make everything streamlined. Sure. A couple million would be needed up here. You guys want to get some things done? Let's do it right now. Yeah.

Was that a motion? I'll second. Not a motion. All right. Sarcasm. Would anyone from the public wish to speak on this item in particular? Seeing none, council, do you wish to take Mr. Mayor? So move to adopt ordinance 2191. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to approve ordinance 2191 amending CO chapter 4, financing taxation purchases related to the spending thresholds with staff's uh advised numbers. Any additional comments? Thank you uh Mr. Davis for coming in here and helping us identify places where we can streamline efficiency and increase productivity. Thank you.

Anyone else? Mr. Brown? No. Council, please vote. [Applause] The motion does carry 5 to one, which brings us to item 10. Ordinance is on second reading. Ordinance 2192. Miss Cop. Thank you, Mayor. Ordinance 2192, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, providing for authority, providing for findings of fact, providing for the vacation, abandonment, discontinuence, enclosure of an easement located at 206 Perry Avenue Southeast, and as more particularly described and depicted in the attached exhibit identified with cross-hatching and providing for an effective date. Mr. Gibson,

good evening or good afternoon. Um, so just a rehash on this one real quick. This is uh regarding a uh an easement that was issued in 1999 um that provided a public access um between the public parking lot down there and Perry Avenue. Um this is the uh the property the vacant property at the corner of Perry and 98. Uh they are looking to move forward with their development on that property. Um and are just asking to vacate that easement that is there right now. Um again this is the second reading. We've received no public input the first reading on this one. And with that, staff respectively recommends city council approval of ordinance 2192 to vacate the existing easement located 206 Perry Avenue Southeast.

Thank you, sir. Questions from council for Mr. Gibson on this ordinance on second reading? Seeing none, anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, council, do you wish to take any action? Mr. Mayor, so move to authorize to vacate an easement located at 206 Perry Avenue Southeast. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter, second by Councilman Browning for the vacation of an easement at 206 Perry Avenue Southeast under ordinance 2192. Additional comments. Anyone? Council, please vote. [Applause]

That motion does pass unanimously, which brings us to item 11, the 5-year utility rate study. I believe uh Mr. Pay will kick off the proceedings.

Sure. Uh Daniel Payne, public works utility services director. I'm going to introduce um Raph tell us this way this is going to go. They'll do a short presentation on that end. I'm going to come back up and finish the item and then we can do questions on that end and that's how we go. So having said that um we have uh Joe Williams with Rapis and Tristan Towns in and they'll be doing the presentation. All right. Thank you, sir. [Applause] Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, council. Um, Joe Williams with Rafllis and with the city's rate consultants on the utilities. So, we're hired to do an update for the water wastewater utility. And what we've done in this case is a revenue sufficiency study. So, we've focused on really looking at the the overall revenues generated by the utility, making sure that you have an outlook to pay for all the expenses, capital operating, um, wholesale purchases from the county for wastewater treatment. Um, we really look at everything. and I'm going to set it up a little bit, talk about some of the background, what's changed from the last study from 2020 to now, and then I'll turn over to Tristan to go through a little bit more of the slides. Um, so next slide, please. [Applause] Thank you. Okay. So, we'll go a little bit through the overview and then we'll go into some some of the assumptions and look at the forecasts and recommendations. So really, you know, we've done your your rate studies for many years. Um,

2014, 2020, and now now in 2025. And customer growth over the past 5 years or so has been pretty low. The numbers of number of connections and customers is pretty stable over the past several years. You know, the nature of the city is um largely built out. There's some infill and ongoing things, but it's not significant growth. Um, you do have your your water system. You you pull water from the ground and you treat it and distribute it and then after customers use it, they send it back to you. And uh many years ago, you you went into an agreement with the county where you send your your waste water to them ultimately to be treated. You own the transmission system, the lift stations, all the lines in the ground, but you send it to them for treatment. Uh so you have a purchase agreement and again the last recy was in 2020 um right wrong co and really throughout the throughout the entire state and really the nation a lot has changed for utility providers since co there's been tremendous pressure on the operating costs and salaries that we pay our people chemicals um just routine maintenance and one thing I I really feel obligated to say is that Daniel and the team on the operating cost side, they have done a tremendous job where when we look back at the 2020 rate study and the forecast of where costs would be, he's in line. Um that's honestly very unusual for studies that happened in 2019, 2020,21 where we're updating now. We're we're usually seeing 20 30 40% operating cost increases. We're not seeing that here. Um that's that's really not the underlying issue. And the other outside of the operating is capital improvements. You know, we've

talked to Daniel a little bit on some of the underlying costs, but really all across materials, contractor pricing that you get when you go for bids, it's gone up tremendously throughout the industry. So you're doing the same projects, same, you know, lining, improving your lines, and now it's just costing 30 40% more to do those same projects. Uh that's that's been a trend throughout the entire industry. That that is having an impact to some degree on this study. um historical revenues. You know, this this really is um something that surprised us a little bit when we came back to look at this and we've had a lot of discussions with staff and and review on this. So the dark blue bar is your actual revenues reported through your afer for the water sewer utility and the green is the forecast from the prior rate study. And you'll see in the blue um you know starting in 2021 you in 2022 you were you're actually trending higher than the rate study forecast. And we'll show you towards the end of this um your your accumulated cash balances. they're they're strong right now. So, it's that's something that we're working with. But the past couple years, 2023 2024, you can see that even with rate adjustments, right? 2 and a.5% on water for 2023, two 2 and a2% on water, 4 and a half% rate increase on wastewater, revenues went down from 2022 to 2023. And then there was another rate increase in 2024. Revenues went down again. Um, we understand that there's been a meter change out program going on and we looked at full 2024 data and based on staff's input, we looked at some year-to- date 2025 data as the meter

