City Council Regular Meeting - Special Meeting

Man, after that report I got yesterday. I'm super excited. That fall was scary. Get it on video. The fall. Yeah. No, that's that's what the attorney said, too.

All right. We call this special meeting of the city council for Walton Beach to order on Tuesday, September 30th at 400 p.m. At this time, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Come on in, Miss Debbie. [Applause]

All right. Now we're looking for an approval of the agenda. Yes, sir. Put a public comments general section at the start. I think the intent was we would just have public comment on each item as you consider it. But you might y'all might consider it a better idea just to hear a bunch of public comments at the start. But considering that uh y'all have to per the charter actually hear public comment on each motion y'all do, we just left it to speed up the meeting to go through public comment. Let's go with that first play you mentioned after each each one public an opportunity to comment. Thank you for that clarification. Do I got a motion for approve of the agenda?

Moved by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Barry. Mr. Jeter. Yes. Mr. Barry. All right. Let's go. Right. passes unanimously. Action, direction, discussion item 4.1, consideration of the charter review commission's recommendation for amendments to the charter.

Thanks, mayor. U and I guess I'll do most of the presentation on behalf of I guess the commission. Obviously, some commissioners are here, Mr. clinic as well and they can always add uh if I miss anything. But the charter review commission met several times over several months and they came out with a report and some recommendations that has been provided to council and uh ultimately they recommended changes to almost every single section not all sections of the charter. Uh I think there were four sections left completely untouched and then the remaining 31 sections they made various changes whether or not they were ministerial minor major one proposed new provision and they deleted some sections as well and we'll go through those one one at a time tonight cuz I think that's the most logical way to do it and we'll be just asking that you either accept the recommendation of the charter review commission re reject their recommendation or accept the recommendation with modifications and then uh at The result of your vote will allow us to prepare an ordinance for each one of the charter review uh amendments to go to referendum then and we can probably get those back to you before the end of the year. So that's the intent and uh if y'all have any questions before we get started I can answer those. But if you want to go and roll up your uh sleeves and get down to it, we can see any questions. M I just um I've seen some public comment regarding the advertisement. Do do I know it might have been before your time, Mr. Davis, fully. I'm not sure, but maybe not. Maybe time flies. But um where were all was the charter review committee um meetings posted or shared or advertised? Um and and and yeah, we'll start there. I've got or when and where how often was did the city advertise out to the public? Was it posted through the uh social media channel? Do you know may have been but I'm pretty sure it was on our website.

It was on the website on the uh just like the council meeting just like the council meeting and I advertise each meeting as a special meeting um in the newspaper like usually several weeks two three even four weeks ahead of each meeting. Gotcha. But we're not aware of any social media posting about it. Usually um Devon I don't check social media but usually Devon post all upcoming meetings and he'll usually have a link to it. I cannot answer him if he did that part of the commission.

Thank you. I followed up with I touched base with the original motion Mr. Smith on this and just wanted to follow up to him on on his intent as he made the motion for the charter review committee and you know obviously he missed out on the election so he wasn't here to see it all the way through but one of his points was that it was a solicitation for public input and do we know if there was any solicitation uh to the public for input on the charter review uh invite for public comments or was it just a posting on the website and in the newspaper? I have to add up.

Okay. I mean, you're not aware of any. And that's really what I wanted to know if there was any invitation for the public previously to attend the meetings. I know there was a incident at one of them where someone Mr. Smith tried to speak at it and there were some issues related to that and some confusion but um did we have any other public comments into the charter review committee that came in directly to the charter review committee public input? I think Sabu came one day. Uh I don't remember all of them but there was a couple people that spoke. I think Mr. Smith spoke potentially. Did you speak at all? Okay. Last two. Mr. Gray was here for the first two. No, I was here for all three.

All right. Any follow-up questions or we're good to go? Good to go. Any more questions? Anybody have before we roll up your sleeve and dive into the Let's dive into it.

All right. So, the first item is section one and it's titled municipality established. The charter review commission recommended taking out all but the last sentence and then uh just adding the city of Oral Beach to the last sentence. Effectively what that does that gets rid of a reference just to the city of Fort Walton and not Fort Walton Beach earlier in that provision and it gets rid of some old uh kind of outdated language. It really has no true substantive changes but it does provide clarification because it gets rid of the reference to just Fort Walton and uh so that's those are that's basically a description of what the changes are they made. It's up to you all if you want to accept it, reject it or accept it with changes. All right, go through one item at a time. Any questions that we have up here first, Mr. Jim?

So, some of these clerical cleanups, we would call them would not necessarily just be recommended by the committee would also be recommended by you and Kim as well. Some things that just some house cleaning items that are Yeah. And if you want, I can I can say uh I I would recommend y'all y'all do approve of this one. Yeah. there's anything that you highly recommend based on a clerical side. That would be good to know up front. Secondly, are ones like this, are they required to go out to a referendum or should this be something that we can just do?

There's only uh I'm going to say there's only two changes they recommended that could possibly skip a referendum out of all the other sections that you and uh that would be this would be one of the two. The next one being section two, which we'll discuss here in a section in a minute. Uh and really that decision though once you all uh today once you've approved of any item uh or rejected it we'll we'll kind of consider each of the items and consider if maybe if any other items besides like this first section one change can not have to go to referendum and if so we would obviously recommend uh to y'all not to send it to referendum since it's just a clerical change but uh still it's still going to have to be passed by ordinance still the same same way and so we would need to know today whether or not you approve or reject it. Got it. And I guess a follow-up question that so I don't ask this every single time down through here. The things that we cannot change in house that are clerical are going to go back out to the voters if they're even approved here.

It's not like we're going to reverse any any voters decisions in the past. They're going to go back out. Correct. Okay. The the only things that can be changed without a referendum or doing things like adding the word beach to the city of Fort Walton just because the 1950 I think the city wasn't called Fort Walton Beach back then. It's called Fort Walton in the original charter. So that's player cool. I know there was a change made back in 2021. They got rid of gender pronouns within the entire charter. They went to all gender neutral language. You can make a change like that cuz state law allows something like that because it's not it's not really considered substantive, but most the rest of the changes in here are substantive. Got it.

Any other questions, Mr. Neighbors? I know this is one thing that you presented on. Does this look good? Okay, seeing no more questions up here. Anybody from the public that would like to ask any questions or make any comments for this first item of business? [Applause] Can I make a general statement? Okay. Um I'm Robert Smith. um here in my personal capacity but with experience of being a member of the charter view review committee um to be direct this committee was not unbiased. The majority of the appointees were former city staff or former elected officials all of whom were against the charter amendments that were passed by the voters. Rather than pursuing an honored effort, an honest effort to clarify or modernize our charter, the committee has sought to undermine the will of the people. Let me remind you that more than 73% of the registered voters participated in the recent referendum, perhaps the highest turnout in the city history. Those voters over overwhelmingly supported the charter amendments. Yet, the committee seeks to unravel those results. Some members have even even suggested that the public was not properly informed. The per a municipal charter review committee's purpose should be to ensure that our city's foundational rules remain consistent with what our community expects. According to established practice, charter review committees occur every 6 to 10 years to address outdated language, correct inconsistencies, and clarify the charter, but not to disregard recent electoral will. We just held a referendum and the outcome was clear. The voters spoke and the public has not asked for these amendments to be reversed. Those opposed to the

referendum are simply asking for a second chance even though it goes against the democratic process. Furthermore, most proposed changes stand to benefit city staff and union interest and not the citizens. The proposed the purpose of a charter review is not to write new law. That task rightly belongs to the city council, not to appointed committee members. Elected officials must not expect political insulation by simply adopting a committee recommendations. Accountability would lies with you guys and not with the charter review committee. My recommendation is simple. Accept only those charter revisions that clean up outdated language, resolve inconsistencies, or provide necessary clarification. Do not approve any amendment that materially alters the meaning of the charter or undermines what the voters have already decided. Let's respect the will of the citizens, protect the integrity of the referendum, and uphold true democratic values. Thank you.

Comments on that issue. Come up to the mic, Miss Paul. Um, state your name and address. Actually, I was holding off on commenting because I thought this was just on section one. Aren't we going to have a comment after each one? We are. Okay, then I would like to do that then. I don't have a comment section one. Okay, we're and we are in section one now. Correct. I just comment later section. All right. Looking for some action. So move staff's recommendation. Second. We got a motion by Mr. Jeter, second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter. Yes, sir.

Mr. Browning. Yes, sir. Any other comments? And that's to accept the change. Correct. Correct. Just clic the staff recommendation was charter review. But well, today we'll assume if you say staff recommendation, you mean charter review. Call commission. [Applause] [Applause] All right. Item number two.

Okay. Uh section two, the changes that the it's titled validation of local rules, ordinances, property rights, liabilities, etc. They want to change the title, just validation of local rules. And they did again make the same change adding the word beach to Fort Walton. And then they did remove the last sentence. The last sentence is kind of legal ease, very outdated legal ease, probably from the 50s that no longer has really any legal import today. And uh so they did they did provide cleanup that I would recommend that y'all do pass. And it really does not substantively change anything though if you if you didn't pass it.

All right. Any questions for city attorney, city manager? Seeing none, any questions, comments from the public on this section. All right. Seeing none, looking for some action. Make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second move by Mr. Jeter, seconded by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter. Yes, sir. Mr. Browning. Yes, sir. Any other comments, things to add? Mr. W.

Yeah. Um, wasn't sure how all this was going to go, so I'll I'll start on the second one. I didn't start on the first one, but um I thank you, Mr. Smith, for your comments there. Um I concur and agree that the um review committee that was put together was um was biased from day one. Um as simple as that first section was with a change of the beach. The entire s the entire process was corrupted. uh when I uh when there is a a person or a body or an entity or committee uh that I rely on good and faithful and honest uh presentation and putting together an assemblage of of these words when I can't trust that system, that committee, I can't trust anything they they say. I've read this thing countless times and I can't tell you how many times I've struggled to find out what what might be the intent of that. Now, item one was not one. Item two was has not been won yet. But throughout this um throughout this charter reviews committee and the recommendations they've made, especially items 33, 34, and 35, I have lost all trust in the entire committee and the votes and the changes they've recommended. So, as easy as Fort Walton Beach would have been to accept, I chose not to accept it and I won't be accepting the second or any future ones in it. And I do reserve I do look forward to having continuing conversations on each one of these items as they come forward. So, thank you.

All right. Any more? All right. Let's go. [Applause] All right. Six to one. Let's go to section three.

Okay. Actually, it's section 23 is the next section because the way I've organized the presentation here today was to kind of get y'all moving on the the ministerial stuff first and then the very easy to discuss stuff next. And uh so the next one is section 23 oath of office. And they suggested uh with unimus cop did recommend that they do as well that they remove section 23 because state law already requires uh certain officers to take the oath of office and uh so it's just kind of redundant with state law and uh it probably was not required at the time it was added in there under state law but nowadays you do have to. So y'all can make the decision whether or not to delete it. If y'all don't delete it it won't impact anything because state law recovers that.

Sounds good. Any questions? All right. Seeing none, public. Any questions, comments? Are any looking for some action? I'll make a motion that we leave this in place. Hearing from staff that it would not change anything. I'll second for conversation. Mr. Walker. Yeah. Comments. No comments. Any other comments? So much back to some of our original questions. Would your legal opinion would it be wise to remove this? It's just

I'm neutral. This is not me being an attorney trying to jump around on your side. I'd be neutral on this one. It doesn't uh it doesn't hurt and doesn't help. And so if you want to leave it in there because it's never wrong to require an oath of office. Uh that's your choice.

So it it really other than just reading I do believe some of their concerns were that to try to lessen the length of the charter, make it easier to read. I think the charter review commission wanted to cut out some of the redundant stuff and so they consider this to be redundant with state law. And so I think if if your intent today is to shorten the length of the charter to make it a little bit easier uh for someone to read through the entire thing, then uh you probably would want to remove it. But otherwise, it's not one from a legal perspective that I I can weigh in either way because it won't impact anything. So, where would this one fall underneath a clerical or this is going to go after a referendum?

This this would uh this would you actually again like I said I need to go back and determine afterwards if this is clerical that that decision doesn't need to be made today by y'all. If y'all do approve it or reject it then we would come back and and let you know at a later time if it can be clerical and not have to actually go to the referendum. Okay. It would just be nice to know today so that we don't bombard any voters with this I would hear on the side of this is probably substantive then because there's an independent requirement for the oath of office here in the charter

in that case I would be supporting the motion because we don't need redundancy for our voters right um this question um attorney Burns is I wanted a little bit more clarification u so if it's covered under the state of Florida so my understanding is I'm trying to be real clear and sights on this. So my understanding is from what you have just told us the state of Florida has already have this. So this pretty much has already set as a as some presidential standard for the state of Florida. Is that correct? Correct. State under the state constitution. Under the state constitution. So that's good for me. If it's under the state constitution, that mean it's covered, right? Is that correct?

It's it's legally covered. legally covered and there should be not be any discrepancies. I would I would think if it's legally covered. Is that correct? Correct. Only if if I mean if y'all left it in here and for some reason they changed to say constitution removed the requirement for note of office then you still have a requirement in here. So I I what I'm understanding then you know if it's deleted it really you're covered one way or the other. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you, sir. Any followup questions? Let's go to vote.

And the motion was made by Mr. Walker, right? To reject it. Correct. So, that passes six to one. Section 24. Is that right, Mr. Burns?

Correct. Uh so this next section is titled uh continuation of present officers. They recommended deletion of the entire section and uh this is again I I believe this section was in here when they came up with the original charter. They already had some city employees at the time and so they just put that in there to to state that you know any person already holding office or employed by the city uh would still continue in their current role once the new charter was passed. And so it it is uh it is redundant language ultimately at the end of the day. Again, it's I would say it's even lower in importance than section 23 from standpoint an o oath of office is uh actually a substantive item. The section 24 actually probably will be one of those items I would heir on the side of saints ministerial but I'm not 100% on that today. But I would heir on the side if you if you remove this there's not going to be any legal effect whatsoever.

All right. Any questions? what to do level two to some of these other questions. So, should we accept this recommendation and remove it and come to find out or let's say there's one that's the opposite as we're going down through here. When we get to a first reading, you'll have the information to say, "Hey, this is ministerial or this is substantive and we need to maybe look at it this way and we can make another decision at that time when the ordinance." Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. My legal recommendation today would be if you want to follow the will of the charter review commission, they wanted to recommend that remove the section, then I would just pass it to respect their wishes. Got it.

And as far as it going to a referendum, we won't be deciding today, but at some point the council will be deciding which of whatever does get approved today goes on what referendum and when. Correct. So we don't I'm just trying to set up a picture. We're not going to be around with possibly 10 or 15 on on one referendum or we are we trying to space them out or is that for a conversation on another day? So the last item on the agenda today is discussion on timeline and proposed referendum date but we could make it dates if y'all want to pick different dates for different items [Applause] to his point there. Um

so there may be it depends on what this body passes today. There may be, and the date is irrelevant in my question, but there could be 5, 10, 15, 18 charter amendments that would be on a ballot measure individual. Correct. Correct. If you picked one date for the reference, right? Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Questions? All right. Any more questions from the public? Comments? Mr. M.

Uh, my name is Mike Minn. I live at 106 Circle. Item 23. I wanted was going to comment about that. I was recommended by the attorney that uh sat with our commissioner. I'm concerned. Where's that attorney today? Why isn't she here? I mean, you're offering opinions that were different than hers. So, that was a recommendation she made to the committee. That's why we went forward with it.

She recommended that bas I'm sorry. Well, I just kind of looked over that way. I meant to address it to you. So, that's just a concern. I mean, it was some of the recommendations you're going to see as we go farther in were recommended by Miss Cop and she isn't here today. So, I'm hearing a little bit different of recommendations by a different attorney. So, that that's thing that I have a kind of a concern with. Thank you for your comments, sir. And I can address that to the chairman if you want. I to some consistency if you would like. Yeah. I just didn't want you to feel like at that time you needed to, but I just want to make sure all the questions were were brought to the to

So, so the commission did want to cut down the length of the charter as much as possible to get rid of redundant language and Miss Cop uh basically said this was already covered by state law and it was redundant. So, they wanted to remove it. Thank you for their comment. All right. Any other comments from the public or questions? All right. Seeing none, make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Jeter, second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter.

Yeah, just getting a lot of good thoughts, a lot of good feedback in here. The more this goes along, the more I see as well. A lot of this is going to be like some other stuff in a regular meeting where we're going to have more data on the first reading of any of these. And you'll be able to tell us better answers to some of the questions we've already had. So, proceeding with any and all of these recommendations is really just making the charter better. We're not passing anything tonight. No, you're going to have multiple more votes on this before it goes to reference. Okay. Any other followup comments?

A question maybe. Um so reading the um section 24 this if this body passes this to remove it from the charter. Uh all persons holding office in or employed by the city at the time this charter goes into effect. That's been in place since 19 since our formation or sometime thereafter. Correct. So it's been there. Okay. Uh so that person holding office or employed in the city at the time of this charter goes into effect shall continue in such office. So uh now with this if this is removed um all persons holding office shall not continue in such office. Is that correct? Uh I don't believe those people are still alive but they might be.

Okay. And I didn't know if it was a being applicable to new adoption of this charter. No it's not. No. This this was something put in at the time that Gotcha. Thank you. Let's go vote. Pass the six to one. Let's go to 25 26 26 excuse me.

Section 26 is titled property rights, obligations, ordinances, etc. continue. And uh this was another another item that Miss Cop along with the commission both agree need to be removed. It's uh it's redundant. It's uh filled with a lot of uh concepts that aren't uh legally they're they're either controlled by statute or just not legally applicable today. And uh so I I would recommend that to be removed. Uh I know Miss Cop did as well. And I know the commission agreed because their intention was to try to cut down on redundancy. All right. Any questions? Questions, comments from the public. All right. See none, looking for some action.

Make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. We have a motion by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Barry. Mr. Jeter. No, sir. Mr. Barry. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Go to vote. pass 61.

The the next item is section 27 offices and employment continued. It's similar to section uh 24 and that it was kind of addition again stating the same thing that all officers and employees of the city should continue in their offices uh after the effective date of this charter until they replaced by election or appointment in accordances with the provisions of this charter. That's state law as is anyway. So uh that's why I think the recommendation was made just to remove that. It it is a little bit broader than section 24 but Miss Cop recommended it. I know the commission also recommended it and it's it is the state law anyway. So any officer and employee of the city would would continue in their employment anyway if a change was made to the charter uh that subsequently affects their rights. Probably get the same answer, but do we know if this would be having to go to a referendum or could it be done without going to a referendum? like the 124 definitely would not have to. This one I would need to think a little harder. Probably not. Though this one probably will not have to go to referendum, but before I say definitively, yes. I want to put a little more thought into that.

Okay. So, what I'm envisioning too is is in a future meeting. I think Mr. Jer alluded to this and said it, but just to make sure we can have a future meeting. Okay, these are the things that have to go to referendum because of the amount of changes. These are the things that are clerical that we can do via ordinance that don't have to go to a referendum. Is that something we can do at a future meeting? Cuz I guess the reason why I'm asking this question is I'm inclined to vote no on things that if we have to go to a referendum on some of these clerical things. It's just going to be a saturation of a lot of things that could be very confusing for the community on what they're voting for. So, do we know that yet our procedure goes? Well, it either way uh they would have to go to uh there's still going to have to be two readings of an ordinance either to remove something without a referendum or with a referendum because ultimately you're going to pass two or two readings of an ordinance for each of the items to send it to referendum if it goes to referendum. So, but what we could do at the at the meeting when we bring all these back before you if I say, "Oh, I our research shows section 27 should go to referendum." Then y'all can make that decision at that point in time to be like, "We don't want that clogging up the ballot at that point. Yeah, we we can live with it being being in the charter if we think that's going to create 30 questions for the public to have to answer.

That's it. That's it. Mr. Jud, you just answered my question spot on. I think we're all chopping down the same tree here. Should we accept all these recommendations tonight? They're going to come back to us. Then you would be able to black and white say at a future meeting, hey, this is redundant. It should be removed. However, it has to go to a referendum. It doesn't hurt to leave it in there. Let's correct. At that point in time, we can make that. So, I'm more inclined to accept every recommendation. And it just continues collaboration, you know, uh, communication and then we can decide at that time which one of these are you answer my question. Perfect. Got it. Good stuff. All right. Any other questions? Mr. Bear.

Uh, yes. Uh, uh, please clarify this for me. Offices um, and employee whenever we speak of officers can who are we referring to? Me, Mr. Davis, and Miss Barnes are the three officers. Okay, that's what I needed clarification. Okay. Thank you. Right. Can we ask the public for comment or questions? And if we have, this is the second time. Seeing none, looking for some action. Motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. We have a motion by Mr. Jeter and second by Miss Riley. Mr. Jeter. No, sir.

Right. Charlie on that part know that it agree with you on that. Okay. Any other comments before we go to vote? All right. Let's do it. All right, passes six to one. Now we're going with section 30, but Mr. Burns, keep me straight. If it's not section 30,

it it is section 30, but uh we can actually if y'all are okay with it consider section 29. and should have been also included in the cuz in this section of uh but it's I guess I won't cuz it's a really easy one since y'all are trying to cover ministerial stuff right now cuz there's only two other items that are arguably ministerial it' be section 29 section 30 if you want to consider section 29 out of order we can yeah let's go ahead and iron out 29 so 29 repealer

section 29's title repealer all they did is they changed uh the word laws and replaced it with ordinances and law with ordinances. Uh, and so I think they just did that to make it clear that uh any ordinances that conflict with the charter, not any laws, uh, are hereby repealed. So ultimately after the election, whatever changes that the uh uh the public ends up voting on passing, if there's any ordinances in place, they'll automatically be repealed uh for legal effect is what that does. So, you want to leave it in there and not cut the whole thing out. But I think they just wanted to clarify and make it ordinances, not laws. And I I do recommend that y'all make that change.

All right. Thank you. Any questions for the board? Any questions from the public? Mayor So moved or so moved the uh recommended changes by the charter committee. Second.

All right. I don't have any further comments, Mr. Jeter. All right. Any other comments? Let's go to vote. [Applause] All right, 5 to two. Let's go on to 30. And then at section 30 was titled effective date. It says this act shall take effect immediately upon coming law. At one point in time, there must have been 30 sections that were that might have been the original charter at 30 sections. So they just had an effective date clause in there. Um any all the ordinances that are ultimately going to be passed that change any sections whether or not they're by referendum them or not if they're ministerial will contain effective dates in the ordinances and that's that'll be controlling ultimately and so this is just an effective date provision that really is outdated and can be removed to remove confusion.

Good deal. Just a reminder, we're going to come back in a future meeting and discuss what has to go to referendum or not because a lot of these things are going to hopefully not. Yeah, this is a lot as far as information to try to educate the community on what the budget. All right, any more questions? Seeing none public any questions on section 29 or we going to go to another section this fall? This was 30. 30. We're jumping around a lot. I'm just wondering why we can't put it up on the screen. I'm having to look on my phone to see this. Um, is there no ability to put this on the screen?

Thanks, Mr. Davis. All right. Any more questions from the public? All right. Seeing none, let's get some action. Motion to accept recommendation. Second. All right. Motion. Mr. Ger, second by Mr. Merrell. Mr. Ger, Mr. Merrell. or excuse me, Mr. Mr. Walker, just a question. I'm just looking back in history. This it was interesting to hear you say that 30 probably ended it. Everything prior to that was the new foundation of the city. Right. Correct.

And then it says this actual take effect immediately upon it becoming a law. Did they have a period of implementation of a year or two to actually implement bring this into effect? Because it's pretty big change. It was complex for sure for a new operation, city government operating. Did they have a couple of years to put all the 1 through 29 into effect or did it happen right then? No, I didn't. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Any other questions? Let's go. [Music] [Applause] All right. Six to one. Where we go next?

Uh section three. Uh so we've now passed all or y'all passed or either rejected any of the what I'll call the ministerial changes that can arguably be handled without a referendum. I think most of the rest of the changes are going to be have to be handled by referendum, but some of the items we can probably combine. You'll see later on some of the sections uh probably into one ballot question. Uh for example, I know there's several sections that deal with the city manager's duties and there were a lot of there there are several changes made to those. We can probably if we can fit it in a 75word ballot probably make that one ballot question ultimately if we can uh for the public. So from this point on though uh they're all substantive. They will have to be voted on though. So go ahead.

So section three, creation and composition of council. And so they made several changes to this section. Uh one that they just clarified that uh the members are nonpartisan. That's they're already y'all are already so you know nonpartisan. It's a nonpartisan election anyway because you don't declare like on the ballot uh that you're Republican or Democrat. The ballot ballot doesn't have an ordem next to your name. Uh but this does clarify and that this if this is left in there then uh if the state law ever changed then uh to to allow city councils to be partisan that they would remain nonpartisan. So that that is a substantive change. And then uh they did change the residency requirement from 6 months to 1 year. So an individual would have to live within the city limits for 1 year instead of 6 months prior to qualifying. And then also they did remove the last sentence because that's already state law anyway. if you uh it grounds for having to uh or for removal or committing a crime while in office. And so I think the reason to remove that was just remove a redundancy with state law. And so so they made three changes here. One uh very minor one removing a redundancy and then one a major substantive change changing the residency requirement for one year. Just curious, does state law speak to allowing someone that's convicted of a crime while in office?