program was more complete uh to try to see if there was a change in trends. But really the the data that we have right now doesn't suggest that the revenues are going to rebound in a significant way um like we were forecasting in the old rate study. So really that's, you know, it's a million dollar per year difference that we're looking at going forwards to correct for because we do have a certain level of need for the utility between the the operating budget, the capital program. Um, and we'll talk about the capital program in a little bit more detail, but honestly, it's very managed. Um, six to 7 million over a a five or six year period um is that's almost unheard of. we we typically are seeing much higher needs for project costs. So again, Daniel's Daniel's done a great job with the system. Um, another large component is your purchasers from the county. And historically there there's been a lot of um different time periods and and I'll say issues with what we call ini inflow and infiltration, right? So what happens is you have your water meters, you read the you read what goes into a customer's house and you use that reading to build them for water and wastewater consumption. So we know what we're pulling out of the ground and selling to our customers. And then what we pay to the county, they have a separate meter for where we connect to their system. And we're sending potentially significantly more waste water to the county than we're selling to our customers. So what happens is there's different parts in the transmission system where either groundwater gets into the lines and then we end up paying for it at the county because they're reading it at their meter. It just seeps into the system. Um there's been a lot of INI work that Daniel's team has done

lining the lines trying to prevent that uh working on lift stations making sure that there's not you know when it rains that there's not water just flowing into lift stations or other means like that. Um, so what I really want to point out is that in 2020, you can see on the on the dark blue bars and the green line, you know, for 3 four years there, things were very managed. It was it was pretty streamlined. Uh, so we we were under the impression that there was a really good headway made on that INI issue. Um and that was the time of the rate study and there was a good three four years of good trends. Um so that's where we were set our forecasting based on that current trend of INI being more managed and then you can see going into 21 through 2024 it became very it became variable again there probably was some more hurricane activity or the like that caused some INI issues. Um it's hard to say exactly where the INI comes from. I know that's otherwise it would be solved long ago. Um but that is causing some strain on the utility as well as now we're having higher costs to the county.

Sir, can you please put that phone on on mute or on silent? Thank you.

Um so going to key assumptions a little bit and then I'll turn it over to Tristan to go through some of the some of the more detailed items. Um again, we have minimal customer growth. We do have a new 213 multif family uh unit complex coming online next year is what we assumed for utility revenues. We have your 2026 budget as our baseline in the model and we forecast from there. Um you know we we recognize the city's current um um ordinances and approach for limiting operating cost increases. that we've worked with staff to try to work that in as much as possible into our um assumptions. And again, we have a $6.5 million capital plan. And to minimize the impacts of to customers, um we did make some adjustments to our funding plan to leverage um state revolving loan fund. That's um issue. Those are loans that the state has a revolving loan fund program at discounted interest rates. So we are looking at um using that leveraging that to help fund some of your capital plan. So that reduces the the current cash needs on the utility spreads it out over these projects that have a longer life. Um so it is debt is really good for utilities in a lot of cases. So that's part of our funding plan. And I'm going to turn it over to Tristan now to talk a little bit more about the forecast and then we'll send it back to Daniel and then we'll be happy to answer any and all questions.

All right, good afternoon. Um I'm going to walk you guys through the revenue sufficiency forecast. So starting with the capital improvement plan, um staff provided us with a CIP for fiscal years 2025 through 2030. That's our forecast period that we modeled. Uh you can see in the table there's a number of water and wastewater projects that were identified um al along with their uh project costs and the funding sources. Um like Joe mentioned, we're assuming um use of reserves as well as reliance on those SRF loans to fund the capital improvement plan. Um over the forecast period, it's about 6.5 million in project costs. Um and that's about an average of 1.1 million uh spent on CIP per year. Um in the prior study you guys were around 750,000 um annual average spend. So a little bit higher now, but that's in line with the kind of industry trends we're seeing postcoid in these increased uh capital costs um that are affecting utilities. Um and these projects are really important for you guys to be implementing. There's things that are going to help extend the life of your existing assets. Um going to be replacing aging lines, um some corroded lines, things like that. and rehabilitation of lift stations and pump stations. Um, so going to be a lot of benefits for your customers and it's going to help uh you all continue to provide reliable and high quality service to the utility customers. So just want to talk um about the debt assumptions for those SRF loans. So there are two projects that we're assuming uh debt for. Those are going to come on in 2026 and 2028. Um the project costs are about 1.25 25 million in 2026 and 1 a.5 million in 2028. Um the term for SRF loans is um typically 20 years. So that's what we've assumed. Um we have pretty conservative interest rates for

SRF loans in here 2 and a half% and 3% um just to be conservative there. Um and in total that's going to add an additional one approximately 180,000 in additional debt service um starting 2028 and forward for that total amount there. So all of those things kind of lead up to the proposed rate adjustments. So for water we have three years of 7% increases proposed and then two years of 5%. On wastewater we have two years of 7% and then the last three are at 5%. Wastewater looked just a little bit better on that. So um we try to kind of bring that seven down to five sooner um on that. And so that's going to result in about a $4 to5 monthly bill increase for customers who are using of 4,000 gallons. Um and one thing that um is kind of important to note here is that we are phasing in the rate increases. Um looking at kind of everything your revenue requirements together. um we could have increased rates um kind of even more earlier on, but it was a priority for staff to make sure that we're um working to minimize the impact to customers. So, we were phasing these in. And like Joe mentioned before, um you guys have pretty healthy cash balances and because of that, we are able to use those early on in the forecast and phase in the rates. So, I'm going to show you um three slides that look very similar to this. Um this is going to be your revenue uh requirements and sufficiency for the water system individually, the wastewater system individually and then on a combined basis. Um we just like to look at them on individually just to make sure you guys are kind of recovering things um as you should be for each system but since the enterprise fund is combined we'll look at that um together. Um so for the chart that you

see up here um those stacked bars represent the identified revenue requirements. So these are like your expenses. The dark blue bar are your operating expenses. The light blue green bar are kind of like other smaller miscellaneous type expenses and transfers. And then the red bar represents the debt service. There are two lines that are going across this chart as well. There's a solid black line. Those represent your revenues at existing rates. And then the dash line represents the revenues at proposed rates. So, what's pretty evident here are that your revenues right now at the current rates are not going to be adequate to recover the cost for the revenue requirements. Um, with the proposed rates, you can see early on that they're a little bit below those expenses on the dash line. And that's kind of showcasing the use of the reserves to make up that revenue shortfall. for water. By 2028, we'll kind of be breaking even and then we'll generate a little bit more. That's going to help maintain the cash balances and um provide you a little bit extra in cash for um additional capital uh improvements. So, wastewater similar situation here. Um again, the existing rates are not going to be adequate for the uh revenue requirements here. Um the proposed rates we're going to kind of break even one year sooner. That's why we kind of went from that seven to five one year earlier on wastewater. Um you can see that's happening in 2027 here. And then our dash line is a little bit above the expenses. And again that's good. We want to be able to kind of build those cash balances back up, maintain a reasonable balance and also have a sufficient uh cash for capital improvements. So, this chart here is just those two prior slides that you saw combined. Same story again. We're going to want um to see that the existing rates, they're not

really adequate. The proposed rates are going to get you um to cover all of those revenue requirements across the forecast period with a little bit of help from the um the existing cash balances to phase things in. So this is going to show you a projection of the ending cash balances across the forecast period. So this dark blue bar represents your revenue fund. Those are your unrestricted cash that is kind of being used on a day-to-day on&m capital maintenance things like that. The lighter blue bar is your impact fee fund. Um impact fees are restricted cash. So they can only be used for expansion or growth related capital. And then the dashed yellow line represents the kind of minimum target cash balance. Um it's about 120 days of O andM expenses. So we want to kind of try and stay above that line which you all are able to do. And like we mentioned previously, we are utilizing these cash balances to help phase in the rates and minimize the impact to customers. So that's why you see the bar starting to kind of trend down early on, but then it does balance out. And it's a little hard to see because of the scale on here, but on the later years, you do kind of slowly build back up a little bit. So, with the proposed rates, you're going to be able to level out, maintain um reasonable cash balances here, um and have a little kind of extra cash available for any um emergencies or any kind of additional capital that may arise in the future. And on this slide, in the next slide, I'm going to just show you this local comparison for a combined water and sewer bill. Um, this first one here is going to be at 3,000 gallons of consumption. The next slide will be at 4,000 gallons of consumption. So, what's shown is a number of different local communities. Their water and wastewater combined bill um for Walm Beach is going

to be identified with those red arrows there. So you can see um for the existing rates right now, if somebody was using 3,000 gallons, their combined bill would be about $5310. Um with the proposed rates, it'll go up to $56.83. Um if we look at the local utility average of all these other communities up here, um that average bill is about $66.60. So you guys, even with the proposed increases, are going to remain below that local community average. And one thing to note here is that all of these other communities, their bills are based on the existing rates right now. Um, it's highly likely that some of these other communities may also have increases. They have increased operating expenses and needs and have to react in a similar way as you all to the operating environment um as well. So, it's likely that some of these other places will have rate increases as well. Uh, but you guys are on the lower end of kind of this comparison here. So, that's pretty good. And at 4,000 g, it's a similar situation. You guys, um, your existing rates, somebody with a 4,000galon bill would pay $65.65. Go up about $5 to $70.26, but you're still below the average. That is $75.81. So, you're still remaining very competitive with your peers here, even with the proposed increases, and you're right in the middle of the pack. So, I'm going to give it over to Joe. He's going to talk to you guys about the final recommendations and then we'll be able to answer any questions you have. [Applause]

Thank you, Tristan. And pretty pretty straightforward, but we do recommend that you adopt the rate rate adjustments. Um, we do realize that there's there's some level of uncertainty on the the meter reading with the meter change out program from the past couple years. Uh, historically, you haven't done typically a five-year rate adoption. Um, we understand if you're if there's some concerns on the higher rate adjustments and you want to look at something shorter and review the revenues again to come back or adopt the five years and and still come back to check it at some point in the next couple years or so. That those are options that you have. We like the 5-year adoption. It gives a little bit of certainty where things are going to go. Um and then of course closely monitor those revenues. If they do start to trend back um where they were historically that could result in lower rate adjustments. Um so that that is something to monitor and I know staff is going to be looking at it every year like they do uh for budget and when the acter comes and of course you know just generally review the financials make sure you're keeping strong cash balances um you know utilities are very asset intensive operations so there's a lot of underlying costs that goes into utilities you have millions and millions and millions of dollars in investments ments on your utility. Um, as Tristan showed, we have, you know, 6 to8 million in the bank at any given point in time against probably hundreds of millions of dollars of assets on if we had to replace everything.

Um, so there is, you know, there is a lot of risk there on running a utility. You want to make sure you have cash flow and everything in good order that if something breaks, a lift station, you have funds to go fix it. Um, so I'm gonna turn over to Daniel. I think you wanted a couple final words and then open up for questions.

Final words. Um not fun, right? It's uh something that um I think is there's a reason that this is done every 5 years uh through all utilities, right? Um passing on uh costs and keeping the business side running of this thing is is something that that happens. We see it every day with our utility bills and things like that. Um Joe and Tristan obviously went into um a very detail oriented speech, but I but I think for one of the things I think there's a couple of things that I wanted to cover just real quick. Uh the rate increase this year from 2023 24 to 2425. What what did we do? What was that? Because the existing rate study we said expired on September 30. Well, we passed on 0%. Why did we pass on 0%. Well, we did 0% because we thought our customers, you know, with going through a meter change out, going through things that that were the yards torn up and and everything else, it I think on the human human element side, it it made sense for us at the time. Um, having known that that if we were going to move into 7%, we we probably stacked ours back forward. hindsight's 2020 who's responsible for that obviously I had a big input on that end that was that was probably me but um that 0% I do believe put us back we were probably looking at something different if we just did CPI or incrementally back through uh second thing is you know we have examples of costs and things like that but I think just on like a you know when whenever associating wise I think of like water water utility water company you think of a piece of you think of blue pipe right you see blue pipe. You see maybe green too, but we'll say blue pipe. Well, in the time of our