So, the way it's actually handled, uh, if someone is convicted of a crime while in office, then, uh, you actually would notify, you would have a procedure in here, uh, to discipline them, but the discipline ultimately be just a recommendation to the governor to have them removed. Uh typically what happens, I know this is what happened out in the city of Dustin when one of their council members got removed just a few years ago. Uh the governor was notified independently of the felony. I think they were arrested actually in that situation for a alleged felony. The governor stepped in and the governor is pretty consistent about this too. Uh both Rick Scott and Dantis both have always come down almost immediately and suspended the individual from office. they won't remove them because ultimately all the governor can do is suspend you and then you actually go to a trial in front of the state senate and so for removal and so that's actually the process of how someone is removed. Uh so you all have your process in here for disciplining if someone's uh convicted but ultimately that's just you would take them through that whole process to then send that to governor DeSantis who would immediately suspend them uh just so so this is a redundancy because I think leaving it in there uh makes it seem like they automatically will forfeit their office and that's actually not the case. They might still be in office for a couple weeks until Governor DeSantis signs an order

even if the charter says they would have to be immediately forfeit correct from office. Okay. So, I was just curious to see where the state standard was compared to this. All right. Thank you. Any more questions? All right. Any questions, comments for the public? I do have a question. Does state law provide define a crime as a felony or misdemeanor? Mr. Burns, can you answer?

It's both. It is both. So, that that one was actually I do know felonies provide the governor automatic grounds to to order removal, not a misdemeanor. So, unless unless it's a mis No, it's charged being charged. The the governor can uh remove you. They can suspend you. We're charged. They have to wait for your conviction before your trial before the Senate. But the governor can immediately suspend you. If this body, if if it comes to be that this body ever becomes a compensated body, that suspension, will the pay continue or be suspended without pay or is that the governor's call? It's suspended without pay. Okay. Thank you.

More questions. Looking for some action. Motion to accept recommendation. Moved by Mr. Jer. Second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter. Yes, sir. Mr. surrounding any further comments by the rest of the board. Let's go to vote.

All right. 61. Looks like we're on section six.

Section six next. Correct. And it section six the changes that were recommended. This is a it's titled regular and special meetings of the council. And this just clarifies uh because originally it said on the 1 day of July 1956, but uh they changed it to say at the first regular council meeting in April of each year in which there are elections of council members for a special meeting of the council. Uh basically the meeting will be held we are sworn in is what that says. Uh so they they clarified it just to kind of clean it up and make sure that's all it says ultimately. And then also uh they did make a change the last next last sentence they did note that uh all meetings of the council on the committees shall be open to the public as provided by state law. Uh that's that's just a clarification that's in there. Even if that was in there or not in there, you still would have be able to have sunshine or shade meetings for litigation and for example one we had with the uh with the fire departments collective baring agreement la the last meeting. You still would be able to have those cuz state law overrules it. But this just clarifies just, you know, because you want your charter to be clear for the lay person who's reading it to know that you're not violating your charter. So, I think that's why they put that in there. Well, it looks like a lot of people in the community will be learning more about this item. Any more questions? All right. Any more questions or comments from the public?

Here's what makes it substantive, just so you know, as well. Sorry. So that the the middle sentence that they cut out that said special meeting shall be called with the clerk upon written request the mayor, city manager, three members of the council. That's being removed from the charter. That's currently in though your resolution that you have that y'all uh have that governs your meetings. It it also restates that. But uh that's being removed as a charter power. So just so you know. So we got some tools or some layers to resolution already kind of speak to it.

It does. This actually would create flexibility in that you could uh if one council doesn't want it to be that easy to call a special meeting, then you can make that change uh as you see fit on how easy it is to call a special meeting. Okay. Any questions from the public? Comments from the public? Seeing none motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. A motion by Mr. J. Another second by Mr. Browning. Mr.

Yeah, I can't say it enough and you just spoke on as well. I think this again regardless of what comes of this that this may be something that we decide not to change, but it's just enlightening and you know, educating more people about the charter and what we can or can't do and how we can or can't change it. So, let's just proceed and press forward. I look at all this stuff too and go there's a lot of wise people that were on this committee that helped us make some of these changes and two very wise attorneys have gone through here with a red line and I don't know the last time ours was updated but as Mr. dismiss of their typical state standard every 6 to 10 years. So far has been around 60 or 70 years and we haven't done this you know 10 times. Again I just look at all this as a positive regardless of if the change ever occurs or not. This is just moving the ball forward to make good changes or decide not to.

Mr. Brownie any other comments? I do I just I just I'm just curious about our founders back then if they they intended to you know laugh about the April Fool's Day installation of a new council up here. It's on April 1st. So I have a feeling some of them were laughing talking about positions we would be in. But just that commentary, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

All right. [Applause] [Applause] All right. Six to one. Okay. The next section is section seven, election of the mayor and mayor prom general duties of mayor. Uh the changes that were made to this section, they like they did with the city council uh section. They made made it quick clear that the mayor is a nonpartisan election. They also added a provision in here that the mayor pro Tim will be I think chosen on an annual basis. I believe currently y'all do it on every two years. Correct. On a bannual basis. And then uh they removed a sentence that was redundant uh because it's already covered in their section of the mayor. She'll be subject to the same prohibitions against interfering with her suggesting to the city manager. Uh, I believe that's the was that probably was originally intended to be the provision that says the city council cannot interfere with the city manager's you know day-to-day duties regarding employees and whatnot and other items are spelled out. So I think again that's already covered uh elsewhere. And then uh one change that is substantive but uh I think substantive more form than anything is they did change the last sentence uh just to uh make it clear that the mayor cannot take command of the police and maintain order and enforce law and state of emergency. They can just uh basically declare a state of emergency. [Applause]

Interesting stuff. Any questions? Seeing none any questions, comments from Mr. Chair commented. This this applies several times through throughout this document. What Mr. Burn stated about section 14 um that says the council shall not interfere with appointments and removals. The suggestion is to add the mayor to that section. So if that section doesn't pass then you will have removed the requirement in in this section that the mayor not to interfere. So the two the two sections are tied together 14 and seven

14 and seven and that's good that we have members of the charter review commission here point that out because and so so we'll consider maybe 14 logically next after any other comments from seeing none motion to accept recommendation Okay. All right. We got a motion by Mr. Jeter, second by myself, Schmidt. Mr. Jeter. I don't have any further comments. Any other council members have comments? All right. Let's go to a vote. [Applause] All right. 61. and we're going and one good point that they you know do 14 next but one good thing to point out to you now is obviously a ballot question probably combine seven 14 as one ballot question if we can because it's going to make similar changes uh regarding interference and so uh I know y'all are concerned about the number of questions and and watering it down so uh we'll do our best to try to it's going to the 75 word limit is going to be our big limit um but uh so going to section If y'all don't mind us considering that out of order real quick. Let's do it. Okay. Uh section 14 uh was originally tit entitled council not to interfere in appointment and misdemeanor or forfeite of office. They added mayor and to the beginning of that section and they make it clear that the mayor is also subject to the same prohibitions of the council is currently subjected to.

All right. Thank you. Any questions on the council? Uh questions, comments from the community public. Yeah, Mr. Smith.

And and this goes back to comes back to removal, but this section mentions a misdemeanor conviction shall immediately cause for forfeite. Um is that consistent with state law? And I state law requires due process from what I was able to determine but let determin well there's no again like I already told you earlier you don't have an immediate for your office. Y'all would have to go through there's a disciplinary process actually under state statute if you want to discipline another member of the council. Uh I think they might even put a section in here that possibly is one of the ballot questions. We'll get to in a little bit that does so as well. But uh if it's not, there's a default provision under state statute that uh the best when it says immediate forfeite, it's just that's immediate grounds to bring the the mini trial that you're going to have to hold on that individual council member and ultimately if you all do decide at the end of that mini trial uh that they should be removed, you would then forward that decision on the the governor. So So there's no immediate forfeiture of the office.

Got there's a standard already set statutoily. It is. It's preeemption. you're preempted from that happening. Sounds good. Okay. Just come on. So, should we should we clarify that to make it what what the attorney just said what the attorney just said make it more clear? Mr. Burns, what are your thoughts about that?

Certainly, we can come back. uh if you want to come back and uh what what what we can do is any reference that we cover here today that says immediate forfeite of office we'll just make it clear that it's the grounds grounds for a forfeiture of office something similar to that and we can make that change consistent throughout the entire do let's do that [Applause] and and we can come back and uh when we present the proposed language to uh at the whatever meeting we come back with all the ordinances that change will be made universally uh under each change you're making here today. Gotcha.

And I guess if you just make a mo motion on that item though directing us to do it. Um attorneys so um in terms of the u for office is that automatically um to um due process they're going to be given their due process. So what it is, it's going to be grounds for forfeite. And so if they if they commit a misdemeanor and the council learns about it, they can initiate a disciplinary process that will not immediately result in your forfeiture of office. What what'll happen is they'll uh because they they won't be able to suspend. When I say you, I'm saying that the council member charged with a misdemeanor. if they get charged uh with a misdemeanor or a felony, the council would learn about it and then notify them that we're going to have a trial and extend some date and uh but that council member still gets to sit there as a council member until the governor actually suspends and so it's not going to be immediate. Now, that council member would would be prohibited just if any are thinking about this from necessarily voting on whether or not to discipline themselves cuz that would be a conflict of interest. Was that your question?

No. Uh, no. I was just interesting. It's just interesting to think that. So, this is talking about a council member, this council, future council, they um they interfere with Mr. Davises and they go and tell him or the next city manager or the next one and tell him, "Hey, hire this person, fire that person, whatever the case may be." And and so that is a clear violation of this language. And so who would actually be charging that council member with the misdemeanor? Would it be a police action? Would it be an attorney? Would it be who would be charging that council member with the violation or a misdemeanor? We'll be only charging uh uh the police could arrest that individual. So someone will have to swear out uh allegations to file a report or they could go to the say attorney's office who could do the same and and get a warrant for the arrest of the individual or they could go get a grand jury to do the same. There's multiple options.

Gotcha. Thank you for questions or any follow questions. So for now, so you would like the motion to accept the recommendation to include the word grounds. That way it would Yeah. And the easiest thing would be if you all want to accept this provision as is, just accept it and then make a second motion after that just directing uh myself to go back and uniformly uh every time it says cuz there are there are other sections uh either that would be passed uh or not passed but basically to bring everything that's potentially going to be changed and say it's just grounds for not immediate forfeite and but I'd like that to be a second motion if you don't mind.

Okay. other question. He stated uh a m a moment ago um about the person that might might be accused of a misdemeanor or whatever about voting. Uh would that person be able to vote or um they probably would have a conflict to vote on whether or not they can be removed or not? So that's so so dumb it down for me. Say that one more time. They would have a personal conflict of interest uh to vote whether or not they can themselves be removed because that's uh they they would have a personal conflict on that. Well, of course. Okay.

The individual being charged have a conflict whether or not I understand what you're saying now. Okay. All right. More questions. I do. I just you know how was that missed in the um group of wise counsel that shall immediately cause the forfeerture of the office of the member if so convicted but it's really not immediate it's a it's a grounds for just curious if you were were you at the you were at the charter review committee I did not attend a single one okay so okay

any follow-up questions all right um I'm so moved D to accept this recommended changes by the chart review committee to include clarifications for grounds as well as to include any of the U recommended changes that uh charter review committeeman Mr. Smith just mentioned. Correct. And also ask for a second motion to clean up that that on every other section as well. But just vote on that first. Let's do that and we'll take care of that other second. All right, Mr. Chair, follow comments. Just a second motion.

All right, rest of y'all have any other comments on that first one? All right. So, I clearly understand that, you know, u council, city manager, correct? city manager but handling the day the dayto-day office council does not have any means of approaching city manager right and question anything about a removal or any type of disciplinary action taken or whatever not so I guess it's uh we're looking more like this is more of a separation of duty because this is the city manager job is to run the day-to-day ops

correct separation hours. Correct. Yes, exactly. Okay. Very good. Right. Any comments? [Music] Right. 61. And now we're looking for some more action to empower the city attorney to bring back some clerical information that we I guess could the motion be just to direct the city attorney after y'all vote on everything here today, everything that passes to then go back in and clarify that anything that states an immediate cause for forfeite just states grounds for forfeite or something to that effect.

So move to the city attorney's recommendation that he just mentioned. All right, we got a second. Mr. Merrell, any additional comments? Anybody else any additional comments? All right, let's go to [Music] [Applause]

Right. So section 12 14. Now we're back to 12. Correct. Let's go to 12.

So section 12 is C manager responsibility, powers, deployment, and removal. And kind of logically this uh ducttales into what Miss Riley was just kind of talking about. It's it's some of his powers. He he's individual has sole responsibility to hire and fire all the employees. And uh I think they went through and just uh either with Mrs. Cop's suggestion or I know the learned wisdom of all the individuals that were on that commission, they uh changed the word appoint to hire, which does make sense because when Mr. Davis, he doesn't appoint any employees, he hires all of them. And so that's just the modern way of phrasing that. And then uh this also I think cut the last sentence out said all such appointments shall be without definite terms unless for temporary service not to exceed 60 days. That would create that would just create confusion because that arguably would say every employee is hired by Mr. Davis, if they don't have some sort of contract or expectation to work more than 60 days, loses their job after 60 days. If if you left something like that in there, obviously that's never happened over the course of time recently. So, cutting that out gets rid of a a kind of old relic, if you will.

Okay, any questions? Seeing none, any questions from the public, comments? Seeing none, let's go to some action. Motion to accept recommendation. Second. All right. Motion by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter. I sure hope some of this stuff can be clear. Clean up. That's it. Mr. Brown or was it Mr. Barry? Mr. Barry, I'll take it. Go ahead. All right. Vote. Did you offer public comment? I forgot.

We did. Okay. Yeah. I know it seems quick, but nobody wanted to jump. [Applause] All right, passes six to one. Let's go to 13.

So 13's removal officers and employees. They removed officers and because uh the only officers of the city currently are the city manager, city attorney, and city clerk. And so there maybe at one point in time were other officers that uh were uh maybe that might have been why that was in there, but I think they cut that out to clarify that employees that are hired by the city manager may may be removed by the city manager at any time. So any questions on section 13? Seeing not any questions from the public? All right. See none, look for some action. Move to accept the recommendation. Second.

Got a motion by Mr. Jeter, second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter, sure. Hope some of this is clerical. Mr. Brownie, that one won't I mean that's not a clerical change that's substantive, but like I said, a lot of the changes to the city manager's duties will be able to be under one ballot question. So, any other comments by the board? Let's go to vote. All right. 61. Let's go to section 14. 16's the next one. We covered 14. So, cover 14.

And uh this is uh it's currently titled or no, it's it's titled managers and officers right to participate in council meetings. uh if they just clarify that uh the city manager, the director of ro departments and such uh other employees of the city as may be designated by the vote of the council uh because already again the miss uh Barnes and myself our positions are already permitted to take part in the meetings and so I think they just wanted to make it clear that employees of the city uh who are present and they can also take part if needed at the meetings. So, I think that's that's another uh again that's one of these items that could probably lumped under one ballot question for the city manager, but that is a substantive change.

All right, good stuff. Any questions? Seeing not any questions from the public or community? All right, seeing none, looking for some action. Motion to accept recommendation. Second. All right, motion by Mr. Jeter. We have a second by Mr. Barry. Mr. Jeter, sure. Sure if some of this is clerical or we can fit a lot of these on one ballot question. All right, Mr. Barry. I I agree. Yeah. Any further comments? Let's go to vote. [Applause]

All right. 6 to one. I'm seeing section 18, but Mr. Burns, if there's anything different, guide me.

No, it's 18. That's the next one. So section 18 departments to be supervised by a director. The the major change to this is that they did uh in the last sentence the city manager uh may act as the director being one or more departments at the city council shall do so provided by ordinance is how it currently reads. They change it to resolution I think to make it more flexible so you don't have to go out and do two readings if you ever want to provide such direction. So again, that would be a substantive change. It's going to have to be part of that one ballot question hopefully for the city manager. But uh that is because there's a substantive difference between an ordinance and a resolution. All right. Any questions? Seeing none, any questions, comments from the public? Seeing none, looking for some action.

Motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. Got a motion by Mr. Jeter, second by myself. Mr. Did you any further comment? No, sir. Right. I'm just glad there's an appetite up here for not looking for voter fatigue. All right. Any further comments? See, let's go to vote. And just so you know, I did put the less interesting stuff first because I knew y'all might get tired and not want to consider the less interesting later. There you go. All right. 61. Let's go to 19.

All right. So 19 is uh currently it's the shity bonds required of officers and employees. Um, first off, there's no current requirement under the law for any employees or any officers to provide a shity bond. like my contract does require me to provide uh certain levels of insurance and I do so but uh ultimately there's no requirement for a shy bond and but in case that requirement is ever reintroduced they did make it clear in the last sentence of this provision that it would be the city manager or the city manager's design who preserves that u item the bond because currently it says the city clerk would do so and probably whenever this provision was added the city clerk's duties were different than they are today. And I believe Miss Barnes, you were okay with this change.

Yes, I recommended it because actually the um HR department handled insurance. So they were they would be the ones that would have the documents and make sure that the premiums were removed and so forth. So that's why M cop recommended that it be under authorization of the city manager because the charter shouldn't direct the HR director on their duties.

And so it it is it's a it's a change. It's uh that that it is a substantive change, but again, it's one of these changes that can probably be dealt with. U since it's adding the duty to the city manager, it's probably going to be under that ball question, the the clean up city manager question. So, any further questions? Seeing none, any questions from the public? Seeing none, looking for some action.

Motion to accept recommendation. Second. Got a motion by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Brownie. Mr. Jer. No, sir. Mr. Brownie, sir. Any further comments? All right, let's go to vote. [Applause] All right, passes 61. So the next section is section 20, city officers, appointments and compensation. the the change made to this section was the entire last sentence uh actually last two sentences and uh certain certain portions of the second sentence. So now it reads the officer the officers of the city or city manager, city clerk and city attorney, the city council shall appoint the officers of the city and shall determine their compensation. Um, so the the items that were removed, uh, there must have been other officers at one point in time that the city manager appointed, uh, and that those were covered as well. And so this is just a clarifying, uh, section. Again, it is, uh, this one might arguably be one that might be able to be ministerial. Uh, it might not have to go to ballot.

All right. Good stuff. Any further questions? I have, Mr. Mayor, I need clarification about the second sentence. The council shall fix by resolution the compensation of the city manager the mayor the city that sentence in their what sentence Mr. Mayor the second sentence or the third sentence the council shall fix by resolution I need some clarification

current yeah so that's being cut out so currently uh Mr. Davis has an employment contract that signed with y'all. Uh and just like I have a contract with y'all as well. Uh so that uh the current way it's done is two managers are typically hired and then a contract is entered into employment with them. Uh so and it's not done by a resolution. So already kind of the way it's been done the last couple decades would violate the charter anyway. And so this is just kind of making sure everything is kind of modernized how it's done today. Okay. That I I needed that clarification because I saw that by resolution in there. Okay, I understand that

question. Any other questions? Any questions from the public? Comments from the public? Seeing none, some action. Motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. We have a motion by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Barry. Mr. Jeter. Yes, sir. Mr. Barry. Anybody else?

Anybody else? All right. Let's go to vote. [Applause] All right. 6 to one. We're looking at section 21. Uh 25 actually. Section five. This title titled elections. The only change they made to this section was to subsection B. The last sentence, the last portion. Uh the Senate said uh the filing fee which shall be established by ordinance but which may not exceed the sum of $50. They got rid of the last little bit. So we'll just read shall be established by resolution. That way if $50 is a not the appropriate amount in the future then by resolution the council can change that amount. Any further questions on that? Any questions from the public comments? Seeing none

Mr. B. Yeah. Uh, did we skip over 21? We have not covered 21 yet. It was next time. I thought it was too. Oh, no. Wait. Did we Did we skip 21? We did. My bad. My bad. It's all good. I said 21, but I'm following your lead cuz there's a lot of different things on this. Thanks, sir. So, we'll go back to uh 21 after 25. Right now, we're on 25. Correct. Correct. Yep. Let's address 25 and then let's go back to 21. Motion to accept recommendation. Second. Any other comments from Steer? Yes, sir.

I don't have any as well. No comments to influence one way or the other. See, let's do it. [Applause] All right, let's go back to 21. So section 21 is currently entitled consolidation of offices and departments and they recommend removal of the entire section and it uh currently agrees that the council shall have the right to combine functions of various departments and various offices and provide that one officer may perform the duties of one or more officers and may hold one or more offices. to leave that in there. It sort of conflicts now with the city manager kind of does anyway. And that would removing this would uh remove any conflict with other provisions that give the city manager the city manager's powers. All right. Any further questions? See none. Any questions coming? See none. Look for some action.

Motion to accept the recommendation. Second. All right. Motion by Mr. Jeter. Second by Mr. Barry on section 21. Any comments? [Applause] We already did 29. Correct. Revealer. Yeah, correct. All right. So, does that take us to section four? Correct.

All right. So section four is kind of a limit on number of for city council mayor and uh again now we're into the major changes section and I think everything from this point on will be things that probably spark more debate and public comment and uh so this first item right here the recommended changes by the charter review commission uh I think they were wanting to clarify just to make sure it's two consecutive terms of any length that's why they got rid of the term full in the in the first sentence. there because they do then state full terms regardless of the length of such terms. And then they did add some additional items in there regarding uh some items that uh I actually will point out one sentence that potentially could conflict with the resign to run law, but I I believe the way it be interpreted would not. But it does state that if a council member declares candidate Cy for another elected position, that council member will resign within the time permitted under state law. That's fine. But then the the next sentence was just the one I wanted to maybe have y'all clarify. It states declaring candidates candidacy is defined as the filing the appropriate paperwork with the supervisor of elections to run for another elected position. Uh there's actually the process when you run for another position like at the county level as you pre-file initially and uh it could be two years out and that's when you can start raising money for the position. Under state law and and state law will preempt the charter in this one regard. uh you only have to resign uh once qualifying begins and ends. And uh the way it's handled is uh you have to submit a letter resigning that week before you're qualified to Paul Lux. And Paul Lux then the letter just has to state that your last date will be prior to the start of the the office that you're running for uh the term the new office. And so, uh, two examples I can use, u, I know, uh, Dewey Parker Dest

out in Dest did it back in 2020. He submitted a letter, uh, notifying Paul Lux in May that he was resigning effective, I think it was like November 1st, which would have been the first date for the, uh, the county commission office he was running for. And then uh I know uh y'all have a council member with y'all right now who did this something similar last year who submitted a letter I believe in May and also said it was sometime in November you would be resigning. And so state law spells that out and so I just wanted to make clear that because they did say if a council member declares candidacy and then it goes on to define define declaring candidacy. I would just remove that second that sentence altogether. There it says declaring candidacy is defined because uh state law will preempt it in that regard because it's going to state law is going to require uh qualifying as a candidate, not declaring that you're a candidate.

So very similar to some of the other ones, there's a statutoily provision that already handles this. Yeah. Resign the resign to run law. Yeah. Very clear under state statute. Any more questions? I got one. Go ahead. Um, so yeah, obviously we know this was pointed at you. This was what upset several in this room with you resigning and then coming back in and being appointed. So the language here is directly directed at you, right? I mean, that's what it appears to me, but I you said it's by state law. If an elected official resigns for any reason, they may not be appointed or in any way reinstated during the same term. Is that by state law?

No, I was I was just talking about the resign the run. Okay. So, that was the that was the sentence that was added on directed at David. That's that's the only question I had. Thank you. And so, my only recommendation is if y'all do accept this change, I would just recommend as the city attorney that you remove this one sentence that says declaring candidacy. Uh that's the next last sentence because that could create confusion down the line. Someone might think that they declaring as a candidate which is actually called pre-filing would cause them to have to immediately resign when actually they would not because under state law it governs. Any more questions from the board?

Questions from the public community. Mr. Okay. Um that was brought up in our meeting about uh immediately resigning and we thought that that had been clarified during that time where it what what the state law stated was what we were going to go with. So that uh that was the intention of uh the commission to to recommend to you uh Miss Cop brought it brought it forward that it was in fact state law says that you couldn't require someone to resign right away. And so uh this should not have been it that that was the intention to to follow the state law. Right. Questions? Mr. Smith comments.

I I just want to make another certification. Um and and I brought this up during the um the meeting, but if if somebody's appointed to a partial term, they're still entitled to be elected to two terms. Thank you. Few more questions, comments from the public. All right. I I so move to reject this charter review committee recommendation. Second.

All right. But, uh, you know, my comment is is there's obviously some confusion between what the charter review committee chair recommended and and and clearing that out as well as there's a state law that already determines this. And the other thing, I think the charter review committee recommendation really restricts the elected officials on making a determination on who they want up on this board, which is really kind of taking the rights away from who the people elected to make these these tough decisions. So, I just think it's it's personally an overreach, whether it's about me or whether it's about anybody else. But that night, I vividly remember many of y'all in here not happy with me going back after and trying to fill the vacancy. But also that night, it was unanimously approved by the elected officials that had the opportunity to make that decision. I think the charter review committee is trying to restrict the elected officials from making that decision. So because of that, it's why I'm in support. Mr. Walker, you have

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify on my initial statement. regarding not supporting anything in here. I I'll be voting yes to support this uh as I indicated by the second and it'll be because it's rejecting the idea that was presented by the committee. So, thank you. Yeah, thanks for the clarification. I won't be supporting the charter review recommendation, but I will be supporting my motion not to include the charter review committee recommendation. Any further comments from the council? Does this um does this eliminate the two-year terms? So, or two consecutive I'm sorry, excuse me, the two consecutive terms. So, would that remove all that? So, somebody could be elected for 10 consecutive terms.

I don't think this removes any of that that top part that's already included in the charter. Correct. It it would just it would just eliminate

the change the change that the charter review committee recommended. And so right now it currently reads uh council member Merrill it says for more than two consecutive terms they want to add two consecutive they want actually know it reads two consecutive full terms they want to remove the term full. So the change would be uh right now the way it reads uh someone could serve two full terms uh then maybe part or a partial term then two full terms. That'd be the best way to think about it. If y'all get rid of the word full, then someone could be prohibited from if they got appointed, they could serve two years, run once more for four years, and then they would not be allowed to run again. Whereas the way it's currently set up, you could get appointed, serve two years, and then run for two full consecutive terms after that.

But you could get appointed and still be elected. Mr. Smith pointed that out. So the this would just take care of kind of the anomaly that happened where somebody stepped down and there was a 2-year vacancy within the 4-year term. So that's it just this by not accepting this that would leave that specific situation to happen. Yes, absolutely. Yes. This does not touch the appointment. So I think you'll deal I think there's a recommendation to deal with that later on that we covered. Could I know that there's already no we got a motion saying what we discussed?

All right. Any further comments from the board? I have some more questions. What were you discussing about removing the beginning when you said you would recommend eliminating the clearing candidacy? Would you was your recommendation just to remove that one sentence? Just to remove that one sentence. And I believe that was also something that the Charter Review Commission actually wanted to remove. So the fact that was left in there was probably a mistake.

Yeah, I know it was a one-off, but here's where if we're really trying to make this better, whether we're disagreeing on this paragraph or um or this specific sentence, pushing this ball over the finish line would really just help us clarify that. So, a motion tonight just eliminating the last sentence still doesn't approve anything. Just allows us to continue this discussion and we can still edit this in the future. Correct.

If that's what y'all want to do, if y'all want to bring it, we can bring it back as a proposed ordinance and y'all can make more changes at that point in time. But yeah, if y'all vote tonight to remove at least that one next to last sentence, then we would come back bring have a version presented to you that just removes that next to last sentence, further debate it at that point. And who knows how anybody will vote as a further debating at that point but got it. Thank you. Mr.

Can I ask for clarification? Okay. So on the last sentence is indicating re reinstated during the same term and if they're serving their second elected term, they may not run for reelection. So, I guess I'm not I I I got to clear my thought process on this one. Well, while you're thinking about it. Okay. So, we have Go ahead. Oh, no. Go ahead. I thought you were yourself.

So, it it is worded. Actually, I I was going to suggest you could probably word Smith a little bit better, but uh what that means is if someone uh resigns, they can't be reappointed to their they can't be reappointed during the same time period that they would have served out their term that they resigned from. So if a city council member had two years left on their term, they resigned for any reason, then under no circumstances could they then be appointed, if someone else resigned, to that other person resigns position at all during those two years remaining on that previous council member's term. That's absolutely a little a little overward.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of confusing, but I got you. And also too, I the reason why I made the motion to kind of follow up with that where it talks about they may not run for reelection. You know, I know there are some folks that were upset about that, but folks could have ran against me. Folks could have folks could have, you know, made that decision. So, I I just I know this is starting to get a little bit personal. I'm going to zoom back out, but I just think it's a lot of overreach where it talks about they may not run for reelection. the community had an opportunity to put somebody up to run against me and and for having this overreach to say they can't run for reelection. It just it's hard enough to find candidates to run for these kind of positions and now we're going to be you know so anyhow that's just my additional comment.

Mr. Yeah. May I because we have a motion. Do we have a second? Because that's not what you were elected to. Mr. M just a minute. Chill. All right. Any more comments on the board? I do. Mr. Walker.

Yeah. I think this is a great example and his outburst there was a great example of the bias that I mentioned in the beginning that Mr. Smith mentioned that's that's buried in each one of these little sentences and words and commas uh that they put together strategically planning their agenda and that's why I've continued to vote no. I will be supporting your motion of course because it rejects their recommendation. So thank you Mr. Mayor. Any more comments? Mr. Chair,

I will not be supporting the motion. I'm going to support uh Attorney Burns definition of how we should go forward with this. again only just cuz it continues the topic of conversation and hopefully we eventually get it right in the end. While I certainly don't like it and think some things are personal and don't need to be, I want to support progress for this charter to be good for the next 6 to 10 years. Not one specific reason. Makes sense. All right. Any more? Let's go to vote. All right. Fells three to four. Next item. Well, I'd like to make a subsequent motion

on that same section. Go ahead. Send it as motion to approve the recommendation deleting the last sentence starting with declaring candidacy as Mr. Burns stated. Next last just just to advance for like breakfast second. [Music] All right, we got a motion by Mr. Jer, second by Mr. Brown. Mr. J. Again, for whatever reasons we personally don't like, just want to make the charter correct for the next 6 to 10 years. Mr. Brown, sir,

I also want to make the charter correct next 6 to 10 years. I just don't want to limit people running for reelection if if uh they have the opportunity to being go ahead. Okay, I'll wait. No, go ahead. I'm used to Mayor Algra. We get one time and then we circle back around for a second time. We have for or against, you know, um I'm not saying that I will or won't support this. However, it's written in in the future, but I want to continue the discussion. M I'm I'm really was going to basically say the same thing, Mr. Jesus that um I concur. There you go. I think he's saying there you go. Yeah. All right. Any other concurrence or any other objections?

Let's go to vote. Here we go. All right. With that being said, now we can go to the next item, Mr. Burns, which is

section five of filling vacancies in the city council or in the office of mayor. And there were several changes made uh in this. Some were for clerical purposes and quite a few were for substantive purposes. Uh starting with subsection one. Um but they they did add quite a few qualifications in here. Uh kind of a process that the council will need to follow. If if there is a uh situation where someone has been elected but they're not yet sworn in the office and they then the office uh will be filled in a certain manner and they say that an elected city council member res resigns again resigns or is unable to assume the position before swearing in. Upon city council approval, the seat automatically reverts to the candidate in that race who receive the next highest votes unless either one no qualified candidate exists or two, the city council votes not to approve such candidate, in which case the city council will initiate the appointment process set forth in section 583 for an alternate candidate by majority vote of the council. This does provide a substantive change, but it it really all it does is it just says your preferred candidate will be the person who finished second because it does state again it says the or two right there it says or two the city council votes not to approve such candidate. So if a future city council were faced with a runnerup candidate that they did not want to accept the way this is currently worded, they would still have that discretion not to appoint that individual. it just it would create a presumption that that second highest vote getter will be the candidate that you choose. And so uh so that's the first change that was made. Uh then the second section they just added uh a reference to section 583 and that's uh if a person selected uh and if more than 60 days remain before their uh the next election to be held in the city for one beach and that and a vacancy is formed uh it should be filled by majority vote

the council then sitting that's currently uh the only change made was to go down to section 5 A3 which then is now covered here. Uh they the big change they made there was uh it said two general meetings before they changed that to regular meetings because there used to be something I guess called general meetings that the the city had and uh now you all just have regular or special meetings and so they made sure to clarify that as well. Um because a general meeting could be a special meeting. This makes it clear though too that a regular meeting is what is required. And then I think everything else was just to be consistent with state law. Uh the only thing I would point out in this is that if y'all did accept all the changes as recommended on the 60 leaving the 60-day provisions in here, I don't know if this was pointed out during the charter review commission's work. uh you could face a situation where uh someone uh this 60-day provision that prevents the council from picking a successor or a temporary city council member to fill a seat. Uh if if if the that third meeting when that individual is supposed to be selected uh falls within the 60 days, then y'all would be prohibited under the charter from actually appointing an individual. So, uh, I've just never really seen any other cities have a prohibition, uh, on this this the 60 days like that. Uh, y'all might want to just have where y'all always have the right to pick in a successor appointee in that regard because there might be uh, legal reasons why you need it. You might have a situation, like you said earlier, where you need to remove a member, another member, and you might not have the votes there to do so without appointing an individual. So, there's any number of permutations why y'all should not be handstrong. I believe in being able to appoint an individual. And uh this I there might have been a reasonable point in time

that that 60-day cool off in there, but uh uh most other cities do not have something like that in there. Any questions? I got one question. Uh so using these boundaries in this most recent election if if a council member if a council member or council woman councilman did resign that next person up that didn't when would be in the seat. So if this passed if this pass

so if this passes the that person's the presumptive replacement appointee. However, because the language is in here and the recommended change states that said the city uh the city council votes not to approve such second place candidate, they don't say second place, but such candidate. So, the uh but the presumption would be that that second highest vote getter should be the one who's picked. The city council though would have to have a vote to say no, we don't want that individual picked. And then if they voted no, we don't want that person that came into second place or that was right outside of the atlarge, then it would go back to an appointment process or the next person that was next in votes after that person. And then do we keep going down until

No, it they they did not include that, but you'll keep going, keep going. It it is uh it would go to the appointment process that point. So, first it would go for whoever came in second. the board has to choose has to choose yes or no if we like that person or if the future board does or doesn't like that person they don't go with the person who received the most votes then they go back to our kind of our current process of the appointment process

correct any other questions may u yeah um I believe Miss Riley this one was part we see they're looking at people up here so I don't know which one's aimed at me yet but I'm sure it's in here, but um so I read it after C Mayor Schmidt had mentioned um his I read it differently. Um if an elected city council member resigns or is unable to assume the position before swearing in. So So that's anytime they resign, not prior to swap swearing in.

Correct. It's it correct. So like it it it is I it it does change what I at first I thought it didn't apply directly to Miss Riley. Now I see that it does cuz when um Councilman um um Larry Patrick resigned he had been in he had made it past being sworn in. He resigned and then we went to item 58 538 or 53 correct the appointment process. Correct.

Okay. So this changes it so that which would have happened to Miss Riley had this been in place then there would not have been a an appointment process unless city council voted um by majority vote I'm assuming to not whether it was Miss Riley or the next person in the future if if that occurrence were to happen again this council could reject that fifth place or fourth place candidate. Right. Correct. They could reject it and say we're going to go to the appointment process. Okay, that would be interesting. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Follow questions. Any questions from the public community? Mr. Pet.

Uh Jeff Peters, 28 Oakdale Road. Um Mayor, just real quick, I I I don't recall standing in line for a long time to be on this committee. um and spent a lot of time reading through coming to meetings and to be called rigged, biased, corrupt by a by elected official I think is just completely wrong. Uh and uh I I just think that for an elected official to do that is completely wrong. All right. Thank you, Mr. Peters. Mr. Mayor, get back in here. Um the intention of this one was if they resign before they take office. So it's not if they resign after they take office. So if the language is is unclear, the reason that the discussion that we had on this is if a person is elected and either resigns or for some reason can't take the office before they're sworn in, then the next person that was the intention. So it's not that if they resign after they've been sworn in. It was all before. That was the the the intention of uh this change. So the intention of the change was if a person is elected and resigns or cannot take the office before they're sworn in, then it's the next person. And that was the intention of the recommendation. So Mr. I know this is maybe just number two, but your your notes might have more, but is this the second one that looks different than what the committee's intentions was? No. Well, I think what we're looking at I'm just looking at the uh the uh line through items.

Yeah, me too. Okay. So, um the uh it says if an elected city council member resigns or is unable to assume the position before swearing in, those two are not exclusive. They're together. So if you were elected but all of a sudden you just decide you don't want to uh uh you like I changed my mind I don't want to then it was going to be the next person not not if you resign after you were sworn in. That was the intention.

I have a simple fix to make that cuz because again I listened to the their meeting and that's why I explained it the way I did which lines up with what Mr. Minnik says and that's why Mr. Walker did correctly point out that there is a little bit of ambiguity. He says resigns or if you just change the wording to if an elected uh city council member does not assume the position before swearing in. So you just get rid of resigns or is unable to and says it's just does not then that will be clear to anyone whoever needs that 50 years from now. What it makes awesome because number two takes care of the if they've already been sworn yet. Yeah. All right. Any other comment questions, Mr. Smith?

Yeah, I I don't like this. I mean, it's it's clear as mud. Um, it's a presumptive Senator presumption, but it doesn't change anything. The council still has the the right to to pick. So, this doesn't make the charter any better. It just makes it this just adds confusion confusion to it.

Thank you. Any more questions? Go ahead, Mr. Robert. Roger May 75 circle. I was here the night that this all went down and you want to reference who it's uh pointed at, then it was pointed at you. And when I stood up here and talked about it, I felt there was one reason, and that's because you quit and you lost. We're Americans. We don't like losers. You all are winners. You won. All right. You lost. You take money for campaigns you owe somebody. Period. That's politics. And anybody tells you this ain't about politics, I'm not drinking your Kool-Aid. I'm not drinking it. Okay? So, that's why I came down here. I didn't want to look at this stuff before I came here. I wanted to hear it firsthand and I wanted to see the reactions of certain people and how they acted. And let me tell you, I'm going to bring Mr. Peters out there. I think it's sad. And I spent enormous amount of hours reviewing some of these council meetings. It's not like you're binge watching Yellowstone. believe me, you know, I can't figure half of this stuff out right now, even when it's being explained to me. Okay, so I came down here with an open mind and I pretty much have decided over the last 3 years I've been like listening and pay attention over a variance thing that happened to me. And let me tell you, I marched a lot of people into my backyard and I showed them what the good old boys did to me. I showed him how it happened, who was involved, and how to stop it. And if I knew what I knew now, that wouldn't have happened. And believe me, that's not all

I talked to these people about. They were shocked and appalled. And even the actions tonight and these meetings I've seen in the past about certain council members and what they say and what they do and how they act, it's an embarrassment. It's an embarrassment to this council and it's embarrassment to the city and I'm embarrassed to be associated with it. When I talk to people, I want to be proud of our city. I want them to be proud of the people where we're at and what we're doing here. I don't agree with a lot of things that are going on here, but I agree with a lot of what's being said here. In fact, I pretty much agree with all of it with in consideration of one thing. And when I'm sure we're going to hear a lot about it later on because I'm going to have to get out of here and review this from uh my house. I got a small bladder. So, having said that, I want to see us to move forward and get past this. But you're not going to do it not being reasonable with one another. Is it safe? Is it clean? And is it reasonable? And this goes all the way back to that fire assessment. This is how all this freaking started. I'm telling you, this is how all this started. You need some fire stations. I'm living in between two of them. A mile from one and a mile from another. And I hear the sirens. If they if the chief tells you he needs more police, you give them more police. The fire they say they need more equipment and need more firemen, you give it to them. If you are remiss in your duties as a council to keep us safe, to keep this place clean and to keep us to be reasonable with one another, you're going to get replaced. And that's exactly what's happened. You'll see it. People will get replaced and it's already happened.

All right, Mr. Very passionate. Very passionate. Any other public comments before anybody else makes their time leave? Mr. Jer,

I just had a question to get back on uh on Mr. Minn's clarification and and and yours, Mr. Burns. So, and Mr. Smith, let's roll these together. We're trying to be productive and get something here. Really, what we need to have in place is replace or with is unable to assume the position. If that were to be the case, what that would prevent was if someone's unable to assume a position after they've won the election and you're waiting 2 3 4 5 6 months, it would go to the fifth place vote because you're really not on the same situation happen. Yeah. Yes.

But that would be the way that if we were to reward it that way, it would benefit and make an improvement. Other than that, once the council has been sworn in and established, it would be the same process as we have done in the past. Correct. Got it. question. Mr. Mayor, another question.

I know that Roger will be home watching this, but he mentioned that this was your situation. That was not your situation. We talked about it previous. This is for Miss Riley's situation. So, just wanted to clear that clarify that for Roger at home. So, thank you. I also would just like to clarify for anybody who's watching at home. Uh I've known you 30 years and to hear the word quitter associated is not justification. You lost to another fellow good candidate. But I would also look at that and that's why I look forward to seeing that possibly rewritten going forward to where we can tweak it and make us best for everybody. I would want someone on this current council to raise their hand and say I would like to go fulfill a bigger and better seat and represent our city in a bigger and better way. If you're unable to complete that due to the results of votes or any other reason, the fact that you would still come back and say, "Hey, I raised my hand." And and a lot of people don't know this, too. That was also at a time to where at one point in time on council, you were being compensated. Correct.

Correct. when you took and I want to make the public fully aware of this. When you took that option to go fulfill another seat, you forfeited your your all of your original um any type of u benefits you may have when you were on council. You were getting benefits when you raised your hand to go run for school board. You knew you were forfeiting those benefits whether you won or lost over here. Correct? So when you decided to, you ran a good fight. You ran a great campaign. You came up short. I know you're not a quitter. You came up short. You then still came back and raised your hand and said, "I was getting paid to do that position, but I'll come back and raise my hand to do that position again knowing I'm not going to get paid when I come back in here." Was that be is that accurate?

It's absolutely accurate because we were in a very desal time looking for the new city manager and that was part of that process. Mhm. So regardless of any personal tax that can be thrown at that podium to people up here, uh I think there's a lot more to be said for the decisions we have to make whether you were being compensated at the time or you got to do it for free as a volunteer going forward. So I just wanted to clarify that.

I really appreciate those encouraging comments, Mr. J. And maybe I'll get some feedback from Roger after he reviews it. But for the record, after I did come up as a loser, I responded with a win. I responded with a win. March in March and uh ran out of post and here serving with no benefits because it's that important and I don't understand sometimes why I put myself up up to this for free. All right, moving forward. May I have a comment? May I make a motion?

Yes. Go ahead, Miss Steph. It's okay. Okay, for the record for whoever's watching this, I would like to um to say initially I was thinking do I recuse myself from this or what because Mr. Walker mentioned Mr. Riley name several times. So I didn't know whether I recruit recuse myself or what for this particular vote. But what I what I can say is I want to clarify however it however things went you know God has a time and a reason for all things. Amen.

So I have I ran I ran the race three times. The third time I may have not have been appointed and then next in line. However, regardless my heart is in it because when I was running the first two races, it was pay involved. The third race there was no pay. So obviously I love this city and I want to service the people of this city and I want to do right by the people of this city and I want to be just about things. So put it on the record. I guess David and I both have resiliency. We both we both agreed to take this job without pay even but that's absolutely two losses for me. So, I just want to put that on the record because it just wasn't my name was mentioned too many times with and I'm not going to sit here and not say anything.

That's why we're here. All right. Thank you, sir. So, the way it's written and so if you if you cannot take the seat before you swear in, then it it goes to the next vote giver. Right. Unless we clarify that one little thing because the way it's worded right now, someone 20 years from now resigns or is unable to, right? and would read it arguably like Mr. Walker had read it. But I knew the intent of the charter. So yes, once I change that one little bit of wording right there, that's the intent. And if council does not want that person, the majority vote could pick somebody else. Correct. So then this situation has nothing to do with Miss Riley because Mr. Me has majority vote to take the seat. Correct.

Okay. Yeah. Also, uh technically speaking, I think Mr. Patrick had already taken his seat anyway. So, it wouldn't have applied in that situation anyway because uh this would actually apply if someone uh doesn't has never sworn into their seat in the first place like All right, good stuff. Any comment? Yep. Let's let's do it, Mr. Thank you for bringing that up, Councilman Ryan. Yes, ma'am. Cuz now I feel like, you know, I had the right to make a vote on it. So, thank you. Pretty sure you already did.

Yeah. Just just making sure we're ironing this up. Do we have a motion? Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to accept the recommendation with the deletion of resigns or second. Is that accurate enough? And the insertion of does not. Correct. Insertion of does not. All right. Motion by Mr. Peter and a second by sir. All right. Second by Mr. Brown. Mr. J. Yes, sir. All right. Mr. Brownie, no sir. any further comments. All right, let's send it. [Music]

All right, let's go to the next section. Looks like eight and before we start that, one of the council members did flash a message saying they would like a restroom break and I actually do need to as well. All right, let's reconvene here at uh 553. 5 minute bell

Were you saying that? I'm sorry. That was my I forgot now. I'm old. My My dad and wife were trying to get together and drop off kids different places. So, I was making sure my dad didn't even know even know I'm in here. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Let's bring this meeting back to order, Mr. Burns.

All right. So you left off on section eight, section 8, general powers and rules of counsel. And so the changes made here, they removed the entire first sentence and added a new last sentence. And then the change they made to the second sentence was they clarified that you don't keep your journal your proceedings, you keep minutes. So that was a clarification. Uh but then they did uh

indicate that you may punish members for disorderly behavior by a vote of not less than five members. They changed that from six. It was six members. And this says may expel a member for disorderly conduct or violation of his rules. Uh again, uh as I discussed with y'all earlier, this provision wouldn't lead to like a forfeite of your office, but this would be maybe some sort of other disciplinary process that you would vote uh five members would would vote to expelled member for disorderly conduct of violation of the rules that that they would not immediately be forfeited that you might be able to suspend them from sitting on the diet or some other type of punishment that's not not really contemplated here. But uh one thing I do want to add that the it does make sense to get rid of the first sentence. Uh the only provision that I think Paul Lux would even would would would state is correct. He will not serve as the judge of your elections and the qualifications a judge of the qualifications of council members. Uh he'll do the same thing he does for every other city which is he'll just because being the judge of the elections and the qualifications of the council members would be looking into the substance of someone's qualifying paperwork. He's just going to look at your paperwork and if you if he even if he knows the individual does not city limits at Fort Walton Beach if they write that on that sheet of paper he's going to accept the qualifying paperwork. It's going to be up to someone else to point that out and you'd have to go in front of a judge to try to get that candidate removed prior to the election and it would not it would not be Paul refusing it at that point in time. But, uh, I mean, if you leave this in here, it doesn't, uh, really conflict with law, but it might lead to that last sentence might lead some people to expect Mr. Lux to do more than he's capable of doing.

Thank you for that clarification. Questions on the board? Questions for the public? I'm sorry, Mr. Walker. Go ahead. So, um, M. Raleigh, this one may be, but um, disorderly con behavior. What would that um would that what what are some examples of disorderly behavior that that would be up to up to the five members? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I won't be abstaining from this one, but

any more questions from the board from that? Any questions from the board? All right. Public community Paul Hatche. Um I object to the reduction to five. Um we elect you all uh generally there are occasions where it's we discussed tonight that uh there could be an appointment or the selection of a runner up. Um I don't think that the burden ought to be reduced. I think the burden should be high. Six is high. Five is is uh less burden. Um, I don't want you taking away the people I elect without six. Um, so I don't think that you should make that burden any less. You guys seem kind of clicky, too. Um, I gathered that with that. Uh, I think it was Mr. Me getting appointed. Um, so I don't want to see that. I I think that the higher burden should be required to remove somebody from this council uh because it's a discretionary thing as as attorney Burns just pointed out whether somebody's conduct is considered disorderly. Um, so if five of you got together and decided that we didn't like how this person dressed or how this one smelled or where this one lived, y'all could come up with some explanation to claim it was disorderly and out. I want that burden to be as high as possible because I'm I'm I'm in a constituent that elects you people. So I don't I don't want you to have a a a greater chance to undo my vote. keep it high. So, I'd argue that you guys should uh reject this portion in any of them. That would reduce it to five. Thanks for your comments,

Mr. Smith. the word um expel was part of the original charter in there, but you know we we had this debate and I think we should you know that should be changed to um if you support this, it should be changed to um you know recommend that the government suspend and then proper due due process because I think we pretty much determined that you guys and Audi spell uh another elected official up there.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Mr. Burns, would this kind of fit in that category of some things that could get cleaned up if this were to pass tonight as far as that that kind of that difference between expel and due process that the statutoily it's already out there?

We could uh especially regarding actual expulsion from your position. I could clarify that, but uh this leaving this in here because uh I know right now there's another city in Okus County dealing with a member that they're trying to figure out how they can who's acting against the rest of the council in their city. They've been trying to figure out ways to uh basically punish that particular member uh and they don't have a provision like this already in their charter. Uh if you say expel a member for disorderly conduct or violation of his rules, you can leave that in there but then clarify. Uh however, any exp uh expulsion or removal of their position will be handled by a recommendation to the governor like and so that would that would uh right now if you left the language the way it is and just added like a clarification that ultimately a removal position is at the governor's discretion, then you would still leave some uh wiggle room for councils in the future if you truly had a member that you uh was just doing something that obviously uh at least six other members as it currently reads have a problem with and they could uh use some form of maybe removing them from the dis for a meeting or something like that as like a and so that you would expel from the dis and so u I think the language can be massaged uh to bring it consistent like Mr. But also, u I I don't want to be the one who removes all this in there unless y'all want me to about uh expelling a member uh just in general like that. So, if I can clarify that removal position is something uh ultimately. Yeah, I guess that's where my head was at as far as just that statutoily what's already there as far as a due process that after being removed from office that the state already has that's contradicting to this expelling a member of disorderly contact um without the due process

and I can add something in there that clarifies that this is not uh this is not this that state law regarding actual removal from the position will control this provision. Mr. Do you have a question? A motion. What's your motion? Oh, sorry. One more comment.

Just point out um just because you guys don't agree with somebody on the council doesn't mean you can kick them off the council. And Florida statute one 112.51 gives a definition for removing a municipal officer. where it says for malfeasance, misfeasence, neglect of duty, habitual drunkenness, incompetence, or permanent inability to perform their official duties. So, there's a definition in the Florida statute of of what you can ask the governor to remove somebody for comment. All right, Mr. Mayor,

I don't I don't disagree. I don't think anybody up here, we've all disagreed and I think we've all, I mean, my particular experiences, we all remain pleasant and polite and professional with each other and I agree. If you elect somebody, that's the constituents and less power should be given to us to remove somebody like that. So, I I I agree with you that we should hold it to a high standard and we should hold it to the standards that the state defines. So, I don't have an issue with that. I don't mind the rest of the clarity, but I mean I would just like to go on. I would be supportive of this if if we maybe didn't make the five six to five adjustment and then whatever other recommendation you had for the clarity

for to clarify with state law. Correct. Which we already put a motion for. So that could just fall under that. Correct. has made a motion. I'll make a motion to accept recommendation with deleting the last sentence as Mr. Burn suggested with supervisor elections being the judge and the addition of additional language to coincide with the state definition and the assistance of the governor.