last study, 2019, a foot of C900, that's blue PVC plastic pipe that we use, $4.15 a foot. Right now, I checked a warehouse before I went over here. $26 a foot. Okay, that is, you can do the math, you know, uh 6 7 800% um on that end. Now, our budget and our costs that we have are not filled with blue PVC pipe, but if you can only imagine incrementally, fundamentally, what is everything else gone on that end? And we've experienced that. We've tried to shield everybody as best we can. Um, but having said that, you know, I think we're still in good shape. I think we did show our 3,000galon users. We showed our 4,000galon users. We didn't run all scenarios. We didn't run a quarter of a million gallon users. We did we did not do any of that on that side. We do know, hey, our our brothers in the county, right, they had a 5-year rate study. They got in year two and figured out it was totally wrong and came back and and threw that one in the garbage and and tacked another 2% on whatever they've had through the next 5 years. So, having said that, um recommendation wise for me is is to adopt the 5-year rate study. Um I understand there's questions for it. I understand it's it's a lot of money. I understand, you know, there'll be, you know, probably lots of comments on that side, but um you know, I think someone wise told me uh you know, bad news doesn't get good with time, right? And uh we wanted to relay out that in and go and uh you know uh we respectfully recommend city council adoption of the utility rate study as prepared by Ralph Telis and um authorized staff to make the necessary changes to the comprehensive fee schedule uh basically for next year and obviously we need to keep still looking at it because we we're still I'm still real interested in

the meter replacement data that we had. Right. So, uh, with that, I'll, uh, I'm here with any questions or or, um, you know, Joe or Tristan on that side. Thank you, Mr. Payne. Mr. Williams, I didn't catch your last name, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you as well um for the presentation. I just want to mention briefly before we get into council questions and and public comment here. We do have a budget meeting scheduled at 6:00. It is different from a normal council meeting that we have as it is a a public hearing and the state of Florida is very specific regarding what time that has to start. So, we scheduled it for 6:00. We have to be as close to 6:00 as possible. If we have to cut this discussion a little short tonight and come back at a future meeting before making any kind of decision on this, then that's what we have to do. But by state guidelines, we have to be as close to 6:00 as we can possibly be for that next meeting. So council questions for uh Mr. Payne or the consultants who wants to start u Mr. Merrill.

Yeah. So you did the 0% uh last the last year at the end of the last two years. Just last year. Just last year. It feels like you were putting off at the time today to tomorrow. Is is that kind of how you explained it? I think if you had a crystal ball Yeah. Did you know did was I shocked? Yeah. I mean, I was shocked at the I mean, Joe will tell you, you know, on that end. And and I think what nobody did see up here is is the stuff that we pulled, limited, go through to try to drop it even lower to give you the best thing that we've had. Not just, hey, here you go. Okay, I'll take it to council. Like, we really like I'm surprised Joe is talking to me,

right? So, so we went back and in Nicole, too. So, um, what like I said, if we had a crystal ball on there, then yeah, I mean, that that would have Definitely, like I said, hindsight, we probably would have have passed something on on that.

So, it' be a little more incremental. So, as a as a homeowner taxpayer, I want I'd love 0% increase, right? I sit with that side of it, but then I see the challenge. This question being that we went 0%, we didn't do any. What happens if for me just basic what happens if we don't increase and get the funds where they need to be? So, um, if you don't, I mean, you're you're looking at probably trying to subsidize utility and I I think it goes goes downhill, right? Um, I think what everybody had in this rate study in this last deal, got two time drinking water plan of the year, you got things that you probably will not have. Um, you know, there's been decisions that we've tried to make through. I I I'll give you one right here. Um you know we had uh a certain portion line locating uh per state statute we got a locator lines uh the opportunity arised um to remove an FTE right uh we had the charter amendment thing going made sense right made sense to us uh remove a FTE charter amendment compliant okay that burden cost of employee total $67,000 my contract price for locates 200 So charter amendment three boom good to go rateayer burden goes to it really great decision for the for that side not you know other side you're you're paying for it

Daniel different way to look at it too mathematically probably have to supplement with at warm right and I don't know how you navigate that with your enterprise money I don't I don't think you do that I know we hear about it uh from maybe one of our neighbors to the west and I think there's a reason why you see their rates at 86, 90, 100 bucks, you know, and that's it. So, we start snowballing when we start. Yeah. Okay. Appreciate it. Other questions, Mr. Barry?

Uh, excuse my ignorance. Thank you for presentation, but the rate study kept going up and up and up. Why did the rate study keep going up and up and up? And you mentioned 3,000 gallons. We have 2,000 gallons that we have our on our water bills you're using. So, I guess that's some place else that uses a 3,000 min minimum. At for us is 2,000 gallons is a uh if you go beyond that, then it's a lot more. But ours is at 2,000. I rarely rarely rarely un unless I have company do I go over 2,000 gallons. over the years, and I've been here since 1970, and over the years, I've seen more and more people moving back with mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and all that. Uh, boarding houses, uh, a lot of HUD houses with a lot of, uh, uh, senior citizens moving together because, uh, it's, uh, they can afford to live in a house rather than on the street, you know. Um, and I and I can understand this. So, please bear with me in my ignorance. Why are we being punished for those of us that are conservative and use less than 2,000 gallons but be put up in this rate study and increasing? Sure. I'll do the first part. Um, so, so what I think m Miss Councilwoman Dearberry is talking about is the city has a base rate. Uh, and and within that base rate at a some certain period of time, we didn't change that in here. Didn't change it in the last meeting, but within a base rate, we include up to 2,000 gallons of water. So, there's there's basically no change whether it's a,000 or or 500 or 2,000, you you got it for free. Um there there's a certain readiness to serve amount that people

have on the bill and uh whether it's gas company, whether it's FPNL, you know, you could like I heard the other day you have solar panels across your house, but you if you have a Gulf Power meter, you are going to pay X, right? So it does say 2,000 gallons in that, but that's really readiness to search charge really on the base rate. Um now in the future, do we do we get rid of that if if that's a rub? I mean that's that's something we didn't look into in this one in this whole study. But we also got to understand is is if there is a savings there where does that go? Does it go to the family of three? Does it go to family of five? It goes somewhere. The inputs are the same. It just gets transitioned to probably another user type rate or something else on that side. Uh it it doesn't just go away.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else? I'm not finished. Go ahead. Uh there's also discussion that we're short on water from what you mentioned that we were short on water in this area. Reminds me of California, you know. Uh not that. Well, hey, I'm I'm a California. I was born and raised in California. I still have scary. So I scary.

Yeah. So So the the area is northwest Florida. We are in a in a uh area of of area of concern, right? It's a special uh hair area with water management district. So, we're under separate restrictions, but that's stuff we take through on our permitting. That's why our wells are north in the golf course. They're not down street anymore because it's all water intrusion. Not to go too down the technical rabbit hole, but but that is um stuff that we it's just part of our job daily uh coordination with water management and and being in that special use caution area is what it's called. Um, it's all of us, Destin, the water users, uh, the county, us, uh, Mary, everybody in this coastal zone is is in that area. And they they Yeah, they question our limits and our withdrawals

for sure. Well, have you talked to the county lately? And this morning? This morning. And what did they say? They got a five and a half%. Like I said, that's where I picked some of that up. So, so they um they had their rate study and in about two years through they they had to crumple it up and go back and so they're they're looking at five and a half for the next So bottom line again share with me are we short of water? Um we are fully good with what we're pulling out to provide you guys as customers at this point in time. Yeah. Yeah. And is there any concern that we should have that we might not have any water in the near future?

I I mean I think it's maybe it'll always be a future. I mean I don't know how far we're going out million years maybe. I don't know but but as of right now like permitted wise for the next 5 10 years all that stuff I I think is pretty well at least the city. So are we thinking like desalination reverse osmosis in the future? Not in this rate study or in any part of this. Uh hopefully we don't ever have to go that route. Um but also you know I don't know what state mandate would you sell million. I know hey I'll be dead by then but I mean but I've worked in other countries.

Yes. And and this is what they're going to have. And these are a lot poorer countries than the good old US of A. That's correct. You know, so and they they don't have the Gulf of America and Atlantic and all that. Mr. Walker. Yeah. I'll be quick. I know there's some people here want to speak. So, uh, Mr. Williams, is it Mr. Williams? U, I think my questions will be straight to you, I believe. But um you mentioned that the county treats our waste water and sends it back to us and then from that do we purify it for drinking purposes. Is that accurate? Uh no they they they treat it and they dispose of it.

Treat it and dispose of it. Got it. Um you on page 52 for me it's the big question. Total revenues decreased. I know you guys had estimated um the revenue being 11.6 6 and it actually turned out 11.6 million in 2024 and it was actually 12.3. Why did the total revenues decrease um with with rate increases? That's confusing,

right? That that's part of what we were trying to understand. Essentially, it comes down to customers were build less water, less revenues or we or we collected less. We didn't see any major issues with um non-colcted revenue. So the meter readings were lower. There was less bills that went out to customers. So we generated less revenue coming into the utility. And again, there's a meter change out program. So there could have been some dynamic in there on um all those like if the meters were failing, they tend to read lower rather than higher. So that could that could be a contributing factor.

Is it possible that consumers cut water use based on that is conserving is that is potential as well.

Okay. Um yeah and Daniel this may be for you on page 64. Um I maybe I just don't understand it. It may be accurate. It may be a typo. Um 64 mentions the county contract. Um and um I guess while I got you up there too cuz his my first question to him was regarding the um county treating our water. They charge us a rate. Do we do we upcharge? Do we mark up that? I mean if they charge us do we char do we in have a markup on it? Uh of course. Yes

we do. Okay. Gotcha. And then on page 64 and that's okay. I know there's people here. Um there is a mark up there for them to treat it for us. And 64 um that mentions a 5800 monthly 58.24 monthly charge. Is that accurate? What is that describing? Contractual services related to wholesale water 3.85 user fee per 10,000 gallons along with a monthly fixed charge of 58.42. Is that what what page you on? I'm sorry. 64 right in the middle of the page. I believe it could be it more top third contractual services fifth bullet point.

Yes. So the county bill we get the county bill monthly just like everyone you know just like everyone and and on that that's roughly around $3 million a year right goes up 3% every year regardless if we you know those are 20-year interlocal agreement rates. Uh if we go in 0% we it's three it's we still get that passed. So that's roughly about an increase of when you do the math probably almost about $100,000 every year, right? They also charge that readiness to serve portion and that um which you see is like that 5,800 portion that's on the bill too. That's just to have a meter and it be there. Uh kind of like we were talking about base rates, right? That's like their base rate to us just to have the meter.

It's about 72,000 a year and then you threw out a 3 million that kind of I don't lost in that. Yeah. So through so three based on the total flow that the city generates, it's like uh you know two about 2.1 2.2 million gallons uh a day for 365. Gotcha. Our cost winds up being in the budgetary item is around $3 million for disposal.

Gotcha. Okay. Great. Thank you. Anyone else questions before we move to public comment? Seeing none, anyone from the public wish to comment? Sir, I know you wanted to speak first, so come on up. [Applause] Thank you. My name is Jim Mays. I'm a resident at 88 Li Drive for Walton Beach. Not only am I a resident, but I'm a property owner of not only my resident, but other properties in the city. I have a high stake in the billing and in the fees and in the charges that the city is passing on to our residents. Um, I've watched the council over the last 10 to 15 years and I've seen a steady increase in fees and in taxes. And speaking personally, I really feel like we're paying much more than we need to. And I think I'm speaking for the rest of the property owners, especially in the city. My concern is why is only the property owners footing the bill for the utility expenses when we have a lot more people using those facilities than the property owner. We have renters. We have thousands and thousands of tourists that come into our area. Yet we are burdened with paying the high property taxes that we have to pay. We are subsidizing all those users and that's not fair people. Just not fair.