Anything about the five or six to That could change on in future readings. I certainly agree with the comments that we definitely want to hold a high standard, but I think by adding the state in there and the governor in there, that's a pretty about as high standard as you can get. But again, there's going to be more readings to this that that going forward sure could change as well. Second. All right, Mr. Motion. Second by Mr. Brown and Mr. Jer.

No, again, I love all the comments. of the dialogue and the purpose of this is to certainly this dis agrees to disagree many times uh even friends of 30 plus years but we uh continue to move business along for the betterment of the city. I see this being the same way. I think eventually we will get this right and it will stick for the next 6 to 10 years because just like everybody says that we get along great but maybe a new board years from now this needs to be in place for them. Mr. Brown just just like Mr. said you can't just vote somebody off cuz you don't like them. It's going to go to state. So, I mean, I don't think the amount of people on the verbiage is really going to make a difference on it.

That's a good point. So, Mr. Mr. Burns, before we go to a vote, if this were to pass in a future council meeting and still has to go to a referendum and still trying to figure out how we're going to educate the community on all the different referendums, but the if this were to pass and it goes down to five members, could those five members do this action that would trigger the due process with the state?

Uh, correct. To start. So, so that standard with the state is still the standard, but what we're doing now, we're baking into our constitution or our charter is a recommendation to lower that standard just to allow five people to trigger that stat state statutoily due process.

The only the only issue though is the next section, section 9, it just says majority of the numbers uh do that. But uh I think you could clarify uh I think if you read the two sections together uh we could also make that change in the next section if y'all do recommend that one to make sure that it requires five not a majority of the members do the same. Okay, we got a um motion, we got a second. Any further comments, Mr. Walker?

Right. And so um just to clarify on the motion, Mr. Jeter, you had mentioned the state language. The state language as Mr. Smith just read to us listed out those items of which may take action. Are you saying that disorderly conduct should be removed from this as well or leave it in there? Although it's not mentioned in the state statute and you didn't say to remove it, so I'm trying to figure out if it remains or it's removed. Uh it would remain as of now, but again there's going to be some future readings on this. We can choose to remove it, but I think if it goes to the state, they're going to be the ones that determine that.

Correct. Oh, I don't know. I mean, the body could choose at any time in the future to charge someone with disorderly conduct, spend a lot of time, energy, effort, and and then make the recommendation up to the governor and the governor go, "It doesn't meet one of the five, so nay." So, I think it would make sense to me, I didn't make the motion, that you would remove disorderly conduct because it'll be shot down anyway, so why leave it in there? But that's just me. We could in the future, we could adjust the members, we could adjust the conduct. We could. This is just pushing the ball forward so that we can have a future reading on it. What is the I do have one more question. What is the amount of members to remove enough?

Under state statute, it actually requires a like it requires not super majority but majority plus one to initiate. So that would be the majority plus one. Yeah.

So we'll need to I'll make sure any changes are clear with that as well too. If there's anything conflict I'll bring it back. Yeah. And I know we have some things I believe in our charter that passed in the referendum roughly 10 years ago. You know, when it talks about dissolving with public safety, it would take some unanimous counsel. So, um I'm not going to be supporting this just out of the standard of I don't think it's a a good presence to lower that standard to to five members to to trigger a removal of office. Any other further comments?

Just one question and I really do to make sure we're on the same page here. If if Jason or Kim or Mr. Jeff, how many votes does it take to remove one of you guys? Four. Four. Only contract is for your money. So only four votes could remove you guys. Yeah. Interesting. [Applause] Not that I'm going down that road. I just want to know like that. So that so you guys come So you guys come in here every meeting know you could upset four people and be gone business and every action that we take on every agenda item is the same way. It takes a majority not unanimous. So we don't. So with that being said any further comments

in the spirit of moving forward I will support this with I hope more dialogue more conversation because I think that is a sticking point for the voters. Um, I would put myself in their shoes and feel the same way. So, I do there's going to be some other things, but I know we're gonna have more conversation, but hopefully we we can uh get to the bottom of that. All right, let's if there's no further comment, let's go to a vote.

All right, 5 to two. And then that brings us to number nine.

Correct. Section 9 forum compelling attendance members and then they want to add to the title corporate of office excusable absences and uh the first section uh well actually they added a subsection B and then renumber the original paragraph subsection A and then they add some clerical changes u and then uh just specify that uh certain penalties uh regarding attendance uh can be prescribed either by the charter or city ordinance originally just said ordinance And the real substance and meat of the changes that they made are found in the proposed substantion B which would be the proposed grounds report of office. And uh I can read the entire thing out if you want. Uh otherwise uh they provided some stuff that does track already the statutory language. Uh for example, a crime involving moral turpitude. Uh also I do know under state law you can uh have some attendance requirements as well and so they added those uh and then you can be excused uh that this provides a mechanism for council to excuse certain absences but it will require the city council excusing the absences. So, if someone uh and I've seen a lot other cities do this, if council members miss meetings, uh they'll put on the agenda, you know, a quick uh vote, usually on the consent agenda, excusing uh a council member for missing for one of these prescribed reasons. So, that way it's always kind of in the minutes and part of the record. So, it's not uncommon to have something like this. I'd say around here, it's probably less than half the cities around here have it, but it's not uncommon to have it. So, So similar to like in that school setting where we would be kind of like the teachers in determining whether the absence is excused or not.

That's right. The teachers. All right. Any more questions? I think that the only time I've seen though in other cities uh there will be sometimes an individual misses way more meetings for unexcused reasons and councils usually won't bring it up unless it really becomes a problem. Uh so uh just typically I think y'all probably won't be wanting to oust one of your fellow members for one of these reasons, but uh it actually comes into play more often. Sometimes there are situations where someone just keeps missing a lot of meetings and you eventually do have to maybe have that hard conversation with them. And like we discussed a while ago, six council members could remove that person. Correct.

Start the process. To start the process. So, we got another recommendation to start another process to remove somebody for unexcused or excused absences, but it's a majority, not five or six. Is that am I reading that correct? And it's accumulating three unexcused absences within one calendar year.

And it takes a majority isn't of council, but the majority of the members elected to start that. And again, I'm just making sure I understood section 8 that we just went over that was that gave council general powers and rules to remove somebody and now this is another route to remove somebody due to attendance and it just takes the majority of the members. Am I reading correct? It correct right now the way it reads.

Any other questions? Thought to consider. Um, now this is probably drafted before we had the technology to do so, but you you all have jobs. So sometimes you're going to have to go out of town when a meeting comes up because that side job. We have the technology to allow you to remote in. I don't know if that I would have no problem someone voting as long as we had a clear picture and that sort of thing. So I don't know if that's that that might help some of this too. We have the technology. Say you want to allow voting, you can participate, but you can't vote. Is that an attendance?

But to feed off of Mr. Davis's um what the suggestion is, it will check the attendance box to try to support and have some accommodation so that this council wouldn't be removed from office because they couldn't attend if they had the opportunity to attend remotely. I would need to research that. I I doubt for law prohibits that for attendance purposes for counting like a box like this in a city charter. But uh uh in terms of being able to actually vote, you cannot vote remotely. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walker, did you say that it would count for attendance by Zoom? It probably it probably I do need the research.

And I know that one of the previous councils um there were, you know, just thinking along those lines since you got to get Mother Mayi kind of stuff. If if a member has um knows they're going to be do you do you ask for permission before the meeting to be excused or after? We need advanced notice cuz we got to test all the toys too, right?

No, I'm sorry. I was talking about the, you know, so I know that if I knew I was traveling on a travel date, it was family related, maybe emergency, but I knew about it, surgery or whatever else, do I get permission from the council pre absence, or do I come and ask for mercy after I've missed it and and hope that I get a vote of some friendly members to approve my absence cuz it's it was my second one. I've already So this is the third one and it's the crucial one and they may not be such a good mood that night. Would I get the permission after or before? Or I think it's a case by case by case. Your uncle will never know if there's a health or an emergency or a death.

Yeah. But if I knew I was going to be out of town, I could ask for it in advance, get permission, I guess. Would it have to take place as a vote at the council? you know, when I if I knew two weeks in advance I wasn't going to be there, do I submit it to the city manager and it takes place at the first of the meeting that they were going to excuse Mr. Walker? It's up to you. If you don't have time, you might want to let the council know. Okay. Gotcha.

Now, you can make that part of a rule. I mean, if y'all want to add that in the resolution and spell out I I think I would just leave it blank though and let flexibility kind of rule on that. Well, and and my final statement would be I've heard it number of times through the through the meeting tonight that it was the intent was to shorten it and there was no other intentionality to any of it. And this greatly lengthens it. Has not been a I've not known it to be a problem on this board. Um, who's not been here or whatn not. So, I don't know why it's in here. So, I don't know if the motion's already been made, but I won't be supporting it yet again. But no motion yet. Okay. All right. I do have another question.

Good. Let's see if anybody else has any round questions. I'm sorry. I did want to ask not to keep going down the hypothetical cuz I understand this hasn't been an issue yet either, but just reading that the city council may excuse the absence for the fine reason. So, it would I'm just picturing like this is their excuse and then we vote on if we'd like that excuse or not. Would that how that would go? basically, but it does spell out excusable absences are city business, health issues, family emergencies or death, emergency duties, government employment, acts of God or acts of heroism. So, uh those would be the excusable absences.

This is definitely one that I'm kind of with uh Council Member Merrill's comments on. I see the productivity side of it that we're trying to get to, but I definitely see the babysitter and the teacher side of it that we want to stay away from. So while I will probably support the next step, there's a lot of questions that I have, but I think I'll have them on the next time for this. Does that make sense? Question. I got any any more first round questions? Run questions. Okay. So just to make sure I'm understanding this that section B, Roman numeral 4, you accumulated three unexcused absences from an in-person attendance at regular city council meetings. So on the excused absence list is if if you're out of town for business, that's considered an unexcused absence. Is that correct?

If you're out of town on city business, not city business, just you got to take care of some business. You're paying bills. We all none of us get paid up here. Those kind of things. I don't see I don't see any excusable absence on here for I do not see that either.

Okay. So now I guess the next question is you know a lot of times government has and rightfully so a sour mouth in the voters's mouth due to we have all these policies, we have all these things but now what are we doing to enforce it? Right? What does this look like from a procedure standpoint? Are we going to go into each meeting and whoever's not here at the future meeting we vote on whether or not their absence was excused? It it it can be done either way. We do it that night like, "All right, Mayor Aligretto is not here tonight. Does anybody know why he's not here?" And then we like vote.

No, I think what would happen is if since he's not here, we'll pick on him that Mayor Aliggto didn't show up to multiple council meetings in a row. Uh let's say four or five, and someone might point out, hey, mayor mayor Aliggretto has not been excused from any of those absences. And so he could then come back and say uh well you know actually I was on city business he he'd still have time to to kindate or justify the concern I have is very clear in here is accumulated three unexcused absences in a in a calendar year.

So whenever there's that kind of clarity I'm just trying to figure out how we're enforcing this. I don't want to just keep adding things not only to a ballot that's going to have a lot of voters wondering what the heck they're voting on, but two, if we're going to pass this and it does pass in a referendum, I'm just kind of asking some very early preliminary questions on how it how's the standard going to be enforced. But yeah, Mr. J question. Yeah, just would Did you have time to research this much with other municipalities or anything yet and really see if some of this kind of aligns or is this just going by some recommendations of

this? I I'm not sure exactly where it came from. I think there was another city that has language similar to this, not locally, but uh the only time I've ever seen an absence requirement result in anything around here was there was a council member out Dustin 3 or four years ago. He didn't actually get removed by the council. police kept missing meetings cuz it was going out and eventually some people asked behind closed doors the police stepped down cuz I think he missed like 75% of his meetings his first year and so so I think

and I heard that and I was going to say some of the language if it was to say three consecutive then maybe there's a step that we take of the next process or if it's over 50% in a calendar year cuz I think I kind of remember that too maybe there's some different scenarios laid out on this going forward would be bene whatever y'all want to do. That's Mr. Mayor. Come in.

Um that that um language came from another city that the commission asked me to uh do some research on. So, we asked I asked about 10 different cities. Well, I sent it out to the whole clerk's group, but I got 10 results pretty quickly before their meeting on that day, and most of what we got was very similar to this language. the ones who had a policy in place was very similar to this. And so then the commission just chose this particular one from one one of the cities. That was how it developed. They probably just didn't have as many questions as we have. Question. They weren't the one that's going to be held by right. We got any more questions up here on the board.

All right. Public.

This was actually I believe Pharaoh Beach. It was Mr. that made the motion to adopt Vero Beach. We talked about this before. When I was on council, we had a councilman just never came. You know, he ran for council and he knew he was going to be out. You know, he traveled with the military. He wasn't in the military, but he traveled. He never came. So then, of course, he wanted to come along and say, "Well, I can I can attend uh you know, remotely." and uh you know we our decision at the time was if you're going to come here and you're going to make decisions for the city you should be here in front of the people. That's why remote uh attendance is not a good idea. It's not what we thought at the time. We thought that if you got someone and this is just a long-term guidance. I mean if you're just headh hunting somebody it's not really for that. It's just a guidance for you guys to use if somebody just doesn't come to the meetings. I mean, and that's really what you know, it's like, hey, you know, these are these are SKUs. We use Ver Beaches. Uh, uh, Miss Barnes gave us some others, but this is the one we use, and you can adopt it to whatever it wants. But the the the thought was is that if you're going to run for city council, then you have an obligation to be here. And if you're just going to run to say your own counsel and not be here, then there should be some something in place to say, "Hey, you got to come or or you're going to have to be asked to leave." And I think that uh Mr. Burns was just talking about some guy over there never came to the meetings. Um and that's why this was kind of a guideline. You can adopt it to however you want to, but it's really that was the whole idea. and and I've seen it not only there but in our in our council but way back when when I was on some guy just never came empty seat right there the whole time. So that was the whole idea behind this and if you want to make tweaks on it

it's not for you to be the teacher or the principal or anything like that. It's to get people to actually be city council and that are going to be here and make decisions. And the and the uh the discussion at the time was is that if you are going to be making decisions, you should be here in front of the public and not on some Zoom call or on a telephone call or something like that. And I think that's why they allow you to discuss now but not vote. But to me, if you're going to discuss, you're going to make a, you know, you should be here in front of the people. That's kind of the thought process that went with that. Mr. Mayor, I have a question for Mr. Minnik. If you have a minute, Mr. Minnik, you mentioned it wouldn't be used for head hunting. What's an example of head hunting that you were talking about?

I don't have an example of heading, Mr. Well, you just said heading. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Semantics. The deal of it is it's it's to get people that are going to come in here. I mean, you love to do that. You know, just Oh, what do you mean by that? Well, you know, you can figure it out. If you can't figure it out, then ask somebody else up there. But it's not it's not something you just try to get rid of somebody. It's to get people to come to the meetings. Got you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you.

And let me just since you would like to point out that, you know, for you to call us a rigged committee is just ridiculous. You got to pick one person as everybody else did. And we spent four long meetings in here trying to do the best thing we could for the city. And if you don't like it, don't adopt it. But don't go around telling everybody it's rigged or it's something like that because it's not. Who would you put on a on a charter review committee? Sir, I thought you asked a question.

The head hunting question. You know, you guys picked three two former city councilmen, one that was on 18 years, two businessmen, two two uh former city managers. Who else would know the charter better than that? So this rigging the crap, it's just that it's just crap. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

All right. So another question or Mr. Bar, you could add a provision on the excusable absences that some to the effect of or any other reason that a majority of the city council members vote is excusable. And then that way the the whole that's like the this extra catchall provision. So if someone does have a ballot reason that's not covered by all these other reasons and the city council could use their discretion to excuse that individual. So thank you Mr. Smith.

I'm I'm going to recommend that and I did a little bit of research on this too. Um, and one of the ones that I popped up popped up was um I don't remember which cities they were, but if you miss 75 days or if you miss three consecutive meetings, um I I think just saying three three meetings, I think that's targeted and I think that's going to eliminate people potentially running for office. And I don't have a problem with um I was in a meeting here when Miss Rocky zoomed in and it the fact you know she can't vote. She might not be able to vote. So that that's her loss but she can still put put in her comment you know make your comments. So if if you need to be on way on business or something I think I think that's what you should do. make it up three consecutive meetings or make it a I agree that shouldn't somebody shouldn't miss 50% of the meetings but yeah let's not say three meetings in in a whole year. Thanks.

Come on.

Um yes, I had two things I wanted to address. Number number one is I think it's it's just uh it's really unnecessary. Um, maybe he had a problem years ago, but I haven't seen any of y'all like really skipping out on meetings. And I think the whole thing is just ridiculous. You don't need babysitters. You don't need to check in. Most of y'all are here because you want to be here. You're not being paid. You're doing your service. So, I I don't see that this is improving the charter. Um, it's just wasted about 15 minutes in here, actually. Um, now I wanted to differentiate or distinguish between section 8 and 9. Now y'all came I I do not like what Mr. Jeter said. Um, oh, let's just kick that down the road. Let's just keep it going. Keep it going. I don't think that's the point of this or should be. I've heard it said on numerous numerous provisions tonight. Let's just kick it down. This only first reading. Yeah. Well, not everybody's going to be here. I don't want to stand up and make this argument over and over and over um in the next meeting. It is important that it's five or six. Why? Because what's different in in section 8 is it's discretionary. This section here that they just added with all these bogus excuses and mother may eyes and um these aren't really discretionary. They're enumerated. discretionary has great potential for abuse because it's discretionary. You know, we just got together and determined that this was going to constitute disorderly conduct. Well, then there's the argument that we have the, you know, that it's just a referral that he's going to get, he or she is going to get due process. We're going to send it over to the governor. Yeah. you're also going to ruin that person's political not political these are nonpartisan but you're going to ruin

the reputation as a city council member here um if this is not an appropriate and it's an abuse of discretion. So there's a big difference between enumerated things that you may be removed for versus taking away the the constituents right to their elected officials. So I think it matters you know kick it down and and it's it it got approved. Mr. Jeter on your motion uh for the five and then by the next time that there's a meeting nobody may remember I mean Mr. Brown and Council Member Brown and Council Member Merrill you both weren't comfortable with it but there you go right along with it. You could have stopped the the five and went with the six. I've heard attorneys numerous times tonight say I'll just change that language. We could have done that on eight. That didn't happen. So, I'll be at the next meeting to make sure that you don't just kick the can or keep it going and that you all don't take lightly your ability to take away my votes. And I did vote for each and every one of you that are on here. That is going to change if if I'm not happy with how you're representing me, my family, and my neighbors in the city of Fort Lton. So, um that's what I wanted to point out. Any further comment from the public?

All right. Looking for some action. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to accept the recommendation in section 9A and if staff or Mr. Jeff could bring us back some additional options for 9B, including a lot of the comments that were said tonight. Do I need to elaborate further? Would you rather us just bring back another uh the massage and language on section 9 as a whole and bring back correct? Okay.

Instead of not taking any action tonight because that would be kicking the can down the road. I want to go on and take action tonight and get it move forward to the next step so that we can try to get it corrected the next meeting cuz I'm with Miss. I don't want to be here the next three or four meetings debating all this either. But I also don't want to miss three meetings. So, so do you want me to go ahead and put this if I if I believe this needs to be in an ordinance, go and kind of get that ready as a proposed ordinance, but then uh obviously the the debate here tonight, you'll be reminded that this was one of the ones that you took great interest in and that y'all need to really look at it closely and is it possible to have some different options? Like we said, three consecutive or over 50%. Like this can stay in there as an option next time, too. Okay.

I don't know if this would get adopted, but another option for 9B would be miss three consecutive or over 50% in a calendar year. Something else to hold people accountable. I do I understand the accountability side of it, but I think there needs to be some other options than all of those. I I Yeah, I understand that. I'll I'll I'll put some options out there to you. I mean, you you might be able to help me a little bit right now though with some feedback. Would you do you like the idea of the consecutive? Because I will say most cities do the three consecutive. Three consecutive. Yes. supports and uh and then uh do you want a total number within a calendar year as well? So if you have three consecutive do you have a number you would like to put in there in this

I'd say over 50% in a calendar year I mean because sometimes we have meetings that are canceled sometimes we have I mean do we want to put a number on it there's none and I mean we could add them up there's none this is still your motion so once you get it seconded uh okay more than 50% any [Applause] would be offered to say so the motion would be uh to accept all the changes but to uh specify that it is either three consecutive unexcused absences or more than 50% of the meetings within one calendar year something to that effect and

and if I could add to that too that would also include you know attendance remotely even though you can't vote if you can be here that would eliminate all of those so that counts as would not count you're you're attending the meeting

I All that second I'd like to make a substitute motion to accept those changes in section A but strike completely section B. I mean it's [Applause] looking for a second for the substitute motion.

Um and so the substitute does a seconder um have the option to vote yes and no? Yes. Second.

All right. The reason why for the substitute motion, I know we have a tendency in here to talk about what's best. Is it 50%, is it this and that. Where my head keeps going is is future boards that are going to be held accountable to e enforcing this standard. And I think we're just trying to do too much. As much as we want our fellow colleagues on in attendance here, if somebody doesn't want to be here, I hope they get elected out and the due process will take care of itself. But if that person doesn't want to be here, I probably don't want them here, you know. So, with that being said, it's just we're trying to create a whole bunch of rules. Is it 50%? We get some clarification between the city attorney and the motioner. It's just I I don't really see much productivity from this, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I get where you're going to. And again, we're trying to collaborate and get this good for the next 6 10 years. And here's where I think about that. Let's say a new person gets elected. Uh, and I'm with somebody too. Some of us may get elected out. I don't intend on running again. So, whoever gets elected up, I just don't want to see this happen two or three years from now. We're trying to get this right for the next six to 10 years. Somebody raised their hand, they win election, and they do like Mr. Minnik said. They're here for two or three meetings and they go, "Wow, I'm doing all of this for free. I'm not going to another meeting." And they quit showing up. I think there needs to be something in place should that ever happen again. Will that happen? No. There just need But I think it needs to be a very simplified three consecutive council vote. 50% in a year council vote for your replacement or something. It can be even it can be six consecutive. We can increase that number. But I do see someone winning an election going forward getting up here and going it's a lot tougher than I thought for free and they may not show up for a while and then we have had a chance to take some action to have some recourse for that and we don't.

All right. Any other comments? Mr. M just you you're saying free. I mean there's the potential that it might not be for free. There's that potential. You saying you're in favor of it being free in the future? I'm absolutely not in favor of the shop being for free. Okay. I just wanted to check that do a quick check. No, that starts tomorrow for me and I might miss three consecutive next year. So, and then we got to figure out the standard on whether or not there were huge absences, but that's probably a future meeting. Uh assuming this substitute motion does not pass. What's

Mr. Burns? Is this so if you missed the three I know that's not the motion but if if you missed the three consecutive meetings does that trigger due process? Same thing go back to the state. So if you or does it they can just vote you off for missing three if you missed. So if if Mr. Cheater's motion passes, right? Three consecutive absences would give grounds and three consecutive unexcused absences would give grounds for the city council to start the process of and what's that process back to state? There's a statute that describes it.

So if you were to have legitimate con issues and council said, "Well, we don't care. We're just going to vote you off." You still will have your due process to prove that you have legitimate excuses as to why you missed. I.e. a surgery or an emergency that you didn't know about? Yes. Okay. Any more comments?

I don't want to make it longer, but I think if we I I agree. I think there needs to be a structure, but at the same time, I think if we lax the structure, man, I feel like I'm going to throw something into this. But but at the end of the day, if you have an excuse absence to miss 50% of the to miss 6 months of meeting, you're not a council member, you're not doing the job either. I would remove B2. I would say if we if we lax the standard and we say, "Hey, this is going to be because then it gets rid of what are we determining?" So it helps that governing board and we say either way, good or bad, excuse or unexcused, you're not getting. So that would get rid of the governing body making those determinations and say, "Hey, if you can't if you're if you're going to miss three in a row or if you're going to miss 50 more than 50% of the meetings, that would be the grounds." Maybe that makes it easier to still provide some structure that that requirements while get getting rid of, oh, now we have to decide what's what.

I like that. That takes the babysitting out of it. But can I go back and amend my motion when there's already been a substant on top of it? Not the subse motion has to be voted on first. Well, I will not support subsequent motion, but I may support an amendment. Nice. We're going to do some more stuff tonight. Let's do it. All right. So, any more comments on the substitute motion? No. Any more comments on the substitute motion? All right. Let's go to a vote on that substitute motion. And that motion was to accept the change. The substitute motion was to accept the changes in section A and complete the strike through section B. Send it. [Applause] Oh.

All right. So, that fails three to four. So, let's go back to the original motion. Correct. All right. Let's go back to the original motion. Mr. Chair, can you reinstate that original motion, please? I don't think I can. I know. It's very muddy. Um, let's Can I just Oh, you want me to state what you told me or what I wrote down with your motion was? Yes. All right. It's accept all the changes.