The city has various sources of revenue that you are collecting right now presently without an increase in the utility bills. The primarily one for just the utility department of course is the fee that you're currently charging. And I feel like it's it's really high right now. And I'd like to know why approximately $1.7 million last year was transferred from the utility department to the general fund. If you're short on money for financing these type of increases in equipment that's needed to provide the services to our citizens, then you shouldn't be transferring those funds. It sounds to me like you have plenty of funds right now. So, I'd like for you to look into that and give it some thought. Secondly, there are other avenues of raising uh revenue besides just increasing the fees. Currently, just look at our our way our property taxes are structured. There's supposed to be a uh a a fee cut or a feeback whenever you increase uh the uh uh percentage of your collections. And if you go up uh on the valuation of the property, you're automatically receiving a huge increase in income from just that one fact. But we are seeing no decrease in the percentage of the taxes that is being charged to us for the property owners.

You also have utility fees that's collected by the u other utility owners that are coming back to you. You have sales tax that is coming into you and of course that's increasing also by the number of tourist and population of property owners in our city. I feel like proper accountability of our funds is needed. I'd like you to honestly search your heart and ask yourself if you are truly representing both parties in what you are doing. Are you representing the city and the employees of the city fairly? and are you representing the residents of our fine city equally? Both of those things need to be taken in consideration, not just one-sided. Um, I know utilities are expensive and I'm all for paying taxes, but at the same time, I don't want to be gouged. I want to feel like it's fair and equitable. And I think that's part of the responsibility of the city council to come up with means of properly representing both parties involved in this operation and do it. Uh plan ahead. Look at your fiveyear and your 10ear plans. Don't let this be a surprise like this to you. It shouldn't be.

Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Uh, do we Tim, how much time do we need to set up for the next meeting? Probably 10 minutes. Is it possible to extend the comments if we restart um with a new meeting? I I know people have shown up and want to speak about this particular thing tonight. I want to ask them to have to come back to a separate meeting to do that. Is it possible to start the budget meeting and then amend its agenda to allow people to comment on this? You could or

you could do it that way or you could let them speak and start the budget meeting a little bit late. Yeah, the budget pages had to be at 5:01 p.m. So, it's it's advertised for 6, but that means 6 or later, just not earlier. Okay. I thought we were under the impression that it had to be right at stressed about that. Okay. Well, the concern is if people from the public want to speak at 6, they should have the opportunity, right? But if we're starting later, then they're going to see what's going on. So, it's in the discretion of the council. You you can do it legally either way. I think it's probably better to finish this. Fantastic. I agree. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. I have a deliverables that are just take one down. I've got objective case analysis on what I'd like to talk to you guys about. Uh my name is Jimmy Smith. I'm the owner and operator of the laundry room here in Fort Holton Beach on Walter Martin by the post office. I'm a fourth generation laundry owner. My family's been in the industry since 1957. I'm a percent disabled veteran. I was in the Air Force for 16 years. Um, so I want to thank all of you guys for your service and hearing our uh our pleas if you will. Um, and thanks for your time, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for having me. And to all the council members. Um, so we've invested heavily in the in the city. Um, by creating a nice facility for the people of Fort Walt to have a safe envir environment to go do their laundry. Typically in the laundry industry, we refer to kind of rundown laundry mats as zombie mats. That's something our family takes great pride in providing for our customer. Um, and we're really proud to be here. So, I'll start with that. But, um, so what I've handed out to the council men and women is an objective study um, that I've worked on myself because I'm very passionate about my business and I want to be able to provide an affordable solution to my customers and continue to do that um, for the years to come. and hopefully my son and his son will take over that family business like I have. Um so the executive summary that the council members have and I wish I could put it up for all the people here that um care enough to be here but um basically the report we did was for high volume users and we talked about that threshold being 2,000 gallons. So me personally and as a business owner, I'm looking at my utility bills in a comprehensive manner and I provide like we came up with a budget before we built the laundromat to

ensure that we were a profitable organization obviously. So what I found after I dug into this and I've gotten I'll just tell you guys my water bill in August was $4,294. So I used 226,000 gallons of water. I use 5,500 gallons a day in the month of August. Right? So what we did is we took uh 12 months of data. We came up with an average that's 165,000 gallons a month. And so what I've provided to the council is a rundown on us compared to our peers. So you're going to see and I'm not going to bore you with all the details. All of you can read and I respect your time as well as everyone in here. But uh the long story short on a month when I used 165,000 gallons and August of course was our busiest month of the year in the past 2 years. We've been open for 3 years now. Um my bill would be 200 or $2,884. Um which is substantial. So, my budget comprehensively for all my utilities before we built the laundromat based on very objective data um because my family does own four or five of these locations in different cities. Um so, I budgeted for 5,000 total and I just said in August my bill was $4,294 just for water. So, what we broke it down into is water consumption and then the sewer um charges, right? So, that's the way the water bill is broken down. Your water consumption and then your sewer bill are separate. So, as you can see right there in the comparison, well, I'll start in the rates effective October 1st, 2024. It tells you the estimated bill when I use my average, which is 165,000 gallons. So, the sewer volumetric rate once I go over 2,000 gallons, it goes to $10.64

per thousand gallons, which is uh 100% over our peers. Right? So, if you flip to page three, well, it starts on page two. I'll just skip all the other stuff um and come back to my recommendation at the end. But the detailed rate breakdowns, it gives you guys a a analysis of what I'm build versus Dustin, Niceville, Crest View, and so on. Right? Freeport, South Walton, Okaloosa County. And so you'll see that I'm paying about four times what my competitor would be paying, which is about 5 miles away. Okay? So like I can name out those. That's public data, but I've I've done my research and long story short, I'm paying about four times what my competitors are, mostly because of that sewer consumption rate. So, it's very taxing on me. And then the tertiary effect obviously is that end user who's our customer, which is a Fort Walton Beach citizen, right? So, I put in here that my largest washer in my store is a 60 lb washing machine. It's $9.50. that allows my customer to wash six loads of laundry in 25 minutes. And so if I can't make money because I'm paying a $5,000 water bill, then I'm going to have to raise my prices and then it's going to make it unaffordable for the consumer. And honestly, if it continues to rise, I'm going to have to really look at relocating outside the city, which is not something we want to do. We're heavily invested. We built this for years to come. So my um my ask to the council and to these guys, I do appreciate your data. Um but I would ask that we take very very close look at the commercial consumption and and the small business owner in the community um to just help us out and make it fair. And I even like I never like to dump a problem