It's accept all the changes and then to uh change that consecutive uh to three instead of it being three unexcused absences, it's three un consecutive unexcused absences or more than 50% of the council meetings in a calendar year. And can I go on and remove the additional section or do I need to wait for Mr. Merrell to mean that on his own? Uh, you need to uh have he would have to and then that would go to another action that Mr. Merrell would take or I can make an amendment. You can make an amendment and if you agree I would like to make an amendment

to that motion to strike B2. That way it just comes down to you have to be here 50% of the time at a minimum and you can't have more than three consecutive absences otherwise the forfeiture of office. Uh yeah, three consecutive. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we need a a second to that. You do you have to get the original and the seconder to both agree to the amendment. So who seconded the original motion? Me looking for the second to the original motion was Mr. Browning and then we have the amendment by Mr. Merrill.

I agree. Do you agree with the I do. Okay. Okay. So we're back to Mr. All right. So and then do we have a second to that amendment? No, it's it's been it's amended. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. So now let's go to a vote. was a master class. All right. So, that passes five to two. Looking forward to seeing that when it comes back. Yeah. All right. Y'all y'all actually made it a lot easier. Actually, you don't realize.

Good. That's That's what we want to do. We want to make this charter right for the next 5 to 10 years. So, all right. With that being said, Mr. Burns, we are on section 111

11. So it's currently titled city manager, acting manager, appointment qualifications and salary. Uh and also has assistant manager in there. They remove that from the title. And then the big changes that they made to the section is that the if we start from the bottom, they took out the part where you can only have a interim city manager for two 90-day periods, which has proven actually problematic in the past when there's been like the searches for new city managers. Uh most recently I know when uh Mr. Peters ultimately got hired back in 23 more than six month or more than 180 days actually elapsed and I know they had to get some special permission just in between the time he actually got hired and he actually had to Mr. Be. So uh I do believe I would I would recommend that uh y'all do remove that one section right there. And uh if y'all do want to have some sort limitation, make a little bit longer than two 90-day periods if y'all are still uncomfortable totally removing it. Uh the other major section that they changed was they actually added a residency requirement for the city manager and they said the city manager must become a resident of Oakusa County within 6 months of the city manager date of hire and she'll remain a resident of Okusa County throughout their employment as city manager. Um the only uh uh that's a decision. If y'all want to make it a requirement that they have to live within Oakl County, it's obviously up to the council. My only suggestion would be instead of making it a a county requirement, uh make it a a distance requirement as the crow flies. Basically, there's about 40 mi from here to the farthest point away in Oklahoma County. And if y'all really wanted them to to be local and Luc County was in your mind, then say they maybe have to be uh they have to live within 40 mi of the city limits or some something to that effect. Y'all can pick any distance y'all want. I would just pick that because it it'd be a lot easier for a

city manager to live right across the county line uh Pandora and for them to actually respond and be here at the city much quicker than if they lived up in north of Laurel Hill. So, uh, that would be the only practical consideration on the change they made. It still meets the spirit of what I think they were trying to do, which was put a distance requirement. The resident of Okaloosa County, what was the other suggested change, Mr. Barnes? Um, the the 6-month deal, then I I I support their change to remove it. But if y'all did decide y'all were uncomfortable with that, I would just say instead of saying two consecutive terms of 90 days each, uh I would just say uh for 90 days terms renewable at the council's discretion or something like that because that gives flexibility.

Okay. Questions? Mr. Peter, do you know of any other municipalities or anything else has that resident requirement? Is that common or standard or? So, uh Destin used to have it, but they used to always put it in their contracts. They the first city manager who's ever been excused from it was a lady back in 2018 who moved to Niceville and then ever since then they have not required their contracts. That's the only one I know of.

So would it be better to be in the contract negotiations if someone is not from around here relocating? I just feel like that's going through and I know that again we're doing these are one off. This doesn't happen much. I get it but I've only been up here 3 years and gone through multiple city managers. So you're going to deal with negotiating with the city manager. I think that's something that should be left on the negotiation table because if I'm running a business and I got someone that can run it better than anybody and he's willing to drive 2 hours, but he's still going to work from 7 to 7, he's hired. I don't think Gantis is going to come take this job. But if he does, I'm not going to make him move over here if he wants to stay in Tallahassee. So, I just I feel like that kind of limits us uh even going the opposite direction. So, I don't know if that was common standard, but you're saying it's common and standard to be on the negotiation side. It is on the negotiation side more than on the chart.

Any other questions? questions from the public on this.

Yeah, I think our city manager Paul Smith thought of I have a vested interest in the community which he's managing and I would go so far as to say that he ought to be living in the city. Um not living in Niceville, not living in Santa Rosa County, not living in Escambia County, not living in Leyon County, Tallahassee. Um, you know, you want this job in the in the city as a manager, then live in it and enjoy it. Um, understand the unique uh qualities of it, the uh what needs improving, what's actually happening. You know, if you're living 2 hours away, I don't see how you could possibly be the best at managing a city that you know nothing about or that you only know remotely. So, I object to or I'm opposed to what you had just suggested, which I don't even believe was in here, but um making it where they could live in a different county or a different a different area. Um I want people that are invested in in this city to to be running the city.

Additional public. Mr. J, you got a follow to that? I do. Jeff, it's written in Okaloosa County, correct? not in the city. Do you know how far it is from here to the county line? The farthest point of way is approximately 40 miles depending on which part you consider the north part of the city limits. Uh whether or not it's the part near South Avenue or the part. So it could collectively read better just to live within 40 miles cuz you could live just in just as close in either direction. I know Leon County was a far stretch for an example, but it would be better to be worried 40 miles from here because you would be just as close as still living in Okaloosa County.

It would be. Yeah. And I think that was their intent to have someone live this closer than Okusa County at least as I think the commission. I think they probably on

but they probably obviously they'll make public housers. I liked his concept and idea that and your idea that talked about it with contract negotiations as opposed to if the guy is the guy the gal is already living already living in Gulf Breeze and they're the most qualified and they're 52 miles away. It should be in the contract negotiations that city manager that's been inter that we've been interviewing. This is the best person for the job. Are we going to make them leave their house in Gulf Breeze or in Pensacola to move within 40 miles? They're going to say, "Hey, not taking the job." So, I like it in the contract negotiations outside of the charter amendment and count on this council to make good decisions when it comes that time and say, "H, you know, you're living in Pensacola, it's not going to work for us." That would be our decision. So, I don't see a reason for it to be in the charter myself, but you know, think that's just my thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Holmes, and then we'll get to Mr. Yes. Um, briefly, maybe at first, but uh, I don't know that we ever discussed the option of being in the contract. Do y'all remember if we discussed the rest of this requirement being in the contract, not part of the city charter?

Seems like maybe a good idea. It might be a first me and Mr. Walker actually agree on up front here. But, uh, if it's in the contract, you know, he knows up front that he's going to have to move or not. And, you know, that might be a a sticking point on whether we would hire one or not. And it goes back to the original thing. It takes something out of the charter other than us adding something into it. My personal thought,

Mr. I'm fine with this not being in the charter, but what I just want to clarify is um to Mr. Burns, this well this was debated um during the charter for you commission. In fact, I'm the one that brought up um you know, somebody living in Santa Rosa County or be a bit closer, but it it was I mean, it was debated and the the commission did did recommend Opalia County and that you know, you go this way or that way, but but there again, I agree with Mr. Walker that um maybe it shouldn't be in the charter. Thanks.

Just Mr. Industry best practices, right? Um, I'm lazy. I'd sleep in my office if I could, but I think city proud on that. The industry says you're going to limit yourself and you'll lose potential candidates because let's say I have kids in some fancy school. I'm not going to relocate my kids. So, you're going to limit yourself on a potentially great candidate, right? Uh, so the the the language that you see bouncing around is who cares where he sleeps as long as he gets the job done and can respond within x amount of time. So if four of you fire me tomorrow, right, you don't want to limit yourself. So that's just something to think about.

I actually just from a legal perspective, just want to add that I I think you should probably put this as part of the contract negotiation as well and not create like something so in tuned that it would be hard to remove that requirement for your candidates. It's a good bartering chip when you're negotiating salary too. So it could save the city some money potentially. any we'll let you stay there but you got to chop off five grand or something like that just gives you options. Thank you. I I just wanted to comment real quickly. Have you opened up for confidence for that's what we've been doing? I mean Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

I just wanted to say I'm 100% in agreement and you kind of took took the ball out of my hand cuz I was about to say um I think that it wouldn't limit us on um selecting a brilliant mind per se. So me, you know, um I would like to have the, you know, the cream of the crop. So, you know, you always want to get the best candidates. So, in terms of where you're located at and, you know, I don't think that should make a major difference. But that's what contracts are for though. Contracts are are established to have a denims or, you know, um delete, add, delete, or whatever not. But um yeah, I think that moving forward, I would like to see, you know, um this being negotiated at the time of the contract opposed to putting a limitation on a mile radius on where you should be residing. Um and I and I appreciate the fact that you know, Mr. Davis, you came a long ways and and and then on terms and then and I mean in that matter you also in terms of housing, you know, that's I think that's putting a constraint on a person in terms of finding housing cuz you may not even be at this point. You know, you you're here now, you know, obviously, but you know, moving forward, you know, it could be a strain on the person u trying to just find housing. It's very hard to find housing. Very hard to find housing. And so who's to say that there's going to be available, reasonable, acceptable house that you'd like to put your family in, move your family in. So I I I just believe that, you know, contract, you know, for me, I contracts I, you know, I I've been employed on on a contract, too. And it is a it's an amazing time to um to um really negotiate what your needs are as well as, you know, with it, you know, the organization of the city needs are and how you've able to meet it within your contract. I have no problem with contract.

All right. Thank you, M. I think we're getting getting somewhere with this. Would anybody like to take some action? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to accept the recommendation for section 11 with the deletion of becoming with the deletion of any resident verbiage and with the addition of like with no additions. Just says that. second.

I was going to add some more stuff about it, but I think we'll have time in the future. But I do know that deleting the last sentence as well is just as beneficial this because we've been here and set through two consecutive 90-day terms and gone down to the last minute. So, I think there may to be some obviously deletion that practically speaking, if you have an interim city manager, it's they're either going to get hired on or you're going to be in the process of finding the replacement. So if it's going to be highly if they've made it past 180 days or 270 days, they're probably your pick to be the permanent anyway at that point in time. So if you just cut it out all the way, that would give you the flexibility, I think. We'll leave it at that. But I also want to go on record of saying why that deletion is on there. And I made a comment earlier about four, just so you know, Jason, and no point at all. I think we've had two we've gone to the we've gone down to the 90-day term twice and come down to the last minute, but I think the previous city manager was great. He's on to a better place and you've been a great hire and I sincerely mean that. So, I'm not limiting that because we were forced into a bad decision. You heard a great decision so far. So, I just want to make that go on record. I'd like to add as well as the secondary the the conversation about being a resident and and leaving that to the um the contract negotiations is what really pushed me to to support this. Um you know the the time of that council that's approving or not approving that contract giving them the autonomy based off of the candidates and based off of the situations. housing can be hard to find. I was also released on we're roughly what 10 miles to the west is our county line and 40 something miles he said to Laurel Hill. So theoretically a city manager could live in Laurel Hill but not live just west of Herbert and that just doesn't make sense to me. So that's why I'm supporting this. Any other comments?

All right, let's go. [Applause] All right, 6 to1. Let's get to the next item. So, uh the next item is section 17 administrative department and uh they've made some significant changes uh more in the second half of the changes they made on the red lines, but the uh most of the earlier changes are just uh specifying that departments be established uh by resolution as opposed to by ordinance. And uh so that would uh take out basically one readings. It says uh you may change any department the council being by passing a resolution after at least one advertised public hearing. That would cut down on two advertised public hearings you did by ordinance. So it's more for uh I think if y'all made that decision that y'all want to create a new department or or do some change some functions then I think their thought process was to make it more efficient. Uh get rid of the two readings. Uh they also cut out the middle sentence uh I think just for clarification purposes, but then they did add a pretty substantial um last section that does provide uh protections for the police department and the fire department. Uh and I think you got the language in front of you. So uh but that would be a that's why it's a major change because the the protections for the those two departments are uh would be substantial changes. So

all right any questions?

I do um reading there um which in the middle of it which shall require either a unanimous vote of the council or require public referendum. So that was my understanding of the his of a recent relatively recent I guess it's been in the last 10 or 12 years that was the um increased protection of those two departments from council action. Uh first it was moved to a unanimous vote of the council would be required and now it's being prohibited completely. Is that correct? without I mean council can't this would allow this would cause council not to be able to do to uh let's see disc uh to distribute or discontinue the functions and duties of departments but it also went on to say um um the council may change any department resolution um so yeah so anyway am I right that it's gone from previously a majority vote could have done to a unanimous vote to now it can't be with the exception of police and fire. Those cannot be altered or changed if this passes.

I don't know about the majority vote, but the way it read previously was a unanimous vote of the council or a public referendum discontinued. So that's right. It's taken that off the board now and it's now shall not be able to.

You're right. The require a vote of the council at a or a majority vote at public referendum. Actually actually no. So it says absolutely unanimous whether the city council or majority vote with all the referendum. So still they just rewarded rewarded it a little bit. I think this more significant language actually Mr. Walker is the last line on the red line where it says or otherwise significantly diminish beyond meal capabilities provide quality public safety services additional functions and duties may be assigned by ordinance etc. But I think that's the big change,

right? And yeah, I mean it it's Yeah, it's interesting where whereas before it was clear to me that a unanimous vote of the council elected by their constituents could take action to consolidate and or otherwise um address police and fire department personnel staffing and how we may get services from the county. That would have been by unanimous vote of the council. That was the restriction or limit the requirement on it. And now that's not even an option. It's just shall not diminish. The only thing they've done differently is they've uh you still have the right to just ban it. Okay.

Either one of them how you used to be able to, but they uh now if you did adopt this change, you cannot uh diminish their basically their funding, reduce their funding beyond a certain level. Because that last line says or otherwise significantly diminished. So it require either majority or not majority unanimous vote the council or a public referendum be significantly diminish beyond mental capabilities. So that's the major substantive change is they've added uh uh you saw the same requirements either unanimous vote of the council or a public referendum to disband the police department or fire department. But now also if the determinations made by somebody that you've significantly diminished beyond their minimal capabilities then that also require a unanimous vote or a public referendum. So that's the big change.

Yeah. Gotcha. Thank you. [Applause] I got a follow-up question and not trying to get too far ahead of this, but there's a lot of momentum with this property tax bill and if it goes to a statewide referendum, none of us know in here what the ballot language for the statewide referendum would be or the impacts. Let me just make that clear. But if there was a significant impact and the state did approve whether it's homestead, whatever the property tax play is and our staff and the future council have to make some of those challenging decisions on how to still provide a quality of life that includes public safety, but might include a play that it's someone else's entity or someone else's name in a special district or those kind of things. If that were to pass in the statewide uh statewide constitution and it really were to restrict our our budget financially and those tough decisions were had to be made including public safety. I know for whatever reason park and recrecks and public works I guess not as concerned about them but with with public safety does that really restrict staff on making some plays within the budget without having to go to a referendum?

Significantly. Significantly. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any follow-up questions?

Seeing none, any questions in the public? Mr. Smith, just a comment. I mean, this is not something the public asked for. It takes power away from the council to make future decisions. I recommend you don't support it. Thanks. All right. Any more comments, questions from the public? Seeing none, we got a question. Seeing none, looking for some action. Make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second, Mr. Jeter with a motion and a second by Mr. Browning. Mr. Jeter,

here's why. I got a lot of questions, too. Obviously, we heard Mr. Smith's comments. This is going to go out to a referendum. This could get rewarded again in the in future meetings. I have a lot more questions myself and a lot more research to do. But again, all this would go out to the people and we even maybe have an answer to your question by the time this goes out to the people to vote on. Right, Mr. Long? Yeah, just clarification on that there. Mr. Junior, you had mentioned you said that um this is going to go out to a referendum if it does.

If it does. Okay. So, and I'm cuz I'm, you know, trying to figure out what's going on here tonight sometime. But, so all of these things that are on here that are getting the motions that are getting the seconds that get in the votes to move forward, it's going to go forward to a future meeting for us to discuss it again, them again. Each one of these again, see if we want to change any of the language. And then if once we're good with the language, it'll have two readings. Um, and then at that time it would be placed on the ballot. Is that the way you understand it? Some of them would be, some of them may not have to be correct, but the majority of them would be

ones that require a ballot referendum. Okay. So we're talking about an agenda item that we were going to tell you the timeline of everything but the reminder because that was we were going to tell you the timeline expect the timeline is on all action uh probably will reduce everything to uh most of the items will be brought back to you next time you'll see them in ordinance form with the changes uh that that you recommended so you'll still have time to make additional changes but uh we'll probably bring it back potentially as the first readings for most of them obviously ones tonight go back and look at that. You made a lot of uh changes to a lot. There's a lot of confusion. We might want to bring it back as a proposal the first time, but uh some of them might only be brought back to you two more times cuz it will require two readings to pass an ordinance to send a referendum, but it'll to kind of answer your question. You're going to see this two to three more times at a minimum. Like depending on the first time, three more times at a minimum two more times if you pass them on both readings. So everything that's gotten approved tonight will go to you and you'll put it in proposed ordinance form.

Correct. Okay. Correct. Thank you.

And one more comment. I I I I see where you're going with it and trust me. I just sit here as council members mayor tonight said about some future state litigation. And it really just reminded I just cringe thinking we could do all of this work just like we did with STRs, just like we did with this, just like we did with that. And then bam, House Bill 180 comes along and we did all this work for nothing and tomorrow it starts for free. That's disheartening. That's tough. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Yeah. Hopefully hopefully we're doing all this for good reasons and some good productivity stuff comes out of it because that'd be frustrating. All right. Any more comments? None. Let's do it. [Applause] All right, that passes 4 to three. Let's get on to the next item. So, next one is section 22 uh a moment other than regular compensation prohibited exception. Uh the changes that they recommended were they wanted to add a uh sentence at the very end that says this section does not prohibit employees or officers from being compensated in the regular course of their duties nor does compensation individuals secondary the charter. And then they did remove a line action kind of create confusion in the first sentence that stated or other than the regular compensation to be paid is fixed by terms of their employment by law or ordinance. And so um I think uh this is before you go on to make any changes. I the only thing I would suggest is removing the part with the reference to section 33 of the charter because then

you would be creating a confusing situation if this amendment passes but the uh proposed change to section 33 of the charter does not pass. And so if proper change section 33 does pass actually then this section already uh would not prevent that supplement or compensation if if the voters do decide to again provide you with $1,000 money. So I just the only thing I would say is get rid of that reference to section 33. [Applause]

Thank you for that presentation. Any comments questions from the board? I have one Mr. Mayor. Go ahead Mr. W. Um, so just this is pre30 I think was the one that had the you know it shall take effect now. So I'm just 22 was the part of the original charter. I remember seven or eight years ago when I became involved in the watch group and the discussion of the ongoing compensation that was going on there and it kind of draw drew our attention back to section 22. I couldn't have called it until I saw it recently. But going back in time, that initial charter um says no member of the council or officer or employee of the city shall directly or indirectly receive from the city any compensation, emolement or other thing of value for any service rendered by them. So, was it originally in our charter that the council shall not receive compensation or yeah, compensation? I mean, is that am I How am I reading that wrong? I guess

it uh arguably it might have been actually.

Yeah. And so when I remember my rub when it came to I'm like, well, how did it happen that the council came to start getting compensation and it was, you know, back then it was, well, it was by vote of council. They voted themselves. And I said, well, it was against the charter. And they said, well, no one took action against that. There were no lawsuits filed, so they just continued to get it. So that charter amendment that was passed in November of 24 was just uh reasserting the original charter that there would be no compensation. So I just wanted to make sure I have that right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Questions. Any questions, comments from the public? Seeing none, looking for some action. Motion to accept the recommendation. Second. And could I just ask a friendly amendment to add that reference to chapter section 33 because if that does not pass then that could be created and section 33 motion to accept recommendation for section 22 should section 33 pass second.

All right we have a motion by Jer second by Mr. Brown. Mr. year. I've said forever this is should not be a free job, but uh we'll see as it goes forward and we'll put it back in the voters's hands should it continue to go that far. Mr. Brown. Yes, sir.

I won't be supporting this motion. I I wish I had benefits. I wish I would get paid. I'd like to do that for my time. I just we just recently went through this and sounds like probably be going back and having another on this subject, but I won't be supporting this motion. So, we got first, we got second. Let's go to vote. [Applause] All right, let's go to section 32, Mr. March. It's a section actually yeah 32 acquisition of recreational tracks. And this is the section that does give the city at least under the charter uh the right for the ability to go purchase or acquire property outside the city limits for recreational purposes. Uh specifically on Santa Rosa Island or Oaks Island as everyone calls it. And uh so this this removes something that uh potentially is not allowed right now under state law, but uh state law changed and y'all did remove this section. It might screen you. That's the only thing. Like questions.

Kind of like we started this meeting off. Is this one that really hurts us from being on here? Not at all.

It's nothing. Not at all. And and we've left a few on here that didn't hurt us. The only reason I say that is because there are municipalities around us and I was reached out to some people from the island even though we know that's not the city but I grew up on the island and they said why would you take that off? It's kind of like the introduction to a first right of refusal should something like this ever come to fruition 20 years from now. So if there's people around us that want to kind of grow I don't think we'll ever grow and have anything to do with Okaloo Island. But taking this off here really basically says we throw our hands up and quit leaving it on there doesn't hurt us and it maybe leaves the option open one in a million, you know, one in a million chance 20 years from now. That be accurate.

Yeah. No, it only hurts you to remove it and leave it on there just kind of a bet on the future that it might be easier to actually do this in the future. That island's over there nice. That's really nice place. So I I like I like that bet. So you're saying there's a chance there's a chance here. All right. Any followup questions? Is there any need to change the language at this if we kept it to Loose Island or is the understanding is that fine? Well, it's it does say uh it is limited only Santa Rosa Island. And so San Rose Island's the you know the legal name of Rose Island.

So there's a chance that the island is ours. Any more questions? Right. Any other questions from the public? Comments? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Smith.

Thank you for your patience. I did a little bit of uh research into this and I think that you know we call it Okusa Island but the Air Force in 1950 before the charter came along leased the property 3 miles to the county and it goes from the eastern end of Beasley Park to the gate. So that to me is Oakloo Island. The rest of the island is still Santa Rose Island. And I and I'm not sure but I think this might have talked about that other portion of the island. Uh, I know that the county now is talking to the Air Force about taking over the management of the beaches all the way to the Destin Bridge, but I believe that what this was talking about, I haven't talked to anybody that's told me any different, that it talked about using the portions of Santa Rosa Island, which was not what we call Okaloosa Island. So, I would I wouldn't change the Santa Rosa to Okaloosa. That's just my opinion. Any other questions from the public?

All right. Seeing none, looking for some action. Make a motion to deny the recommendation and leave in the charter. Second. All right. Motion by Mr. Peter. Second by Mr. Mayor. Mr. Jeter. Yeah. Whether something ever happens with this or not, it's still language wise the closest we're ever going to get to owning a beach. That's on the golf. We got We got a beach. You're right. We got some We got some beaches. White sand beach. We got some white sand.

All right. So, we got beach. We got some white. All right. We um we got a motion. We got a second. Mr. Merrell, do you have any additional comments? same thing. It doesn't hurt us and can to keep it and might if we take it out. There's no reason. Simple as that. Okay. Any other further comments? Mr. Paul, to the motion or Mr. Jeter, um you had mentioned in your premotion comments that um there might be others. I mean, is I'm trying is this are there others that we've had come before this one that we have denied the recommendation? We covered a lot tonight. I don't think we have I I don't Does anybody remember any? Which one was it?

You denied one. Um no, oath of office. Oath of office. Oath of office passed. It denied you denied it. There was a vote was that to deny the recommendation. Okay, great. Thank you. I second it. Thank you.

All right. Any further comments? Seeing none, let's go to a vote. [Applause] Okay, the motion passes 5 to two. Okay, the next item is section 33, prohibition of compensation to elected officials. Uh, this would be change to compensation to elect elected officials. And basically, they would be providing $1,000 per month. uh they call it supplement, but it would be uh salary that payroll taxes would be taken out of and everything in front of the law, but it would be a $1,000 per month payment. And uh it would keep in the same basic reimbursement uh provisions that are actually already in the current charter provision regarding uh reimbursing for any city business. I think it does broad the language slightly on what they'll reimburse you for, but uh otherwise the big change is the $1,000 per month. All right, thank you for that presentation. Any questions for this board? Seeing none, any questions from the public? Uh this went back and forth quite a ways. Um, notwithstanding the uh, referendum that already passed. It's up to you. This was a recommendation that we came up with. Um, my thought was, you know, the first thing when we talked about it, we said, well, how do they decide on what the city council makes now and, uh, took a little bit of research to find out. So, part of the budget process, um, uh, Mr. B wanted to offer insurance for those who wanted it and those who didn't weren't compensated. Uh some people didn't think that that was uh

fair. Um and that's kind of what the $1,000 was for. If you want insurance, you get everybody gets $1,000. They're compensated equally. And then if you wanted the insurance, then you could take it. That what what the $1,000 would pay for. uh if you didn't need it, military, things like that, uh retired, then you could use a thousand, whatever was compensated that way. Um my recommendation was uh to uh uh let the city council decide on what the compensation was if he goes past it through a referendum. Um and I think the other dissension other than Mr. Smith, who will speak about it here a minute, um was that the $1,000 was too much. It should be $500. So, those are the things that we went over. Um, and I'm sure it'll give you something to discuss from next.

Well, we knew going in that my friends on the committee how how they felt about this item. And I'm not suggesting at all that they were corrupt. They just had a different opinion than than what I do about this. Just like Mr. Peter has made it very clear how how he stands on this this particular item. But the fact of the matter is it the last municipal election, Miss Ryland got the highest number of votes in that election, 878 votes. In this referendum, 5,168 people voted and said said they didn't want to pay the council. They didn't want the council to be compensated. And this was just last November. So I think it's wrong. It's not democratic to go against the will of the people in the most recent election to to try to overturn it. That's my opinion. Thanks.

Come on back up.

Yeah before. I apologize. Um I think it other than Mr. Smith that the com the uh comments from people on believe that the city council should be paid. Um and a lot of the comments were that they're doing the work and everybody else at work gets paid and uh some sort of compensation. I know that uh when I ran for council, I didn't even know we got paid. But um you guys know that and I believe and what was brought forth from the other comments were that if you're working, you should be paid for it even though it's mostly an honorarium. Um although you get tax from it. Um it's that was the feeling of the committee and you go with the other argument would be what uh what Mr. Smith.

Mr. May, quick question. Are you sure y'all had access to remote capabilities when you're on council? No, we didn't. Well, we didn't have we didn't have, you know, it would have been on the phone back then or telegraph. Any more questions? M.

Oh, yes. Um, I think it violates the public trust. No, we um we voted for this these uh 33 34 and 32 um it hasn't even been a year and y'all I I agree. You know, I'm sorry that former city manager Peter stormed out of here all in sense, but it does stink. That committee stinks. It was biased. Now, what are we supposed to We're not in that committee. We don't know. We're we're normal citizens, but we see a couple city managers, several former um council members and and none of us, you know, none of us lay people or the lay persons are um sorry about that. None of us are are invited to this committee. Well, we don't have that experience, but but we have the experience as citizens and we got that initiative, that referendum. We voted on it. We we made it happen. Um there's been recent legislative changes um as of May 31st that going to make it harder to do referendums now. Um we don't want to have to go back and forth. We don't want to fight our own city council members. I don't want to fight you guys over this. I don't want to be out there trying to conform with the new laws on this. Um and and you know if you're successful in this, you know, these three issues were decided. You didn't even let it get ripe yet. You know, not even a year, not even two years. Come on. That's that's eroding my trust in all of you. There's there's, you know, really, you all want my vote again. You you can't keep vote voting against me. And also, there's one thing before I forget. 10A. We didn't do 10day yet.

It's the last item on the

It is. Okay. Just want to make sure. Um but I I don't I don't appreciate that. Um I didn't fully agree with the budget portion and that's addressed in one of the other ones coming up. I Yeah, I want to see this city dissolved. I don't want to see it bled to death financially so that eventually it does dissolve. But I don't think that's the position. I think there's a happy medium. So going full gung-ho uh with this committee, the review committee um and going against the will of the voters doesn't please me either. So I'm not I'm not totally against the city in the sense of, you know, yes, I I voted on all three of those and helped them pass those referendums. I wasn't quite pleased with the budget one because I don't want the city to dissolve. I'm not anti- city. Um I am worried about the property tax. Um and if we lose our our if the the I don't like paying property tax, but I sure don't want to come in here and gripe at all you when you increase everything else to live in this city because you no longer have the revenue from that. Um, so I'm not I'm kind of the middle of the road and I think it you all need to get back in the middle. You got so far out there on this with this commission and these three counter they're they're counter um referendums and that's bogus and that's that's BS. It's just it's awful. It's awful to see you guys do this. Um, so I can't I can't support that even though I did I don't want the city dissolving. There's other ways, there's other things you can do. And so if it's successful, you get this referendum and then you rally your supporters um and it gets approved, I

can promise you that that that we will get another referendum and we'll be doing this for decades. I promise you. Thank you. Miss Paul, could I ask you a question? you might. Yes. I know you said you you middle of the road on the budget. Um I think I was a citizen not even thinking about running when the when the charter amendments came out. Not to put you on the spot, but would you say that nobody up here deserves any form of compensation the same way that you think that maybe there's middle ground on the budget?

Um as far as the compensation goes, I feel that the will of the people ought to be honored on that. I feel like if if like you were recently uh elected, so you ran knowing about that referendum. You knew that you were going to do this as I you're asking a person that has put in I I can't even tell you how many volunteers volunteer hours I have put in. It was in rescue work for for dogs, pregnant dogs and puppies. But um I don't agree with the um you guys trying to get yourself the compensation if you if you know give it a give it a year, give it 2 years, 3 years, then seek it again. But to do this now, it violates my trust in you. I don't have faith in any of you right now who vote to do these things to undo those. So, and I asked you because I felt like we weren't given many options. I think when we get to the budget one, I think there's a lot of issues that come with 3%. I think maybe there's issues when you go, well, you're getting compensation and an insurance package. And so, but you, me, other citizens didn't get an opportunity to go, well, what if we reduced it or what if we had some control of the budget? And so from my standpoint, I want you to know, want other citizens to know what I'm not looking to do is reverse the will of the people. I voted no against the compensation change and I voted yes to the other two. But now that I've come to learn more, there's definitely some things that I want to change. Not to reverse the will of the people, but to say we weren't given, you weren't given multiple options. And I understand why, but you were given yes and no. Yes and no. Yes and no. And I think all three of them are imperfect. And so just between me and you, what I go to change here

isn't to reverse the will of the people. It's to get it closer to something that works because you don't want to see the city bleed out. I don't want to see the city reduced to something that isn't the Fort W Beach we know and love. So I understand where you're coming from. But I hope you can look at some of that and some of the decisions that we make up here as a way of not just doing what we want to do, but finding a way forward that's best for the city that is going to fix some of the problems that's going to come with some of these things. So that's why I asked that because I think there's a middle ground that we didn't get an option for on that ballot.

I I I think that I I have a question for Miss Neighbors actually. You you you spelled it out in a different meeting. You said how much per per council member it cost for the medical yearly. I thought you said it was 200,000. That couldn't have been 200,000 for seven people. But what was it per person? Meaning all that cost to the city offand I don't know per person but it was about 200 and some about 250,000 for all council members plus the mayor with the benefits they took in their salary in the budget in that portion of the budget. But I don't know. I don't have it offhand what the like per person, but I can get that for you.

Okay. So, I I kind of agree with you somewhat. Just maybe the timing isn't good. Maybe just don't do this right now. Come on. You got three more years. Um maybe give it another year and then you could put it on on another I don't know what the ballot sequencing is um dates wise. So, um but yes, I do believe it would be better to meet in the middle. I don't, you know, I mean, I was around when we had Marius or public safety. They don't even know about that anymore here. Um, but I don't want to see our police dissolved. I don't I don't want to see I don't know about consolidation. I don't really have an opinion. Um, I like having our own I utilize our police and our own fire services for, you know, I had a child that needed needed help and they were right there. Um, so I I would like to be in the middle.

Thank you, M. M. I have a question for you as well and kind of a clarification, I think, cuz you mentioned you didn't know the ballot initiative process and Mr. Merryill, this deals with you as well. Um, I didn't either until I got involved in the watch group. And I'll tell you how there's two ways it can work. Um, the one way is how that those three charter amendments that passed in November, how they came to be. It started with a ground swell. Uh, this place was packed with people. There were people out there. There were speakers in the parking lot so that they can. And there was a room over here that was overflowing. And the people came in here and asked this body, not these people, this body to respect their request to do certain things and they were ignored. Um, and then so the ground swell of people, which was the watch group, uh, they started they went to the clerk of the court. They found out what was required. It was to get petitions signed by registered voters. A certain number of them. I think it was 1,400 or thereabouts. Maybe it was. David, do you remember the number? Was it a good estimate?

I think it was about 1,400 had to be signed and verified and and Mr. Smith came in here with a hand truck and some boxes right there beside him. And he said, "These have all been signed by registered voter as confirmed by the uh clerk of um supervisor of elections up there. Please put these measures on the ballot." And this body once again refused uh to do that. So um we we went the full route to get them on there and um this body um stalled and essentially sued uh the the people by taking the matter to court. It went through every judge in Okaloosa County and they recused themselves and then it went through two in Escambia County till third one finally accepted it and by then it was too late. It couldn't get on the ballot. So it was effectively delayed. But then a council body got up here, they put them on there and they the voters got a choice to vote on. That's the one way. And it took about two years door knocking, showing up in the park, showing up at the gun show, getting petitions signed, talking to the people. It's very hard work, licking envelopes. Mr. Barry was involved in it, stuffing envelopes. And so that's one way to do it. The other way to do it is to turn it over to seven members that you know and put them in a committee and let them make recommendations. And that's what we have before us tonight is that that's how it came about. About I don't know 3 months ago the committee was formed with by these with these seven people and I put mine on there and everybody put theirs on there. They went back into a room of which there was no public comment, no public input. Um uh there was I'm sorry that's not true. There was one public comment made there. Um and so then that those recommendations are here before us today. So this body tonight has the option to honor the will as you've spoken about so clearly of that groundswell of people that took over two years to put together versus considering

the opinion of six uh in that committee that's made a recommendation to us. So I agree with you. I do believe that it was biased. I believe that everybody that was put in there u with with the opinion that those charter amendments were not uh good for us um they appointed someone that would vote accordingly. Unfortunately with my guy that I put in there, I didn't have a litmus test for him and he went in there and voted for in favor of some that I wouldn't have done, but I didn't put that on him. So that's how that's how that ballot measure works. And Mr. Merrill, if you if you want A, B, and C choice option on the P, you can go out there. You can gather the 1,400 signatures or you can you can make a recommendation to amend the charter in the future. But at that time that group of 1,500 people in the watch group or so didn't think about items B, C, and D and E for you to, you know, have have an option on. So, thank you, Mr. Paul.

Well, I think we're going to we're going to fight it. I I don't want to fight the people that I like to represent my interests and the interests of my community. So, I don't think this is the right thing to do. And I have more on 10A, but I'll get to that when it comes up.

And the irony behind all this is council member Smith that that triggered this uh this um charter review committee that has um gone before us. But, you know, I I do I do support having a future path, not having a whole bunch of residents have to go through that. Um, I support having a charter review committee who's doing this, but it's just neat to see the irony. All right. Any other u public comments? Yes, sir. Mr. Mr. Holmes,

try to stay on point. I'm not going to get in challenge Mr. Walker's comments or his take on it with biased. I mean, I've seen 90% of the votes tonight, maybe 80% 6 to1. Are y'all biased? [Music] How long y'all been here tonight? Y'all know how many hours you put in a week? You need to be compensated. Do you have any idea what a county commissioner makes? About 90,000. How much? About 90,000. I can hear you. About 90,000 a year. 90,000. How many hours do they spend up there? And so you ask.

Okay. I know. But they get a huh? They get a to help them. There you go. And y'all got an aid that has other jobs that has responsibility runs. See?

So, you know, you're doing it for nothing. But and I appreciate it. You know, if you go ask a taxpayer that you're going to take some of their tax money and compensate an official, they immediately, what's their thought proc? No, we don't want to give them money. I'd have voted for that. But I know the reason behind, you know, I I don't want anybody any of our tax money to go to pay officials that are volunteering, but I know the time that y'all spend up there. Some spend more, some spend less. You know, whether you do a good job or not, that's up up to you until the voters go vote. I do agree that on the ballot there was three amendments and part of the amendments were not what were signed but petitioned. They were challenged in court and they lost because they were not substantied. But they ended up what you all have to live with now. And you know what I'm talking about with the budget. I mean I I know the city staff would not say anything. But living with those two amendments is tough. It makes their job extremely hard and difficult. And you still have to like you Mr. Wal brings up. So what was the effective date? The effective date was the voters voted on. Okay. So, you have to go back to Mr. Smith. Every time he says what the constituents or what they voted for, let them vote again. Put it out there.

Maybe we didn't do a good job of explaining it to them. Was the ballot rigged? You could kind of look at it that way. You know, you put it on a different a national ballot whenever you going to expect a lot of turnout and not a local city ballot or something like that. Come on. You know, the voters spoke. They put one of the watch group out last time. Absolutely. They may put the next three out the next time. We'll see. One thing I want to clear up, Mr. Walker at the very beginning you questioned whether the social media was those meetings were advertised. I know I saw three of them. Now there may have been two others. So Devon did post those meetings. So I don't know how else that we can post them. That's been a problem from day one. You know even when we had community meetings you could give hot dogs away. You can give $1,000 and you're going to get people there for the hot dogs and $1,000. But the hell with what the meeting's about. So I don't know how you can get people to come in here, you know. So, you know, I I question again and I'm going to jump on that same bandwagon of a rigged committee. It's only rigged if you rig it.

Did you rig it? You got to pick who you wanted to. Miss Riley got to pick who she wanted to. Uh Dave Schmidt picked me and he knows me and him don't have a lot of the same views. A lot of the things he's voted for, but I respect his and he respects mine. And when we walk out of here, we're going to shake hands. Am I a lot more informed in this fight? Probably. But there's a reason for that because I'm a few years older, I think. But I spent a lot more time up there learning some of this stuff. Does that count? I don't know. You tell me.

Thank you. Right. Any more public comment? See none. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to deny section 33 compensation to elected officials. Paper rock, scissors. Y'all two go. You ready? Is that Robert? Y'all y'all were speaking at the exact same time. So, I'd like to make a motion to deny section 33. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to deny section 33. That's it. And can I get a second? Second. Motion by Mr. Walker, second by Mr. Barry. Mr. Walker.

Yeah, a lot happened there uh in that. I appreciate Miss SM I appreciate all speakers up here and um rigged is um strong word biased is a is a word that I I feel it may be more appropriate. I I feel that it was the case and I think the evidence is the proof in the pudding. We've got um over 5,000 people voted in the election despite how each of us may feel individually about compensation. I know I put in a great number of hours here uh and invest and read and and and comment and post and and other things and um whether I wanted compensation or not, the people have spoken. Now, this will probably surprise many of you, I will absolutely support all three of these um if they're presented in the same way that they came to be to begin with. If this group, that committee group out there wants to go back to the people in the community and get their word, get their signature, and get 1,400 or 1,450, whatever number it is, and bring it and it it could say $5,000 if the people sign it and send it to their representatives and that's what they say they want. even if I object to it as many did back here then put it before the voters. But to send it from us who there were clear known objections uh from those former city council members, the former city managers, they were opposed to those charter amendment uh passage by the watch group. for they for them to put someone on there and for out of that group of seven to come back to us and for us to treat that as the voice of the people is ridiculous on its face. It was seven people speaking, not 5,000 people speaking. So go get the 1450 signatures, bring it back up here, get the clerk to sign, bring it here. We

won't object to it. I won't object to it. Maybe you will object to it. But that's the hard work that the people put in to get those signatures up here to us. Uh so that's why I support denying this. It's a slap in the face to those people who worked so hard alongside me with me without me even knowing them. Mr. Barry worked tirelessly as well. I know. And and David, many of us were there. But the people spoke and they spoke very clearly. And to suggest that the people that voted didn't know what they were voting on, weren't informed, it was a part of a big election. They were just voting is is another slap in their face. So the the referendum versus the the council committee is the way that we hear the voice of the people. We are not hearing the voice of the people. Mr. Smith said it earlier in one of them. Um the that was not proposed by the people had they filled the room at the charter review committee and said we demand that compensation be and and even then I'd say well you don't override the 5,000 people who voted in that election. I think um the 5,000 people I think Mr. Minnik had said that that the comments were he had heard were you know we should be paid. I don't know who you heard it from, but I heard loud and clear from over 5,000 people that voted and said no compensation. Reign in the uh three the spending which had been out of control for 10 years that we looked at 10% per year and and and the uh the referendum which was the the the the beginning the spark that lit the fire was the the fire assessment fee. the fire assessment fee was that you know now the language says that if you're going to pass if we're going to pass a special referendum a special um fire assessment that 50% of those who

it's impacted by must vote on it. That's a good that's what the people told us they wanted. They told us they wanted government spending under control. Uh and they said they don't want to compensate. So for a group of seven, some by majority vote, so in some cases it was probably six and it might have been five, I don't know, to come up here and for us to act like it's a voice of the people and we're going to put it on the ballot is ridiculous. So that's why I vote to I made the motion to deny uh section 33 compensation of elected officials. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Second, Mr. Barry,

yes. you secured the motion, so you go after him and then after you're done, I'll open up the floor to the rest of the board. Well, I agree. Uh uh I I won't be voting to compensate uh elected officials. Matter of fact, such as you, I volunteer I have volunteered more hours more hours than many people spend working and I'm a better person for it. So I I won't be able to Mr. Jer.

Yeah, look, we can all sit here and debate all night. We have for many years in the past. But Council Walker, you helped get all those petitions signed for all of these things, and you think going doing the opposite would be a slap in their face. Well, through the process that we utilized. Yes. But yet, did you get up here and take compensation and insurance when you got elected?

I did. To me, that's a bigger slap in the face. But we'll leave that at that. Secondly, I would like to go on and go even further. Mr. Holmes, you worded it perfect because I did not know how this job was until I got up here. And why I might have had feelings ahead of time when I got up here about certain things, but the more you're up here, the more that you learn. And this vote is not about changing anything tonight. This vote is not about changing anything for me personally. We are currently not going to get compensated at our next meeting. This is about changing things for people that are going to raise their hand to run next time to get a better group of candidates or the best group of candidates just like we talked about whether how far you live or whether how much you get paid. People are going to raise their hand and they're going to give you maximum effort. You may not get that if you do it for free. So, we can sit here and debate all night, but I will say this. I love all the dialogue and all the debate. I love what Council Meill is saying about meeting in the middle. Miss Mike, I love how you say, "Well, you know what? didn't feel right about this one, but maybe now I feel this one. We have people on both sides of the room, and that's our job up here is to make tough decisions. So, on top of getting paid or not getting paid and having to make these tough decisions, here's the way I look at this. As everybody was talking, I thought, "Wow, it dawned on me." Mr. Burns, whenever we have a a item that's tough that can't be simply passed at one meeting, doesn't it require two readings of any ordinance?

So, to me, I would look at this the same way. Why would we not look at this as a second reading? We had one reading. We know the results. Whether you can say it's a rigged committee or it was a rigged date on the last election, let's have a second reading. I promise you, whatever goes after the next vote, should it get to that point, you won't hear a peep out of me. As of now, I have no intentions of running again anyway. So, none of this vote is going to affect me. It's going to affect the next body that's up here. But, let's give the community a second reading of people like Miss Smite who might have said, "You know what? I felt this way. We're allowed to do that. We're allowed to say, "I feel this way." Motion second. Approved. Two weeks from now, we go, "Ah, you know what? I learned a little bit. I might want to change this now." To me, I would say, "Let's give some of these large items a second reading.

Okay. Any other comments, Mr.?"

Yeah. I uh I mean, even in the business world, you you know, you get what you pay for, and I I agree. If there's nothing and if the people wanted to see again a change, if we have $250,000 in the budget for all eight members, um then I think if I did my math right, that comes to about $2,600 a month per member and we're reducing that by over 60% to $1,000. Um then you're responsible for your own insurance. I think that is a move that I would like to see. Is that palatable to the people? Is that something that they would say, "Okay, well, you heard us and this is much better." Because I feel, and I'm going to say it, the fire assessment, I sat with you, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Lee, and I said, "Day one, I would have been part of the watch group. Day one, I probably would have fought the fire assessment." And I sat there and I've seen how frustrating it is to not be heard and to not be able to change minds. It's very, very frustrating. And sometimes when you get the the momentum and you can make a change, maybe maybe you make maybe you take a big swing. And I feel like there may have been a bigger push back. There's a lot of angry people. And I think as a city, we all need to stop the council versus the watch group versus the people and find I'm up here and it makes no sense to me. I'm told after hours like good luck meeting in the middle like it just doesn't happen by by people that have watched these meetings and it just makes it just it's very frustrating for me because I compromise and I try to move forward. I try to win in business. I try to win in my relationships and I'm going to sit up here while you guys have elected me and try to win with the council and say maybe there was a little bit of frustration. Maybe the city should have listened to the people. Maybe the people shouldn't have come back with a little bit. I'm going to call it retaliation and and cuz that's not good for the council. That's not good for the people. That's not good for the city. So, I'm

going to sit up here and try to find some middle ground. There's a 60% reduction. If you don't pay the people, you're not going to get the best work out of them. They don't feel beholden to you. The ne Mr. Jeter's right. The next council members, it's going to affect more. I don't I I have three and a half more years, Mr. Peter is at two, less than two. You know, he's trying to get stuff done. And I'm going to take the same approach when we come to the budget amendment and to the assessment amendment. So that's where I stand. I want to give debate and I'm going to keep mine short. We had about seven or eight people run recently knowing that there was no benefits. Similar y'all business owners here. If y'all are offering a certain rate and someone takes that lower rate, probably not going to offer them more money. We had elected officials or excuse me, candidates opt into this position knowing what the benefits or lack thereof were. So, I respectfully disagree with we would lose potential talent as far as running because we had a lot of good talent that ran knowing the benefits were were not there. myself included and I would hope future people that do run like Mr. Manik. I didn't realize there was benefits when I first got elected 8 years ago and when I found out there was once I got on great but my whole rub on this is is that and again a lot of good spirited debate but I'm going to keep mine and landed at this. It was just recently spoken on in a referendum in November. As much as I want these benefits, especially not having them during this time of surgery and those kind of things, I just have to lean on what was just elected or what was what was spoken to at this most recent referendum along with the seven or eight people that just did run and

successfully won knowing there were no benefits. Any other further comments, Mr. Yeah, man. Just this is the biggest one. This is I mean I know everybody's got opinions on it. This is the big one. And Miss Riley, you haven't had us a chance to speak yet. Would you like to speak before I continue? No, I won't interrupt, but you go ahead and I'll close it. Okay. Okay.

So, so, you know, it it's you made some good points there and um I can tell you that for me in my business, $400 a month in compensation and the and the insurance. I already had insurance. I kept the insurance and that I had in place already and I still have it. I've been very blessed in my business. I've been very blessed in my life and I know we all have up here. We've all been blessed and I know there's a lot more people out in the community that are also blessed and they, you know, when you bring money into it, it kind of and and compensation or it kind of taints the water a little bit. It's like, well, did they run for the money or do they run because they love it? I'll tell you this, contrary to Mr. Mr. Barl that I I get it. I've heard that argument. But if somebody comes and runs for office, raises their hand to run for this office and there's no compensation and no benefits for it, they have a love for this that goes deeper than money, deeper than compensation. And I I surely do. Um I mean I I just it just when we bring money into it, it muddies it and uh the compensation. We're small town, small community. Yes, we put in a lot of offers, but God, I know we all love it. I know every one of us up here love it. We love the city. We love the business of it. We don't like the longevity of it sometimes, but we're blessed to be up. I don't think money would keep any of us away. I don't think Mr. Jeter's not going to run. If he he says he's not going to run, I don't think it's because of the money, is it, Mr. Jeter? Has a large part to do with $1,000 a month. It doesn't have to do any exact amount of money. What it has to do with is we all have other jobs, other priorities. I got five kids. I'm missing a volleyball game tonight. I missed a golf tournament. Is any amount of money worth missing us? Absolutely not.