on someone's desk. Just something I learned in the military. But uh you know an immediate action to request a public hearing on commercial sewer rates proposed capping at $7 per thousand gallons for high volume users. There's another user that is a Fort Walton Beach customer that uh they had a leak and they went over a million gallons. Right? So over 100 grand for one month water bill. My other proposal, and I don't know who owns this or who whose responsibility it is, but for those high used users, if I'm using 5,500 gallons a day, I don't have the new um hourly tracking meter, right? So, if I were you guys and I'm conserving water usage, and that's important, if we're running out of water, then I think those users should have gotten the new technology first. So, I would ask that like, I want one tomorrow. That way I know if I have a leak. The water team here does an outstanding job. We've had nothing but professional conversations. Even though I'm like, "Holy crap, this is a huge bill." But they've done a great job. So, appreciate your time. I ask that you guys um you know, any any more data, if you have any more questions, I'm happy to answer them, but if you could please look at that for me. And I do want to do more stores to provide the service we provide to the community. and I would love to do them in the city of Fort Walm Beach.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this going once, [Applause] twice? So, council, do you wish to take any action on this item? Is is it possible for one more question? Yeah, go ahead. Mr. P, hearing what uh Mr. Jimmy had just said we're should we move forward and make necessary changes to the comprehensive fee schedule? Is that something we can go back and do and run simultaneously here?

This is not a dead set like the county's charging us a 3% increase on wastewater. We're adopting a fee schedule, but we can still alter our fee schedule should we find out

uh for future? Yeah, I would say future years. I'd say probably this this year that would really be it. But but for Yeah. But for Joe and them can look deeper into that one. Obviously, um high-end users, right? Like like a laundry mat. I mean, that's I think we're quarter million gallons. I mean, they're they're good customers. We we like them, right? Um at the same point in time, you know, they're heavy users, too, right? And we're paying for that waste water. And we're not just paying disposal. We're paying for it to get pumped. We're paying for it to collect it. We're paying for all the maintenance goes along, too. So there's so there's other costs involved, but um you know, I don't necessarily like to be in that range either. So I'd like to to get more information on that end, but but you know, it's that's more of not the percentage rate thing I think we we did. That's that's a whole block billing structure. So that could flip everything upside down because obviously if it was you know the the the revenue requirements or the revenue requirements where that gets shifted kind of like we talked about else is something that we would need to do an in-depth analysis deal on do because I don't know if it goes to Mr. Barry or Bryce or you know whatever user threshold on those blocks but we definitely um we didn't run every scenario right we didn't run a quarter million gallon user on that side but um you know we know now on that side but but but really that that's a deeper whole you know that that's not your percentage rate that's that's with how everything is done type deal

and your whole department is sharp so I'm sure we'll sharpen our pencil as well but we'd like to Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move to adopt the utility rate study as prepared by Rafelis Financial Consultants and authorize staff to make the necessary changes to the comprehensive fee schedule. Second. A motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to adopt the 5-year rate study as it has been presented. Additional comments, Mr. Jeter.

Yeah, like we just said, I know Daniel and his crew and his team will certainly look into this. No one likes doing this. No one likes, you know, it's like the miller rate if you lower it. so many years it's really hard to go back and raise it. So we did 0% increase last year as Daniel was saying if we continue to do 0000 we're going to put this board somewhere in a position where they're half they're going to do a 20% and we know what that situation is going to look like. So I think doing a 5-year study and phasing this out as Mr. Merryill was kind of saying earlier or maybe we maybe we missed the gun last year and now we're really having to look down the barrel of the gun this year. No one likes it. Um, but unfortunately there's just things that you have to make decisions on that you that you know are best for the city in the long run.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak on this? Mr. Walker? Yeah. Um, maybe my fellow counselors up here will know, but does can anybody tell us how how much is in reserves? Miss Neighbors? No, I'm sorry. Anybody up here? Anybody? I thought you were asking. No. And I said my my my co-ounselors up there. Does anybody know how much is in reserves that they referenced that may be able to use to offset expenses? No. Okay, Miss Neighbors,

uh we have about 8 million in unrestricted reserves from what I remember from that aer um this and you it's you'll see it coming up in the next budget meeting. Um we had to because of revenue shortfalls and to be able to complete all the things that we needed to do, we were 2 and a half million short. So we had to pull that from reserves. So that will go down significantly um this year. So there is $8 million in reserves, but you're saying about 2 million of it is from is going to be used for other things in 26. Yeah. To be able to balance the budget.

So yeah, you know, I hear from people in the community and myself being one of them. I'm a single guy at my house and if and at my office and if I'm if I use 500 gallons a month, that's a lot. And then I look at my 0 to 2,000 and then I think about me and how blessed I am to be able to pay it. But then I hear from others in the community who talk about their everyday struggles being on fixed incomes and you know we've got 8 million in reserves, 6 million in reserves. Um you know I'd like to see some of that money be applied, leave the rates where they are while we ask staff to go back tighten their sharpen their pencils now instead of later. Um, I'm not, you know, this is not personal against the the the company that did the study, but you know, when when we're at when we're relying on their estimations and forecast and they estimate revenue increases and they miss the mark by 700,000 on an 11 million bill, I'm just hesitant to trust all their other numbers. Uh so I would like to see staff sharpen the pencil in advance, keep the rates the same uh and look at that tiered blocking approach I believe it's called where you know those those people who are conservative on their water um they get blocked from zero to 500 500 to a,000 and thousand up. I mean, it's just a single person, whether it's a mom, dad, grandma, whatever, paying the same using 500 gallons as to the family that may have two, three, four people and using 2,000 gallons just seems unfair on its face. So, I won't be supporting it. Um, I won't be supporting the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak on the motion?