That's right. That's right. You do it. But but but this job is not a job that you do for free. Just like we talked about county administration, other people. Look, everybody has their own personal feelings about it. It's

Yeah, it's not there's no right or wrong. Will you get candidates that run? Sure. We have some great candidates out there that have run in the past and won and served very well for free. We've had some great candidates. I I talked to uh council member me years ago about this and he said at one point in time they they wanted to get to see if they could have a larger pool. And if you go back and look I'm not going to we're not going to go downhall the data but if you go back and look at the pool of candidates there was 12 13 14 candidates there for a while running for three or four seats. There's times before that where you only had four candidates running for four seats or three seats. So, it does appear that some type of compensation, whether it's a set amount of money or whether it's insurance, has certainly influenced a different type of person to raise their hand. The voters still vote who wins those seats. The voters are still going to vote if these people get compensated for those seats. I'd just like to put it back in the voters's hands for a second read. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And and just one last comment. I know this is a this is my greatest opportunity to try to influence a vote here. I'm going to try to get one try to get one more. I'm going to get one more. Um the the the thing that would make me the happiest tonight would to be proven absolutely 100% totally wrong. And I and it would be that pain has said that that was biased and that this group up here was a part of it. And I would love for this body to vote against those three and go back out to the people that they say would support you and and support the motion to pay them and compensate. Let the people sign the petitions. Let the people bring it up here and then and then I'd be vote in favor of it. So prove me wrong tonight. Someone please. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Walker, thank you so much.

allowed me the opportunity to speak and I I certainly will not be long but what I can tell you all is from day one day one I was here before I sat on this dasis we got selected on this dasis I was here in in this chamber when those three amendments came up and when when the dasis voted on the council voted on it I walked up to that speaker and I addressed the council me and the council and I told him this is the most frustrating thing that I have ever heard of and I even had a person that was overseas that came back on me when I had mentioned about the voters and I asked you know do they understand the allocation mythology for all the divisions and I was thinking more so on the budget part of things because I'm I'm government structure most of my life work has been working for for the government and a lot of times people just simply don't know the allocation methodology for the different divisions even Mr. uh uh Daniel and his division public works you got machinery you got a whole lot of things you got life you know the longevity on machinery you you just don't know in a sense the average voter and I was was not putting the voter down but the average voter really don't even understand the allocation methodology with government and how you know the budget is laid out and whatever not but me I can tell you right now you know um as far as the money goes I'm hey I'm I'm a social workers. So, anybody know anything about social workers and teachers? We don't get we don't make the money, but we got to have degree. We got to have the education. I have my master's degree. But on the other hand, I know many people that have a master's degree that way way more money than I would ever dream of making as a social worker. I love working for the people. I understand the democracy. I understand democracy is for the people, of the people, by the people. I understand that. So, I'm not taking any anything away from the petition. However many

people that you have the 1400,500 people I'm not taking that away from them. I understand that because guess what my life work has been working with voiceless people and I want to do the work other people and I want to be heard. But on the other hand, I've also volunteered. I I don't just work I have a job. I hold a full-time job. Yes, my most of my time I hold a full-time job. I'm out in the community all the time in the community. I volunteer in the community. I don't get paid to die. I don't get paid a dime, but I do that my job. I get compensated, but I volunteer. So, I know the difference between volunteering and also working to get paid and having a compensation. I understand all of it. But on the other hand, I also feel very strongly, very strongly that a city cannot thrive without some type of taxation. You're not going to be able to uphold a city and think that it's going to we're going to be able to do this without taxation. you're going to have some type of taxes there. You got to cuz where's the revenue going to come from? Where where you going to get the revenue from if you if you don't have it? So, I understand that part of things. But on the other hand, I also understand that people just don't get up here and do the do the work of the other people and not feel like, you know, I'm doing this just I don't want to do this cuz I'm not getting any money. Obviously, you know, we're not getting paid. But on the other hand, how many councils, you know, I wonder what have we looked at best practices? How many how many counties have city councils and and border commissions and and see how much they're getting paid? Have we did any comparison? You know, is Pensacola getting paid, Panama City, Diceville? Are they being compensated? So, would it be utterly ridiculous if we were compensated? I have health insurance, but guess what? I chose to work for the jobs that I've

worked with in in my lifespan in my work work life because I do look at the fringe benefits. Fringe benefits means a lot. I don't need to, you know, everybody need insurance, but I do have insurance. But hey, what about the next guy over here, the small business owner that that you know, you know, how difficult is it for them to get insurance? So, that's all but all I'm saying is, you know, I'm going to be, you know, do I I support this? Absolutely. And I told you I I've said it from from from the beginning when it came before the council. I don't I didn't support any of them any of any one of those one two three amendments. Never supported them. I never have supported them. But I also would like to understand is where was that petition at? Because I was never asked to sign it. Nobody approached me to sign it. I've talked to many people that never saw that petition. So was it a targeted population that signed the petition? I don't know.

That's all I ask. That's good comment. Uh Mr. Yeah, I just want to say that again, I will not be supporting the motion and going forward should this ever pass years down the road. Someone can choose to take this whatever money they receive and donate it. You don't have to keep it, but this will just certainly be an enticement. So, I would not be supporting the motion. All right. Any more comments? Let's go. Let's vote. This is to get rid of the motion or to deny the recommendation. Deny the recommendation. There we go. Make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second,

we have a motion by Mr. Peter. Second by Mr. Brownie. Mr. Jer, nothing. I'm going to try to catch you in the volleyball game. Good luck, Mr. Brownie. There's plenty of conversation. I'm good. All right. Any further comments? Let's go.

Smart man. Let's go. [Applause] [Applause] Right. Let's go to item 34. See 34 is the special assessment of petitions to the new moves from last November. The recommendation of the charter review commission is to review it in its entirety. Any questions? See none. Any questions for the public? Just a minute. Uh this came before us twice. Uh one of the objections to it was that it wasn't the citizens that vote that they'd have to get permission. It was the property owners, not the citizens, the property owners. However, we let it stay. Um, and then it came back before us and Mr. Smith is going to talk to this because he said there's some confusion. Uh, we were kind of led to believe uh by Miss Cop that this was already addressed at the state level. So that's why we recommended to eliminate it because it had already been addressed at the state level. Mr. Smith will he he had a discussion with her and he'll talk more about it. [Music] I think there was there was confusion over that the state state level part I mean I recommend this state stay in 67% of the people voted for this this was the core this was the the main amendment that drew everybody to it um the discussion that was held was that Um when when they did when the city did the special assessment, they used uh Florida

statute 166 which is the home rule um the home rule power and there is a Florida statute and that's what we discussed. There is a Florida statute um 170 that is specific for how how to do a special assessment. Um, if the city would have used gone under for statute 170, we would have we wouldn't have objected and it wouldn't have been an issue because 170 contains a statement that says um, however, if prior to the levy of the assessment, the cost of the services and facilities are funded by add taxes, the taxes shall be abated annually thereafter in an amount equal to the full amount of the special assessment. So if the city had used statute 170, they couldn't have done that for a fire assessment fee where they were doing as Michael Bey said a shell game where they were just calling it a fire fee and then moving that the money that was allocated the fire department to the general fund. So it it is important that this um this amendment remains to keep the city from doing that type of special assessment again. Now, they can still do a special assessment. If they need to go into a neighborhood and fix a storm drain or fix something, they just need to go in there and get the people in that neighborhood, the people that are going to be affected and be assessed that special assessment to pay the bill. In fact, I'm paying a special assessment for work that was done over on Stokes Avenue. I think we're just about to the end of after 15 or 20 years um where they we were assessed a special assessment for a specific drainage project to a specific, you know, group of a dozen or so um land owners. And that's still permitted here.

What's not permitted is just a general special assessment. um everybody without going out um for referendum. Thanks. Any other comments in public? Seeing none, look for some action. Mr. Mayor, I would like to let Councilman Walker make a motion. Yeah, I would like to make a motion to deny um section 24. 34

34. Sorry, it was lined three. All right, we have a motion by Mr. Walker. Second by Mr. Jeter. Mr. Walker. Uh, no. Thank you for that, Mr. Jeter. Thank you for the second. And as Mr. Smith said there, this is the spark that started the fire. It was attacked by another name and we called them. We There was a price that was paid and there was a um couple of groups that formed from it and uh here we are today facing it again. love how we can all work together and that's why I wanted to give that motion to Councilman Walker and gladly second it because I cringe when I hear the word assessment, let alone the word fire assessment together. We can we can all talk all night about this. It was the spark. It was the this, it was the that. This needs to stay in there. We've left other stuff in here that doesn't hurt us. I don't care if the state says it. I don't care if the federal government says it. The city of Fort Walton Beach never needs to have another fire fee regardless of which side of the fence you are on. I'm with Council Member Merrill. It's done nothing but put a divide in our small town for the last 10 years that I feel like we could have gotten a lot more done if we never had a fire assessment. So, how manyever many times we could put another section in there 34 A and B that says it twice. That's it. Mr. is a long time coming a victory for the watch group that this is where it all started and I don't think we'd be here with the other amendments had this not have gone through in the first place. So I know it doesn't feel like some of the things are a win but I think this is where again this is the pain point and I agree 100%. And I believe might not even have any opposition. I don't know I can't speak for everybody but I feel like I feel like that's a general consensus. So there you go. All right.

Thanks for the comments. All right. Let's go vote. Did you take the comments? [Applause] Two. Surprised. surprised everybody in the room. [Applause] Okay, let's go to the next

I thought it was a mistake, but [Music] section 35 limitation on annual budget expenditures.

Let's do it. And the recommendation is to remove the entire section. All right. Any questions? [Applause] All right. See, any questions from the public? [Applause] Well, there again I want to 60% almost 61% of the people voted for this this amendment and I went back um you know I I I've been working with um get get numbers from Nicole and I mean it looks like the city's in compliance that um all all I've got is the numbers the the months through 11 months of this year. But even on the um the payroll right now, you're still several million dollars. You even divided out by 11 and added added the extra month in um for the 11 months you gave me and you're still $2 million under what would be what was what was spent last year. So, I mean, it looks to me like you're going to be able to make the numbers work. and I had um sit down with a he said the budget he's proposed is is in compliance with this amendment. So I don't see uh a reason at this point to um to go against the will of the people. Another thing that I pulled out today was and I sat down with Jason and showed it to him was the um the petition that was that was circulated and signed. It it it set a date of um of 1819. So the fiscal year 18/19 was when when we were doing this and that was the date the year we were supposed to be based

off of. And the overall number, budget number at that point was like $43 million. So, you know, if we had done it back at that date, we'd have penned $43 million. And it was on the entire budget, the whole budget. Um, it it wasn't limited to just payroll and just operating expenses. It was everything. But, you know, we worked with the city and we try we tried to work with the city up until the very last minute before it was going to vote. the city the city wouldn't work with us and wouldn't they wouldn't sit down with us and wouldn't tell us give us their recommendations on what to do and at the you know at the very last minute um Daniel Payne stepped up and said hey you know I got some ideas and you know we need to we need to make make some changes to this so basically it was loosened up what what the council put before the voters was considerably looser than what more generous than what the the petitions stood for. And to answer Miss Riley's point, the reason it didn't, you know, we started canvas in the city, the watch group did, and once they got to the 10% of the voters, we stopped. We we probably we we did maybe twothirds of the city. So, we didn't get to the whole city canvasing the whole city to we didn't need to. Once we got to 10% of petitions, we stopped.

Thank you. Mr. Minn, thank you very much.

This is your job. This is not some sort of 3% 2% 1%. This is the city council's job to make sure that the city will stay afloat. So, what this is doing, this 3% is taking your job away from you. And that's kind of way we were. That's what I see. You know, uh Mr. Smith said during the committee meeting, "Oh, well, you know, we're good for a year or two, uh, three or four years. Why don't we just wait till we're in bad shape?" Well, that's not what it ought to be. What it ought to be is it ought to be put back in your hands so that you can make the right decisions for the city. And that's what most of the people on the committee uh uh believed in. If it's not 3% this year, I mean, even Mr. Reeves, you know, he went up there and said, "Yeah, we're good now, but 3 years from now, we're not going to be good." So, to me, take your job, do your job right, look at it real close, and but don't put yourself in a situation where you can't make the right decisions anymore. And that's why this budget, this one, is important because there's going to be things come up. We just went through all of our reserves just to make it go uh or most of it. Um so guys, this is your job. Let's let's go back out and explain to people that that you know, you're going to do the right thing. I mean, the whole thing about, you know, we talked about the the uh fire assessment fee, it was bad. But the way to fix it wasn't by doing the all these things. It was by by electing a new council. I mean, the council just went and did whatever the city manager told him to do. There's no doubt about that. I was against the fire assessment fee. So was Mr. Holmes. So were you. A lot of us were, but they just wouldn't listen. So what do you do? You get a new city

council. And then they go back and they do the right thing. So by putting this this arbitrary number 3% with whatever um you know, oh but we won't do it for this, we won't do it for that. I still got 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Keep going. I know. So I I we consider this your job and that's why you should just we should try to do the best we can to put it back in your hands. All right, Mr. Holmes.

Yeah, Mr. Mini, excuse me, Michael Holmes. Mr. Manning put it well. That's why we elected y'all. We elect y'all to make these decisions. You have a lot more information and availability research and stuff to do than we do outside. You hire the city manager to give you a budget as to what it's going to take to run this city for the services you want. Then that's his job. He goes to the department. Well, y'all know y'all know. So when he comes to you and says, "I need X million." And you say, "We're not going to give it to you." then you need to tell him what to cut. It's not his job to do that because you told him what services you wanted. We elect you for this. If we don't like what you do, then we need to go and campaign and vote you out. That's the way it's working. That's the way it has worked. Um Mr. Walker keeps referring to the 1,400 petitions

10%. You know, and then we hear them say that 5,000 of the voters wanted or voted for this. How about the other 14,000 that are registered to vote? They didn't tell you. The reason they didn't tell you, they trusted your decision. So it that percentage is kind of skewed and that philosophy is kind of skewed.

How about those people that didn't come to you and say, "Hey, Mr. Smith, I like what you're doing." Did you just assume that that's what they mean? So it's your job to tell people what it's going to cost them. If they don't like it, then they're going to virtual. It's plain and simple. So we can make this easy. I don't again is to saying you've met these requirements. You haven't met the requirement that the referendum set. How many changes have you made or how many flexibilities? We spent reserves. A lot of reserves. How much do we have in reserves now?

In the general fund, we only have about $500,000. How much? 500,000. And I'm restricted. And And how much have you taken out of there this year? Uh we balanced the general fund with about $5.1 million in the fund. So we took 5.1 million out of general fund to balance the budget because we didn't have the income on the other end. Yeah. We're falling flat in revenues. Yes. Where are we going to be next year? We don't have five 5 million. There's 500,000. Man, we have a hurricane. We're in trouble. I shouldn't even say the h word.

But you do. Just think about, you know, if you have a million dollar project that somebody something happens like the cave in on Gap Creek, where's the money going to come from to fix that? You going to call You're going to have to get a special assessment. No, think about it. It's just my two cents. Thank you.

Public comments, but yeah, I would just like to follow. I'm not drilling too deep on the budget, but why don't we just finish the budget process? We're having another budget conversation today. But even even more of a reason why I want to advocate if we know our projected revenues are going down, we're also going to have to do some challenging things like either restructure our FTE or do other things to prepare so that we're not reaching into our reserves to fund our our cost to do business. this past budget process, we haven't really looked at that side of the the the ledger as far as either outsourcing or cutting some services or things that need to be done besides just talking about how much we took from our unrestricted account or from our savings to to fund the operation. So, there's some challenging things that future staffs will have to do, whether it's a statewide constitution amendment with property taxes or other things. That's just what future staff or future council will will persevere through. We got additional 12 and a half% with TDC revenue and other things that are going to fund us that we didn't have 5 years ago, 3 years ago. So, uh, budget conversation. I just wanted to respond to that and and, um, that's that's all I got. Any other and Mr.

One second. One second. Yeah. Come on, man. We don't have a motion.

But the whole point that's the whole point you know about that. you know about that because you're on city council and that's why it should be in your hands. It shouldn't be an arbitrary figure someplace. You know, you've been there 10 years, 9 years. You guys have studied this and you understand it and you live it. But people out here, we don't normally live like that. I mean, once you've been on council, you're there, but no, the rest of the people don't know. And that's the point I'm trying to make. It should be in your hands and not some arbitrary number because you're living it right now. And that's why it should be in your hands. It should be in our hands to also make the tough decisions to to cut some cost as well. Miss Paula,

last almost the last one. Um, that's a valid argument, but the counterargument is bring the cost down, rein it in the spending. I don't use that body weight equipment at Ferry Park. I could give two crabs about paddle uh whatever it is. Um the spending, the 3 million that you're going to do to my road and and then give me 2600 square ft more of grass and weeds. I've got to pick up trash and mow and um this is ridiculous. The spending is out of control. the the water going up, the you know, you need the you need revenue, you need revenue, but hey, how about the other side of that is the expenses. You know, it's called a balance sheet. Get in balance. The the reaction of the voters wouldn't have been so egregiously felt by you if you had toned down the spending. The golf course comes to mind. Um, there's lots of things that come to mind and a lot of it is recreational. So, where's our priorities? It hasn't been exactly on my road, Hollywood. Nope. I don't, you know, sorry for the policeman. I don't get the police presence there, but I'm going to get a $3 million solution to not getting the police presence on my end of East Hollywood. No speeding enforcement, no nothing down there. But I saw a code twice twice today, you know. Um, got to love it, right? But, but I'm just saying a $3 million taxpayer funded golf cart pass on my road and you tell me that you can't afford uh, you've only got 500 left in your coffers. I'm sorry there's 8 million or 6 million and a half in the water service coffers. I know you can't mix. U, but

tone tone down the spending is the opposite side. You you say you want to put the power into these seven people because people like me don't know don't read the budget this and that. Yeah. I pay my bills though and they hurt when you guys are I see everything that you're doing and I disagree with it and I go, "Oh my gosh." You know, how about just a sidewalk? Do we really need golf cart paths? We don't. Um, now I keep sending you all videos and pictures of what it's going to do to to the road there, but there's 3 million around the mound. That's another how many million? You didn't get your FDOT T funding. So, two two and a half. Uh, you know, tone it down. Increase the golf fees. I I stopped golf and I'm not golfing right now. Why are we giving track for free? Charge it. You know, things like that. There's whatever that is. the trackmaster track whatever that new thing is.

Sorry, man. And the user pays for it. Yeah. So, um the other the flip side of of of this budget thing is it wouldn't have come to that if y'all could have reigned it in a little. You cutting us no breaks this year. You seven are cutting us no breaks. Thanks, Mer. Thank you,

Mr. Smith. clarification. This this budget amendment doesn't do anything to restrict revenues. That's not what it's about. It's it's payroll and it's very specific operating expenses. You can go do your parts. You can go build whatever you want, whatever you you know, go get a bond, general obligation bond. It doesn't have anything to do with that. It reigns in spending on payroll and certain operating expenses. And I understand me and Mr. Minnik don't agree on this and that you guys have, you know, everything should be in the power of the seven sitting up there. But what the Supreme Court says is that the referendum is a means for direct political participation allowing the people the final decision amounting to a veto power over enact enactments of representative bodies. The practice is designed to give citizens a voice on questions of public policy. That's what this about. The citizens have said enough is enough. This is this is a limit. we're going to we're going to limit these numbers and that's that's all they've done is limited very specific numbers. Um they haven't done anything to limit your revenues. Thanks,

Mr. Holmes. Just do a follow-up. I know these are contentious items and these are things that but we got to get this out on the table and let's close this here pretty soon. You know, to the budget, you brought it up. How many FTEs are we down the police department? Uh probably four or five right now. Five. So that figures into the numbers that they're calculating. Correct. Yeah.

As for that doesn't count any other department. Nobody's here other than that. So you know that goes directly to his question about salaries. Why are we down that many? Why what is our loss of employees in the last year and why? What's the exit interviews told anybody? Does anybody look at them? Is there any kind of discussion on it? A lot of factors. Huh? A lot of factors.

So, I don't want you to cut any more police officers. I want you to hire four more. [Applause] Maybe six. Get rid of them damn speed zones in the school and put a police officer there if you speed and give them a real ticket. Make them realize it. Okay. That's just my opinion. Maybe has that five more police officers you need to hire, then hire them. Okay? Give radar guns. Buy use the city money. I'm sure you probably get a lot of votes if you do that right now from the outcry. I've heard of it. But, uh, now I've lost my train of thought. I can get my age. It happens quite a

It's your job. You make those decisions. Just plain and simple. Just plain and simple. I will have to go back. Councilman Smith was probably sitting on the council whenever the property came up at the where the city field office was. I believe you were. Oh, yeah.

And there was discussion what we were going to do with that. We were going to sell it. We were going to do this. We were going to the recreation department on it and and verify or you know, correct me if I'm wrong. I walked in here that night and I walked in knowing what I was going to do. I was going to vote to sell it. Glad Mr. Mick's not here. He had been on me and only don't you know sell it, sell it, sell it. Sat here and listened to the public and got thinking about and one person called me and says that's a big assemblage of land that you have in the city and it's worth a lot of money. Once it's gone, it's gone and you have no control over it. Well, I sat up here in front of the council. I changed my vote in front of step one. And you know, there were some pretty powerful people. Bernardo, I don't even remember his name. You know, he he spent a lot of time with us.

And my conversation with my councilman was we got to see this through. We need to put some ball fields on it. We need to make it a recreational complex. We need to get on and do it. Well, I guess it's a good thing we didn't because you know what we need to do now? We need to build a city hall on that piece of property. We've got a county that's spending money. They've got a parks director that's got money. We know Jeff knows how to spend it on parks. Let them build the parks and stuff. You know, the little league deal may come to fruition that put city hall on that property. That way you don't have to go get a bunch of money. You may have half of it. Those are the budget things. Those are your choices. That's what we voted y'all up there for.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Close out public comment and looking for some. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to accept the recommendation. Second. We got a motion, Mr. Jer. Second by Mr. Mayor. Go ahead, Mr. J.

We could all again go on forever about this, too. Love all the comment. love all the feedback. Mr. Smith, I even wrote some of that stuff down. I thought, man, 1881943 million then and Mayor Schmidt said that was before half cent sales tax and TDD funds. So, what I mean by that is if this would have passed then 18/19, we would have had to modify it by now anyway cuz we've got so many additional and that one did include a total cap on revenue and this and that. So, we would have had to modify this one already because we've got other sources of revenue. Uh the uh fitness wall at Ferry Park, it was actually paid for with $125,000 federal grant. So the fit the fitness wall at Ferry Park was not tax dollars. It was $125,000 federal grant. Um and there's been a lot of other things where we've used the the $3 million on Hollywood. Whatever ends up happening. I think Daniel is doing a very good job of listening to feedback and trying to get parking spots here and there. That's half cent sales tax money um that we have to spend on infrastructure that comes from the state. So, there's a lot of things that go into some of the decisions that we make up here that we know that we have to do or or don't have to do. And again, this is just pushing the ball forward. We we've heard from so many people that are on both sides of this. A previous city manager actually said, and that's what I'll go by. Mr. Reeves is one who I've looked up to a lot in business and when he was up here said, "We can't continue down this road." That was probably the biggest eye opener to me. So, no vote tonight is changing any of this. We're just putting it back on the people to say, "Hey, we've learned some things from 1819. So, we modified this. Now, we've learned some things from 24, 25, 26. We may need to modify this again." That's that I missed the volleyball game, by the way.

Any other further comments? Yeah, Mr. D.

Yeah, I I do want to address So, I did sit with Mr. Smith today and we did discuss that we are compliant, right? And then I just want to address some of your comments about we need to be better more uh fiscally prudent or whatever the right terms are. So you know unfortunately there's not a lot of people here but if anybody's watching I wanted to understand how we got to be compliant. So just to get there you know just some notes I took here. Nicole and I and all the department directors probably spend at least 6 hours total. So whatever my silly salary rate is for an hour and her hourly rate is take all and then all those directors multiply that by six. That's how much effort we had to put in to get it under that that 3% cap, right? So that's money that could have been we could have been doing much more productive stuff, but that's that's fine. That that comes with the job. One position in public works with benefits was about $70,000. We didn't fill that position to get us under the 3% and we outsourced it and we're paying 200,000. So the the guys joke around, they call it watch group math because we're under the 3%, right? But now we're spending more taxpayer dollar. It's frustrating to me, too, cuz I I'm a taxpayer and I pay twice as much as what you guys do cuz I still live in South Florida. But anyway, uh every employee that we lose, it's going to cost the taxpayers $10,000. That's just a a best practice figure because I got to pay overtime. I got to post a position. I got to take time to train that person. We've lost 10 people already once this 3% cap. So, the taxpayers have spent $100,000 on just people saying, "Screw it. I'm out of here because this is going to cap my family at at a number that's not sustainable going forward." Um the the comments that I'm getting from the surrounding city managers are the

best thing that you've done for me that that city manager is that 3% cap cuz now I'm taking your your your better players, your your better your better staff. So they're kind of like laughing at me, gave me a hard time, whatever. That that's just it is what it is. I am going to do a pay study. I am certain that we are out of market for several positions. Maybe not all of them. We're okay in a few, but if we keep this cap to get us whole and we go down 3 4 5 6 years, the city's going to have to write a check that is just massive just to get us back to market instead of allowing us to adjust and eb and flow with the market annually. Just things to consider about there. Um, so we're trying to to to be frugal with the money, but this cap is actually costing the taxpayers a substantial amount of money. It's not the way you rein the taxes in. You do that with picking projects that we can afford, right? We've just to get under that. We budget processes that I'm familiar with. We we've changed this year and it's got the staff freaking out. I took away the the the slush funds is what I I called it. And it's just something I'm not famili I'm repeating paring what people have told me. council wants all these mid-year projects. So, we keep a little bit of extra money just in case so we can appease it. And that's just not how it works, right? If we're going to do that, then we either take another project off midyear or we put it in next year's budget. So, that was a huge cut to the budget this year. It was like 4,000 ballpark.

All right. Um, and there's just a lot of processes we're putting in place to rein that spending in. We're not allowing uh individual printers anymore, which sounds silly, right? But they're very expensive. and the and the toner. So now I have to walk down to the end of the hall to get it off the the copier. Great. Who cares, right? It's the right thing to do with the I don't want to spend one more dollar than I have to cuz I'm also a taxpayer or Nicole. So I want you to understand that we're we're trying to trend that way, but this is the wrong way to do it if that makes sense. All right, we have a motion. We have a second. Any further comments? Mr.

Yeah, another big one here. Sorry. Um, you know, I've heard listened to it all and like as Mr. Jeter's pointed out several times, I appreciate the dialogue, the conversation, disagreement, debate, whatever you want to call it. And it it is our job up here and it's our job to fulfill um, you know, we call them several different things, voters, citizens, property owners, but the other thing that we don't call them much is our bosses. They are our bosses. And our bosses told us recently, you know, we've all worked for bosses or we're all bosses. If you tell your employee, I want to operate at three I want you operating at 3%. And we say, well, we can't do that. That's hard. That'll never happen. There's only so many times that the boss will listen to you before they fire you. That's what they do, right? I mean, if you tell your employee consistently, I'm your boss. do what I need you to do to make this operation work, I'm going to fire you. So, we don't ever refer to them as our bosses, but they are our bosses. Uh they spoke clearly at the ballot box in November and they said, "Here's what I want you to do, and I want you to operate with a 3% increase, as Mr. Smith said, on two categories, the personnel and certain other capital expenses, I believe it is." Um, so they've they've spoken. Both bosses do not want to hear our excuses. They want us to hear their clear instructions and they spoke clearly in November. Um, Mr. Burns, um, I want to check on something here by referendum and I know I've been talking about consolidation, privatizing, um, you know, I know that by privatizing, one I've spoken about publicly several times is the golf course. If we eliminate or turn it over to privatize, that that opens up a gap in the budget of that personnel expense.

If that's no longer on the citizen taxpayers, it becomes a private matter and it frees up that space in there to pay other needed employees. So, that's just my way of problem solving with the restrictions or the limitations that our bosses have put on us. So, I'm convinced that if this body up here as a group decided that we wanted to achieve 100% we could do it. But I I the the council of the will is not there. But but just out of curiosity cuz I want to put it to the test on the referendum which we had recently and and there seems to be some opposition to it. But how how can a city be dissolved? Isn't it by referendum?

No, you have to get a active legislature. act of legislature. Is it initiated by a referendum? It is. Okay. So, if a a referendum was initiated and it was sent to the overwhelming fashion, I mean like 90% of voters showed up and they did it and they sent it to the state, we would expect the state to respect the will of the people, right? It would not come back here to this council and ask their opinion if they thought the voters were wrong, right? I it's not been done really recent memories. I have no idea what the legislature would do.

But I mean, that's the process. A referendum is initiated. It's sent to the state. They pass it. It doesn't come back to this body and say, "Do you guys think the voters were wrong? Do you want to give them a second chance at it?" That wouldn't happen. Okay. All right. I wanted to confirm that. Uh, and lastly, uh, I just wanted to say, um, my girlfriend's son asked me tonight before I came out here, "What do you talk about in city council meetings? Do you ever get bored?" I said, "No, sir. I do not get bored and none of us do. We're all up there working our hardest. I'm working my hardest. I know we all are. Uh we we have different problem solving techniques and and thoughts and all. So u I thank you for your time, Mr. Mayor.

That's right.

I can tell you I'm going to work my hardest to make sure that the city of Fort Walton Beach does not become a desert town. And I I can promise you that. I'll do whatever it take that this city does not become a desert town home behind a 3% cap. And I I said it and I continue to say it. A city is not going to be able to thrive without revenue. You got to have it. You're going to have to pay some kind of tax. And you know, do I like a lot of taxes? I'm not telling you I'm out there cheering for, you know, uh for us to be able to have to pay all, you know, a high percentage of taxes. I'm not. But what I keep telling myself, make it make sense. How do we continue to do that? And if you put a referendum out there to dissolve this city, you know what? That would be the most horrible thing in the world that you that we will be able to do. And I know you may have been using that four point uh Councilman Walker. For me, this is a beautiful seaside community. A beautiful seaside community. Do I want the police force? Absolutely. Do I want to get the police force to write or to the county? Do I want to do that? Absolutely not. Me, you know, I'm a very competitive person. Them Buckeyes just won the national championship. You think I want to fire Ryan Day and just come and go get somebody else? Hecky no. You think I'm going to give up our fivestar police department to the county? You think I'm going to give out fivear fire department to the county? That's not going to happen. That is not going to happen. I'm going to keep fighting and fighting and fighting and regardless where I get voted in, if I decide to run another term or whatever not. It doesn't matter. What matters to me is this city continued to grow economically. We developed this city

economically. We continue to grow it and we continue to enhance this beautiful seaside community of Fort Walter Beach for I would not stand by and let allow it to become a desert town. Mr. Merrell,

just real quick, um I think the point of the budget cap, the idea behind it was to save money and I think Mr. Davis said said it best. It's already costing us money. Um I was in the military. I I've referred to it as the use it or lose it budget. Guess what? they're they're always going to use every little bit they can. Uh and it is a three four year down the road thing where we start to see the negative effects. Um but I would just ask how much money does a 3% budget cap save each individual citizen. We could raise the millillage. We could raise anything and everything. We have no intention of doing that, you know, but that doesn't that doesn't save the taxpayers any money. It gives us a very rigid budget to work with that costs us more money and you have real time. If he was saying, "Man, we saved a bunch of money." I promise you I'd be the first one to go, "Well, let's do that. That's working." But it's already he's already showing you where hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to waste. I know you don't want to hear that if you're for it. But that's not something I'm going to stand behind and vote. I don't see how anybody could hear the real numbers and go, "Well, we don't care. We want to do that." And the people obviously want us to waste money. And I'm not I got elected to do this and the people that elected me to do this, if I have a one-on-one conversation with them, the majority of them, for what I hear, that's not the intention behind that. The intention is to save money and it's costing us money. We need to fix it now. We need to be trusted to be fiscally responsible. Let's sit down and talk about Hollywood. Let's sit down and talk about spending money. Mr. Mr. Davis has a mandate to make this city as beautiful and great as possible while staying within a budget that we all come to and have to have a majority vote to agree on. So, like you said, it's our job to do that. And trying to put this structure in makes it harder, makes it impossible, cost us

more money, and it's a waste of time and money. Mr. Mr. Brian,

I wasn't going to say anything. Mr. kind of hit it on the head was it doesn't prevent money just like Mr. Smith said it doesn't stop revenue. City's going to keep making money via mill rate or you know water bills or anything like that. So I think that that was kind of the way that it was portrayed to a lot of people was like hey we're going to limit this and we're going to save the taxpayer all this money and it's not as been pointed out is still bringing in revenue. It's not going to stop. Um so I'm I'm going to support the motion. Um I just that was just a great point made. So, I just want to throw that comment out there.

I have a feeling we'll be debating this a couple more meetings and then probably some kind of campaign, I'm sure, will be out there as well and all the way to the referendum. But yeah, I think there's somewhere in the middle between I'm hearing a lot of the the doom and gloom of the skies falling and the city's going to dissolve and then, you know, there's the other subjective argument of, you know, we need all of this to grow, you know, and I I really do believe there is there is something in the middle and and what I mean by that is there's Miss Riley mentioned about other cities around us and doing work where, you know, Destin is a is a place that a lot of people either visit or or live. They don't. We're not a full service city. They outsource a lot of their their services and a lot of their program. What I'm getting to is I'm not saying I want to dissolve. I'm not saying we need to dissolve, but there's other municipalities and other communities around us that have a great quality of life that have a lot of people that are attracted to going there. You know, we've had park and wrecks folks that have worked here that have worked for the county. We've had police that came from the county that came here back to the county. We've had in my eight years multiple police chiefs and fire chiefs. So, you know, people come and go and yes, people are valuable, but I'm just trying to head off this narrative of, you know, the city's going to dissolve and I just don't don't see that. So, that's my comment. Any other further comments? We go to vote. [Applause]

Is that a second? in a few seconds. All right, passes 43. Mr. Mayor, could we get one more quick bathroom break? 5 minutes. One second on the I'll say

All right, let's do it. Let's reconvene. We are on what section, Mr. Burns?

Uh, the final substantive section. It's the new addition, the proposed new addition. It's section 10A. uh the number is appropriate because if y'all do this, you probably need to act number like 11 or some other number, not 10A, but the substance of it is a prohibition basically against council members uh the mayor or any of their family members or related entities uh purchasing property that the city holds a lean on unless the city council votes uh to allow said purchase. and also uh that the purchaser and the seller or their authorized representative are present.

All right. Thank you. Any questions? Seeing none public. Any questions? Comments. Is this comments?

Questions. Comments. Yes. So my comments are number number one that I feel that council member Jeter has a glaring conflict of interest and should not vote on this. Um and that would be based upon the 15 elm. Um you have stated that you would um that that property was under the purview of code enforcement. Um actually the signs are still up. I went by today, it still says that even though at the magistrate hearing they said that it was uh now under um under your ownership of your company that you have a controlling interest in. Uh but the sign hasn't changed. In any event, I feel like this is a a glaring conflict of interest and would ask that you refrain from voting on this. Um, the second issue I have with it is that I don't think it goes far enough to prevent future self-deing by those employed by the city and or elected city public officials. Um, the proposed section would or should prohibit all city employees, family affiliated entities, council members from purchasing real property that the city has a lean on. Moreover, the proposed section should extend to all real property that is subject to any and all types of city code enforcement. Um, the property at 15 was had just been public uh publicly code enforcement had condemned it through the through the police enforcement action or police raid that had happened. I believe um he went to jail for that, the homeowner. And then within 5 days or so, Mr. Jer was up there soliciting to buy this property. Um, that was the subject of a current code enforcement action. I don't think that's right. Um, and I don't think that's what we want to see. And I don't think this section I don't know what the the commission used as a basis to decide this. I don't know. Uh, but it doesn't go far enough.

Why are we going to let it get to a lean before we say, "Hey, no, don't selfde deal. You're going to violate the public's trust if we allow you to do that." Um, if there's any property that is subject to code enforcement or police action such as condemnation, none of y'all ought to be buying it. Your families, your affiliated corporations, uh, including Lieutenant Williams, uh, Chief Beige, any of the city employees should not be doing that. That is a conflict of interest. So, that's my feeling on that. Any other public comments? All right, we're seeing none.

Do I need to recuse myself from voting on this in any reason at all? No. Uh your stated uh potential conflict uh would uh predates the effective date if this actually didn't pass by the voters and so no your net purchase of that property that I think everyone's referencing would not be impacted one way or another by this amendment. So you can vote on it.

Okay. Second question is or their authorized representative. I know the other day we had a question of being an attorney. What would that mean? Say you're purchasing a property and I'll just give a quick brief story again. I know some of the neighbors on this street that keep me in light. I'll give you one that's happened just recently. I know another neighbor on another street. I've been trying to buy a property for many, many years. They just called me and said, "Mr. Jeter from JBJ Builders, not council member." They said, "Hey, Mr. Jeter, you know that house you've been trying to buy? there's a U-Haul over there. They're moving. You may want to get back on it. So, I reached back out to the homeowner. So, just kind of connecting dots here. The homeowner actually said, like we have all felt, taxes have gone up, insurance has gone up, I probably want to sell in the next few months now. So, just hypothetically thinking, the way all this has been taken out of context, if I were to buy that property, which is in the same neighborhood, from an individual that I've been trying to buy from for 5 years, who's told me, "No, no, no, not going to sell it. not going to sell it. My family's living there. Well, now their family's moving and now they want to sell it because taxes are getting too high. Would the fact that I voted on however I voted on the millage rate in the past have any effect on me buying that property and what their tax bill is?

No. Got it. All right. Any more questions? Mr. J, tell Well, actually, your vote would have affected their military. That's that's vote. Do you have a conflict on purchasing it? Yeah, you don't have conflict with that. That's your question.

Yeah, along those lines, Mr. Jeter, because um I had a um piece of land across from me at my office that this body was voting on and Miss Cobb was here at the time and I asked about recusing myself cuz I didn't want any appearances of my influence. I mean, the property was directly across from my office. He said, "Well, it's not contingent, so you can vote on it." And I chose I voluntarily elected to not vote on it just to avoid any appearances. I I believe if Miss Cobb's advice is still right, you could choose to recuse yourself if you wanted to. You don't have to. So what she told me I chose to I chose to recuse myself back then. So just wanted to Is that is that still is that of your opinion as well?

No, not not his the question taxes. No, you can't. No, no, no. I'm talking about his first question. His first question was that was in relation to her talked about recusing that you needed to. I think at any time is it true that a council member um can choose to recuse themselves? No, you have to have a a legally justifiable reason to do so in your situation because the property is right across the street, right?

You could argue under some of the ethics opinions that you could. I I actually would have advised you not to if I was the attorney advising you in that situation, but uh you can get different answers from different attorneys, but uh Mr. Jeter does not actually have the legal right to recuse himself under the state law on this particular vote on this particular situation. Okay, Tro. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Any more questions, comments? I have one question from back when I was on council. Uh if I may address the city attorney, I'll you my understanding that uh city council has to vote unless they um have some sort of a monetary benefit. Is that correct? That's one reason. What else would be recusal? because that was the only one that I thought you could

family members uh are called in situation there. There's other things other than monetary, but it's usually going to boil down to some sort of monetary reason, but it's a family members and if if they're presenting something before you, then you've got to recuse as well. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any more questions from the public? So move to remove this recommendation from the charter review committee. A second.

All right. You know, my reason is this. I mean, there's a there's an agency that statewide agency has the ethics commission. There's already some statutoily standards that that speak to this. you know, not everybody in the public gets to see, you know, all the things and rightfully so. But knowing Mr. Jeter for 20, 30 years, and these are things and practices that he's been doing to make the neighborhood better, I I hope he continues to get more to make things better, and other builders like Mr. Smith and others continue to do that. And I hope I don't know the procedural of where we're headed with this, but I hope Mr. Jeter brings that property back to this board and hopefully this board considers removing all the the leans and fees so that that builder just like any other builder that has come before this board my last eight years. We have waved many leans and many fees because the behavior changed from a blighted piece of crap with homeless people living inside of it with sewer open the backyard and we have public safety that is substantiated nuisance issues at that house. We need to continue to clean up the city of Walton Beach and Mr. G is just one of one of many builders. So that's the reason why I've made that motion. Mr. Brown.

Yeah, I mean just the same thing you said. It it doesn't need to be in the charter. It needs to go to the ethics commission. Any further comments? Mr. J, I'm going to support the motion simply because as Mr. Burns said, this does not affect me on this transaction. And I'm going to support the motion so that going forward, should there be another builder up here 5 10 years from now that wants to clean up blight in our community, I don't think we should restrict them.

All right. Any further comments? Let's go to vote. [Applause] All right. 6 to1. Let's go to the next item. Discussion on timeline.

And uh so I guess now I know this Barnes provided some information on when the potential referendum dates are from Paul Bucks. uh kind of what drives the timelines what date you pick you want the refer rendering to be if y'all pick March we'll have to get a lot of things to you in the next couple months so they're v prior to Mr. Lux's deadline, which is sometime middle of December. So, I know I know if worse came to worse, we could be voting on everything at the December meeting to get it on the referendum, but if you do want to get it on the March date for next year, then uh it would require getting it in definitely before Christmas. And I do know the charter review commission did recommend, I think they did it unanimously, that they don't want like a special election date selected. Uh so they don't want it being on February or uh September or some odd date like that, you know, that you could elect to do it. Uh but uh technically speaking, next March is a special election date for the city, but Mr. Lux has indicated that I do believe Mr. as far as the discussion with him that he indicated since there's other municipalities actually holding elections on that particular date he'd be willing to treat it at least administratively on his side like it's a regular election for the city I do believe is that right so uh the charter review commission technically recommended only a regular city election or a regular election date which would not include next March but next March is completely open Do you uh if y'all want to pick it per followup?

All right. Questions? Mr. I'm assuming if you didn't say that would save us some cost, right? We'd be able to shoulder some of the costs with that as well. It would not be as far as you would share the cost with the other cities that are having their election at that time, which would be a lot cheaper than if we were to do a special election. Yes. Got it. Cuz we would end up paying for all of the staff that would have to run the election and everything that goes along with it. But it would be sharing cost. I did not add that 3%. [Applause] We did put in for an election though. It's not subject to the 3%. Well done. I'm just making sure you're good.

Is would there be an additional cost in any other election dates like August or November? I think it'd be not not from what All right. So, the only thing I know about this is I've talked with Chris View and Justin and they said they not any increase. So, they they do their elections now in November. They moved theirs from March to November. U so I think if if your question is if the referendum was put on the August or November date next year, I think again it's going to be a share. It's going to be a minimal expense. Again, it's not going to be the city putting the whole bill because that rags is already running for the elections. So, it's going to be still cheaper than picking some special dates.

Correct. I guess from comparing and contrasting March 2026 to August 2026, would we be sharing the cost with other people? Like how you mentioned in the March 2026, we'd be sharing cost. Would we be sharing cost in August of 2026? We would. I don't know the amounts and the percentage wise because that would be a bigger election in August. So I don't know how much of a percentage we would have to pay. But just knowing how you know there will be a few cities involved in but I don't know the exact totals in August. Gotcha. Mr. Chair,

what timelinewise are we able to do that? Some of these things are required to requiring two readings. So let's see on there December 25th. We've got one meeting in December. We've got one meeting in November. Two in October. Two in October. I can get we can get all this to you. Uh we we can get it all done if you all pick the March date. We just need to know. Make sure we put too much pressure on you or you are going to have you can get it done. That gives us plenty of time. Yeah.

Has anyone heard any concerns? Cuz I've heard some. I just want to know if anyone else has heard cuz you know we had a um the referendums passed in a general election with a huge turnout. 70 some odd percent of the voters voted you know to pass them and I think that was a little over 5,000 maybe up to 6,500. I know Mr. Smith said five but I think it was closer to six 6,300 but anyway um do we know the historical turnout of a march? I think David I think one time Mr. Schmidt, you had referenced early on in my career um how few people turn out. We get 12,400 people show up for those March elections as opposed to August or November. So, you know, it just, you know, would point out the obvious. I don't know if anyone else um has seen this or felt this, but you know, the idea of um if there are 1,400 1,400 people show up um and it's split almost equally um that leaves 700 people voting uh to override the will of 6,300 people. So, I'm in favor of repeating the addend u charter amendments if they make it to that point at a um state or national election time, not a March election cuz it just seemed perverse to me. But I don't know if anybody else had seen or heard anything like that. So, take any more questions? Any questions from the public? [Applause] [Music] Mr. [Applause] I just wanted to point out that the um the review commission recommended that this not be a special election and it be a city municipal election or a general election. Um we did that on purpose so

that the most people would show up show up and vote. And it goes back to like Mr. Walker was saying if you get a thousand people that show up and you may not even get that if you're just talking about charter amendments. Um like I pointed out Miss Riley with the highest number of votes in the last election got 878 votes. Uh I don't know how many people showed up to vote but probably less than400. um 9,646 people showed up and voted for these charter amendments with um you know over 5,000 or 6,000 different numbers voting to prove them. So it it should go before at least a municipal election where you have where this city has people on the ballot for a general election. Thanks.

Any more questions from the public? Yeah, Mr. Brown, was were they clear about when they said municipal election, did they say our municipal election or did they say a municipal election? It was it was specific. There was discussion, much discussion over municipal committee and I don't think he voted for it, but he can attest to it that it was at this city's municipal election. And I'll also say I appreciate the 1,400 people that came out and voted in the 820 votes that I got. So I don't want to, you know, go this many people versus this many people. Those people showed up, knew what they were voting for, and it was for us three. And I'm super happy about that.

It's bold. Um yet it would be inherently unfair and it would really kind of border on the idea of being rigged if we were to take and put it in election that was not a comparable voter turnout event. I thought that they said that the best that we normally do is something like 8% on our on our special elections something like that. So to have it be at a comparable election date that was the original referendums were voted on is is more fair. So y'all want to not look like you're biased, rigged, shady. They do the right things. [Music] Mr. May,

I would disagree with that. I don't think it was rigged. I think do it during a municipal election would be the time to do it or especially if you thought it was that important. But uh you know, I think you get as many voters as you did in the last one when Donald Trump ran, that'd be tough to do. So unless he runs again sometime and we'd have to wait four years, I think that probably you're not going to get that kind of turnout anyway. So municipal election would be the excellent time. As a matter of fact, I would give the uh uh the advice of the supervisor elections uh what he says you need to let him know by December for next March. That would be a good time to do it for you and I can talk about it later. Miss Paul in November of 2026 are absolutely going to be comparable.

All right. All right. Any more public comment? Okay, Mr. J. I got a motion. All right. Go ahead. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to elect March 10th, 2026 municipal election.

Second. I'd like to make a substitute motion to go for August 2026. Second, because of that, it's I'm always the only towards getting hired for the turnout. I've spoken that for about 8 years and I'll keep sticking it. It's a dangerous slope to start discerning whether or not the 30 or 40% of registered voters from the city of Fort Wal showed up in August or November compared to the 8 to 9% that show up in March. I I don't want to start the narrative that I've heard this this past campaign for these these charter amendments that there was a lot of excuses about it happening in November, it happening when it did instead of instead of March. The goal is to get as many people engaged. I'm going to always lean towards that way. See, that's why I made the substitute motion.

I made the second. Do I is there do I comment next or does it go out?

It's you. Okay. So, yeah, I seconded the motion because similar reasons to m Mr. Schmidt made, but you know, I used the word prefers. I just I said it I said it when I saw it coming, and that was months ago that what was going to happen, these motions would be passed by the committee. They'd come back up here and then they'd be put on and they'd go to a special election. And I I concluded how perverse it would be to have the voters u 600 800 I appreciated all my votes too uh Mr. Browning but you know to have 800 voters u through this system whether it's bias rigged or not override 5,000 or 6,000 voters is as close to the word as perverse as I can use. is just a very descriptive uh of the process that that would actually be to it's it's unfathomable to think that 800 could override 6,000, but that's the way things are shaping up. It's just I can't imagine it. But here we are. So, uh I second it. I look forward to the vote and um we'll go from here for the comment.

Yeah, I will not be supporting it. We've had a lot of comments tonight on kicking the can down the road. There's no point in kicking the can six more months. And I'm with Councilman Walker. Uh I was here at the building the first time we heard about the fire like we talked about tonight. Man, it was packed. So if there is a vote that touches the voters's heart, they will find a way to get there and vote. I would love to see that March 10th municipal election turn out more voters than we've ever seen for one of our municipal elections and then we have our answer. But regardless, we can all sit here and say, "Oh, it's rigged this way. That's why you want it on that election. It's rigged this way. That's why he went on that election. Now, I just want to go to an election as fast as possible so that we can put all this to end to bed. So, I will not be supporting motion, Mr.

Yeah. I'm trying to understand is the point to get as many people there as possible or people to come to vote on what we're talking about? Because if if we have 1,400 people show up to vote on what they know they're voting on and then you say an additional 5,000 people show up on a normal basis, do those 5,000 people are they paying attention to what we're voting on right now? I mean, cuz if we're talking about we want numbers, numbers, numbers. We're not talking about we want people who show up for our municipal elections to vote for the people that they want. So, what percentage of those people that voted in November do you think didn't know what they were voting for? I have no clue. Right.

I mean, I'm not going to spit an answer and then just I mean, it's just I have no clue. But I'm saying if I'm just trying to understand that the the difference cuz it's let's push it for high qual it's it's quantity quality over quality over quantity is what I suggesting. But that's a good question and that's what I was alluding to. It's a dangerous slope, I think, of making the assumption that a smaller voter turnout is a better quality cuz then we're making the assumption that folks who show up in November aren't quality voters that are registered voters in the city of Fort W. That's just an assumption that some fact correct and it's just a very subjective assumption and I'm just responding to your question. I think the the registered voter in the city of Fort Walton Beach, whether they vote in March or November, whether it's a city council election or a chart amendment referendum, whoever's advocating for the chart amendment referendum or an election is tasked to go out there and share the message and I'll always lean towards having more people is equality and equality.

Any other for you? Uh I I think in numbers uh March uh people are here u in town. They're not on vacation. Whereas August they're still on vacation. Well, the truth could be on vacation. Well, well, I'm just telling we know they're here in November, though. We know they're here in November. Turn out in big big numbers in November. They're back.

Yeah. Well, hey, I I I was uh I I work the polls, you know, and and I'm counting numbers in in March and November, we get more people come in than we do in say August. They're still on vacation. Well, Mr. Bear, I respectfully disagree with the data from the supervisor elections office.

Fair enough, Mr. Barl. real quick. I uh you guys keep alluding to the big numbers, but and I'm happy to I voted no to take away the compensation before I ever thought about running. I voted yes for the assessment which I stayed with today and then I changed my vote what I voted for in that election. So those numbers as I became myself, speak for myself only, as I became more aware, as I saw how this could hurt instead of help, as I saw it hinder instead of promote the city, I have changed my vote. So those numbers already have changed. I've talked to several people and I agree that they were there when they were there. But putting this before the people, the people that care about the city, I don't see any reason to wait. I like Mr. Barry. There's more people in my stop. All right, seeing no more, let's go to a vote for the substitute motion to that was to move make a move on doing the uh referendum in August of 2026. That'll be our first vote. Depending on how that goes, we'll vote on the original motion.

All right. All right. So, now we're on the original motion of going to March, which will probably pass by the two. Go ahead. Just like that. I will be in town for that. All right. Who seconded that? I did. Okay. Mr. Logan or Mr. Brown? I'll be here in March. Yeah. Glad you'll be in town as well. All right. With that being

I had a question for Mr. Barry with her being there between March and November. What do you see? I mean, I I No, no. I'm serious. I mean, I've been, you know, I've heard it up here. I was I was sitting out there when some member up here called the voters ignorant. She, too, was an ignorant citizen, she said. And and I'm hearing just little remnants of that that says the people that show up in a general election in great numbers, they're not the quality. That's what I've heard. I mean, M Mr. Smith brought it up and Mr. Merryill, I think you've indicated that they're not loving of the community when they show up in November and they don't show up in here. I get that. But, you know, the voters voted in large numbers. And again, just the perverseness of it. I have to state it again. The perverseness of 800 overruling, overriding um 5,000 is just disgusting to me. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Stand. No more comments. We ready to go. What are we voting on again? Voting on March. down. Okay. March election. Looking forward to seeing this on how to educate the community on all these referendums that we'll get to. Um, with that being said, do we have any more business? I don't see any.

Just just so you know, expect more we'll call controversial ones. ones y'all had like more kind of language you may be in the massage I'll get proposed those proposed ordinances to you earlier probably not the next meeting definitely by the second October meeting but everything that you pass with flying colors that's probably you're probably not making any changes to we get those in before December but we'll definitely first the controversial things to you

thank you and thank you Mr. Burns for bearing a lot of the questions. I know you're filling in uh I say filling in with Miss Cop being you know with on the special project of this uh charter review committee. So thank you for filling in a lot of our questions as as well as the community questions that uh you're filling in for. So if there's no other business to discuss meeting adjourned.