Seeing none, council, please vote. [Applause] The motion does carry 4 to two. All right, that brings us to city manager reports. Mr. N. So, the first thing I'm going to talk about learning here for me, I did not have any contracts before council down south, but apparently we do here. So, there's an executive uh special meeting set for the 23rd at 3 p.m. just to ratify the fire contracts. So that'll probably take all five minutes, but we had to publicly notice it. So that's done. Uh updates from last time. Met with pause people. They have a draft contract from us that Miss Cop has blessed. So I'm just waiting on their feedback. So we might have some action there for the next meeting. Met with the owners of the Brook Street lot yesterday. I I think we have a path, but I I'm hearing maybe not. So just I'm going to keep plugging away at it, but I'll have that at the next CRA meeting. uh the Prescidio um engineer for that project basically told me, "No, go away. We're not going to do anything with your power lines because they're going to do something with part of their project." And I've let them people uh the Presidio know that. Uh golf clap for see what I did there, Jacob. 82 memberships they've sold since uh Friday. So cool there. And the landing is moving along fairly smoothly now that D uh Daniel's been involved every day, every week. Sorry. And we will be meeting with them tomorrow because the architect architect

no ar engineer engineer that's what I said engineer is not returning our calls. So frustrations are mounting. Final thing uh police academy 911 that is the first one at 6 p.m. So that's all I got. Thank you sir. City attorney reports Miss Cop. I don't have anything. Thank you mayor. All right. Mayor Council final comments. That starts again with Mr. Browning. Uh nothing tonight. Mayor Mr. I have a question. You said police academy. Is that the citizens academy? The police have their own. Well, that's what I went to earlier this year. I don't know what you're talking about, but the police have their own academy and then there's a citizens academy that Well, that's what I thought this was supposed to be. Citizens academy and coming up

again. There's two police have their own and the city is sponsoring one as well. Two completely different animals. Where's Chief B? We had the police academy all 11 weeks of it earlier this year along with ride alongs and all that other so the citizens academy was new and I was going to sign up for it but then I don't know citizens academy starts in October it's a totally different totally different animal yep it's 5 weeks 5 weeks Wednesday nights huh correct okay two different flavors for you to okay enjoy well I'm going to find You good, ma'am? Yes.

Okay. Councilman Jeter. Yes, sir. Councilman Merrill.

Uh, we were on the parks earlier and I think we were going to put some stuff together. I'd like to throw in two things. Uh, you guys might have heard this. Um, from Mr. Leovitz, but I went and checked out the Bucks. I love what they've got going on. I know you're already working on that, Mr. Davis. Um, but we talked about we take action to change the pricing. Uh, one thing we should look at is the bulk rates if they're just getting fields for China. Something I'd like to look at is offering a bulk rate if they're after so many. Um, and then pointed out, and I didn't really realize this. I lived here my whole life just about, and uh, there's no public football fields. Um, we had baseball fields, we have soccer fields. So, I'm not I would just like it brought up. I'd like can we look into can we look at what it would take? I know that you can play soccer on a football field. I know the city's starting to do flag football. I know we've got the Bucks. So, it's something I think uh I really like what they've done there. The proof of concept is there. The success is there. So, if we can find any way to help that and look into it as a city.

Interestingly enough, we have a budget meeting coming up that will fit right in.

Thank you, Miss Riley. Very quickly, I would like to thank the uess that came up, made public comments. Um, I do think that, you know, it's it's really really good for us on the council to hear your voices, hear your concerns, and um try to work as hard as we can to resolve your concerns, and I know sometimes, you know, things don't turn out the way you want them to. But um I can honestly tell you, I I know I care about what you all are saying. So, I thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to come here to uh let your voices be heard. for the gentleman in the in the back there on the the laundry room. Sir, I want to tell you I I have frequently visited your laundry room. You have great employees and customer service and I appreciate you as a small business owner here in the city of Fort Walton Beach and just giving back

to our residents. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Miss Riley and Mr. Walker.

Uh just real quick, uh the concerts at the landing were great. They kicked off last Friday and obviously for the next few weeks they'll be going on. So, look forward to those and hopefully the weather will be just as good. Uh, also wanted to thank Mr. Gibson over in the co um code compliance. I questioned u wanted to know some information about funds available for code violation um grant programs. Uh he provided me great information. I'll be getting these. Um maybe these will even be a part of the um homeowners bill of rights. But currently we have 61 which was impressive to me. We have 61,000 available for these types of grants that go for code violation repairs and um remedies. So, thank you, Mr. Gibson.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Just very briefly for those who just walked in. My name is Mr. Tanner, Mr. Smith, and others. Uh we will be taking a brief recess here for 10 minutes to reset the computers um before we have our 6 p.m. budget hearing. I just want to briefly mention these things because I'm not going to do it at the next meeting. Thank you very much to all the city employees and everyone that was involved in the dragon boat race. Um, we lost the mayor's

for the first time ever and we finished second. The blame falls solely on me. That was 100% my fault. Worst mayor we've ever had in regard to Dragon Ball. Secondly, a big thanks to the chamber and everyone that came out to the uh inaugural mayor's gala that the chamber put together. It was a long day doing dragon boat racing from 7 in the morning, 7:30 in the morning to uh 2 or 3 whatever that was. And then the thing from 5:30 to god knows how long. I know Mr. Davis couldn't couldn't stomach it anymore. And went home.

I would have done the same if they would have not asked me to say words. Um but it was a great event. Absolutely was a great event. And then also uh happy birthday this Friday to um Roberta Burpie. She is celebrating 100 years on this earth um this coming Friday the 12th day of September. She was born in 19 and 25. So I went over there today to her uh birthday party and and helped her celebrate. I did hear our our mayor ameritus our previous mayor Mr. Renerson mentioned during his comments at the mayor's galllet that he had gotten to be a part of 11 100year-old birthday celebrations which is incredible over 8 years. I'm already two in 5 minutes tracking. I'm coming for you. We'll take a brief recess and we'll be back in about 10 minutes. Thank you.